Cheating in sport is as old as sport itself. The athletes of ancient Greece used potions to fortify themselves before a contest, and their modern counterparts have everything from anabolic steroids and growth hormones to doses of extra red blood cells with which to invigorate their bodies. These days, however, such stimulants are frowned on, and those athletes must therefore run the gauntlet of organizations such as the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which would rather that athletes competed without resorting to them. The agencies have had remarkable success. Testing for anabolic steroids (in other words, artificial testosterone) was introduced in the 1970s, and the incidence of cheating seems to have fallen dramatically as a result. The tests, however, are not foolproof. And a study just published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism by Jenny Jakobsson Schulze and her colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden suggests that an individual’s genetic make-up could confound them in two different ways. One genotype, to use the jargon, may allow athletes who use anabolic steroids to escape detection altogether. Another may actually be convicting the innocent. The test usually employed for testosterone abuse relies on measuring the ratio of two chemicals found in the urine: testosterone glucuronide (TG) and epitestosterone glucuronide (EG). The former is produced when testosterone is broken down, while the latter is unrelated to testosterone metabolism, and can thus serve as a reference point for the test. Any ratio above four of the former to one Of the latter is, according to official Olympic policy, considered suspicious and leads to more tests. However, the production of TG is controlled by an enzyme that is, in turn, encoded by a gene called UGT2B17. This gene comes in two varieties, one of which has a part missing and therefore does not work properly. A person may thus have none, one or two working copies of UGT2B17, since he inherits one copy from each parent. Dr. Schulze guessed that different numbers of working copies would produce different test results. She therefore gave healthy male volunteers whose genes had been examined a single 360rag shot of testosterone (the standard dose for legitimate medical use) and checked their urine to see whether the shot could be detected. The result was remarkable. Nearly half of the men who carried no functional copies of UGT2B17 would have gone undetected in the standard doping test. By contrast, 14% of those with two functional copies of the gene were over the detection threshold before they had even received an injection. The researchers estimate this would give a false-positive testing rate of 9% in a random population of young men. Dr. Schulze also says there is substantial ethnic variation in UGT2B17 genotypes. Two-thirds of Asians have no functional copies of the gene (which means they have a naturally low ratio of TG to EG), compared with under a tenth of Cancasians—something the anti-doping bodies may wish to take into account. In the meantime, Dr. Schulze’s study does seem to offer innocents a way of defending themselves. Athletes traveling to Beijing for the Olympic games may be wise to travel armed not only with courage and the "spirit of Olympianism", but also with a copy of their genetic profile, just in case. Which of the following is NOT true about UGT2B17, according to the passage
A. None, one or two working copies of UGT2B17 can be found in different people.
B. Test results would depend on numbers of working copies of UGT2B17.
C. Most Caucasians have no functional copies of UGT2B17.
D. Most Asians have no functional copies of UGT2B17.
X线胶片特性曲线是描绘曝光量与所产生的密度之间关系的一条曲线,由于这条曲线可以表示出感光材料的感光特性,所以称之为特性曲线。特性曲线的横坐标为曝光量,以对数值lgE表示;纵坐标为密度,以D表示。特性曲线由足部、直线部、肩部和反转部组成。足部密度的上升与曝光量不呈正比,曝光量增加很多,密度只有较小的增加。直线部密度与曝光量的增加呈正比,密度差保持一定,此时曲线沿一定的斜率直线上升。肩部密度随曝光量的增加而增加,但不呈正比。反转部随曝光量的增加密度反而下降,影像密度呈现逆转。特性曲线可提供感光材料的本底灰雾(Dmin)、感光度(S)、对比度(γ)、最大密度(Dmax)、宽容度(L)等参数,以表示感光材料的感光性能。 下列叙述正确的是
A. 产生反转是由于曝光不足所致
B. 胶片特性曲线为线性
C. 胶片感光速度越快,初感点越高
D. 直线部密度与曝光量成反比
E. 可表示感光材料的特性
Israel is a "powerhouse of agricultural technology", says Abraham Goren of Elbit Imaging (EI), an Israeli multinational. The country’s cows can produce as much as 37 liters of milk a day. In India, by contrast, cows yield just seven liters. Spotting an opportunity, EI is going into the Indian dairy business. It will import 10,000 cows and supply fortified and flavored milk to supermarkets and other buyers. So will EI lap up India’s milk market Not necessarily. As the Times of India points out, its cows will ruminate less than 100 miles from the headquarters of a formidable local producer—the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation, otherwise known as Amul. This Farmers’ Co-operative spans 2.6m members, collects 6.5m liters of milk a day, and boasts one of the longest-running and best-loved advertising campaigns In India. It has already shown "immense resilience" in the face of multinational competition, says Arindam Bhattacharya of the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Its ice-cream business survived the arrival of Unilever; its chocolate milk has thrived despite Nestlé. Indeed, Amul is one of 50 firms—from China, India, Brazil, Russia and six other emerging economies— that BCG has anointed as "local dynamos". They are prospering in their home market, are fending off multinational rivals, and are not focused on expanding abroad. BCG discovered many of these firms while drawing up its "global challengers" list of multinationals from the developing world. The companies that were venturing abroad most eagerly, it discovered, were not necessarily the most successful at home. Emerging economies are still prey to what Harvard’s Dani Rodrik has called "export fetishism". International success remains a firm’s proudest boast, and with good reason: economists have shown that exporters are typically bigger, more efficient and pay better than their more parochial rivals. "Exporters are better" was the crisp verdict of a recent review of the data. Countries like India and Brazil were, after all, once secluded backwaters fenced off by high tariffs. Prominent firms idled along on government favors and captive markets. In that era, exporting was a truer test of a company’s worth. But as such countries have opened up, their home markets have become more trying places. Withstanding the onslaught of foreign firms on home soil may be as impressive a feat as beating them in global markets. BCG describes some of the ways that feat has been accomplished. Of its 50 dynamos, 41 are in consumer businesses, where they can exploit a more intimate understanding of their compatriots’ tastes. It gives the example of Gol, a Brazilian budget airline, which bet that its cash-strapped customers would sacrifice convenience and speed for price. Many Gol planes therefore depart at odd hours and make several hops to out-of-the-way locations, rather than flying directly. Similarly astute was India’s Titan Industries, which has increased its share of India’s wristwatch market despite the entry of foreign brands such as Timex and Swatch. It understood that Indians, who expect a good price even for old newspapers, do not throw their watches away lightly, and has over 700 after-sales centers that will replace straps and batteries. Exporters tend to be more capital-intensive than their home-bound peers; they also rely more on skilled labor. Many local dynamos, conversely, take full advantage of the cheap workforce at their disposal. Focus Media, China’s biggest "out of home" advertising company, gets messages out on flat-panel displays in 85,000 locations around the country. Those displays could be linked and reprogrammed electronically, but that might fall foul of broadcast regulations. So instead the firm’s fleet of workers on bicycles replaces the displays’ discs and flash-cards by hand. The list of multinationals resisted or repelled by these dynamos includes some of the world’s biggest names: eBay and Google in China; Wal-Mart in Mexico; SAP in Brazil. But Mr. Goren of EI is not too worried about Amul. The market is big enough for everybody, he insists. Nothing, then, is for either company to cry about. Which of the following would the author most probably agree
A. Not all of the developing world’s most successful companies are globalizing.
B. Companies venturing abroad most eagerly are the most successful at home.
C. Local dynamos are the most successful firms all over the world.
D. Globalizing is not good for companies in emerging economies.