1 . Nowadays, we know how to work with al old items. Many of them can be reused after being properly processed. Instead of sending them to the trashcan, we have new choices.     1    

Participate in the Give the Gift of Sight Program. Run by Lions Club International, the program makes it easy for you to donate your old eyeglasses and sunglasses to needy people in developing countries. After you drop glasses off, they are cleaned, repaired, and grouped, then distributed.

Donate your used computer to computers for Kids, a non-profit organization.     2     Its donation program collects and cleans computer equipment, and gives away the equipment to schools and children’s organizations in need.

    3     Contribute to offering help to the troubled kids by sending either entire greeting cards or just the fronts of cards, to St. Jude’s Card Recycling, 100 St. Jude’s Street, Boulder City, NV89005. The youth redecorate the cards by adding new backs, and sell them to support the program. For more information, call 1-877-977-8888.

Recycle sneakers (运动鞋) and athletic shoes. Since 1990, NIKE has sponsored the Reuse-A-Shoe program.     4     Then they are made into athletic equipment, such as playground padding, gymnastic mats, and running tracks. Call 1-800-344-6453 for drop-off locations or get the mailing address at Reuse-A-Shoe.

Never throw away books or magazines. Books and magazines are a great aid to help those who’ve been sent to prison. Some of them quit school at an early age.     5    

2 . One of the world’s most productive wildlife sound recordists (录音师) has released a large collection of his most treasured recordings of wild places to listen to for free on Soundcloud.

“Martyn Stewart has recorded nearly 100,000 pieces, consisting of 30,00o hours of materials. They have been spread across 40 countries and used in 150 films,” Krause, a friend of Martyn said. “Some of these include sounds that can’t be heard anymore, as they belong to extinct animals or disturbed habitats.”

Martyn is one of the key recordists who helped set the standards that gave the work standing in the world of sound. Few can match the quality of his life-long efforts. Throughout his life, since he recorded his first bird at the age of 11, it was easy to record the sounds of faraway places. But times are changing, and the growing presence of noise pollution has made his job a lot harder.

Among his “treasured” recordings include Hurricane Dorian on a remote beach, thunderstorms in Australia, Denali National Park and Arctic Wildlife Home in Alaska, dawn in Zimbabwe, and so much more. He’s also recorded sounds and calls of certain animals, some of which are extinct like the white rhino and the golden frog.

“I hope the free project, called Martyn Stewart’s Listening Planet, is meant to inspire people to try and protect a more delicate part of the world — the auditory (听觉的) part. They have the connection between sound and the animal making the sound,” said Martyn. “I think we have to become the voice of the voiceless. If we can get these beautiful sound recordings out and let people in the world listen to them, maybe we can start protecting what we’ve got left.”

3 . The following are some of the most recognizable names in art history.

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci, born in 1452 in Tuscany, Italy, was a genius. His one-of-a-kind gift was expressing human emotions, which earned him a name from an early age. He kept painting until his death in France in 1519. His Mona Lisa is a painting that was originally left incomplete but has become the world’s most famous picture.

Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh, born in the Netherlands in 1853, is widely regarded as one of the finest post - impressionist painters of all time. He did not become an artist until he was in his late twenties. In 1886, he traveled to Paris, where he met Paul Gauguin, who encouraged Van Gogh to develop his own style. He died in 1890 after suffering from mental health problems. Van Gogh became famous after his death.

Claude Monet

Claude Monet, born in Paris in 1840, was a talented French artist who is widely considered as one of the most important painters. He was recognized for his talents when he was young and he was the first to employ oil and outdoor methods. The word “impressionism” was created after his picture Impression, Sunrise. Monet died at age 86.

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso was born in Malaga, Spain, in late 1881. He began drawing at a young age and had gotten his first lessons in the use of oil paints from his father by the time he was seven. In 1900, he moved to Paris and sold his first painting there. He made significant contributions to the progress of modern art. He passed away in 1973.

4 . When people hear “artificial intelligence,” many envision “big data.” There’s a reason for that: some of the most important AI breakthroughs in the past decade have relied on enormous data sets. But AI is not only about large data sets, and research in “small data” approaches has grown extensively over the past decade—with so-called transfer learning as an especially promising example. Also known as “fine-tuning,” transfer learning is helpful in settings where you have little data on the task of interest but abundant data on a related problem. The way it works is that you first train a model using a big data set and then retrain slightly using a smaller data set related to your specific problem.

Research in transfer learning approaches has grown impressively over the past 10 years. In a new report for Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), we examined current and projected progress in scientific research across “small data” approaches. Our analysis found that transfer learning stands out as a category that has experienced the most consistent and highest research growth on average since 2010. This growth has even outpaced the larger and more established field of reinforcement learning, which in recent years has attracted widespread attention.

Small data approaches such as transfer learning offer numerous advantages over more data-intensive methods. By enabling the use of AI with less data, they can bolster progress in areas where little or no data exist, such as in forecasting natural disasters that occur relatively rarely or in predicting the risk of disease for a population set that does not have digital health records.

Another way of thinking about the value of transfer learning is in terms of generalization. A recurring challenge in the use of AI is that models need to “generalize” beyond their training data. Because transfer learning models work by transferring knowledge from one task to another, they are very helpful in improving generalization in the new task, even if only limited data were available.

Moreover, by using pretrained models, transfer learning can speed up training time and could also reduce the amount of computational resources needed to train algorithms (算法). This efficiency is significant, considering that the process of training one large neural (神经系统的) network requires considerable energy.

Despite the growth in research, transfer learning has received relatively little visibility. The existence of techniques such as transfer learning does not seem to have reached the awareness of the broader space of policy makers and business leaders in positions of making important decisions about AI funding and adoption. By acknowledging the success of small data techniques like transfer learning—and distributing resources to support their widespread use—we can help overcome some of the common misconceptions regarding the role of data in AI and facilitate innovation in new directions.

5 . A young Irishman, Fionn, has come up with a method to solve the microplastic pollution problem, winning Google’s international science fair. He created a kind of liquid magnet (磁铁) by mixing magnetized iron oxide (Fe₂O₃) and vegetable oil. It can collect microplastics and remove them, leaving only water behind.

Since the age of 12, he has been looking to find a solution for the hard-to-clean microplastics. During childhood, he frequently went beaches where he saw a growing number of plastic garbage. Once, he saw a rock with oil remaining, and stuck to it were small plastic pieces. He then found out that the plastic pieces are what we call non-polar, and oil is non-polar too. In chemistry likes attract likes, which means non-polar things attract non-polar things. He heard of something that was a kind of magnetic water by combining vegetable oil with magnetized iron oxide (Fe₂O₃). He noticed oil could attract the microplastics and magnet finally cleaned the microplastics. Inspired by it, he made the liquid magnet.

Indeed after 5,000 experiments it was shown that his method could clean 87％ — 93% of microplastics from the water, despite the fact that the microplastics came from a variety of sources like car tires, plastic bottles, and washing water.

Larissa Kelly, Fionn’s science teacher commented,” The invention, based on very Simple components, makes a breakthrough. It has powerful potential to provide solutions that will contribute to the worldwide effort to remove microplastics from the environment,” Fionn showed his method at the 2019 Google Science Fair and won a $50,000 scholarship. After the Google Science Fair, scientists gave him credit for what he had done. Fionn is now trying to fit his method into a device that can be used in home waterpipes, or the pipes at a wastewater plant, allowing the liquid magnet to continuously clean water that moves through it. He also plans to make it used on boats.

6 . Human beings need interpersonal connection. But, in fact, learning how to let go of that pressure to be accompanied has unique upsides. Time alone allows you to reconnect with your own intentions.     1    

Start small. Figure out what you’d be most comfortable doing, whether it’s sitting at a local restaurant for dinner, or hitting up the bar, and do that.     2    

Bring a book or a journal.     3     When feeling you’re so alone and stressed in a cafe, you have an activity to engage in. Plus, the act of reading or journaling can direct your attention and help you tackle and calm such feelings.

Set your phone aside. Looking through social media or texting instantly takes your mind out of the present moment. Even if you’re not directly interacting with people while on your phone, you’re probably interacting with their thoughts or inputs.     4     This way you can let your body down-regulate and reset.

Do an activity you love. You can sign. up for an art class or workout program or volunteer group without anyone else you know.     5     And part of the full-circle joy of doing things completely for yourself is that it also brings you opportunities to meet new people, and form new, beautiful connections.

8 .    More than 4.85 billion people have access to the Internet. Online, they can find all the information available to humankind and form their own opinion about anything. This has completely changed society. But what disturbs most is the new technological ability of the large number of people to express themselves. It is not free access to information but access to self-expression that changes the world. We are living through an unexpected explosion of authorship.

   Thе book Human as Media gives us a vivid picture of this explosion of authorship. Humankind had 300 million authors in 5,000 years of written civilization and, all of a sudden, this number has risen to 4.85 billion in the space of 40 years. Such authorship has given us opportunities to express ourselves freely, but it has also led to thoughtless self - expression.

   Social media such as Facebook and Twitter are commonly blamed for creating cultural mess. People can express this or that opinion as they like. But what really matters is that social media provide chances for billions who can reach out to others beyond their physical and social limits. This itself has become an important factor to shape society, regardless of the content. In reality, social media are specifically taking advantage of our desire to “struggle for recognition”. We humans need to feel a sense of being together. So is our thirst for response. Social media provide, or at least offer, responses to even the smallest activities of a user such as likes, posts, and comments. I click, therefore I am.

   But with this great service comes great risks. Those self-expressions are exposed to some extent unseen before. Unprepared and unhesitating judgments regarding someone’s personal matters or public affairs increase incredibly. Personal becomes public and public becomes personal.