Car Thieves Could Be Stopped Remotely

Speeding off¹ in a stolen car, the thief thinks he has got a great catch². But he is in a nasty surprise³. The car is fitted with a remote immobilizer, and a radio signal from a control center miles away will ensure that once the thief switches the engine   1  , he will not be able to start it again.

For now, such devices    2   only available for fleets of trucks⁴ and specialist vehicles used on construction sites. But remote immobilization technology could soon start to trickle down to ordinary cars⁵, and    3   be available to ordinary cars in the UK    4    two months.

The idea goes like this. A control box fitted to the car incorporates⁶    5    miniature cellphone, a microprocessor and memory, and a GPS⁷ satellite positioning receiver.    6   the car is stolen, a coded cellphone signal will tell the unit to block the vehicle’s engine management system and prevent the engine    7    restarted.

There are even plans for immobilizers    8   shut down vehicles on the moves⁸, though there are fears over the safety implications of such a system.

In the UK, an array of⁹ technical fixes¹⁰ is already making    9   harder for car thieves. “The pattern of vehicles crime has changed.” says Martyn Randall of Thatcham, a security research organization based in Berkshire¹¹ that is funded in part    10   the motor insurance industry.

He says it would only take him a few minutes to    11   a novice how to steal a car, using a bare minimum of tools¹². But only if the car is more than 10 years old.

Modern cars are a far tougher proposition¹³, as their engine management computer will not

  12   them to start unless they receive a unique ID code beamed out¹⁴ by the ignition key. In the UK, technologies like this    13   achieve a 31 per cent drop in vehicle-related crime¹⁵ since 1997.

But determined criminals are still managing to find other ways to steal cars. Often by getting hold of the owner’s keys in a burglary. In 2000, 12 per cent of vehicles stolen in the UK were taken by using the owner’s keys, which doubles the previous year’s figure.

Remote-controlled immobilization system would   14   a major new obstacle in the criminal’s way by making such thefts pointless. A group that includes Thatcham, the police, insurance companies and security technology firms have developed standards for a system that could go on the market sooner than the   15   expects.

词汇：    

immobilizer n．使车辆不能调动的装置
cellphone n．移动电话，手机
ignition / ɪɡˈnɪʃən / n．点火
trickle / "trɪkl / v．慢慢移动
immobilization / ɪˌməʊbəlaɪ"zeɪʃn / n．使车辆不能调动
burglary / "bɜ:ɡlərɪ / n．夜窃行为；盗窃

注释：

1. speed off：超速驾驶

2. catch：捕获物，猎获物

3. nasty：very unpleasant or annoying使人不愉快的；烦人的

4. fleets of trucks：卡车队。 Fleet：a group of vessels or vehicles owned or operated as a unit车队

5. trickle down to ordinary cars：慢慢地用到普通汽车上。 trickle：to move or proceed slowly or bit by bit慢慢地或一点一点地移动或前进

6. incorporate：to cause to merge or combine together into a united whole混合，合并到某一整体中

7. GPS：Global Positioning System全球定位系统

8. vehicles on the move：在行驶中的车辆

9. an array of：一群；一批

10. technical fixes：技术装置

11. Berkshire：a county of south-central England贝克郡，位于英格兰中南部

12. a bare minimum of tools：极少的工具。 bare：just sufficient；mere刚刚充足的；仅仅

13. Modern cars are a far tougher proposition：现代车远没有这么简单（偷盗现代车要困难得多 )。Proposition：a matter to be dealt with；a task任务，要处理的事务。

14. beam out：to emit or transmit发送，传送

15. drop in vehicle-related crime：涉及车辆犯罪案的下降。 drop：decrease下降

空14

A:speak B:have C:link D:put

Better Solar Energy Systems: More Heat, More Light

Solar photovoltaic thermal energy systems¹, or PVTs, generate both heat and electricity, but

   1   now they² haven’t been very good at the heat-generating part compared to a stand-alone³ solar thermal collector. That’s because they operate at low temperatures to cool crystalline silicon solar cells⁴, which⁵ lets the silicon generate more   2   but isn’t a very efficient way to gather heat.

That’s a problem of   3   . Good solar hot-water systems can harvest much more energy than a solar-electric system at a substantially lower   4    . And it，s also a space problem：photovoltaic cells can take up all the space on the roof, leaving little room⁶ for thermal applications.

In a pair of studies, Joshua Pearce, an associate professor of materials science and engineering, has devised a    5    in the form of a better PVT made with a different kind of silicon. His research collaborators are Kunal Girotra from ThinSilicon in California and Michael Pathak and Stephen Harrison from Queen’s University, Canada."

Most solar panels⁷ are made with crystalline silicon，you can also make solar cells out ofbut amorphous silicon⁸,   6   known as thin-film silicon⁹. They don’t create as much electricity,but they are lighter, flexible, and cheaper. And, because they   7   much less silicon, they have a greener footprint. Unfortunately，thin-film silicon solar cells are   8   to some bad-news physics in the form of the Staebler-Wronski effect¹⁰.

“That means that their efficiency    9   when you expose them to light — pretty much¹¹ the worst possible effect¹² for a solar cell,” Pearce explains，which is one of the   10   thin-film solar panels make up only a small fraction of the market.

However, Pearce and his team found away to engineer around¹³ the Staebler-Wronski effect by incorporating thin-film silicon in a new   11   of PVT. You don’t have to cool down thin-film silicon to make it work. In fact，Pearce’s group discovered that by heating it to solar-thermal operating temperatures¹⁴，near the boiling   12   of water, they could make thicker cells that largely  13   the Staebler-Wronski effect. When they applied the thin-film silicon directly to a solar thermal energy

   14   , they also found that by baking the cell once a day，they   15   the solar cell’s electrical efficiency by over 10 percent.

词汇:

photovoltaic / ,fəʊtəʊvɒl"teɪɪk /n.光电的
silicon / "sɪlɪkən /n.硅
thermal / "θɜːməl /adj.热的，热量的
amorphous/ ə"mɔːfəs/ adj.非晶形的

crystalline / "krɪstə"laɪn /adj.晶体的

footprint/ "fʊtprɪnt/ n.足迹

注释：

1. solar photovoltaic thermal energy systems:太阳能光伏热能系统

2. they: 指代 solar photovoltaic thermal energy systems。

3. stand-alone:单机的

4. crystalline silicon solar cells:晶体硅太阳能电池

5. which:指前半句中的 to cool crystalline silicon solar cells 这件事

6. room:空间

7. solar panels:太阳能电池板

8. amorphous silicon：非晶硅

9. thin-film silicon:薄膜硅

10. Staebler-Wronski Effect: SWE 效应。在光的照射下，非晶桂氢的导电性短时间内显著衰退，这种特性被称为 SWE 效应。

11. pretty much:几乎

12. the worst possible effect：最可能坏的效应

13. engineer around:精心地设计以克服或绕过

空14

A:transformer B:adaptor C:transmitter D:collector

A Life with Birds