Методичка по теории перевода. Краснодарский государственный университет культуры и искусств кафедра методики и практики преподавания иностранных языков и культур Л.
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Text 8 HEART DISEASE: AN ALTERNATIVE TO TRANSPLANT WASHINGTON – For the many people who wait futilely each year for heart transplants, researchers are looking at a new option: an experimental operation that wraps the failing heart with a back muscle that contracts to help boost the heart’s ability to pump blood. Known as cardiomyoplasty, the procedure is undergoing evaluation at five medical centers. “It is a very interesting new technique that may have some use,” said Sidney Levitsky, chief of cardiothoracic surgery at the New England Deaconess Hospital in Boston and a member of the American Heart Association’s Council of Cardiovascular Surgery. In certain patients with heart failure, “it may be the solution for the transplant problem,” he said. Now, doctors report that death rates range from 0 to 20 percent within one month of surgery at the different hospitals involved. Many of the deaths are attributed to a range of problems that reflect other underlying heart conditions not corrected by the surgery, including irregular heartbeats and ventricular problems. Some patients have also died from other illnesses, including pneumonia. George McGovern, the surgeon who first performed the operation at Allegheny General, said about 50 percent of the patients there have survived for five years after surgery. In comparison, approximately 80 to 85 percent of heart-transplant patients survive one year after surgery. The concept of cardiomyoplasty has been discussed by physicians for more than 50 years. But there were two major hurdles to overcome. The first was how to condition a skeletal muscle not to tire during 24 hours of daily contraction. Wayne State University thoracic surgeon Larry Stephenson developed the technique using electrical current to overcome this obstacle. The second was how to get a large enough contraction to boost the heart’s production. Standard pacemakers produced small contractions, not enough to help the failing heart. But a researcher, Ray C.-J. Chiu, at McGill University in Montreal developed what is called a burst pacemaker to stimulate the back muscle. One of the patients to benefit from the surgery was 74-year-old Reaugh Bonn, a retired business executive who developed congestive heart failure suddenly in 1988. Despite extensive treatment, Mr. Bonn continued to deteriorate. His age disqualified him for a heart transplant. “It was terribly discouraging,” he said from his home in Vancouver, Washington. “The only story that I really got out of any doctor was that there was no cure and that I would progressively go downhill until it was all over. Then Mr. Bonn read an item about cardiomyoplasty in a tabloid newspaper and sought out the operation. On July 11, 1991, Mr. Bonn became the first patient to undergo cardiomyoplasty at St. Vincent Hospital and Medical Center in Portland, Oregon. He spent 11 days recovering in the hospital, two and a half of them in the intensive-care unit, before being discharged. “The day I got out of the hospital I went home, took a nap and then went out to dinner with my wife,” he said. Sally Squires, International Herald Tribune Text 9 IN DEFENSE OF THE ATMOSPHERE Global warming is an environmental threat unlike any the world has faced. While human activities during the past century have damaged a long list of natural systems, most of these problems are local or regional in scope and can be reversed in years or decades if sufficient effort is exerted. Changes to the earth's atmosphere, on the other hand, are global and irreversible not only in our lifetimes but in our children's and grandchildren's as well. Coping effectively with global warming will force society to move rapidly into uncharted terrain, reversing powerful trends that have dominated the industrial age. This challenge cannot be met without a strong commitment on the part of both individuals and governments. Among the unprecedented policy changes that have now become urgent are a curtailment of chlorofluorocarbon production, a reversal of deforestation in tropical countries, enactment of a carbon tax on fossil fuels, and a new commitment to greater energy efficiency and the development of renewable energy sources. Rich industrial countries such as the United States, which have caused most of the warming so far, should logically take the lead in adopting national programs to slow it. The biggest challenge, however, is at the international level. Slowing global warming will require that countries strengthen international environmental institutions and enact strong new treaties, working together as a world community as never before. Lending urgency to the problem is the fact that chemical composition of the earth's atmosphere, normally stable for millennia, is already substantially different than it was just a century and a half ago. While nitrogen and oxygen are still the main constituents, several more complex gases are building steadily: carbon dioxide is up 25 percent, nitrous oxide 19 percent, and methane 100 percent. Chlorofluorocarbons, a class of synthetic chemicals not normally found in the atmosphere, have added further to this warm blanket of gases that allow sunlight in but trap the resulting heat. Scientists estimate that the resulting greenhouse effect is equivalent to the heat produced by one Christmas tree light - radiating approximately one watt of energy each - on every square meter of the earth's surface. Global average temperatures are now about 0.6 degrees Celsius warmer than they were a century ago. There is as yet no conclusive proof linking this recent heating to the greenhouse effect, but circumstantial evidence has convinced many scientists that this is the cause. Scientists are more concerned, however, about the much faster warming that is predicted by a half dozen computer models - reaching 2.5-5.5 degrees Celsius late in the next century. The difference between the warming of the past century and that expected in coming decades is like that between a mild day in April and a late-summer scorcher. Some have suggested that "greenhouse effect" and "global warming are mild terms for a coming era that may be marked by heat waves that make some regions virtually uninhabitable. Frequent droughts could plague areas of North America and Asia, imperiling their ability to meet food needs. More violent weather is projected for other regions. Many forests could be at risk as climate zones suddenly shift. And many low-lying areas with dense population or extensive agriculture will be threatened by rising seas. Considerable change in the earth's climate is now unavoidable, but societies still have the choice of an accelerating, cataclysmic warming or to act to slow it to a more manageable rate. Self-interested voices have recently argued for more research before any action to stabilize the climate. While it is true that climate change is a young science, many aspects of which are uncertain, this is no excuse for years of delay. If humanity waits until detailed regional climate predictions are possible, it will be too late to avert disaster. Societies already invest in many areas, such as defense programs, to protect against an uncertain but potentially disastrous threat. Similarly, investing in strategies to slow global warming is a sort of insurance policy - against catastrophes that have far greater odds of occurring than most of the events for which we commonly buy insurance. Many of these strategies have the additional attraction of being economical investments in their own right, cutting energy bills and air pollution at the same time as they help stabilize the climate. The world energy system is responsible for more than half of the greenhouse effect, releasing not only 21 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere annually but substantial quantities of two other important greenhouse gases as well - methane and nitrous oxide. Carbon-containing fossil fuels provide almost four-fifths of the world's energy, and their use continues to grow 3 percent annually. Reversing this trend and moving the world gradually away from its massive dependence on fossil fuels are essential to stabilizing the climate. In fact, global warming has emerged as the most important limit facing the world's energy system; if the use of fossil fuels continues to grow, the earth will become uninhabitable long before all of its fuel reserves are exhausted. A plan to improve energy efficiency is the essential centerpiece of any workable strategy to limit production of the energy-related greenhouse gases. Only improved efficiency has the potential to get societies off the fossil fuel growth path in the near term. Meanwhile, an immediate start on a transition to renewable energy sources will allow the world to switch ultimately to clean and sustainable power supplies, such as solar, wind, and geothermal. There are two other key elements of a credible global warming action plan. The first is reversing the destruction of the world's tropical forests. Deforestation contributes about 20 percent of the carbon dioxide being added to the atmosphere and is increasing. Turning this trend around is an enormous challenge that not only will help stabilize the climate but help many developing countries attain sustainable economies. The second element is eliminating the production and use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) within the next decade. These specialized chemicals account for one-quarter of the greenhouse problem, and they can be eliminated with relatively minor adjustments the United states, the world leader in the use of CFCs, they account for about 40 percent of its contribution to global warming. Because CFC emissions are growing faster than those of any other greenhouse gas, and because they can be eliminated rapidly and completely, they deserve immediate attention by policymakers. The most fundamental challenge presented by global warming is to society's ability to confront a common threat. This raises complex equity issues, since the contribution of individual countries to the problem varies widely, as do their stakes in a solution. Overall, the industrial market countries are responsible for about 46 percent of the problem, the Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe for 19 percent, and developing nations (with four-fifths of the world population) for 35 percent. The rich industrial countries have caused most of the damage to the global atmosphere so far, and thus have a clear responsibility to take the lead in formulating solutions. A few are already considering unilateral actions, but most are not. Leadership on the part of the world's largest greenhouse gas producers - the United States, the Former Soviet Union, China, Brazil, and Japan - is essential if a global strategy is to be successful. While developing countries burn only a small fraction of the world's fossil fuels, some contribute heavily to global warming through deforestation. (Brazil, for example, is the fourth largest emitter of carbon dioxide). A long-term response to global warming should include developing countries, but they will need financial assistance from industrial nations in slowing deforestation, harnessing alternative energy sources, and obtaining substitute chemicals and appropriate technologies to eliminate CFC emissions. International negotiations to slow global warming have begun, but they are moving too slowly. While some smaller nations have proposed bold and innovative strategies, the economic and environmental super powers are still formulating their positions. That, however, will not be enough. It is important that a "Law of the Atmosphere" be more than a vague statement of intentions. To be effective, a global warming treaty will have to lay out stringent goals, cutting worldwide carbon emissions by at least 10 percent by the year 2000, en route to eventually reducing emissions by more than half. In addition, specific national goals are needed, recognizing each country's contribution to the problem and ability to respond. Finally, the international community will have to establish guidelines and provide support for climate stabilization programs (such as improved energy efficiency and reforestation), but allowing individual nations some flexibility in meeting their targets. While the challenge is a daunting one, climate change is a problem with which humanity still has the ability to cope. But time is short if we are to avoid a cataclysmic warming. Flavin Christopher, Worldwatch Paper Text 10 GENETICALLY ENGINEERED PRIZE FISH CAUSE CONCERN SCIENTISTS are genetically engineering "trophy" fish to make them bigger than ever for competition anglers. But the experiments have become caught in a wrangle over the ethics of such manipulation. Angling authorities are concerned over the ultimate size of artificially produced catches and environmentalists fear the effect on natural ecosystems of the ones that get away. Scientists say the most serious risk is that genetically engineered fish might be more competitive than natural fish, upsetting balances between predator and prey populations. So far, results of only a couple of field trials have been published. Research has concentrated on adding genes to enhance growth by lifting controls on growth hormones. Similar work on pigs and cows produced unexpected side effects, including rheumatism. Genetic manipulation in fish is even less predictable, since little is known about their molecular make-up, according to Dr David Penman, a research fellow at Stirling University's Institute of Aquaculture. "All this work is very much at the basic research, or speculation stage," he said, "but the technology is there, or almost there." Exploration by the fishing industry includes the possibility of giving Atlantic salmon "anti-freeze" genes from cold-tolerant fish to extend their range into colder waters. Other scientists are working on fish with delayed breeding seasons that allow them to get fatter earlier. Dr Penman has been commissioned by the Department of the Environment to produce a report on transgenic fish, due for publication next spring. He said the main brake on commercial interest was consumer acceptability and ethical concerns. "People are not so worried about eating engineered plants, but when it comes to animals that is a bit different." The Independent Text 11 A Breach in Language Barriers. Moshi-moshi? Nan no goyoo desuka? English speakers who call Japan may be puzzled by those words. But don't despair. Work is under way to convert these questions into a familiar "Hello? May I help you?" Automated translation of both ends of telephone conversation held in two different languages probably will not become reality for a decade or so. However research is now being conducted at several American, European and Japanese universities and at electronics companies. One such project, launched by Japan's Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International, will receive $107 million from the Japanese government, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp and a handful of corporate giants - for the first seven years alone. IBM is one sponsor of similar efforts at Carnegie-Mellon University. The goal is a system that will produce text out of the speech sounds of one language, analyze and translate it in context and reconvert the translated signals into speech. One day callers may simply need to hook their telephones up to personal computers and plug-in voice-recognition and synthesizing units to “converse” in a foreign language. They will also need a data file on the grammar of their own language and those they don’t speak. (Such files already exist in Japanese and English and are being developed for French? German and Spanish). Another requirement is “universal parser” software that identifies the relations between the words in a sentence and locates analogous constructions in the target language from the data files. Such parsers already perform satisfactory text-to-text translations. But they need to become faster, more accurate and less expensive before they can translate actual speech. Speech-recognition modules convert sound signals into digital pulses. The computer matches the digitized data to the phonemes – the shortest pronounceable segments of speech – registered in its software. Files can contain enough phonemes to cover most of the local derivations from the standard form of a given language. However, voice-recognizing equipment cannot yet tell actual speech from other sounds it picks up: laughter, crying, coughs and further background noises. Voice synthesizers, which reconvert the translated text into sounds, are further ahead than recognition units: they do not have to cope with the whimsical pronunciations and unpredictable noises emitted by humans. Text 12 History and hard heads. Never in the long range of history has the world been in such a state of flux as it is today. Never has there been so much anxious questioning, so much doubt and bewilderment, so much examining of old institutions, existing ills, and suggested remedies. There is a continuous process of change and revolution going all over the world, and anxious statesmen are at their wits' end and grope about in the dark. It is obvious that we are а part of this great world problem, and must be affected by world events. And yet little attempt is made to understand forces that are shaking and reforming the world before our eyes. Without this understanding history, whether past or present, becomes just a magic show with no lesson for us which might guide our future path. On the gaily-decked official stage phantom figures come and go, posing for a while as great statesmen. Their main concern is how to save the vested interests of various classes or groups; their main diversion, apart from feasting, is self-praise. Some people, blissfully ignorant of all that has happened in the last half-century, still talk the jargon of the Victorian Age and are surprised and resentful that nobody listens to them. Even the Nasmyth hammer of war and revolution and world change has failed to produce the slightest dent on their remarkably hard heads. |