There is growing interest in East Japan Railway Co. , one of the six companies, created out of the (1) national railway system. In an industry lacking exciting growth (2) , its plan to use real-estate assets in and around train stations (3) is drawing interest.
In a plan dubbed "Station Renaissance" that it (4) in November, JR East said that it would (5) using its commercial spaces for shops and restaurants, extending them to (6) more suitable for the information age. It wants train stations as pick-up (7) for such goods, as books, flowers and groceries purchased (8) the Internet. In a country (9) urbanites depend heavily on trains (10) commuting, about 16 million people a day go to its train stations anyway, the company (11) . So, picking up purchases at train stations spare (12) extra travel and missed home deliveries.
JR East already has been using its station (13) stores for this purpose, but it plans to create (14) spaces for the delivery of Internet goods.
The company also plans to introduce (15) cards--known in Japan as IC cards because they use integrated (16) for holding information-- (17) train tickets and commuter passes (18) the magnetic ones used today, integrating them into a single pass. This will save the company money, because (19) for IC cards are much less expensive than magnetic systems. Increased use of IC cards should also (20) the space needed for ticket vending.

Read the following text. Choose the best word (s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on ANSWER SHEET 1.20（）

A:shrink B:narrow C:descend D:reduce

Directions:Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on ANSWER SHEET 1. Some of the concerns surrounding Turkey’s application to join the European Union, to be (1) on by the EU’s Council of Ministers on December 17th, are economic—in particular, the country’s relative poverty. Its GDP per head is less than a third of the average for the 15 pre-2004 members of the EU. (2) it is not far off that of Latvia—one of the ten new members which (3) on May 1st 2004, and it is much the same as (4) of two countries, Bulgaria and Romania, which this week concluded (5) talks with the EU that could make them full members on January 1st 2007. (6) , the country’s recent economic progress has been, according to Donald Johnston, the secretary-general of the OECD, stunning. GDP in the second quarter of the year was 13.4% higher than a year earlier, a (7) of growth that no EU country comes close to (8) . Turkey’s (9) rate has just fallen into single figures for the first time since 1972, and this week the country (10) agreement with the IMF on a new three-year, $10 billion iconomic program that will help Turkey (11) inflation toward European levels, and enhance the economy’s resilience. Resilience has not historically been the country’s economic strong point. (12) , throughout the 1990s growth oscillated like an electrocardiogram (13) a violent heart attack. This (14) has been one of the main reasons why the country has failed dismally to attract much-needed foreign direct investment. Its stock of such investment is lower now than it was in the 1980s, and annual (15) have scarcely ever reached $1 billion. One deterrent to foreign investors is due to (16) on January 1st 2005. On that day, Turkey will take away the right of virtually every one of its citizens to call themselves a millionaire. Six zeros will be removed from the face value of the lira(里拉,土耳其贷币单位); one unit of the local (17) will henceforth be worth what 1 million are now—ie, about0.53 ( 0.53 欧元). Goods will have to be (18) in both the new and old lira for the whole of the year, (19) foreign bankers and (20) can begin to look forward to a time in Turkey when they will no longer have to juggle mentally with indeterminate strings of zeros.

A:reduce B:drop C:shrink D:descend

Some day software will translate both written and spoken language so well that the need for any common second language could ______.

A:descend B:decline C:deteriorate D:depress

Swimmers can drown in busy swimming pools when lifeguards fail to notice that they are in trouble. A report says that on average 15 people drown in British pools each year, but many more suffer major injury after getting into difficulties. Now a French company has developed an artificial intelligence system called Poseidon that sounds the alarm when it sees someone in danger of drowning.
When a swimmer sinks towards the bottom of the pool, the new system sends an alarm signal to a poolside monitoring station and a lifeguard’s pager (呼机). In trials at a pool in Ancenis, near Nantes, it saved a life within just a few months, says Alistair McQuade, a spokesman for its maker, Poseidon Technologies.
Poseidon keeps watch through a network of underwater and overhead video cameras. AI software analyses the images to work out swimmers’ trajectories (轨迹). To do this reliably, it has to tell the difference between a swimmer and the shadow of someone being cast onto the bottom or side of the pool.
It does the same with an image from another camera viewing the shape from a different angle. If the two projections are in the same position, the shape is identified as a shadow and is ignored. But if they are different, the shape is a swimmer and so the system follows its trajectory.
To pick out potential drowning victims, anyone in the water who starts to descend slowly is added to the software’s "pre-alert" (预先警戒) list, says McQuade. Swimmers who then stay immobile on the pool bottom for 5 seconds or more are considered in danger of drowning. Poseidon double-checks that the image really is of a swimmer, not a shadow, by seeing whether it obscures (使模糊) the pool’s floor texture when viewed from overhead. If so, it alerts the lifeguard, showing the swimmer’s location on a poolside screen.
The first full-scale Poseidon system will be officially opened next week at a pool in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. One man who is impressed with the idea is Travor Baylis, inventor of the clockwork (时钟装置) radio. Baylis runs a company that installs swimming pools-and he was once an underwater escapologist (脱身杂技演员) with a circus (马戏团)."I say full marks to them if this works and can save lives," he says.
To save a life, AI software must be able to

A:descend in the water. B:videotape every movement. C:distinguish between a swimmer and a shadow. D:save a life within a few months.

We derive information mainly from the Internet.（　）

A:deprive B:obtain C:descend D:trace

We {{U}}derive{{/U}} knowledge mainly from books.

A:deprive B:obtain C:descend D:trace

We {{U}}derive{{/U}} information mainly from the Internet.

A:deprive B:obtain C:descend D:trace

Driverless ears
Professor Sebastian Thrun, director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, wants to cut the number of ears on planet earth by 50%.
He said: "It’s a huge waste of money and resources to do so—we use ears about 3% of the time. "
Professor Thrun is a leader in the field of driverless Cars and has built two robotic vehiclescalled Stanley and Junior.
The cars have no human driver and no remote control system—everything from sensors to navigation is handled by an onboard computer.
They were both entered into the DARPA Grand Challenge—a race for autonomous vehicles. Stanley won in 2004 and Junior took second place in 2007.
But the ultimate goal is to create a world where self - aware vehicles can drive passengers around without hitting pedestrians or bumping into other vehicles.
"To be able to understand the environment as deep as humans do is the holy grail of artificial intelligence. "
"It’s a huge amount of work to make computers understand what is the behaviour of the two people on the right, both waiting at an intersection—will they walk or not It is a really hard question. "
Perfect missions
Researchers at Stanford are trying to program helicopters to fly perfect missions every time including loops.
Imagine, for example, a search and rescue chopper that can descend into a narrow canyon countless times without its rotors ever touching the edges.
Andrew Ng, an associate professor in the Computer Science Department, said it would be very difficult to write software to make a helicopter early out stunts in the air.
Instead, researchers asked a expert human pilot to demonstrate the stunts. The computer learned from the demonstrations how to fly by itself.
It is called apprenticeship learning—the computer figures out what the human pilot is trying to do and then uses algorithms to correct or perfect the operations.
Professor Ng said:" The accelerometers of the helicopter will feel the force of the wind pushing the helicopter aside and what the helicopter has learned to do is how to adjust the controls to move itself back onto the desired flight path. /
What can be inferred from the passage

A:It is easy for pilots to do the stunts when operating helicopters in the air. B:It is easy for helicopters to descend into a narrow canyon to do rescue work. C:It is difficult to design software which enables a helicopter to do stunts. D:There is no such software that enables a helicopter to do stunts.

We derive knowledge mainly from books.

A:deprive B:obtain C:descend D:trace