Tribute to Dr. Carlo Urbani, Identifier of SARS
(1) On the 29th of March, 2003, the World Health Organization doctor Carlo Urbani died of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, the fast-spreading pneumonia that had killed 54 people worldwide.
(2) The 46-year-old Italian doctor was the first WHO officer to identify the outbreak of this new disease in an American businessman. Dr. Urbani first saw the US businessman on Feb. 28, two days after the patient had been admitted to a hospital in Hanoi. Although Urbani had worn a mask, he lacked goggles and other protective clothing. He began demanding that Hanoi hospitals stock up on protective gear and tighten up infection control procedures. But he was frustrated at how long it was taking to teach infection-control procedures to people in hospitals. There were shortages of supplies, like disposable masks, gowns, gloves.
(3) After three weeks of round-the-clock effort, Urbani's superior urged him to take a few days off to attend a medical meeting in Bangkok, where he was to talk on childhood parasites. The day after he arrived, he began feeling ill - with symptoms of the new disease. He called his wife, now living in Hanoi with their three children. He said: "Go back to Italy and take the children, because this will be the end for me." Dr. Urbani developed a fever and was put into isolation where he remained until his death. The WHO representative in Hanoi said: "He was very much a doctor, his first goal was to help people."
(4) He was buried on April 2, 2003 in Castelplanio, central Italy, leaving behind his wife and children. The measures he helped put in place before his death appear to have doused the SARS wildfire in Vietnam.
Which of the following statements is NOT TRUE?
A. Dr. Urbani caught SARS from an American businessman who was hospitalized in Hanoi.
B. There were not enough disposable masks, gowns, gloves and protective equipment.
C. He knew he had little hope to survive after he was found infected.
Dr. Urbani had helped combating the new disease by putting in place a series of infection-control measures.
Long-married couples often schedule a weekly "date night"—a regular evening out with friends or at a favorite restaurant to strengthen their marital bond.
But brain and behavior. researchers say many couples are going about date night all wrong. Simply spending quality time together is probably not enough to prevent a relationship from getting stale.
Using laboratory studies, real-world experiments and even brain-scan data, scientists can now offer longmarried couples a simple prescription for rekindling the romantic love that brought them together in the first place. The solution? Reinventing date night.
Rather than visiting the same familiar haunts and dining with the same old friends, couples need to tailor their date nights around new and different activities that they both enjoy, says Arthur Aron, a professor of social psychology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. The goal is to find ways to keep injecting novelty into the relationship. The activity can be as simple as trying a new restaurant or something a little more unusual or thrilling—like taking an art class or going to an amusement park.
The theory is based on brain science. New experiences activate the brain's reward system, flooding it with dopamine and norepinephrine. These are the same brain circuits that are ignited in early romantic love, a time of exhilaration and obsessive thoughts about a new partner. (They are also the brain chemicals involved in drug addiction and obsessive-compulsive disorder. )
Most studies of love and marriage show that the decline of romantic love over time is inevitable. The butterflies of early romance quickly flutter away and are replaced by familiar, predictable feelings of long-term attachment.
But several experiments show that novelty—simply doing new things together as a couple—may help bring the butterflies back, recreating the chemical surges of early courtship.
Over the past several years, Dr. Aron and his colleagues have tested the novelty theory in a series of experiments with long-married couples.
In one of the earliest studies, the researchers recruited 53 middle-aged couples. Using standard questionnaires, the researchers measured the couples' relationship quality and then randomly assigned them to one of three groups.
One group was instructed to spend 90 minutes a week doing pleasant and familiar activities, like dining out or going to a movie. Couples in another group were instructed to spend 90 minutes a week on "exciting" activities that appealed to both husband and wife. Those couples did things they didn't typically do—attending concerts or plays, skiing, hiking and dancing. The third group was not assigned any particular activity.
After 10 weeks, the couples again took tests to gauge the quality of their relationships. Those who had undertaken the "exciting" date nights showed a significantly greater increase in marital satisfaction than the "pleasant" date night group.
While the results were compelling, they weren't conclusive. The experiment didn't occur in a controlled setting, and numerous variables could have affected the final results.
More recently, Dr. Aron and colleagues have created laboratory experiments to test the effects of novelty on marriage. In one set of experiments, some couples are assigned a mundane task that involves simply walking back and forth across a room. Other couples, however, take part in a more challenging exercise—their wrists and ankles are bound together as they crawl back and forth pushing a ball.
Before and after the exercise, the couples were asked things like, "How bored are you with your current relationship?" The couples who took part in the more challenging and novel activity showed bigger increases in love and satisfaction scores, while couples performing the mundane task showed no meaningful changes.
Dr. Aron cautions that novel
A. To find their friends to chat in a cafe.
B. To have a walk and talk about their future plans.
C. To take a training class together.
D. To go to see a movie they both enjoy.
Why are one-room schools in danger of disappearing?
A. Because they all exist in one state.
Because they skip too many children ahead.
C. Because there is a trend toward centralization.
D. Because there is no fourth-grade level in any of them.
One important symptom of OCD is the pursue of everything in the room in perfect order.
A. 正确
B. 错误