Which of the following is NOT included in paragraph 3 as a potential "busyness" signal?
A. Whether the office door is open or not.
B. Whether there are people with the person in question or not.
C. Whether the person is using the computer or not.
D. Whether the person is bothered by a question or not.
A Phone that Knows You're Busy
It's a modem conundrum: you're too busy to be disturbed by incessant phone calls so you mm your cell phone off. But if you don't remember to turn it back on when you're less busy, you could miss some important calls. If only the phone knew when it was wise to interrupt you, you wouldn't have to turn it off at all. Instead, it could let calls through during spells of relative inactivity.
A bunch of behavior. sensors and a clever piece of software could do just that, by analyzing your behavior. to determine if it's a good time to interrupt you. If built into a phone, the system may decide you're too busy and ask the caller to leave a message or ring back later. In a desktop computer, the system could stop instant messages or spain annoying you when you're busy.
James Fogarty and Scott Hudson at Camegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania based their system on tiny microphones, cameras and touch sensors that reveal body language and activity. First they had to study different behaviors to find out which ones strongly predict whether your mind is interrupted. The potential "busyness" signals they focused on included whether the office doors were left open or closed, the time of day, if other people were with the person in question, how close they were to each other, and whether or not the computer was in use.
The sensors monitored these and many other factors while four subjects were at work. At random intervals, the subjects rated how in term ptible they were on a scale ranging from "highly interruptible" to "highly not—term ptible". Their ratings were then correlated with the various behaviors. "It is a shotgun approach: we used all the indicators we could think of and then let statistics ferret out which were important," says Hudson.
The model showed that using the keyboard, and talking on a landline or to someone else in the office correlated most strongly with how interruptible the subjects judged themselves to be.
Interestingly, the computer was actually better than people at predicting when someone was too busy to be interrupted. The computer got it right 82 per cent of the time, humans 77 percent.
Fogarty speculates that this might be because people doing the interrupting are inevitably biased towards delivering their message, whereas computers don't care.
The first application for Hudson and Fogarty's system is likely to be in an instant messaging system, followed by office phones and cell phones. "There is no technological roadblock to it being deployed in a couple of years," says Hudson.
What is the modem conundrum the author has in mind?
A. You turn off your cell phone but forget to turn it back and miss important calls.
B. You are too busy to make phone calls and miss important information.
C. Too many calls are annoying, affecting your work efficiency.
D. Too many calls are disturbing, producing serious noise pollution.
IQ-gene
In the angry debate over how much of IQ comes from the genes that children inherit from parents and how much comes from experiences, one little fact gets overlooked: no one has identified any genes (other than those that cause retardation) that affect intelligence. So researchers led by Robert Plomin of London's Institute of Psychiatry decided to look for some. They figured that if you want to find a "smart gene" you should look in smart kids. They therefore examined the DNA of students like those who are so bright that they take college entrance exams four years early — and still score at Princeton—caliber levels. The scientists found what they sought. "We have," says Plomin, "the first specific gene ever associated with general intelligence."
Plomin's colleagues drew blood from two groups of 51 children each, all 6 to 15 years old and living in six counties around Cleveland. In one group, the average IQ is 103. All the children are white. Isolating the blood cells, the researchers then examined each child's chromosome 6 of the 37
landmarks on chromosome 6 that the researchers looked for, one jumped out: a form. of gene called IGF2R occurred in twice as many children in the high-IQ group as in the average group — 32 percent versus 16 percent. The study, in the May issue of the journal Psychological Science, concludes that it is this form. of the IGF2R gene that contributes to intelligence. Some geneticists see major problems with the IQ-gene study. One is the possibility that Plomin's group fell for "chopsticks fallacy". Geneticists might think they've found a gene for chopsticks flexibility. But all they've really found is a gene more common m Asians than, say, Africans. Similarly, Plomin's IQ gene might simply be one that is more common in groups mat emphasize academic achievement." What is the gene that they've found reflects ethnicity?" asks geneticist Andrew Feinberg of Johns Hopkins University. "That alone might explain the link to intelligence, since IQ tests are known for being culturally sensitive and affected by a child's environment." And Neil Risch of Stand ford University points out that if you look for 37 genes on a chromosome, as the researchers did, and find that one is more common in smarter kids, that might reflect pure chance rather than a causal link between the gene and Intelligence. Warns Feinberg, "I would take these findings with a whole box of salt."
In the beginning of paragraph one we are told that scientists can not agree ______.
A. how much of IQ comes from intelligence
B. how many children inherit genes from parents
C. how much of IQ comes from genes
D. how many children learn by experience
What does the last sentence of the passage most probably mean?
A. The rainforest in the Central African Republic will be preserved forever.
B. The well-designed exhibit will be preserved as an artifact.
C. The exhibit reflects the hope that natural rainforests will be well preserved.
D. The exhibit of the rainforest in the museum is the sole one in the world.