1 . A 2022 consumption survey by domestic consulting firm Zhimeng showed that nearly 80 percent of an undisclosed number of interviewees born after 1995 said that they used smart appliances for household tasks, while 75 percent of them relied on services to save time on cooking and cleaning. Such a demand has created a niche market called the “lazy economy” that includes anything from smart home appliances to precooked meal delivery services.

Recently, a video of a post-95 designer in Shanghai door-to-door cooking part-time on weekends has sparked concern among netizens.

Data by Meituan showed that searches for “door-to-door cooking” rose by 533 percent over Oct to Dec in 2022. Door-to-door cooking is similar to hiring a chef at home who offers clients anything from festive dishes to daily meals, with users claiming that it costs between 66 yuan and 88 yuan for up to four dishes. Most part-time chefs are young or middle-aged.

Many young people are outsourcing the decluttering of their homes to professionals. Compared with traditional housekeeping and cleaning services, organizing services bring a customized solution, though at a higher price.

Cleaning robots have became one of the most popular forms of this type of technology, with sales reaching 11 billion yuan in 2021, up by 17 percent from the previous year, according to market consultancy AskCI. Such robots have a higher level of autonomy and come with features that automatically fill themselves up with water and also wash and dry the mop. The product is a true liberation for our hands and body.

The demand has attracted a large number of enterprises to enter the field in recent years, with sales for precooked meals during last year’s “Double Eleven” shopping bonanza doubling from the previous year. China currently has an estimated 64,000 precooked food related enterprises, and the market is expected to reach more than 1 trillion yuan in 2026, according to market consultancy firm iiMedia.

2 . In an increasingly globalized business world, companies demand Human Resources (HR) leaders who can overcome cultural barriers to achieve key goals. This year, students in the Master of Human Resources and Industrial Relations (MHRIR) Program will get hands-on experience leading multicultural teams as they work together with peers (同辈) from all corners of the globe.

“Our students get firsthand experience on global teams, which helps them understand the challenges and the opportunities they will face in the business world,” said MHRIR Program Director Stacy Hove.

Elishka Correa joined the program to explore how HR leaders can help businesses grow quickly in the global marketplace. “Companies appreciate diversity — not only in terms of products and markets, but the people they hire — so that they can expand their business and reach customers in different parts of the world,” she said. “When I go into an organization, I’m not only going to work with Indians or Americans, it’s going to be a mix of people. That trend is beginning to grow, so I think it’s very important to appreciate people from different backgrounds.”

As they progress through the program, the students are discovering unexpected challenges as they work on projects in diverse teams. Each contributor brings a different approach to solving problems, communicating, and challenging one another’s opinions.

Devin Roll, a student from North Dakota, appreciating the unique views his classmates share, said, “The benefits of having cross-cultural experiences go far beyond the classroom. Diverse teams and companies outperform their competitors, and HR leaders act as a vital partner in acquiring and maintaining diversity in the workforce.”

Many of the international students in the program said they would return to their home countries after graduation and bring along connections to their classmates, who would build careers (职业) in countries around the world. They hope to stay in touch, and share their expert knowledge.

3 . Imagine this: You walk into a place and the atmosphere is light and airy. The subtle scent of coffee beans fills the air and everyone that approaches you is friendly and welcoming. You’re comfortable and feel like you belong. As in most cities, it’s a place where people meet, discuss ideas, and conduct business. After taking a few sips of that Caramel Macchiato, you immediately get that feeling of energy and optimism. Perhaps it’s partly due to the caffeine and sugar rush, or maybe it’s that the presence of a Starbucks typically indicates a city on the rise.

In December of 2017, Trenton’s first Starbuck’s café was opened to the public at 102 Warren Street. Walking in, people living in Trenton scream at everything about this café, from the diverse but local stuff to the Trenton themed décor (室内装饰) and art. To make things better, this Starbucks also serves as an “opportunity café” which essentially means the young people in our communities are recruited and offered job training and employment. This program not only uplifts our youth, but also increases the amount of minority business in the city.

In the interviews with customers, a trend in responses arose. To many, the Starbucks was a “favorite place to stop in after work” and provided “a very relaxing environment.” The staff were often highly praised, noted as being friendly, helpful, and working in harmony. The interior décor of the café struck a lot of people’s attention, given the familiarity of the atmosphere. Painted on the walls, all around the store, are murals (壁画) with bright, colorful, graffiti-like designs very sui generis in Trenton, showcasing local monuments like the State House and the famous “Trenton Makes” bridge.

This new Starbucks brings a sense of modernity to Downtown Trenton and reminds us that our city is always developing. Open from 6 a. m. until 7 p.m. every day, the building is hardly ever empty. This space is made for everyone in Trenton, even the non-coffee lovers.

4 . Investors probably expect that following the suggestions of stock analysts would make them better off than doing the exact opposite. _________, recent research by Nicola Gennaioli and his colleagues shows that the best way to gain excess return s would be to invest in the shares least favored by analysts. They compute that, during the last 35 years, investing in the 10 percent of U. S. stocks analysts were most _________ about would have yielded on average 3 percent a year. _________, investing in the 10 percent of stocks analysts were most pessimistic about would have yielded a surprising 15 percent a year.

Gennaioli and colleagues shed light on this _________ with the help of cognitive sciences and, in particular, using Kahneman and Tversky's concept of representativeness. Decision makers, according to this view, _________ the representative features of a group or a phenomenon. These are defined as the features that occur more frequently in that group than in a baseline reference group.

After observing strong earnings growth—the explanation goes—analysts think that the firm may be the next Google. “Googles” are in fact more frequent among firms experiencing strong growth, which makes them _________. The problem is that “Googles” are very _________ in absolute terms. As a result, expectations become too optimistic, and future performance_________. A model of stock prices in which investor beliefs follow this logic can account both qualitatively and quantitatively for the beliefs of analysts and the dynamics (动态变化) of stock returns.

In related work, the authors also show that the same model can _________ booms and busts in the volume of credit and interest rate spreads.

These works are part of a research project aimed at taking insights from cognitive sciences and at __________them into economic models. Kahneman and Tversky's concept of “representativeness” lies at the heart of this effort. “In a classical example, we __________ to think of Irishmen as redheads because red hair is much more frequent among Irishmen than among the rest of the world,” Prof. Gennaioli says. “However, only 10 percent of Irishmen are redheads. In our work, we develop models of belief formation that show this logic and study the __________ of this important psychological force in different fields.”

Representativeness helps describe __________ and behavior in different fields, not only in financial markets. One such field is the formation of stereotypes about social groups. In a recent experimental paper, Gennaioli and colleagues show that representativeness can explain self-confidence, and in particular the __________ of women to compete in traditionally male subjects, such as mathematics. A slight prevalence of __________ male math ability in the data is enough to make math ability un-representative for women, driving their under confidence in this particular subject.

6 . China’s booming ready-meals industry shows how pre-cooked food options are here to stay

The growing popularity of pre-cooked food in China-also known as the ready-meals industry-has made it a capital darling (宠儿).

In the world’s second-largest economy, the market for pre-prepared dishes has been mainly driven by food-selling companies. But a shift from _________ to family dining tables in the past two years, has rapidly brought pre-made food to the mass consumer market.

Deloitte’s consumer goods and retail industry head, Zhang Tianbing, now says China’s pre-prepared food market looks to have a(n) _________ future, with the business becoming more mature, _________ the general consumer market is still in the process of entering ordinary people’s life. “Pre-prepared dishes meet the preferences of a new generation of consumers for healthier and a wider _________ of meals,” Zhang said.

According to the report, China’s pre-prepared dishes market _________ about 550 billion yuan in 2021, with an expected compound annual growth rate of 13 per cent over the next 5 years, which suggests that the pre-made food market is more _________ this year than during the first two years of the pandemic.

As of June _________, there were more than 66,000 domestic pre-cook-related enterprises, of which more than 1,020 were newly registered this year.

As a new capital darling, the pre-cooking industry is attracting cross-sector investment from companies outside the _________ industry. In Zhuhai, the local government is preparing to build a vegetable industrial park, which will cover all aspects of the pre-made-food industrial chain, from raw materials (原材料) and production to _________ and sales.

Yin Ping, the mother of a junior high school student, bought several boxes of pre-prepared dishes online last month and was __________ the convenience and taste of the products. A dish that can be made in five minutes by simply throwing the ingredients into a pan is so convenient for me in the summer since I __________ make every effort to make yummy meals for the kids in a hot kitchen,“ Yin said.

However, the quality of pre-made dishes in the market remains uneven, as problems are __________ the lack of detailed labelling on such products, as well as difficulties in logistics and distribution. __________, the issue of restaurants using pre-made dishes without telling diners was included among the top complaints. For those who __________ food safety, without advance notice, the use of pre-prepared dishes by restaurants to replace those prepared on-site by a chef was harmful to consumers’ rights to information and choice.

With the rapid development of the pre-cooking market, it turns out that relevant regulations __________ in terms of promoting industry standardization.

7 . More treasured than the gold in its vaults (金库) are the data a bank has stored on its servers. Banks enjoy a monopoly over data that has helped them get away with awful service and fend off newcomers with better ideas. In Europe, at least, that is all about to change.

The source of this disruption is a new set of regulations, named the Second Payment Service Directive, or “PSD2”. The rules, which are being finalised and will be in force from January next year, will force banks to share data easily with licensed third parties. Bankers in Europe scream that their profits and customer relationships are under threat. Fearing they could be next，America’s bankers are already trying to persuade their regulators to keep their data monopoly well-preserved. Such reactions are predictable and wrong.

Some concerns about PSD2 make sense. In particular, it is reasonable to wonder about the privacy and security implications of sensitive financial data being shared with third parties. But banks themselves are hardly immune to cyber attack. And the way that European regulators propose to deal with these worries looks promising. Third parties that want to use bank data will need to convince national regulators that their data defences are solid and must submit to annual inspections. New entrants to cyber must also takeout deception insurance; their insurers will have a clear reason to demand state of their cyber security. Many online payments will become more secure than they are today, because of the officially instructed requirements for the use of a vigorous authentication process involving two-step confirmation.

The gap between writing rules and implementing them is always large. So the following might make sense. First, agreement from customers to provide access to their bank data must be gained explicitly, not buried in pages of wordy professional terms. The purposes for which data might be used should be clearly explained; and individuals’ agreement to share their personal information should be easily reversible. Second, regulators must be decisive and cruel both in ensuring that banks open up their database to others and in withdrawing the licences of third parties that break the rules, particularly on cyber security.

Since the new entrants will not be licensed to engage in riskier forms of finance—such as lending money—it makes sense to regulate them with a lighter touch. But if some financial technology providers do end up becoming systemically important, higher standards of oversight might be necessary.

Tesla Says It Will Accept Bitcoins for Car Payment

Tesla is an American electric sports car manufacturer. The carmaker said on Monday that around $1.5 billion     1    (invest) in bitcoin, an Internet-based form of money.

The company     2    (expect) to begin accepting the digital currency as payment for its cars and other products in the near future. The announcement from one of the best-known American car companies sent the price of bitcoin     3     more than 10 percent.

Tesla chief Elon Musk is a supporter of the digital currency. Musk said a week ago that bitcoin was “on the verge” of     4    (accept) more widely by investors. Last December, he asked if it was possible to do large business deals in the currency.

Eric Turner, a vice president of market intelligence at the research company Messari, says bitcoin     5    (use) by more companies since “Tesla has made the first move”.

The value of a bitcoin     6    (reach) record highs in recent months. The currency has also gained support from major financial companies this year. The financial services company Blackrock recently permitted some of its funds     7    (invest) in the currency. However, government-run central banks around the world do not support the digital currency.

The price of bitcoin has gone up and down wildly since it     8    (create) in 2009 by a mysterious developer. During the pandemic, bitcoin was trading at less than $11,000 in October of 2020. Bitcoin was valued at more than $43,000 after Tesla’s announcement Monday. Tesla said in a document that its $1.5 billion investment in digital currency and other “alternative” holdings may grow.

    9     more companies have used the technology behind bitcoin, known as blockchain, the actual uses of bitcoin     10    (not change) very much. Some businesses, such as Overstock.com, have accepted payments in bitcoin. Still, its popularity is low compared with normal currencies. But that could change if others follow Tesla and begin accepting the digital currency.

9 . “Plant-Based” Doesn’t Mean Anything Anymore

Several days ago, someone asked the MiracleNoodle company why it calls its Miracle Rice “plant-based”, since the non-miracle version of rice is also ________plant-based. “All of our products are plant-based and our company takes pride in that,” Miracle Noodle responded.” Just another way of saying we are vegan.”

The words “plant-based” have become overused to the point of being ________, and Miracle Rice, a new type of rice product, with its pink packaging and lower-case typeface(字体)looks like it was part of the beautiful ________in the Museum of the Unnecessary. “We’ve made white rice healthy,” the company says on its website, noting that the rice has “zero calories and zero net carbs”-a(n) ________suggesting that, a couple of years ago, it would have put “low carb” on the label instead of “plant-based”.

The Miracle marketing team is using plant-based as a(n) ________for “low-carb” or “keto-friendly”, “When we think of ‘plant-based’ options, we see a ________opportunity to bring more vegetables to the centre of plate,” the spokesperson continued. “Our customers favour simple, plant-based food, now more than ever, especially as people search for ________ways to eat healthier at home.”

But the things that make a plant-based diet more accessible have also reduced the term to a matter of no ________. Despite what Miracle Noodle has suggested online, it’s not a synonym for vegan.

Moreover, this isn’t a new concept in the food space. The ________“fat free” cookies landed on supermarket shelves in 1992, and they were followed by dozens of other products labelled “fat free”, like assorted cereals, salad dressings, and those strip-mall frozen yogurt stores that your mother was really into.

Later, we had all stopped calculating the amount of fat in our meals, and started ________carbohydrates instead. ________the popularity of the Atkins and South Beach diets meant we started looking for “low carb” on food labels-and manufacturers were only too happy to oblige.

Low carb eventually turned into high protein, so we all briefly pretended that hard boiled eggs were acceptable movie snacks, and that burgers were just as ________when they were served on little lettuce. Now the ________for shelf-space-and market share-is dominated by anything that describes itself as “plant-based”.

________plant-based products being an even bigger business, it’s guaranteed that there will be an even longer list of items that are either unnecessarily labeled as such, or that are pushed out in an attempt to capitalize on everyone’s newfound interest in vegetables that aren’t explicitly called vegetables. If plant-based Snack Well’s ________, then I’ll probably be all in.