Shared Services Need More Imagination

Suppose you need to drill a hole in the wall to hang an item but do not own a power drill. You may regard it as expensive to buy a power drill and consider renting one. Sharing is the solution. The sharing industry is an emerging. highly flexible economic network that allows people to share resources, either free or for a fee.

The important idea of the sharing industry is that people might only need an item for a relatively short period. The private part of shared services has been moving towards this area since the beginning of the 1980s, and then the public part has taken note of the benefits and continued for best practice. The United States and Australia among others have had shared services in government since the late 1990s.

With the rise of the sharing industry, the best-known shared bikes and shared cars have got a lot of public attention. This kind of transportation is so environmentally-friendly that it is increasingly popular among people in many cities.

Of course shared services don’t need to be limited to machines. The real pay-off in shared services probably lies in renting out smaller, less heavy items. For example, in today’s casual environment, you don’t need a tie unless you’re going to a wedding or a job interview. So some companies, would let you pick up a tie when you needed it and only when you needed it. Another example is an umbrella-sharing service. Since visitors don’t want to be carrying umbrellas all the way, it would be cheaper and easier to simply borrow an umbrella on one street corner and drop it off on another.

Recently organizations that have centralized their IT functions have begun to take a close look at the technology services that their IT departments provide for customers, evaluating where it makes sense to provide technology components. E-mall and scanning (归描) operations were obvious early candidates. Many organizations are now oftering their document-intensive operations is a shared service, There is no doubt that people are calling for the expansion of shared services to more and more treas.

2 . The Turnaround

Anxiously, I looked through the roster (花名册) posted on the wall. My body ________ as I saw all my friends’ names but did not find mine. I could feel the tears building in my eyes. I felt ________ inside, like nothing mattered.

When I got back home, my father noticed my sullen walk and gloomy face, and asked me what was wrong.

“All my friends ________ the school team. Everyone! Except me…” I stammered.

“Well, what are you going to do about it? Are you just going to sit there?” he asked.

I didn’t know what to say, just shaking my head. I thought hard for thirty minutes about what my dad said, and it started making ________. Nobody was going to give me a ________ on that team. I would have to earn it.

________, there was a gym near my school, so as soon as school was over, I biked to the gym and trained hard. I ran, dribbled, and shot until I ________ on the floor every single day. There were moments when I didn’t think I could keep on going, but I ________ through it. After all, I thought, hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.

After almost a year, I tried out for my seventh-grade team with great confidence. Regardless of the outcome, I knew that I had worked hard and learned something about mental ________. The next day, seeing my name printed in large bold letters, I realized I made it. The greater the effort, the ________ the reward, and I officially made a turnaround.

4 . For several decades, there has been an extensive and organized campaign intended to generate distrust in science, funded by those whose interests and ideologies are threatened by the findings of modern science. In response, scientists have tended to stress the success of science. After all, scientists have been right about most things.

Stressing successes isn’t wrong, but for many people it’s not persuasive. An alternative answer to the question “Why trust science?” is that scientists use the so-called scientific method. If you’ve got a high school science textbook lying around, you’ll probably find that answer in it. But what is typically thought to be the scientific method — develop a hypothesis (假设), then design an experiment to test it — isn’t what scientists actually do. Science is dynamic: new methods get invented; old ones get abandoned; and sometimes, scientists can be found doing many different things.

If there is no identifiable scientific method, then what is the reason for trust in science? The answer is how those claims are evaluated. The common element in modern science, regardless of the specific field or the particular methods being used, is the strict scrutiny (审查) of claims. It’s this tough, sustained process that works to make sure faulty claims are rejected. A scientific claim is never accepted as true until it has gone through a lengthy “peer review” because the reviewers are experts in the same field who have both the right and the obligation to find faults.

A key aspect of scientific judgment is that it is done collectively. No claim gets accepted until it has been vetted by dozens, if not hundreds, of heads. In areas that have been contested, like climate science and vaccine safety, it’s thousands. This is why we are generally justified in not worrying too much if a single scientist, even a very famous one, disagrees with the claim. And this is why diversity in science — the more people looking at a claim from different angles — is important.

Does this process ever go wrong? Of course. Scientists are humans. There is always the possibility of revising a claim on the basis of new evidence. Some people argue that we should not trust science because scientists are “always changing their minds.” While examples of truly settled science being overturned are far fewer than is sometimes claimed, they do exist. But the beauty of this scientific process is that it explains what might otherwise appear paradoxical (矛盾的): that science produces both novelty and stability. Scientists do change their minds in the face of new evidence, but this is a strength of science, not a weakness.

5 . Alexis, 17, sat quietly in the passenger seat of her dad’s car. She let her eyes lazily scan the landscape for wildlife. Then a deer came into view about 200 yards in front of them. “Dad, there’s a deer there!” Alexis said. It was a male deer with sharp antlers (角) on each side of its head.

As the car moved closer, Alexis saw that the deer’s head was bent toward the ground. Then she heard a scream and saw an arm fly up near the deer’s head. Alexis realized the deer was attacking a woman. Sue, a 44-year-old mother, had been out for her morning run. The deer followed her and edged closer. “I knew I was in trouble,” Sue says. She went to pick up a stick for self-defense, and the deer charged. It lifted her with its antlers and threw her into the air. Sue could feel blood flew down her leg.

Within seconds, the deer had pushed her off the road. When Alexis and her father pulled up, the deer was throwing Sue like a doll. Alexis looked into the woman’s terrified eyes, and before her father had even stopped the car, the teenager jumped quickly out of the car and ran toward the deer.

“I was kicking it to get its attention,” she says. Then her father, who had followed his daughter, pushed the deer away from the women.

Alexis helped Sue into the car, and then applied a piece of cloth to Sue’s injured leg. “We’re going to get you to a hospital,” Alexis said. Then she heard her father shout loudly. He had been knocked to the ground. Alexis took hold of a hammer from the car and ran to where her father lay on his back. She beat the deer’s head and neck, but the blows didn’t scare it away. “I was losing faith,” she says. “A couple more strikes, Alexis,” said her father. “You can do it.” Turning the hammer around, Alexis closed her eyes and beat the deer’s neck with all her strength. When she opened her eyes, the deer was running away. Alexis got in the driver’s seat and sped toward the nearest hospital.

After Sue was treated, she tearfully thanked her rescuers. “You expect a teenage girl to get on the phone and call for help,” she says, “not to beat up a deer.”

6 . New Jersey Botanical Garden Membership

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The Botanical Garden started life as Skylands, a large area in the grand manner. It is famous for a 44-room Tudor Revival granite mansion designed by John Russell Pope. Skylands has 96 acres of formal and naturalized gardens and is surrounded by over 1,000 acres of meadows and woodlands. Purchased by the State in 1966 and officially named as the New Jersey Botanical Garden in 1984, the gardens contain approximately 5,000 species and varieties of trees and flowers. For you, the NJBG is an exciting and beautiful place to visit where you may enjoy each season's best. Members enjoy special events, festivals, lectures, and rewarding educational opportunities for both city and country gardeners.

Your NJBG membership offers you discounts at participating nurseries, garden centers and other fine businesses. Simply present your NJBG membership card when beginning your purchase:

• Goffle Brook Farm and Garden Center, (201) 652-7540 10% off your purchase

• Metropolitan Plant Exchange, (973) 638-7613 12% off your purchase

• Rohsler’s Allendale Nursery & Florist, (201) 327-3156 15% off your purchase

Chinese New Year is a celebration marking the end of the winter season and the beginning of spring. This is    1     decorating with plants, fruits and flowers carries special significance. They represent the earth    2     (come) back to life and best wishes for new beginnings. Orange trees are a symbol of wealth. Bamboos are associated with health, abundance and a happy home. The plum trees are the first    3     (flower) even as the snow is melting. They represent the promise of spring and a renewal of life.

10 . Years ago, in a small fishing village in Holland, a young boy taught the world about the rewards of unselfish service.

Because the entire village lived on fishing, a volunteer rescue team was needed in case of emergency. One night, the winds _______, the clouds burst and a strong storm overturned a fishing boat at sea. The crew in trouble sent out the SOS. The captain of the rescue rowboat team _______ the alarm and the villagers gathered in the town square overlooking the sea. When the team started their rowboat and _______ their way through the wild waves, the villagers waited _______ on the beach, holding lamps to light the way back.

An hour later, the rescue boat reappeared through the fog and the cheering villagers ran to greet them. Falling _______ on the sand, the volunteers reported that the rescue boat could not hold any more passengers and they had to leave one man behind. Even one more passenger would have surely _______ the rescue boat and all would have been lost.

Anxiously, the captain called for another volunteer team to look for the survivor. Sixteen-year-old Hans stepped forward. His mother grabbed his arm, crying, “Please don’t go. Your father died in a shipwreck (船只失事) 10 years ago and your elder brother, Paul, has been lost _______ for three weeks. Hans, you are all I have left.”

Hans replied, “Mother, I have to go. What if everyone said I can’t go, let someone else do it? Mother, this time I have to do my duty. When the call for _______ comes, we all need to take our turn and do our part.” Hans kissed his mother, joined the team and _______ into the night.

Another hour passed, which seemed to Hans’ mother like a century. Finally, the rescue boat dashed through the fog with Hans standing up in the bow. ________ his hands, the captain called, “Did you find the lost man?” Hardly able to control himself, Hans excitedly cried back, “Yes, we found him. Tell my mother it’s my elder brother, Paul!”