1 . A few years ago, a doctor gave a wrong prescription to a 9-year-old boy because he had accidentally clicked the next medicine listed in the drop-down menu. Unfortunately, the boy died.
Dr. Gidi Stein heard the story and felt forced to do something. “It was like killing someone with a spelling error. He just clicked on the wrong button,” Stein said. “One would have thought there’d be some kind of spell-checker to prevent these terrible things from happening. But apparently this is not the case.”
Several things were immediately obvious to the 54-year-old Stein, who had previously studied computer science. “If you look at this problem from a bird’s eye view, there were so many places down the line where this decision could have been stopped — from the physician to the pharmacy (药房) even to the mother. All of them had all the relevant information to have a judgment call that this was just the wrong drug for the wrong patient.” For Stein, it represented a systemic failure.
Stein compared this with credit cards. “If you use your credit card in the daily routine over time, a pattern of how we use our cards comes out: the grocery store, the gas station in our local town. If your credit card would appear tomorrow in Zimbabwe, it would be unusual. The credit card company would call you and say, ‘Hey, was that you?’”
But nothing like that existed in the field of prescription drugs. So Stein set up a company called MedAware. He came up with a machine learning outlier detection (异常检测值) system. In other words, he trained the computers to realize if a doctor accidentally prescribed the wrong medicine.
The system is already used in hospitals and doctor’s offices. To date, MedAware has used their technology to help nearly six million patients in the United States and Israel.
1. What led to the boy’s death?| A．The doctor’s carelessness. | B．The drawback of the computer. |
| C．The doctor’s poor medical skill. | D．The incomplete health care system. |
| A．Angry. | B．Frightened. |
| C．Embarrassed. | D．Regretful. |
| A．Help doctor choose right medicine. | B．Reminds patients to take medicine. |
| C．Introduce new drugs to doctors. | D．Check the prescription. |
| A．A diary. | B．A guidebook. |
| C．A magazine. | D．A science fiction. |
2 . It’s not common that a grandmother aged 89 is crowned Queen of Icebergs in north America, but when it does happen it’s quite the sight.
On a recent trip to Iceland, Judith Streng became that grandma after her son attempted to take a photograph of her sitting on an ice structure that looks like a throne (宝座) at Diamond Beach in Jokul. Shortly after Streng sat down to pose, the piece of ice broke off and floated into the water.
“I thought it was safe. One girl had been on it and then two girls at the same time, and it was very secure with them. When I got on it, it started to shake and a wave was coming in. A very large wave came in and made the throne kind of shake, and I could tell that I was slipping off,” Streng told ABC News.
Streng’s story went hot after her 24-year-old granddaughter Catherine tweeted a text message exchange she had with her father about the incident. “My grandmother almost got lost at sea in Iceland today!”
Catherine, who teaches English in Seoul, South Korea, explained via Twitter that her father described the scene vividly. He has a PhD in English, and described the event in the following words, “She climbed to the throne after a wave had pulled back and left it briefly exposed on the beach. Then a wave washed in and removed the ice throne, rocking it from side to side. When the wave left, it lifted the throne and carried her out into the sea with the tide.”
Luckily for the Streng family, Randy, a licensed boat captain from Florida with knowledge of water rescue strategies witnessed the whole thing, and was able to save the day.
1. Where was the grandma when her son was taking a picture for her?| A．On a crown. | B．In an iceboat. |
| C．At a throne beach. | D．On an iceberg. |
| A．By drawing a vivid picture. |
| B．By exchanging tweeter account. |
| C．By talking with her father in Seoul. |
| D．By posting the text message exchange with her father. |
| A．Catherine. | B．Streng. |
| C．Randy. | D．Judith. |
| A．Taking Pictures Must be Very Dangerous |
| B．A Grandma Floated out to the Sea on an Iceberg |
| C．An Optimistic Family Who Love Iceberg |
| D．The Licensed Boat Captain Went Hot Slowly |
3 . A mixture of deep sorrow and anger has swept Brazilians across the country — particularly in the city of Rio de Janeiro — with the burning of their beloved Museu Nacional, or National Museum.
By Monday morning, when I visited the site, the firemen were busy trying to enter the huge, early 19th-century neoclassical building. For all we know, everything may have been burned to ashes. Fortunately, no one, not even the four security guards who witnessed the beginning of the fire, has been injured.
Nobody yet knows the cause of the fire, but it is the officials' irresponsibility and the funding shortages in particular, which are being blamed for this tragedy.
Some of the museum's researchers told the press that they had been able to save some things from the exhibition rooms before the fire moved in. However, we Brazilians have lost much of the material memory of our short past. A good part of our 518 years of history, or that which had been transformed into storable objects, disappeared in just a few hours.
The people of Rio de Janeiro were fond of taking their children, or grandchildren to the museum to show off their knowledge of the odd-looking mummies brought in from Egypt by the Emperor Dom Pedro II, a huge skeleton of a humpback whale, or the brightly coloured feathers of a headdress of the Kayapo tribe.
When I think that I can no longer take my youngest daughter to the Museu Nacional — that is what gets me emotional. It is this feeling that has penetrated (穿透) our souls and may leave Brazilians feeling empty for a long time to come.
1. What can we learn about the National Museum of Brazil?
| A．It has a history of 518 years. |
| B．All of its collections have been lost. |
| C．It was built in the early 19th century. |
| D．It is not very popular in the country. |
| A．the inefficient firemen | B．the irresponsible officials |
| C．the careless security guards | D．something unknown |
| A．delight | B．sorrow |
| C．defeat | D．humour |
| A．Fire Put out in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
| B．Our Fond Memories of the Past |
| C．Who Is to Blame for the Accident? |
| D．A Museum Is Lost and Might Never Return |
