Luxury brands used to speak in monologues. However, nowadays, influencers are becoming the ambassadors of those luxurious brands.

In the age of social media, the buyers are having a voice in products, in particular, the influencers. These individuals have won large followings by     1     and attacking occasionally a variety of products. Their fame stems from the clever use of Instagram, Snapchat or TikTok. Their posts seem trivial. Their business isn’t.

For consumers, influencers are at once a walking advert and a trusted friend. For the brands, they are a(n)     2    . And for regulators, they are the subject of ever closer review. On March 29th, news reports     3     that China’s authorities were planning new restrictions concerning livestreaming platforms. The limitations     4     how much money internet users can spend tipping their favorite influencers, how much those influencers can earn from fans and what they are allowed to post.

There hardly exists any     5     of the size of the influencer industry. One in 2020 from the National Bureau of Statistics in China, where influencers gained prominence earlier than in the West, assessed its contribution to the economy at $210bn, equivalent to 1.4% of GDP. As with many things digital, the pandemic seems to have given it a(n)     6     as more people were glued to their smartphones more of the time. The influencer ecosystem is challenging the     7     principle of luxury-brand management. Apart from being one-directional, campaigns have tended to be     8    , unchanging and expensive. The same smile from the same photograph of the same Hollywood star would induce passers-by to purchase an item for many years. Such star-led campaigns can be unappealing to teenagers and 20-somethings     9     authenticity over timeless glamour. And influencers, with their girl-or boy-next-door charm, offer this for a small portion of the fee of a big-name star. The best ones are able to repackage a brand’s message in a way that is     10     with their voice, their followers’ tastes and their platform of choice. So to be a top-ten brand, you have to know how to play the digital game. If you don’t, you are not going to be top ten for very long.

A Destination to Treasure

With the popularity of various online platforms, more and more people would like to share what they saw and what they did in life and travel. Long, a video blogger, is an example.

One of the videos featured on Long Yan's account on the short-video platform Douyin is a tour through the     1     natural landscape and folk customs of Guizhou Province. Long has produced more than 170 such videos,     2     the unique charm of destinations in the southwest of the country. In his view, Guizhou's natural and cultural landscape,       3    mountains, lakes and rivers, diverse ethnic customs and deep, profound history deserve to be better-known by online audiences.

Over the past three years, Long's video content has undergone noticeable changes.He originally focused on natural scenery but has been increasingly     4     in deeper exploration of humanity and cultural heritage.

Since December, Long launched his own project, aiming to     5     100 examples of intangible cultural heritage across the country in three years. To do his part, Long has     6     stories about inheritors of intangible cultural heritage and helped more people witness their commitment to their    7    . Long was exposed to a variety of fascinating examples of intangible cultural heritage. “It occurred to me that landscape scenery has a better chance of continuing to exist than human cultural forms do," he says. “That heritage would disappear quickly if not recorded and broadcast.” His first intangible cultural heritage video was about the     8     leaf-vein embroidery technique practiced in Tongren city,Guizhou.

Long has been     9     by Douyin as a “rural guardian" contributing to village development, and has delivered six videos on intangible cultural heritage so far. He has already seen positive results from his initial work. Many of his young followers have shown     10     for experiencing what he has posted. "They really enjoy intangible cultural heritage, and are rooting for the revival of traditional culture, as well as the establishment of national self-confidence," he says.

Sometimes it’s the simplest daily practice that can have the biggest impact on your health, and yoga is proof of that. Although most forms of yoga aren’t considered to be as intense as other workout regimens, practising yoga on a daily basis has been scientifically demonstrated to help you mentally and     1    . Through breath work, meditation and holding poses that increase strength and     2    the body and mind gain benefits from yoga that positively impact your long-term health. It’s no     3    people have been practising yoga for over 5000 years, and that the number of Australians practising yoga doubled between 2008 and 2017 to over two million, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Yoga teacher, Jenni Tarmar, shares, “we have a     4    of research demonstrating that a regular mindfulness practice - the act of paying attention to the sensation in the body, thoughts and emotions without judgment - can reduce stress and help us to feel calmer, more productive, and     5    more even-keeled in our daily lives.”

After evaluating yoga history and research, one 2014 review published in Frontiers in Human Neouroscience concluded that     6    yoga practice can help facilitate self-regulation. Another study of adolescents between the ages of 13 and 18 found that practising yoga positively benefited emotional regulation and self-esteem. “Movement releases beneficial neurotransmitters (神经转发器) in the brain, which helps us feel good as well as assist in     7    regulation,” says yoga instructor, Evan Lawrence. “One of the things that I like about yoga specifically is that there is, at the same time, a focus on physical movement and     8    .”

According to associate professor of psychiatry, Dr Gail Saltz, “practising yoga improves overall blood     9    to the body, including the brain, which is helpful for cognition and memory.”

One 2019 review published in Brain Plasticity concluded that behavioural interventions like yoga can help “mitigate age-related and neurodegenerative decline” due to the positive effects a daily practice has on different parts of the     10    brain, like the hippocampus (which plays a major role in learning and memory) and the prefrontal cortex (cognitive control functions).

Does technology replace more jobs than it creates? What is the     1     balance between these two things? Until now, that has not been measured. But a new research project led by MIT economist David Autor has developed an answer, at least for U.S. history since 1940. The study uses new methods to examine how many jobs have been lost to machine     2    , and how many have been generated through “augmentation (增强),” in which technology creates new tasks. Overall, the study finds, and particularly since 1980, technology has replaced more U.S. jobs than it has generated.

“There does appear to be a faster rate of automation, and a slower rate of augmentation, in the last four decades. from 1980 to the present, than in the four decades     3    .” says Autor. However, that finding is only one of the study’s     4    . The researchers have also developed an entirely new method for studying the issue, based on an analysis of thousands of U.S. census job categories in relation to a(n)     5     look at the text of U. S. patents over the last century. That has allowed them, for the first time, to quantify the effects of technology over both job loss and job creation.

The study finds that overall, about 60 percent of jobs in the U.S. represent new types of work, which have been created since 1940. To determine this, Autor and his colleagues     6     through about 35,000 job categories, tracking how they emerge over time. They also used natural language processing tools to analyze the text of every U.S. patent filed since 1920. The research examined how words were “embedded” in the census and patent documents to     7     related passages of text. That allowed them to determine links between new technologies and their effects on employment.

From about 1940 through 1980, for instance, jobs like elevator operator and typesetter tended to get automated. But at the same time, more workers filled roles such as shipping and receiving clerks, buyers and department     8    , and civil and space engineers. From 1980 through 2018, the ranks of cabinetmakers and machinists, among others, have been     9     by automation, while industrial engineers, and operations and systems researchers and analysts, have enjoyed growth.

Ultimately, the research suggests that the negative effects of automation on employment were more than twice as great in the 1980-2018 period as in the 1940-1980 period. There was a more     10    , and positive, change in the effect of augmentation on employment in 1980-2018, as compared to 1940-1980.

Economics survive by continually responding to the world around them. This means employing new technologies or exploiting new international markets when     1     growth. Today, these global shifts — dramatic shocks to economies — occur more frequently, are more     2     and, in knowledge-based economies are more dependent on talent than ever. In countries where a workforce lacks the skills that are suddenly in     3    , we see a skills gap emerge. This leads to higher unemployment rates while vacancies increase and productivity and growth decline.

So how can economies     4    ? By adapting. However, unlike the macro-strategies of the last century, people — not just policy — must drive today’s adaptability. Employers and policymakers have long     5     the importance of a flexible workforce, but until now it has been difficult to isolate the human element — the willingness and ability of employees to seek out and find opportunities across multiple employers, locations and industries. Our new ability to measure it and analyse talent adaptability — and to start to understand what drives it — are crucial steps forward.

The     6     of a market to match supply and demand efficiently depends on the ability and willingness of employers and employees to adapt to changing circumstances and align (使一致) skills with available opportunities. If this alignment is less than perfect, a mismatch     7     and optimum productivity can’t be reached.

Adapt to Survive for the first time brings together the two most comprehensive sources of talent data in the world: the real-time behaviours drawn from LinkedIn’s 277 million members and employer information from PwC’s Saratoga database of people and performance metrics (指标) which covers more than 2,600 employers across the globe. This report sets a new benchmark for     8     a country’s ability to match talent with opportunity and the movement of people between industries — the Talent Adaptability Score. This score is given to 11 countries. For each country, we evaluate how the Score     9     economic performance. Our recommendations are organised around four groups:

● Individuals — Prove your adaptability.

● Employers — Seek out, nurture and reward talents who can adapt.

● Educators — Offer courses and job training that produce     10     people.

● Governments — Create a climate of adaptability.

How did the Wright brothers take flight?

Wilbur and Orville Wright didn’t care much for attention. But after publicly demonstrating their flying machine, the inventors of the airplane became overnight international    1    . Crowds gathered, watching them go airborne (升空) and    2    their genius and courage. Thousands followed their achievements, which repeatedly made front-page news. While it might sound nice to say the Wrights were born inventors and geniuses who had always been     3     to aeronautics (航空学), that’s not really the case. Beginning in their Midwestern youth, the brothers faced numerous    4    . Their achievements stemmed from their own initiative and    5    .

Before they made history, Wilbur and Orville were, in one sense, fairly    6     children. They didn’t meet the typical standards of success.Though Wilbur was well read and Orville took advanced courses, neither graduated from high school and both struggled to get by on their own early in life. At the start, the brothers didn’t intend to invent the airplane. They simply reviewed what others had published about aeronautic, hoping they could make some sort of contributions. And that was when they noticed, to their surprise, very little progress had been made in the field. Wilbur and Orville realized that flight experiments had hit three main roadblocks to progress. They lacked a way to control the aircraft, a good wing design and a propulsion (推动力) system to power the flight. From there,     7    these problems became the brothers’ goal. Through trial and error, on December 17, 1903, the brothers flew the first manageable aircraft into the air, which proved the Wright Flyer could make a sustained, controlled and powered heavier-than-air flight. The aerial age truly began.

Though the Wright brothers had made history, their airplane was    8    only a proof of concept. It could make straight-line flights, but the design didn’t yet have any     9    use for society. In the     10    years of hard work and devotion, the brothers refined their aircraft. In1908, Wilbur demonstrated their plane in France, successfully proving what he and Orville had done.

Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea is the simple story of an old Cuban fisherman who undergoes the most difficult struggle of his life. In the title character, Santiago, Hemingway describes one of the most distinguished examples in American     1     of an individual looking deep within to work up the courage necessary to get through the achievements and sad events that life presents.

Alone on the sea, Santiago continuously     2     to find hope in several seemingly hopeless situations. The old man illustrates Hemingway’s ideal of     3     “grace under pressure”, as he refuses to give in to the enormous obstacles (障碍) presented by the sea. Relying on memories of his youth, Santiago finds the     4     to physically and emotionally carry on throughout the story.

After catching the great marlin (马林鱼) Santiago realizes he is unable to quickly kill the fish, and it proceeds to pull him farther out to sea. Yet, throughout the battle between man and fish the old man begins to recognize a(n)     5     between him and the marlin, repeatedly referring to it as his brother. Both the old man and the fish are only insignificant among the     6     creatures at sea, joined together by the fact that they are at the mercy of the sea.

The fish, therefore, changes from merely being Santiago’s prey (猎物) into a reflection of the old man’s     7     and physical state. When the sharks damage the dead marlin hanging off the side of the boat as Santiago struggles to sail home, the old man fights them off as if they were     8     him. Only when the marlin’s body has been entirely eaten away does Santiago give up, knowing he “was     9     now finally”.

Although the old man seemingly fails once the sharks steal his prize fish, they cannot take away the fact that Santiago has done the unthinkable by staying with and catching a fish “bigger than he had ever heard of”. In spite of not successfully bringing the fish back, Santiago fights with     10    — first to catch the marlin, then to protect his fish from the sharks — and in doing so declares his humanity by remaining resilient (坚韧的) in the face of achievements and sad events.

Many of us are lacing up our sneakers and starting (or restarting) exercise regimens (练身计划) in hopes of shedding unwanted pounds. Unquestionably, aiming to be more active is good. But if the main reason is to lose weight, your New Year’s resolution could very well     1    .

For starters, exercise — at least the kind most of us do — is     2     ineffective for weight loss. Take walking, for example. A 150-pound person who walks briskly for 30 minutes will burn, on average, around 140 calories. That’s equal to one can of soda — not exactly a great return on your investment of time and effort. It’s much easier just to skip the soda.

Studies     3     show that doing moderate-intensity aerobic exercise such as walking for 30 minutes a day, five days a week — the amount recommended for good health — typically produces little or no weight loss by itself.

When moderate exercise is added to diet, the results are equally not     4    . Pooling data from six trials, researchers found that a combination of diet and exercise generated no greater weight loss than diet alone after six months.

In studies where exercise has produced     5     weight loss, participants burned at least 400 to 500 calories per session on five or more days a week. To achieve that, sessions need to go well beyond what most of us are willing or able to do. And even if we manage to exert that much effort, our bodies often     6     by boosting appetite and dialing down metabolism, effects that over time limit how many pounds we shed.

Perhaps the biggest problem with exercising to drop pounds is that it turns physical activity into     7    . How many times have you heard someone say (or said yourself) “I’ll need to do extra exercise” after eating too much during the holidays or at a celebratory dinner?

The point is that we’re more likely to     8     exercise positively and actually do it when we focus on our well-being rather than our weight. The incentive may be an improved mood or less stress. Others may find that exercise makes them feel physically and mentally stronger.

Of course, the benefits of physical activity     9     well beyond these. It’s been shown to reduce the risk of multiple diseases. It can also improve sleep and boost energy.

By all means, striving to exercise regularly in the new year is perhaps the most important thing you can do for your health. But to improve the odds of success, focus on how movement helps you feel better physically and emotionally — and forget about how it moves the     10     on the scale.