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id_4400 | On January 4, 1998, the city of Mitchelville recorded its lowest temperature since 1896. The temperature in Mitchelville on January 4 was 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Two days earlier, two inches of snow fell on the city, and this, too, was an 102-year-old record. | The temperature in Mitchelville has never reached 4 degrees Fahrenheit. | n |
id_4401 | On Saturday 12 May at 09.30 the groundsman at Dithcote Cricket Club discovered that the wickets had been vandalized and that the turf had been dug up and removed. The afternoon match between teams drawn from the members of the Conservative Club and the Round Table had to be cancelled. By Sunday it was evident that weedkiller had been used on the pitch and had been spread in the shape of the CND symbol. It is also known that: The groundsman is in sole charge of entry into the grounds of Dithcote Cricket Club. The Conservative Party had a majority on Dithcote Council. The local Conservative MP broke his leg on Thursday 10 May. The groundsman is a supporter of Greenpeace. A campaign to make Dithcote a nuclear-free zone had recently ended in failure. Brian Agler is the local Conservative MP. Brian Agler had played first-class cricket for his county. | Brian Agler is a known supporter of the policies of right-wing extremist groups. | n |
id_4402 | On Saturday 12 May at 09.30 the groundsman at Dithcote Cricket Club discovered that the wickets had been vandalized and that the turf had been dug up and removed. The afternoon match between teams drawn from the members of the Conservative Club and the Round Table had to be cancelled. By Sunday it was evident that weedkiller had been used on the pitch and had been spread in the shape of the CND symbol. It is also known that: The groundsman is in sole charge of entry into the grounds of Dithcote Cricket Club. The Conservative Party had a majority on Dithcote Council. The local Conservative MP broke his leg on Thursday 10 May. The groundsman is a supporter of Greenpeace. A campaign to make Dithcote a nuclear-free zone had recently ended in failure. Brian Agler is the local Conservative MP. Brian Agler had played first-class cricket for his county. | The groundsman may have known the people who vandalized the cricket ground. | e |
id_4403 | On Saturday 12 May at 09.30 the groundsman at Dithcote Cricket Club discovered that the wickets had been vandalized and that the turf had been dug up and removed. The afternoon match between teams drawn from the members of the Conservative Club and the Round Table had to be cancelled. By Sunday it was evident that weedkiller had been used on the pitch and had been spread in the shape of the CND symbol. It is also known that: The groundsman is in sole charge of entry into the grounds of Dithcote Cricket Club. The Conservative Party had a majority on Dithcote Council. The local Conservative MP broke his leg on Thursday 10 May. The groundsman is a supporter of Greenpeace. A campaign to make Dithcote a nuclear-free zone had recently ended in failure. Brian Agler is the local Conservative MP. Brian Agler had played first-class cricket for his county. | Had the game gone ahead on Saturday 12 May, Brian Agler would have opened the batting for the Conservative Club eleven. | c |
id_4404 | On Saturday 12 May at 09.30 the groundsman at Dithcote Cricket Club discovered that the wickets had been vandalized and that the turf had been dug up and removed. The afternoon match between teams drawn from the members of the Conservative Club and the Round Table had to be cancelled. By Sunday it was evident that weedkiller had been used on the pitch and had been spread in the shape of the CND symbol. It is also known that: The groundsman is in sole charge of entry into the grounds of Dithcote Cricket Club. The Conservative Party had a majority on Dithcote Council. The local Conservative MP broke his leg on Thursday 10 May. The groundsman is a supporter of Greenpeace. A campaign to make Dithcote a nuclear-free zone had recently ended in failure. Brian Agler is the local Conservative MP. Brian Agler had played first-class cricket for his county. | The vandals may have broken into the cricket ground. | e |
id_4405 | On Saturday 12 May at 09.30 the groundsman at Dithcote Cricket Club discovered that the wickets had been vandalized and that the turf had been dug up and removed. The afternoon match between teams drawn from the members of the Conservative Club and the Round Table had to be cancelled. By Sunday it was evident that weedkiller had been used on the pitch and had been spread in the shape of the CND symbol. It is also known that: The groundsman is in sole charge of entry into the grounds of Dithcote Cricket Club. The Conservative Party had a majority on Dithcote Council. The local Conservative MP broke his leg on Thursday 10 May. The groundsman is a supporter of Greenpeace. A campaign to make Dithcote a nuclear-free zone had recently ended in failure. Brian Agler is the local Conservative MP. Brian Agler had played first-class cricket for his county. | The Conservative Party had blocked the recent campaign to make Dithcote a nuclear-free zone. | n |
id_4406 | On the day the Barton triplets are born, Jenna weighs more than Jason. Jason weighs less than Jasmine. | Of the three babies, Jasmine weighs the most. | n |
id_4407 | On the evening of 3 November a mother and daughter were found dead in their two-bedroom flat in Diswich. Both victims had suffocated and the police are treating the incident as suspicious. It is also known that: The victims were Mary Cauld, aged 24 years, and Sarah Cauld, aged 6 years. Mary Caulds father had recently been released from prison. Sarah Cauld had been revealed HIV positive on 26 October. Gary Davison was Mary Caulds ex-husband. A young man was seen near the flat on 2 November. The flat had not been broken into. Gary reported the deaths to the police at 6.45 pm on 3 November. Mary Cauld was owed 900 by Gary and had threatened to take him to court if he did not pay up soon. | Mary Cauld could have killed her own daughter. | e |
id_4408 | On the evening of 3 November a mother and daughter were found dead in their two-bedroom flat in Diswich. Both victims had suffocated and the police are treating the incident as suspicious. It is also known that: The victims were Mary Cauld, aged 24 years, and Sarah Cauld, aged 6 years. Mary Caulds father had recently been released from prison. Sarah Cauld had been revealed HIV positive on 26 October. Gary Davison was Mary Caulds ex-husband. A young man was seen near the flat on 2 November. The flat had not been broken into. Gary reported the deaths to the police at 6.45 pm on 3 November. Mary Cauld was owed 900 by Gary and had threatened to take him to court if he did not pay up soon. | Marys father was near the flat on 2 November. | n |
id_4409 | On the evening of 3 November a mother and daughter were found dead in their two-bedroom flat in Diswich. Both victims had suffocated and the police are treating the incident as suspicious. It is also known that: The victims were Mary Cauld, aged 24 years, and Sarah Cauld, aged 6 years. Mary Caulds father had recently been released from prison. Sarah Cauld had been revealed HIV positive on 26 October. Gary Davison was Mary Caulds ex-husband. A young man was seen near the flat on 2 November. The flat had not been broken into. Gary reported the deaths to the police at 6.45 pm on 3 November. Mary Cauld was owed 900 by Gary and had threatened to take him to court if he did not pay up soon. | Sarah Cauld was a healthy child when she died. | c |
id_4410 | On the evening of 3 November a mother and daughter were found dead in their two-bedroom flat in Diswich. Both victims had suffocated and the police are treating the incident as suspicious. It is also known that: The victims were Mary Cauld, aged 24 years, and Sarah Cauld, aged 6 years. Mary Caulds father had recently been released from prison. Sarah Cauld had been revealed HIV positive on 26 October. Gary Davison was Mary Caulds ex-husband. A young man was seen near the flat on 2 November. The flat had not been broken into. Gary reported the deaths to the police at 6.45 pm on 3 November. Mary Cauld was owed 900 by Gary and had threatened to take him to court if he did not pay up soon. | Gary was the first person to find the two dead bodies. | n |
id_4411 | On the evening of 3 November a mother and daughter were found dead in their two-bedroom flat in Diswich. Both victims had suffocated and the police are treating the incident as suspicious. It is also known that: The victims were Mary Cauld, aged 24 years, and Sarah Cauld, aged 6 years. Mary Caulds father had recently been released from prison. Sarah Cauld had been revealed HIV positive on 26 October. Gary Davison was Mary Caulds ex-husband. A young man was seen near the flat on 2 November. The flat had not been broken into. Gary reported the deaths to the police at 6.45 pm on 3 November. Mary Cauld was owed 900 by Gary and had threatened to take him to court if he did not pay up soon. | Gary Davison is a carrier of AIDS. | n |
id_4412 | On weekends, Mr. Sanchez spends many hours working in his vegetable and flower gardens. Mrs. Sanchez spends her free time reading and listening to classical music. Both Mr. Sanchez and Mrs. Sanchez like to cook. | Mrs. Sanchez enjoys reading nineteenth-century novels. | n |
id_4413 | On weekends, Mr. Sanchez spends many hours working in his vegetable and flower gardens. Mrs. Sanchez spends her free time reading and listening to classical music. Both Mr. Sanchez and Mrs. Sanchez like to cook. | Mr. Sanchez enjoys planting and growing vegetables. | e |
id_4414 | On weekends, Mr. Sanchez spends many hours working in his vegetable and flower gardens. Mrs. Sanchez spends her free time reading and listening to classical music. Both Mr. Sanchez and Mrs. Sanchez like to cook. | Mr. Sanchez does not like classical music. | n |
id_4415 | On weekends, Mr. Sanchez spends many hours working in his vegetable and flower gardens. Mrs. Sanchez spends her free time reading and listening to classical music. Both Mr. Sanchez and Mrs. Sanchez like to cook. | Mrs. Sanchez cooks the vegetables that Mr. Sanchez grows. | n |
id_4416 | One of the critical elements of performance management is coaching people to develop the skills that can make them achieve success and move up the corporate ladder. This development planning process is traditionally tied to an assessment of the individuals skills gaps assessed against specific competencies which the organisation believes are valuable. The assessment gives an employee a sense of the skills they need to perform at a higher level, and specifically the skills and competencies they need to develop for success. The organisation, in turn, gains a sense of the employees compatibility and potential within the company, as well as a clearer understanding of the competencies that result in the employee's higher performance. | Undergoing performance management is essential for moving up the corporate ladder. | n |
id_4417 | One of the critical elements of performance management is coaching people to develop the skills that can make them achieve success and move up the corporate ladder. This development planning process is traditionally tied to an assessment of the individuals skills gaps assessed against specific competencies which the organisation believes are valuable. The assessment gives an employee a sense of the skills they need to perform at a higher level, and specifically the skills and competencies they need to develop for success. The organisation, in turn, gains a sense of the employees compatibility and potential within the company, as well as a clearer understanding of the competencies that result in the employee's higher performance. | Employees' awareness of the competencies necessary for success will improve company performance. | n |
id_4418 | One of the critical elements of performance management is coaching people to develop the skills that can make them achieve success and move up the corporate ladder. This development planning process is traditionally tied to an assessment of the individuals skills gaps assessed against specific competencies which the organisation believes are valuable. The assessment gives an employee a sense of the skills they need to perform at a higher level, and specifically the skills and competencies they need to develop for success. The organisation, in turn, gains a sense of the employees compatibility and potential within the company, as well as a clearer understanding of the competencies that result in the employee's higher performance. | Both employees and company benefit from the process of performance management. | e |
id_4419 | One of the great paradoxes of entrepreneurship is that entrepreneurs must develop the capacity to engage the urgent with the emergent. Routine pressures force us to allow the urgent to dominate us, quarterly reports, market share, and tangible return on investment become paramount in this paradox, emergent (strategic) issues are often lost. The urgent presents itself in tangible shape and form, whereas the emergent is subtler in its appearance. Entrepreneurs need to pre-sense emergent reality, thus they require more than ordinary attentiveness. However, information consumes the attention of the recipient, and urgent information is by nature more demanding of attention than emergent. Yet it is an awareness of the emergent that frequently distinguishes the successful leader, the individual who can see through the reactive demands of day-to-day urgency to act rapidly upon the emergent trends that, if capitalized upon, can ensure commercial triumph. One way of ensuring time to identify the emergent is to make time for reflective moments in work life in order to restore the quality of attentiveness and see through the fog of the immediate. | It is easy to lose sight of the strategic issues given the demands that immediate issues make. | e |
id_4420 | One of the great paradoxes of entrepreneurship is that entrepreneurs must develop the capacity to engage the urgent with the emergent. Routine pressures force us to allow the urgent to dominate us, quarterly reports, market share, and tangible return on investment become paramount in this paradox, emergent (strategic) issues are often lost. The urgent presents itself in tangible shape and form, whereas the emergent is subtler in its appearance. Entrepreneurs need to pre-sense emergent reality, thus they require more than ordinary attentiveness. However, information consumes the attention of the recipient, and urgent information is by nature more demanding of attention than emergent. Yet it is an awareness of the emergent that frequently distinguishes the successful leader, the individual who can see through the reactive demands of day-to-day urgency to act rapidly upon the emergent trends that, if capitalized upon, can ensure commercial triumph. One way of ensuring time to identify the emergent is to make time for reflective moments in work life in order to restore the quality of attentiveness and see through the fog of the immediate. | The present tends to be governed by the immediate demands. | e |
id_4421 | One of the great paradoxes of entrepreneurship is that entrepreneurs must develop the capacity to engage the urgent with the emergent. Routine pressures force us to allow the urgent to dominate us, quarterly reports, market share, and tangible return on investment become paramount in this paradox, emergent (strategic) issues are often lost. The urgent presents itself in tangible shape and form, whereas the emergent is subtler in its appearance. Entrepreneurs need to pre-sense emergent reality, thus they require more than ordinary attentiveness. However, information consumes the attention of the recipient, and urgent information is by nature more demanding of attention than emergent. Yet it is an awareness of the emergent that frequently distinguishes the successful leader, the individual who can see through the reactive demands of day-to-day urgency to act rapidly upon the emergent trends that, if capitalized upon, can ensure commercial triumph. One way of ensuring time to identify the emergent is to make time for reflective moments in work life in order to restore the quality of attentiveness and see through the fog of the immediate. | It is easier to spot an emergent trend than an urgent issue. | c |
id_4422 | One of the great paradoxes of entrepreneurship is that entrepreneurs must develop the capacity to engage the urgent with the emergent. Routine pressures force us to allow the urgent to dominate us, quarterly reports, market share, and tangible return on investment become paramount in this paradox, emergent (strategic) issues are often lost. The urgent presents itself in tangible shape and form, whereas the emergent is subtler in its appearance. Entrepreneurs need to pre; sense emergent reality, thus they require more than ordinary attentiveness. However, information consumes the attention of the recipient, and urgent information is by nature more demanding of attention than emergent. Yet it is an awareness of the emergent that frequently distinguishes the successful leader, the individual who can see through the reactive demands of day; to; day urgency to act rapidly upon the emergent trends that, if capitalized upon, can ensure commercial triumph. One way of ensuring time to identify the emergent is to make time for reflective moments in work life in order to restore the quality of attentiveness and see through the fog of the immediate. | It is easy to lose sight of the strategic issues given the demands that immediate issues make. | e |
id_4423 | One of the great paradoxes of entrepreneurship is that entrepreneurs must develop the capacity to engage the urgent with the emergent. Routine pressures force us to allow the urgent to dominate us, quarterly reports, market share, and tangible return on investment become paramount in this paradox, emergent (strategic) issues are often lost. The urgent presents itself in tangible shape and form, whereas the emergent is subtler in its appearance. Entrepreneurs need to pre; sense emergent reality, thus they require more than ordinary attentiveness. However, information consumes the attention of the recipient, and urgent information is by nature more demanding of attention than emergent. Yet it is an awareness of the emergent that frequently distinguishes the successful leader, the individual who can see through the reactive demands of day; to; day urgency to act rapidly upon the emergent trends that, if capitalized upon, can ensure commercial triumph. One way of ensuring time to identify the emergent is to make time for reflective moments in work life in order to restore the quality of attentiveness and see through the fog of the immediate. | It is easier to spot an emergent trend than an urgent issue | c |
id_4424 | One of the great paradoxes of entrepreneurship is that entrepreneurs must develop the capacity to engage the urgent with the emergent. Routine pressures force us to allow the urgent to dominate us, quarterly reports, market share, and tangible return on investment become paramount in this paradox, emergent (strategic) issues are often lost. The urgent presents itself in tangible shape and form, whereas the emergent is subtler in its appearance. Entrepreneurs need to pre; sense emergent reality, thus they require more than ordinary attentiveness. However, information consumes the attention of the recipient, and urgent information is by nature more demanding of attention than emergent. Yet it is an awareness of the emergent that frequently distinguishes the successful leader, the individual who can see through the reactive demands of day; to; day urgency to act rapidly upon the emergent trends that, if capitalized upon, can ensure commercial triumph. One way of ensuring time to identify the emergent is to make time for reflective moments in work life in order to restore the quality of attentiveness and see through the fog of the immediate. | The present tends to be governed by the immediate demands. | e |
id_4425 | One of the most important measures of a countrys trading strength is the measurement of its net exports. Net exports are defined as exports less imports. It is important since the figure measures the net effect of a nations trade in goods and services vis-a-vis the world. In 1998, the countrys net exports were 7 percent of its GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and in 2005, they were 14 percent. | In 1998, net exports were lower than in 2005. | n |
id_4426 | One of the most important measures of a countrys trading strength is the measurement of its net exports. Net exports are defined as exports less imports. It is important since the figure measures the net effect of a nations trade in goods and services vis-a-vis the world. In 1998, the countrys net exports were 7 percent of its GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and in 2005, they were 14 percent. | If GDP was constant from 1998 to 2005, net exports were greater in 2005 than in 1998. | e |
id_4427 | One of the most important measures of a countrys trading strength is the measurement of its net exports. Net exports are defined as exports less imports. It is important since the figure measures the net effect of a nations trade in goods and services vis-a-vis the world. In 1998, the countrys net exports were 7 percent of its GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and in 2005, they were 14 percent. | Exports were greater than imports in 2005, but not in 1998. | c |
id_4428 | One of the most important measures of a countrys trading strength is the measurement of its net exports. Net exports are defined as exports less imports. It is important since the figure measures the net effect of a nations trade in goods and services vis-a-vis the world. In 1998, the countrys net exports were 7 percent of its GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and in 2005, they were 14 percent. | Exports doubled from 1998 to 2005. | c |
id_4429 | One of the most important measures of a countrys trading strength is the measurement of its net exports. Net exports are defined as exports less imports. It is important since the figure measures the net effect of a nations trade in goods and services vis-a-vis the world. In 1998, the countrys net exports were 7 percent of its GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and in 2005, they were 14 percent. | Exports doubled from 1998 to 2005. | n |
id_4430 | One of the most important measures of a countrys trading strength is the measurement of its net exports. Net exports are defined as exports less imports. It is important since the figure measures the net effect of a nations trade in goods and services vis-a-vis the world. In 1998, the countrys net exports were 7 percent of its GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and in 2005, they were 14 percent. | In 1998, net exports were lower than in 2005. | c |
id_4431 | Online roommate finder: Toronto I have one room available in a large apartment located just off Queen and Bathurst in Toronto. The room is fully furnished with a double bed, desk, shelf and wardrobe. About us: Im Sasha! Im Canadian, and Ive been living in this apartment since I was a teenager. Im 23 and work in a restaurant. These past two years, my best friend has been living here but as shes now moving to Europe there is a room available as of October 1. The third room is occupied by Simon, who is from Australia. He works part-time in a music shop downtown and is a great drummer. We both like keeping the place neat and tidy I actually enjoy cleaning in my spare time and sometimes we do it together as a roommate team (we make it fun! ). I love watching movies, exploring, getting out of the city and into the outdoors, and listening to music. The apartment itself is very large and comes equipped with unlimited wi-fi, a fully stocked kitchen, cable television, and Netflix. The bedroom is a long way from the living room, so it shouldnt disturb you if people come round and besides, we are certainly very respectful. Oh! We also have two cats who are well-behaved but they might be a problem if you have allergies. If you have a pet, thats no problem these cats get along with other animals. We love having people coming from other countries as its really fun having the opportunity to show them around the neighborhood (its a great neighborhood lots of character and plenty to do). That said, were certainly interested in living with Canadians too! Were very easy-going and open-minded and just hope that our new roommate will be the same. | Sasha does all the cleaning in the apartment. | c |
id_4432 | Online roommate finder: Toronto I have one room available in a large apartment located just off Queen and Bathurst in Toronto. The room is fully furnished with a double bed, desk, shelf and wardrobe. About us: Im Sasha! Im Canadian, and Ive been living in this apartment since I was a teenager. Im 23 and work in a restaurant. These past two years, my best friend has been living here but as shes now moving to Europe there is a room available as of October 1. The third room is occupied by Simon, who is from Australia. He works part-time in a music shop downtown and is a great drummer. We both like keeping the place neat and tidy I actually enjoy cleaning in my spare time and sometimes we do it together as a roommate team (we make it fun! ). I love watching movies, exploring, getting out of the city and into the outdoors, and listening to music. The apartment itself is very large and comes equipped with unlimited wi-fi, a fully stocked kitchen, cable television, and Netflix. The bedroom is a long way from the living room, so it shouldnt disturb you if people come round and besides, we are certainly very respectful. Oh! We also have two cats who are well-behaved but they might be a problem if you have allergies. If you have a pet, thats no problem these cats get along with other animals. We love having people coming from other countries as its really fun having the opportunity to show them around the neighborhood (its a great neighborhood lots of character and plenty to do). That said, were certainly interested in living with Canadians too! Were very easy-going and open-minded and just hope that our new roommate will be the same. | The room available has two beds. | c |
id_4433 | Online roommate finder: Toronto I have one room available in a large apartment located just off Queen and Bathurst in Toronto. The room is fully furnished with a double bed, desk, shelf and wardrobe. About us: Im Sasha! Im Canadian, and Ive been living in this apartment since I was a teenager. Im 23 and work in a restaurant. These past two years, my best friend has been living here but as shes now moving to Europe there is a room available as of October 1. The third room is occupied by Simon, who is from Australia. He works part-time in a music shop downtown and is a great drummer. We both like keeping the place neat and tidy I actually enjoy cleaning in my spare time and sometimes we do it together as a roommate team (we make it fun! ). I love watching movies, exploring, getting out of the city and into the outdoors, and listening to music. The apartment itself is very large and comes equipped with unlimited wi-fi, a fully stocked kitchen, cable television, and Netflix. The bedroom is a long way from the living room, so it shouldnt disturb you if people come round and besides, we are certainly very respectful. Oh! We also have two cats who are well-behaved but they might be a problem if you have allergies. If you have a pet, thats no problem these cats get along with other animals. We love having people coming from other countries as its really fun having the opportunity to show them around the neighborhood (its a great neighborhood lots of character and plenty to do). That said, were certainly interested in living with Canadians too! Were very easy-going and open-minded and just hope that our new roommate will be the same. | The Australian in Sashas apartment is a musician. | e |
id_4434 | Online roommate finder: Toronto I have one room available in a large apartment located just off Queen and Bathurst in Toronto. The room is fully furnished with a double bed, desk, shelf and wardrobe. About us: Im Sasha! Im Canadian, and Ive been living in this apartment since I was a teenager. Im 23 and work in a restaurant. These past two years, my best friend has been living here but as shes now moving to Europe there is a room available as of October 1. The third room is occupied by Simon, who is from Australia. He works part-time in a music shop downtown and is a great drummer. We both like keeping the place neat and tidy I actually enjoy cleaning in my spare time and sometimes we do it together as a roommate team (we make it fun! ). I love watching movies, exploring, getting out of the city and into the outdoors, and listening to music. The apartment itself is very large and comes equipped with unlimited wi-fi, a fully stocked kitchen, cable television, and Netflix. The bedroom is a long way from the living room, so it shouldnt disturb you if people come round and besides, we are certainly very respectful. Oh! We also have two cats who are well-behaved but they might be a problem if you have allergies. If you have a pet, thats no problem these cats get along with other animals. We love having people coming from other countries as its really fun having the opportunity to show them around the neighborhood (its a great neighborhood lots of character and plenty to do). That said, were certainly interested in living with Canadians too! Were very easy-going and open-minded and just hope that our new roommate will be the same. | Sasha likes being in the open air. | e |
id_4435 | Online roommate finder: Toronto I have one room available in a large apartment located just off Queen and Bathurst in Toronto. The room is fully furnished with a double bed, desk, shelf and wardrobe. About us: Im Sasha! Im Canadian, and Ive been living in this apartment since I was a teenager. Im 23 and work in a restaurant. These past two years, my best friend has been living here but as shes now moving to Europe there is a room available as of October 1. The third room is occupied by Simon, who is from Australia. He works part-time in a music shop downtown and is a great drummer. We both like keeping the place neat and tidy I actually enjoy cleaning in my spare time and sometimes we do it together as a roommate team (we make it fun! ). I love watching movies, exploring, getting out of the city and into the outdoors, and listening to music. The apartment itself is very large and comes equipped with unlimited wi-fi, a fully stocked kitchen, cable television, and Netflix. The bedroom is a long way from the living room, so it shouldnt disturb you if people come round and besides, we are certainly very respectful. Oh! We also have two cats who are well-behaved but they might be a problem if you have allergies. If you have a pet, thats no problem these cats get along with other animals. We love having people coming from other countries as its really fun having the opportunity to show them around the neighborhood (its a great neighborhood lots of character and plenty to do). That said, were certainly interested in living with Canadians too! Were very easy-going and open-minded and just hope that our new roommate will be the same. | The room available would be suitable for someone who likes to be quiet. | e |
id_4436 | Online roommate finder: Toronto I have one room available in a large apartment located just off Queen and Bathurst in Toronto. The room is fully furnished with a double bed, desk, shelf and wardrobe. About us: Im Sasha! Im Canadian, and Ive been living in this apartment since I was a teenager. Im 23 and work in a restaurant. These past two years, my best friend has been living here but as shes now moving to Europe there is a room available as of October 1. The third room is occupied by Simon, who is from Australia. He works part-time in a music shop downtown and is a great drummer. We both like keeping the place neat and tidy I actually enjoy cleaning in my spare time and sometimes we do it together as a roommate team (we make it fun! ). I love watching movies, exploring, getting out of the city and into the outdoors, and listening to music. The apartment itself is very large and comes equipped with unlimited wi-fi, a fully stocked kitchen, cable television, and Netflix. The bedroom is a long way from the living room, so it shouldnt disturb you if people come round and besides, we are certainly very respectful. Oh! We also have two cats who are well-behaved but they might be a problem if you have allergies. If you have a pet, thats no problem these cats get along with other animals. We love having people coming from other countries as its really fun having the opportunity to show them around the neighborhood (its a great neighborhood lots of character and plenty to do). That said, were certainly interested in living with Canadians too! Were very easy-going and open-minded and just hope that our new roommate will be the same. | Sasha thinks her apartment is in the best part of Toronto. | n |
id_4437 | Online roommate finder: Toronto I have one room available in a large apartment located just off Queen and Bathurst in Toronto. The room is fully furnished with a double bed, desk, shelf and wardrobe. About us: Im Sasha! Im Canadian, and Ive been living in this apartment since I was a teenager. Im 23 and work in a restaurant. These past two years, my best friend has been living here but as shes now moving to Europe there is a room available as of October 1. The third room is occupied by Simon, who is from Australia. He works part-time in a music shop downtown and is a great drummer. We both like keeping the place neat and tidy I actually enjoy cleaning in my spare time and sometimes we do it together as a roommate team (we make it fun! ). I love watching movies, exploring, getting out of the city and into the outdoors, and listening to music. The apartment itself is very large and comes equipped with unlimited wi-fi, a fully stocked kitchen, cable television, and Netflix. The bedroom is a long way from the living room, so it shouldnt disturb you if people come round and besides, we are certainly very respectful. Oh! We also have two cats who are well-behaved but they might be a problem if you have allergies. If you have a pet, thats no problem these cats get along with other animals. We love having people coming from other countries as its really fun having the opportunity to show them around the neighborhood (its a great neighborhood lots of character and plenty to do). That said, were certainly interested in living with Canadians too! Were very easy-going and open-minded and just hope that our new roommate will be the same. | Sasha has never had a roommate from Canada. | n |
id_4438 | Only humans allowed On the internet, goes the old joke, nobody knows youre a dog. This is untrue, of course. There are many situations where internet users are required to prove that they are human-not because they might be dogs, but because they might be nefarious pieces of software trying to gain access to things. That is why, when you try to post a message on a blog, sign up with a new website or make a purchase online, you will often be asked to examine an image of mangled text and type the letters into a box. Because humans are much better at pattern recognition than software, these online puzzles-called CAPTCHAs-can help prevent spammers from using software to automate the creation of large numbers of bogus e-mail accounts, for example. Unlike a user login, which proves a specific identity, CAPTCHAs merely show that theres really a human on the other end, says Luis von Ahn, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University and one of the people responsible for the ubiquity of these puzzles. Together with Manuel Blum, Nicholas J. Hopper and John Langford, Dr von Ahn coined the term CAPTCHA (which stands for completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart) in a paper published in 2000. But how secure are CAPTCHAs? Spammers stepped up their efforts to automate the solving of CAPTCHAs last year, and in recent months a series of cracks have prompted both Microsoft and Google to tweak the CAPTCHA systems that protect their web-based mail services. We modify our CAPTCHAs when we detect new abuse trends, says Macduff Hughes, engineering director at Google. Jeff Yan, a computer scientist at Newcastle University, is one of many researchers interested in cracking CAPTCHAs. Since the bad guys are already doing it, he told a spam-fighting conference in Amsterdam in June, the good guys should do it too, in order to develop more secure designs. That CAPTCHAs work at all illuminates a failing in artificial-intelligence research, says Henry Baird, a computer scientist at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and an expert in the design of text-recognition system. Reading mangled text is an everyday skill for most people, yet machines still find it difficult. The human ability to recognise text as it becomes more and more distorted is remarkably resilient, says Gordon Legge at the University of Minnesota. He is a researcher in the field of psychophysics-the study of the perception of stimuli. But there is a limit. Just try reading small text in poor light, or flicking through an early issue of Wired. You hit a point quite close to your acuity limit and suddenly your performance crashes, says Dr Legge. This means designers of CAPTCHAs cannot simply increase the amount of distortion to foil attackers. Instead they must mangle text in new ways when attackers figure out how to cope with existing distortions. Mr Hughes, along with many others in the field, thinks the lifespan of text-based CAPTCHAs is limited. Dr von Ahn thinks it will be possible for software to break text CAPTCHAs most of the time within five years. A new way to verify that internet users are indeed human will then be needed. But if CAPTCHAs are broken it might not be a bad thing, because it would signal a breakthrough in machine vision that would, for example, make automated book-scanners far more accurate. Looking at things the other way around, a CAPTCHA system based on words that machines cannot read ought to be uncrackable. And that does indeed seem to be the case for ReCAPTCHA, a system This content is for your own individual study only. You cannot share or transmit it. Non compliance could result in legal action against you. computer scientist at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and an expert in the design of text-recognition systems. Reading mangled text is an everyday skill for most people, yet machines still find it difficult. launched by Dr von Ahn and his colleagues two years ago. It derives its source materials from the scanning in of old books and newspapers, many of them from the 19th century. The scanners regularly encounter difficult words (those for which two different character-recognition algorithms produce different transliterations). Such words are used to generate a CAPTCHA by combining them with a known word, skewing the image and adding extra lines to make the words harder to read. The image is then presented as a CAPTCHA in the usual way. If the known word is entered correctly, the unknown word is also assumed to have been typed in correctly, and access is granted. Each unknown word is presented as a CAPTCHA several times, to different users, to ensure that it has been read correctly. As a result, people solving CAPTCHA puzzles help with the digitisation of books and newspapers. Even better, the system has proved to be far better at resisting attacks than other types of CAPTCHA. ReCAPTCHA is virtually immune by design, since it selects words that have resisted the best text-recognition algorithms available, says John Douceur, a member of a team at Microsoft that has built a CAPTCHA-like system called Asirra. The ReCAPTCHA team has a member whose sole job is to break the system, says Dr von Ahn, and so far he has been unsuccessful. Whenever the in-house attacker appears to be making progress, the team responds by adding new distortions to the puzzles. Even so, researchers are already looking beyond text-based CAPTCHAs. Dr von Ahns team has devised two image-based schemes, called SQUIGL-PIX and ESP-PIX, which rely on the human ability to recognise particular elements of images. Microsofts Asirra system presents users with images of several dogs and cats and asks them to identify just the dogs or cats. Google has a scheme in which the user must rotate an image of an object (a teapot, say) to make it the right way up. This is easy for a human, but not for a computer. The biggest flaw with all CAPTCHA systems is that they are, by definition, susceptible to attack by humans who are paid to solve them. Teams of people based in developing countries can be hired online for | Members of Dr von Ahn's team try to break their own product. | c |
id_4439 | Only humans allowed On the internet, goes the old joke, nobody knows youre a dog. This is untrue, of course. There are many situations where internet users are required to prove that they are human-not because they might be dogs, but because they might be nefarious pieces of software trying to gain access to things. That is why, when you try to post a message on a blog, sign up with a new website or make a purchase online, you will often be asked to examine an image of mangled text and type the letters into a box. Because humans are much better at pattern recognition than software, these online puzzles-called CAPTCHAs-can help prevent spammers from using software to automate the creation of large numbers of bogus e-mail accounts, for example. Unlike a user login, which proves a specific identity, CAPTCHAs merely show that theres really a human on the other end, says Luis von Ahn, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University and one of the people responsible for the ubiquity of these puzzles. Together with Manuel Blum, Nicholas J. Hopper and John Langford, Dr von Ahn coined the term CAPTCHA (which stands for completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart) in a paper published in 2000. But how secure are CAPTCHAs? Spammers stepped up their efforts to automate the solving of CAPTCHAs last year, and in recent months a series of cracks have prompted both Microsoft and Google to tweak the CAPTCHA systems that protect their web-based mail services. We modify our CAPTCHAs when we detect new abuse trends, says Macduff Hughes, engineering director at Google. Jeff Yan, a computer scientist at Newcastle University, is one of many researchers interested in cracking CAPTCHAs. Since the bad guys are already doing it, he told a spam-fighting conference in Amsterdam in June, the good guys should do it too, in order to develop more secure designs. That CAPTCHAs work at all illuminates a failing in artificial-intelligence research, says Henry Baird, a computer scientist at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and an expert in the design of text-recognition system. Reading mangled text is an everyday skill for most people, yet machines still find it difficult. The human ability to recognise text as it becomes more and more distorted is remarkably resilient, says Gordon Legge at the University of Minnesota. He is a researcher in the field of psychophysics-the study of the perception of stimuli. But there is a limit. Just try reading small text in poor light, or flicking through an early issue of Wired. You hit a point quite close to your acuity limit and suddenly your performance crashes, says Dr Legge. This means designers of CAPTCHAs cannot simply increase the amount of distortion to foil attackers. Instead they must mangle text in new ways when attackers figure out how to cope with existing distortions. Mr Hughes, along with many others in the field, thinks the lifespan of text-based CAPTCHAs is limited. Dr von Ahn thinks it will be possible for software to break text CAPTCHAs most of the time within five years. A new way to verify that internet users are indeed human will then be needed. But if CAPTCHAs are broken it might not be a bad thing, because it would signal a breakthrough in machine vision that would, for example, make automated book-scanners far more accurate. Looking at things the other way around, a CAPTCHA system based on words that machines cannot read ought to be uncrackable. And that does indeed seem to be the case for ReCAPTCHA, a system This content is for your own individual study only. You cannot share or transmit it. Non compliance could result in legal action against you. computer scientist at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and an expert in the design of text-recognition systems. Reading mangled text is an everyday skill for most people, yet machines still find it difficult. launched by Dr von Ahn and his colleagues two years ago. It derives its source materials from the scanning in of old books and newspapers, many of them from the 19th century. The scanners regularly encounter difficult words (those for which two different character-recognition algorithms produce different transliterations). Such words are used to generate a CAPTCHA by combining them with a known word, skewing the image and adding extra lines to make the words harder to read. The image is then presented as a CAPTCHA in the usual way. If the known word is entered correctly, the unknown word is also assumed to have been typed in correctly, and access is granted. Each unknown word is presented as a CAPTCHA several times, to different users, to ensure that it has been read correctly. As a result, people solving CAPTCHA puzzles help with the digitisation of books and newspapers. Even better, the system has proved to be far better at resisting attacks than other types of CAPTCHA. ReCAPTCHA is virtually immune by design, since it selects words that have resisted the best text-recognition algorithms available, says John Douceur, a member of a team at Microsoft that has built a CAPTCHA-like system called Asirra. The ReCAPTCHA team has a member whose sole job is to break the system, says Dr von Ahn, and so far he has been unsuccessful. Whenever the in-house attacker appears to be making progress, the team responds by adding new distortions to the puzzles. Even so, researchers are already looking beyond text-based CAPTCHAs. Dr von Ahns team has devised two image-based schemes, called SQUIGL-PIX and ESP-PIX, which rely on the human ability to recognise particular elements of images. Microsofts Asirra system presents users with images of several dogs and cats and asks them to identify just the dogs or cats. Google has a scheme in which the user must rotate an image of an object (a teapot, say) to make it the right way up. This is easy for a human, but not for a computer. The biggest flaw with all CAPTCHA systems is that they are, by definition, susceptible to attack by humans who are paid to solve them. Teams of people based in developing countries can be hired online for | John Douceur was the drive force behind the image-based schemes. | n |
id_4440 | Only humans allowed On the internet, goes the old joke, nobody knows youre a dog. This is untrue, of course. There are many situations where internet users are required to prove that they are human-not because they might be dogs, but because they might be nefarious pieces of software trying to gain access to things. That is why, when you try to post a message on a blog, sign up with a new website or make a purchase online, you will often be asked to examine an image of mangled text and type the letters into a box. Because humans are much better at pattern recognition than software, these online puzzles-called CAPTCHAs-can help prevent spammers from using software to automate the creation of large numbers of bogus e-mail accounts, for example. Unlike a user login, which proves a specific identity, CAPTCHAs merely show that theres really a human on the other end, says Luis von Ahn, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University and one of the people responsible for the ubiquity of these puzzles. Together with Manuel Blum, Nicholas J. Hopper and John Langford, Dr von Ahn coined the term CAPTCHA (which stands for completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart) in a paper published in 2000. But how secure are CAPTCHAs? Spammers stepped up their efforts to automate the solving of CAPTCHAs last year, and in recent months a series of cracks have prompted both Microsoft and Google to tweak the CAPTCHA systems that protect their web-based mail services. We modify our CAPTCHAs when we detect new abuse trends, says Macduff Hughes, engineering director at Google. Jeff Yan, a computer scientist at Newcastle University, is one of many researchers interested in cracking CAPTCHAs. Since the bad guys are already doing it, he told a spam-fighting conference in Amsterdam in June, the good guys should do it too, in order to develop more secure designs. That CAPTCHAs work at all illuminates a failing in artificial-intelligence research, says Henry Baird, a computer scientist at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and an expert in the design of text-recognition system. Reading mangled text is an everyday skill for most people, yet machines still find it difficult. The human ability to recognise text as it becomes more and more distorted is remarkably resilient, says Gordon Legge at the University of Minnesota. He is a researcher in the field of psychophysics-the study of the perception of stimuli. But there is a limit. Just try reading small text in poor light, or flicking through an early issue of Wired. You hit a point quite close to your acuity limit and suddenly your performance crashes, says Dr Legge. This means designers of CAPTCHAs cannot simply increase the amount of distortion to foil attackers. Instead they must mangle text in new ways when attackers figure out how to cope with existing distortions. Mr Hughes, along with many others in the field, thinks the lifespan of text-based CAPTCHAs is limited. Dr von Ahn thinks it will be possible for software to break text CAPTCHAs most of the time within five years. A new way to verify that internet users are indeed human will then be needed. But if CAPTCHAs are broken it might not be a bad thing, because it would signal a breakthrough in machine vision that would, for example, make automated book-scanners far more accurate. Looking at things the other way around, a CAPTCHA system based on words that machines cannot read ought to be uncrackable. And that does indeed seem to be the case for ReCAPTCHA, a system This content is for your own individual study only. You cannot share or transmit it. Non compliance could result in legal action against you. computer scientist at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and an expert in the design of text-recognition systems. Reading mangled text is an everyday skill for most people, yet machines still find it difficult. launched by Dr von Ahn and his colleagues two years ago. It derives its source materials from the scanning in of old books and newspapers, many of them from the 19th century. The scanners regularly encounter difficult words (those for which two different character-recognition algorithms produce different transliterations). Such words are used to generate a CAPTCHA by combining them with a known word, skewing the image and adding extra lines to make the words harder to read. The image is then presented as a CAPTCHA in the usual way. If the known word is entered correctly, the unknown word is also assumed to have been typed in correctly, and access is granted. Each unknown word is presented as a CAPTCHA several times, to different users, to ensure that it has been read correctly. As a result, people solving CAPTCHA puzzles help with the digitisation of books and newspapers. Even better, the system has proved to be far better at resisting attacks than other types of CAPTCHA. ReCAPTCHA is virtually immune by design, since it selects words that have resisted the best text-recognition algorithms available, says John Douceur, a member of a team at Microsoft that has built a CAPTCHA-like system called Asirra. The ReCAPTCHA team has a member whose sole job is to break the system, says Dr von Ahn, and so far he has been unsuccessful. Whenever the in-house attacker appears to be making progress, the team responds by adding new distortions to the puzzles. Even so, researchers are already looking beyond text-based CAPTCHAs. Dr von Ahns team has devised two image-based schemes, called SQUIGL-PIX and ESP-PIX, which rely on the human ability to recognise particular elements of images. Microsofts Asirra system presents users with images of several dogs and cats and asks them to identify just the dogs or cats. Google has a scheme in which the user must rotate an image of an object (a teapot, say) to make it the right way up. This is easy for a human, but not for a computer. The biggest flaw with all CAPTCHA systems is that they are, by definition, susceptible to attack by humans who are paid to solve them. Teams of people based in developing countries can be hired online for | ReCAPTCHA success is based on the failure of text-recognition systems. | e |
id_4441 | Only humans allowed On the internet, goes the old joke, nobody knows youre a dog. This is untrue, of course. There are many situations where internet users are required to prove that they are human-not because they might be dogs, but because they might be nefarious pieces of software trying to gain access to things. That is why, when you try to post a message on a blog, sign up with a new website or make a purchase online, you will often be asked to examine an image of mangled text and type the letters into a box. Because humans are much better at pattern recognition than software, these online puzzles-called CAPTCHAs-can help prevent spammers from using software to automate the creation of large numbers of bogus e-mail accounts, for example. Unlike a user login, which proves a specific identity, CAPTCHAs merely show that theres really a human on the other end, says Luis von Ahn, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University and one of the people responsible for the ubiquity of these puzzles. Together with Manuel Blum, Nicholas J. Hopper and John Langford, Dr von Ahn coined the term CAPTCHA (which stands for completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart) in a paper published in 2000. But how secure are CAPTCHAs? Spammers stepped up their efforts to automate the solving of CAPTCHAs last year, and in recent months a series of cracks have prompted both Microsoft and Google to tweak the CAPTCHA systems that protect their web-based mail services. We modify our CAPTCHAs when we detect new abuse trends, says Macduff Hughes, engineering director at Google. Jeff Yan, a computer scientist at Newcastle University, is one of many researchers interested in cracking CAPTCHAs. Since the bad guys are already doing it, he told a spam-fighting conference in Amsterdam in June, the good guys should do it too, in order to develop more secure designs. That CAPTCHAs work at all illuminates a failing in artificial-intelligence research, says Henry Baird, a computer scientist at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and an expert in the design of text-recognition system. Reading mangled text is an everyday skill for most people, yet machines still find it difficult. The human ability to recognise text as it becomes more and more distorted is remarkably resilient, says Gordon Legge at the University of Minnesota. He is a researcher in the field of psychophysics-the study of the perception of stimuli. But there is a limit. Just try reading small text in poor light, or flicking through an early issue of Wired. You hit a point quite close to your acuity limit and suddenly your performance crashes, says Dr Legge. This means designers of CAPTCHAs cannot simply increase the amount of distortion to foil attackers. Instead they must mangle text in new ways when attackers figure out how to cope with existing distortions. Mr Hughes, along with many others in the field, thinks the lifespan of text-based CAPTCHAs is limited. Dr von Ahn thinks it will be possible for software to break text CAPTCHAs most of the time within five years. A new way to verify that internet users are indeed human will then be needed. But if CAPTCHAs are broken it might not be a bad thing, because it would signal a breakthrough in machine vision that would, for example, make automated book-scanners far more accurate. Looking at things the other way around, a CAPTCHA system based on words that machines cannot read ought to be uncrackable. And that does indeed seem to be the case for ReCAPTCHA, a system This content is for your own individual study only. You cannot share or transmit it. Non compliance could result in legal action against you. computer scientist at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and an expert in the design of text-recognition systems. Reading mangled text is an everyday skill for most people, yet machines still find it difficult. launched by Dr von Ahn and his colleagues two years ago. It derives its source materials from the scanning in of old books and newspapers, many of them from the 19th century. The scanners regularly encounter difficult words (those for which two different character-recognition algorithms produce different transliterations). Such words are used to generate a CAPTCHA by combining them with a known word, skewing the image and adding extra lines to make the words harder to read. The image is then presented as a CAPTCHA in the usual way. If the known word is entered correctly, the unknown word is also assumed to have been typed in correctly, and access is granted. Each unknown word is presented as a CAPTCHA several times, to different users, to ensure that it has been read correctly. As a result, people solving CAPTCHA puzzles help with the digitisation of books and newspapers. Even better, the system has proved to be far better at resisting attacks than other types of CAPTCHA. ReCAPTCHA is virtually immune by design, since it selects words that have resisted the best text-recognition algorithms available, says John Douceur, a member of a team at Microsoft that has built a CAPTCHA-like system called Asirra. The ReCAPTCHA team has a member whose sole job is to break the system, says Dr von Ahn, and so far he has been unsuccessful. Whenever the in-house attacker appears to be making progress, the team responds by adding new distortions to the puzzles. Even so, researchers are already looking beyond text-based CAPTCHAs. Dr von Ahns team has devised two image-based schemes, called SQUIGL-PIX and ESP-PIX, which rely on the human ability to recognise particular elements of images. Microsofts Asirra system presents users with images of several dogs and cats and asks them to identify just the dogs or cats. Google has a scheme in which the user must rotate an image of an object (a teapot, say) to make it the right way up. This is easy for a human, but not for a computer. The biggest flaw with all CAPTCHA systems is that they are, by definition, susceptible to attack by humans who are paid to solve them. Teams of people based in developing countries can be hired online for | Scanning old publications gave Dr von Ahn the idea for ReCAPTCHA. | n |
id_4442 | Only three articles of the Magna Carta can be regarded as of paramount and permanent importance, of these, that the city of London and all the other cities and boroughs of the kingdom should enjoy their ancient rights and privileges unimpaired. It is unnecessary to go beyond the work of Blackstone to ascertain that the city of London was not governed by the law feudalism, or by the Common Law of England, but was a law unto itself, with its own usages and customs, and its own special courts to enforce them. It is necessary, however, to go a little beyond the work of that ability, but not wholly honest commentator, to learn the fact that the usages and customs of London were traceable to a Roman source and to the Roman Civil Law. The city of London was a body corporate, like all great municipalities founded by the Romans; and the Feudal Law was incapable of comprehending corporations, either public or private. Municipal corporations, in fact, were an abomination to Feudalism | The law of Feudalism preceded the law of the Roman Empire in the city of London. | c |
id_4443 | Only three articles of the Magna Carta can be regarded as of paramount and permanent importance, of these, that the city of London and all the other cities and boroughs of the kingdom should enjoy their ancient rights and privileges unimpaired. It is unnecessary to go beyond the work of Blackstone to ascertain that the city of London was not governed by the law feudalism, or by the Common Law of England, but was a law unto itself, with its own usages and customs, and its own special courts to enforce them. It is necessary, however, to go a little beyond the work of that ability, but not wholly honest commentator, to learn the fact that the usages and customs of London were traceable to a Roman source and to the Roman Civil Law. The city of London was a body corporate, like all great municipalities founded by the Romans; and the Feudal Law was incapable of comprehending corporations, either public or private. Municipal corporations, in fact, were an abomination to Feudalism | The author of the passage critiques Blackstone for being inept. | c |
id_4444 | Only three articles of the Magna Carta can be regarded as of paramount and permanent importance, of these, that the city of London and all the other cities and boroughs of the kingdom should enjoy their ancient rights and privileges unimpaired. It is unnecessary to go beyond the work of Blackstone to ascertain that the city of London was not governed by the law feudalism, or by the Common Law of England, but was a law unto itself, with its own usages and customs, and its own special courts to enforce them. It is necessary, however, to go a little beyond the work of that ability, but not wholly honest commentator, to learn the fact that the usages and customs of London were traceable to a Roman source and to the Roman Civil Law. The city of London was a body corporate, like all great municipalities founded by the Romans; and the Feudal Law was incapable of comprehending corporations, either public or private. Municipal corporations, in fact, were an abomination to Feudalism | London was once conquered by the Romans | n |
id_4445 | Only three articles of the Magna Carta can be regarded as of paramount and permanent importance, of these, that the city of London and all the other cities and boroughs of the kingdom should enjoy their ancient rights and privileges unimpaired. It is unnecessary to go beyond the work of Blackstone to ascertain that the city of London was not governed by the law feudalism, or by the Common Law of England, but was a law unto itself, with its own usages and customs, and its own special courts to enforce them. It is necessary, however, to go a little beyond the work of that ability, but not wholly honest commentator, to learn the fact that the usages and customs of London were traceable to a Roman source and to the Roman Civil Law. The city of London was a body corporate, like all great municipalities founded by the Romans; and the Feudal Law was incapable of comprehending corporations, either public or private. Municipal corporations, in fact, were an abomination to Feudalism | The Magna Carta reaffirmed the right of the city of London to govern itself according to ancient Roman law. | n |
id_4446 | Open-source software should not be confused with freeware, or software that is available to install free of charge. While most open-source software is free, there are many other criteria namely that the source code must be available to the general public via an open-source license, and that anyone is allowed to modify it. Any modifications made must also be distributed under the same terms as the original software. Proponents of the open-source movement believe this collaborative development methodology results in quicker improvements and software that can be easily adapted to users needs. Financial savings are another main benefit of open- source software. Because numerous programmers are able to identify and fix problems, advocates believe open-source software is more reliable than proprietary software. The majority of commercial software protects its source code to prevent competitors from developing a competing product. By only making a compiled, ready-to-run version available, software manufacturers retain full control over their product, which they argue ensures higher levels of quality and security. End-users must purchase a license fee, and typically benefit from a warranty and technical support. Although open-source software does not charge license fees to fund its development, it does not follow that it cannot be commercially viable. Developers can charge for installation, training and technical support. Alternatively, licenses for add-ons and additional software may be sold. | One claimed advantage of open-source software over licenced software is greater flexibility. | e |
id_4447 | Open-source software should not be confused with freeware, or software that is available to install free of charge. While most open-source software is free, there are many other criteria namely that the source code must be available to the general public via an open-source license, and that anyone is allowed to modify it. Any modifications made must also be distributed under the same terms as the original software. Proponents of the open-source movement believe this collaborative development methodology results in quicker improvements and software that can be easily adapted to users needs. Financial savings are another main benefit of open- source software. Because numerous programmers are able to identify and fix problems, advocates believe open-source software is more reliable than proprietary software. The majority of commercial software protects its source code to prevent competitors from developing a competing product. By only making a compiled, ready-to-run version available, software manufacturers retain full control over their product, which they argue ensures higher levels of quality and security. End-users must purchase a license fee, and typically benefit from a warranty and technical support. Although open-source software does not charge license fees to fund its development, it does not follow that it cannot be commercially viable. Developers can charge for installation, training and technical support. Alternatively, licenses for add-ons and additional software may be sold. | Technical support is not available for open-source software. | c |
id_4448 | Open-source software should not be confused with freeware, or software that is available to install free of charge. While most open-source software is free, there are many other criteria namely that the source code must be available to the general public via an open-source license, and that anyone is allowed to modify it. Any modifications made must also be distributed under the same terms as the original software. Proponents of the open-source movement believe this collaborative development methodology results in quicker improvements and software that can be easily adapted to users needs. Financial savings are another main benefit of open- source software. Because numerous programmers are able to identify and fix problems, advocates believe open-source software is more reliable than proprietary software. The majority of commercial software protects its source code to prevent competitors from developing a competing product. By only making a compiled, ready-to-run version available, software manufacturers retain full control over their product, which they argue ensures higher levels of quality and security. End-users must purchase a license fee, and typically benefit from a warranty and technical support. Although open-source software does not charge license fees to fund its development, it does not follow that it cannot be commercially viable. Developers can charge for installation, training and technical support. Alternatively, licenses for add-ons and additional software may be sold. | Because it is developed collaboratively, open-source software is of better quality than proprietary software. | n |
id_4449 | Open-source software should not be confused with freeware, or software that is available to install free of charge. While most open-source software is free, there are many other criteria namely that the source code must be available to the general public via an open-source license, and that anyone is allowed to modify it. Any modifications made must also be distributed under the same terms as the original software. Proponents of the open-source movement believe this collaborative development methodology results in quicker improvements and software that can be easily adapted to users needs. Financial savings are another main benefit of open- source software. Because numerous programmers are able to identify and fix problems, advocates believe open-source software is more reliable than proprietary software. The majority of commercial software protects its source code to prevent competitors from developing a competing product. By only making a compiled, ready-to-run version available, software manufacturers retain full control over their product, which they argue ensures higher levels of quality and security. End-users must purchase a license fee, and typically benefit from a warranty and technical support. Although open-source software does not charge license fees to fund its development, it does not follow that it cannot be commercially viable. Developers can charge for installation, training and technical support. Alternatively, licenses for add-ons and additional software may be sold. | Open-source software is free, and is not released under a license. | c |
id_4450 | Open-source software should not be confused with freeware, or software that is available to install free of charge. While most open-source software is free, there are many other criteria namely that the source code must be available to the general public via an open-source license, and that anyone is allowed to modify it. Any modifications made must also be distributed under the same terms as the original software. Proponents of the open-source movement believe this collaborative development methodology results in quicker improvements and software that can be easily adapted to users needs. Financial savings are another main benefit of open- source software. Because numerous programmers are able to identify and fix problems, advocates believe open-source software is more reliable than proprietary software. The majority of commercial software protects its source code to prevent competitors from developing a competing product. By only making a compiled, ready-to-run version available, software manufacturers retain full control over their product, which they argue ensures higher levels of quality and security. End-users must purchase a license fee, and typically benefit from a warranty and technical support. Although open-source software does not charge license fees to fund its development, it does not follow that it cannot be commercially viable. Developers can charge for installation, training and technical support. Alternatively, licenses for add-ons and additional software may be sold. | It is prohibited to modify free open-source software and then license it for a fee. | e |
id_4451 | Opponents complained that the decision was designed to socially engineer by discriminating against middle-class students. The chair of the Leader Teachers Association had grave concerns over the change. Mr Langham said that it would encourage children to lie about their origins, and asked who is going to establish the veracity of the disclosures. Landowners could describe themselves as farmers, wealthy people who retire early could describe themselves as unemployed. The university admis- sions service has announced that information on the occupation, education and ethnicity of the parents of applicants will be made available to admissions officers. In the past this information was held back until after places were offered. | A synonym of veracity is misconduct. | c |
id_4452 | Opponents complained that the decision was designed to socially engineer by discriminating against middle-class students. The chair of the Leader Teachers Association had grave concerns over the change. Mr Langham said that it would encourage children to lie about their origins, and asked who is going to establish the veracity of the disclosures. Landowners could describe themselves as farmers, wealthy people who retire early could describe themselves as unemployed. The university admis- sions service has announced that information on the occupation, education and ethnicity of the parents of applicants will be made available to admissions officers. In the past this information was held back until after places were offered. | You can infer from the passage that only middle-class appli- cants will be required to disclose this information. | c |
id_4453 | Opponents complained that the decision was designed to socially engineer by discriminating against middle-class students. The chair of the Leader Teachers Association had grave concerns over the change. Mr Langham said that it would encourage children to lie about their origins, and asked who is going to establish the veracity of the disclosures. Landowners could describe themselves as farmers, wealthy people who retire early could describe themselves as unemployed. The university admis- sions service has announced that information on the occupation, education and ethnicity of the parents of applicants will be made available to admissions officers. In the past this information was held back until after places were offered. | For the first time admissions officers will know if the parents of people applying to their university also went to university. | e |
id_4454 | Organic Farming And Chemical Fertilizers The worlds population continues to climb. And despite the rise of high-tech agriculture, 800 million people dont get enough to eat. Clearly its time to rethink the food we eat and where it comes from. Feeding 9 billion people will take more than the same old farming practices, especially if we want to do it without felling rainforests and planting every last scrap of the prairie. Finding food for all those people will tax predicting farmersand researchersingenuity to the limit. Yet already, precious aquifers that provide irrigation water for some of the worlds most productive farmlands are drying up or filling with seawater, and arable land in China is eroding to create vast dust storms that redden sunsets as far away as North America. Agriculture must become the solution to environmental problems in 50 years. If we dont have systems that make the environment better~not just hold the fort-then were in trouble, says Kenneth Cassman, an agronomist at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. That view was echoed in January by the Curry report, a government panel that surveyed the future of farming and food in Britain. Its easy to say agriculture has to do better, but what should this friendly farming of the future look like? Concerned consumers come up short at this point, facing what appears to be an ever-widening ideological divide. In one corner are the techno-optimists who put their faith in genetically modified crops, improved agrochemicals, and computer-enhanced machinery; in the other are advocates of organic farming, who reject artificial chemicals and embrace back-to-nature techniques such as composting. Both sides cite plausible science to back their claims to the moral high ground, and both bring enough passion to the debate for many people to come away thinking were faced with a stark choice between two mutually incompatible options. Not so. If you take off the ideological blinkers and simply ask how the world can produce the food it needs with the least environmental cost, a new middle way opens. The key is sustainability: whatever we do must not destroy the capital of soil and water we need to keep on producing. Like todays organic farming, the intelligent farming of the future should pay much more attention to the health of its soil and the ecosystem its part of. But intelligent farming should also make shrewd and locally appropriate use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The most crucial ingredient in this new style of agriculture is not chemicals but information about whats happening in each field and how to respond. Yet ironically, this key element may be the most neglected today. Clearly, organic farming has all the warm, fuzzy sentiment on its side. An approach that eschews synthetic chemicals surely runs no risk of poisoning land and water. And its emphasis on building up natural ecosystems seems to be good for everyone. Perhaps these easy assumptions explain why sales of organic food across Europe are increasing by at least 50 percent per year. Going organic sounds idyllic-but its naive, too. Organic agriculture has its own suite of environmental costs, which can be worse than those of conventional farming, especially if it were to become the world norm. But more fundamentally, the organic versus-chemical debate focuses on the wrong question. The issue isnt what you put into a farm, but what you get out of it, both in terms of crop yields and pollutants, and what condition the farm is in when youre done. Take chemical fertilizers, which deliver nitrogen, an essential plant nutrient, to crops along with some phosphorus and potassium. It is a mantra of organic farming that these fertilizers are unwholesome, and plant nutrients must come from natural sources. But in fact, the main environmental damage done by chemical fertilizers as opposed to any other kind is through greenhouse gases-carbon dioxide from the fossil fuels used in their synthesis and nitrogen oxides released by their degradation. Excess nitrogen from chemical fertilizers can pollute groundwater, but so can excess nitrogen from organic manures. On the other hand, relying solely on chemical fertilizers to provide soil nutrients without doing other things to build healthy soil is damaging. Organic farmers dont use chemical fertilizers, so they are very good at building soil fertility by working crop residues and manure into the soil, rotating with legumes that fix atmospheric nitrogen, and other techniques. generates vital soil nutrients and also creates a soil that is richer in organic matter, so it retains nutrients better and is hospitable to the crops roots and creatures such as earthworms that help maintain soil fertility. Such soil also holds water better and therefore makes more efficient use of both rainfall and irrigation water. And organic matter ties up C02 in the soil, helping to offset emissions from burning fossil fuels and reduce global warming. Advocates of organic farming like to point out that fields managed in this way can produce yields just as high as fields juiced up with synthetic fertilizers. For example, Bill Liebhardt, a research manager at the Rodale Institute in Kutztown, Pennsylvania recently compiled the results of such comparisons for corn, wheat, soybeans, and tomatoes in the US and found that the organic fields averaged between 94 and 100 percent of the yields of nearby conventional crops. But this optimistic picture tells only half the story. Farmers cant grow such crops every year if they want to maintain or build soil nutrients without synthetic fertilizers. They need to alternate with soil-building crops such as pasture grasses and legumes such as alfalfa. So in the long term, the yield of staple grains such as wheat, rice and corn must go down. This is the biggest cost of organic farming. Vaclav Smil of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, estimates that if farmers worldwide gave up the 80 million tonnes of synthetic fertilizer they now use each year, total grain production would fall by at least half. Either farmer would have to double the amount of land they cultivate- at catastrophic cost to natural habitat or billions of people would starve. That doesnt mean farmers couldnt get by with less fertilizer. Technologically advanced farmers in wealthy countries, for instance, can now monitor their yields hectare by hectare, or even more finely, throughout a huge field. They can then target their fertilizer to the parts of the field where it will do the best, instead of responding to average conditions. This increases yield and decreases fertilizer use. Eventually, farmers may -incorporate long-term weather forecasts into their planning as well, so that they can cut back on fertilizer use when the weather is likely to make harvests poor anyway, says Ron Olson, an agronomist with CargillFertilizer in Tampa, Florida. Organic techniques certainly have their benefits, especially for poor farmers. But strictorganic agriculture, which prohibits certain technologies and allows others, isnt always better for the environment. Take herbicides, for example. These can leach into waterways and poison both wildlife and people. Just last month, researchers led by Tyrone Hayes at the University of California at Berkeley found that even low concentrations of atrazine, the most commonly used weedkiller in the US, can prevent frog tadpoles from developing properly. | There are only two options for farmers; they use chemical fertilizer or natural approach. | c |
id_4455 | Organic Farming And Chemical Fertilizers The worlds population continues to climb. And despite the rise of high-tech agriculture, 800 million people dont get enough to eat. Clearly its time to rethink the food we eat and where it comes from. Feeding 9 billion people will take more than the same old farming practices, especially if we want to do it without felling rainforests and planting every last scrap of the prairie. Finding food for all those people will tax predicting farmersand researchersingenuity to the limit. Yet already, precious aquifers that provide irrigation water for some of the worlds most productive farmlands are drying up or filling with seawater, and arable land in China is eroding to create vast dust storms that redden sunsets as far away as North America. Agriculture must become the solution to environmental problems in 50 years. If we dont have systems that make the environment better~not just hold the fort-then were in trouble, says Kenneth Cassman, an agronomist at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. That view was echoed in January by the Curry report, a government panel that surveyed the future of farming and food in Britain. Its easy to say agriculture has to do better, but what should this friendly farming of the future look like? Concerned consumers come up short at this point, facing what appears to be an ever-widening ideological divide. In one corner are the techno-optimists who put their faith in genetically modified crops, improved agrochemicals, and computer-enhanced machinery; in the other are advocates of organic farming, who reject artificial chemicals and embrace back-to-nature techniques such as composting. Both sides cite plausible science to back their claims to the moral high ground, and both bring enough passion to the debate for many people to come away thinking were faced with a stark choice between two mutually incompatible options. Not so. If you take off the ideological blinkers and simply ask how the world can produce the food it needs with the least environmental cost, a new middle way opens. The key is sustainability: whatever we do must not destroy the capital of soil and water we need to keep on producing. Like todays organic farming, the intelligent farming of the future should pay much more attention to the health of its soil and the ecosystem its part of. But intelligent farming should also make shrewd and locally appropriate use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The most crucial ingredient in this new style of agriculture is not chemicals but information about whats happening in each field and how to respond. Yet ironically, this key element may be the most neglected today. Clearly, organic farming has all the warm, fuzzy sentiment on its side. An approach that eschews synthetic chemicals surely runs no risk of poisoning land and water. And its emphasis on building up natural ecosystems seems to be good for everyone. Perhaps these easy assumptions explain why sales of organic food across Europe are increasing by at least 50 percent per year. Going organic sounds idyllic-but its naive, too. Organic agriculture has its own suite of environmental costs, which can be worse than those of conventional farming, especially if it were to become the world norm. But more fundamentally, the organic versus-chemical debate focuses on the wrong question. The issue isnt what you put into a farm, but what you get out of it, both in terms of crop yields and pollutants, and what condition the farm is in when youre done. Take chemical fertilizers, which deliver nitrogen, an essential plant nutrient, to crops along with some phosphorus and potassium. It is a mantra of organic farming that these fertilizers are unwholesome, and plant nutrients must come from natural sources. But in fact, the main environmental damage done by chemical fertilizers as opposed to any other kind is through greenhouse gases-carbon dioxide from the fossil fuels used in their synthesis and nitrogen oxides released by their degradation. Excess nitrogen from chemical fertilizers can pollute groundwater, but so can excess nitrogen from organic manures. On the other hand, relying solely on chemical fertilizers to provide soil nutrients without doing other things to build healthy soil is damaging. Organic farmers dont use chemical fertilizers, so they are very good at building soil fertility by working crop residues and manure into the soil, rotating with legumes that fix atmospheric nitrogen, and other techniques. generates vital soil nutrients and also creates a soil that is richer in organic matter, so it retains nutrients better and is hospitable to the crops roots and creatures such as earthworms that help maintain soil fertility. Such soil also holds water better and therefore makes more efficient use of both rainfall and irrigation water. And organic matter ties up C02 in the soil, helping to offset emissions from burning fossil fuels and reduce global warming. Advocates of organic farming like to point out that fields managed in this way can produce yields just as high as fields juiced up with synthetic fertilizers. For example, Bill Liebhardt, a research manager at the Rodale Institute in Kutztown, Pennsylvania recently compiled the results of such comparisons for corn, wheat, soybeans, and tomatoes in the US and found that the organic fields averaged between 94 and 100 percent of the yields of nearby conventional crops. But this optimistic picture tells only half the story. Farmers cant grow such crops every year if they want to maintain or build soil nutrients without synthetic fertilizers. They need to alternate with soil-building crops such as pasture grasses and legumes such as alfalfa. So in the long term, the yield of staple grains such as wheat, rice and corn must go down. This is the biggest cost of organic farming. Vaclav Smil of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, estimates that if farmers worldwide gave up the 80 million tonnes of synthetic fertilizer they now use each year, total grain production would fall by at least half. Either farmer would have to double the amount of land they cultivate- at catastrophic cost to natural habitat or billions of people would starve. That doesnt mean farmers couldnt get by with less fertilizer. Technologically advanced farmers in wealthy countries, for instance, can now monitor their yields hectare by hectare, or even more finely, throughout a huge field. They can then target their fertilizer to the parts of the field where it will do the best, instead of responding to average conditions. This increases yield and decreases fertilizer use. Eventually, farmers may -incorporate long-term weather forecasts into their planning as well, so that they can cut back on fertilizer use when the weather is likely to make harvests poor anyway, says Ron Olson, an agronomist with CargillFertilizer in Tampa, Florida. Organic techniques certainly have their benefits, especially for poor farmers. But strictorganic agriculture, which prohibits certain technologies and allows others, isnt always better for the environment. Take herbicides, for example. These can leach into waterways and poison both wildlife and people. Just last month, researchers led by Tyrone Hayes at the University of California at Berkeley found that even low concentrations of atrazine, the most commonly used weedkiller in the US, can prevent frog tadpoles from developing properly. | In order to keep nutrients in the soil, organic farmers need to rotate the planting method. | e |
id_4456 | Organic Farming And Chemical Fertilizers The worlds population continues to climb. And despite the rise of high-tech agriculture, 800 million people dont get enough to eat. Clearly its time to rethink the food we eat and where it comes from. Feeding 9 billion people will take more than the same old farming practices, especially if we want to do it without felling rainforests and planting every last scrap of the prairie. Finding food for all those people will tax predicting farmersand researchersingenuity to the limit. Yet already, precious aquifers that provide irrigation water for some of the worlds most productive farmlands are drying up or filling with seawater, and arable land in China is eroding to create vast dust storms that redden sunsets as far away as North America. Agriculture must become the solution to environmental problems in 50 years. If we dont have systems that make the environment better~not just hold the fort-then were in trouble, says Kenneth Cassman, an agronomist at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. That view was echoed in January by the Curry report, a government panel that surveyed the future of farming and food in Britain. Its easy to say agriculture has to do better, but what should this friendly farming of the future look like? Concerned consumers come up short at this point, facing what appears to be an ever-widening ideological divide. In one corner are the techno-optimists who put their faith in genetically modified crops, improved agrochemicals, and computer-enhanced machinery; in the other are advocates of organic farming, who reject artificial chemicals and embrace back-to-nature techniques such as composting. Both sides cite plausible science to back their claims to the moral high ground, and both bring enough passion to the debate for many people to come away thinking were faced with a stark choice between two mutually incompatible options. Not so. If you take off the ideological blinkers and simply ask how the world can produce the food it needs with the least environmental cost, a new middle way opens. The key is sustainability: whatever we do must not destroy the capital of soil and water we need to keep on producing. Like todays organic farming, the intelligent farming of the future should pay much more attention to the health of its soil and the ecosystem its part of. But intelligent farming should also make shrewd and locally appropriate use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The most crucial ingredient in this new style of agriculture is not chemicals but information about whats happening in each field and how to respond. Yet ironically, this key element may be the most neglected today. Clearly, organic farming has all the warm, fuzzy sentiment on its side. An approach that eschews synthetic chemicals surely runs no risk of poisoning land and water. And its emphasis on building up natural ecosystems seems to be good for everyone. Perhaps these easy assumptions explain why sales of organic food across Europe are increasing by at least 50 percent per year. Going organic sounds idyllic-but its naive, too. Organic agriculture has its own suite of environmental costs, which can be worse than those of conventional farming, especially if it were to become the world norm. But more fundamentally, the organic versus-chemical debate focuses on the wrong question. The issue isnt what you put into a farm, but what you get out of it, both in terms of crop yields and pollutants, and what condition the farm is in when youre done. Take chemical fertilizers, which deliver nitrogen, an essential plant nutrient, to crops along with some phosphorus and potassium. It is a mantra of organic farming that these fertilizers are unwholesome, and plant nutrients must come from natural sources. But in fact, the main environmental damage done by chemical fertilizers as opposed to any other kind is through greenhouse gases-carbon dioxide from the fossil fuels used in their synthesis and nitrogen oxides released by their degradation. Excess nitrogen from chemical fertilizers can pollute groundwater, but so can excess nitrogen from organic manures. On the other hand, relying solely on chemical fertilizers to provide soil nutrients without doing other things to build healthy soil is damaging. Organic farmers dont use chemical fertilizers, so they are very good at building soil fertility by working crop residues and manure into the soil, rotating with legumes that fix atmospheric nitrogen, and other techniques. generates vital soil nutrients and also creates a soil that is richer in organic matter, so it retains nutrients better and is hospitable to the crops roots and creatures such as earthworms that help maintain soil fertility. Such soil also holds water better and therefore makes more efficient use of both rainfall and irrigation water. And organic matter ties up C02 in the soil, helping to offset emissions from burning fossil fuels and reduce global warming. Advocates of organic farming like to point out that fields managed in this way can produce yields just as high as fields juiced up with synthetic fertilizers. For example, Bill Liebhardt, a research manager at the Rodale Institute in Kutztown, Pennsylvania recently compiled the results of such comparisons for corn, wheat, soybeans, and tomatoes in the US and found that the organic fields averaged between 94 and 100 percent of the yields of nearby conventional crops. But this optimistic picture tells only half the story. Farmers cant grow such crops every year if they want to maintain or build soil nutrients without synthetic fertilizers. They need to alternate with soil-building crops such as pasture grasses and legumes such as alfalfa. So in the long term, the yield of staple grains such as wheat, rice and corn must go down. This is the biggest cost of organic farming. Vaclav Smil of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, estimates that if farmers worldwide gave up the 80 million tonnes of synthetic fertilizer they now use each year, total grain production would fall by at least half. Either farmer would have to double the amount of land they cultivate- at catastrophic cost to natural habitat or billions of people would starve. That doesnt mean farmers couldnt get by with less fertilizer. Technologically advanced farmers in wealthy countries, for instance, can now monitor their yields hectare by hectare, or even more finely, throughout a huge field. They can then target their fertilizer to the parts of the field where it will do the best, instead of responding to average conditions. This increases yield and decreases fertilizer use. Eventually, farmers may -incorporate long-term weather forecasts into their planning as well, so that they can cut back on fertilizer use when the weather is likely to make harvests poor anyway, says Ron Olson, an agronomist with CargillFertilizer in Tampa, Florida. Organic techniques certainly have their benefits, especially for poor farmers. But strictorganic agriculture, which prohibits certain technologies and allows others, isnt always better for the environment. Take herbicides, for example. These can leach into waterways and poison both wildlife and people. Just last month, researchers led by Tyrone Hayes at the University of California at Berkeley found that even low concentrations of atrazine, the most commonly used weedkiller in the US, can prevent frog tadpoles from developing properly. | Chemical fertilizer currently is more expensive than natural fertilizers. | n |
id_4457 | Organic Farming And Chemical Fertilizers The worlds population continues to climb. And despite the rise of high-tech agriculture, 800 million people dont get enough to eat. Clearly its time to rethink the food we eat and where it comes from. Feeding 9 billion people will take more than the same old farming practices, especially if we want to do it without felling rainforests and planting every last scrap of the prairie. Finding food for all those people will tax predicting farmersand researchersingenuity to the limit. Yet already, precious aquifers that provide irrigation water for some of the worlds most productive farmlands are drying up or filling with seawater, and arable land in China is eroding to create vast dust storms that redden sunsets as far away as North America. Agriculture must become the solution to environmental problems in 50 years. If we dont have systems that make the environment better~not just hold the fort-then were in trouble, says Kenneth Cassman, an agronomist at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. That view was echoed in January by the Curry report, a government panel that surveyed the future of farming and food in Britain. Its easy to say agriculture has to do better, but what should this friendly farming of the future look like? Concerned consumers come up short at this point, facing what appears to be an ever-widening ideological divide. In one corner are the techno-optimists who put their faith in genetically modified crops, improved agrochemicals, and computer-enhanced machinery; in the other are advocates of organic farming, who reject artificial chemicals and embrace back-to-nature techniques such as composting. Both sides cite plausible science to back their claims to the moral high ground, and both bring enough passion to the debate for many people to come away thinking were faced with a stark choice between two mutually incompatible options. Not so. If you take off the ideological blinkers and simply ask how the world can produce the food it needs with the least environmental cost, a new middle way opens. The key is sustainability: whatever we do must not destroy the capital of soil and water we need to keep on producing. Like todays organic farming, the intelligent farming of the future should pay much more attention to the health of its soil and the ecosystem its part of. But intelligent farming should also make shrewd and locally appropriate use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The most crucial ingredient in this new style of agriculture is not chemicals but information about whats happening in each field and how to respond. Yet ironically, this key element may be the most neglected today. Clearly, organic farming has all the warm, fuzzy sentiment on its side. An approach that eschews synthetic chemicals surely runs no risk of poisoning land and water. And its emphasis on building up natural ecosystems seems to be good for everyone. Perhaps these easy assumptions explain why sales of organic food across Europe are increasing by at least 50 percent per year. Going organic sounds idyllic-but its naive, too. Organic agriculture has its own suite of environmental costs, which can be worse than those of conventional farming, especially if it were to become the world norm. But more fundamentally, the organic versus-chemical debate focuses on the wrong question. The issue isnt what you put into a farm, but what you get out of it, both in terms of crop yields and pollutants, and what condition the farm is in when youre done. Take chemical fertilizers, which deliver nitrogen, an essential plant nutrient, to crops along with some phosphorus and potassium. It is a mantra of organic farming that these fertilizers are unwholesome, and plant nutrients must come from natural sources. But in fact, the main environmental damage done by chemical fertilizers as opposed to any other kind is through greenhouse gases-carbon dioxide from the fossil fuels used in their synthesis and nitrogen oxides released by their degradation. Excess nitrogen from chemical fertilizers can pollute groundwater, but so can excess nitrogen from organic manures. On the other hand, relying solely on chemical fertilizers to provide soil nutrients without doing other things to build healthy soil is damaging. Organic farmers dont use chemical fertilizers, so they are very good at building soil fertility by working crop residues and manure into the soil, rotating with legumes that fix atmospheric nitrogen, and other techniques. generates vital soil nutrients and also creates a soil that is richer in organic matter, so it retains nutrients better and is hospitable to the crops roots and creatures such as earthworms that help maintain soil fertility. Such soil also holds water better and therefore makes more efficient use of both rainfall and irrigation water. And organic matter ties up C02 in the soil, helping to offset emissions from burning fossil fuels and reduce global warming. Advocates of organic farming like to point out that fields managed in this way can produce yields just as high as fields juiced up with synthetic fertilizers. For example, Bill Liebhardt, a research manager at the Rodale Institute in Kutztown, Pennsylvania recently compiled the results of such comparisons for corn, wheat, soybeans, and tomatoes in the US and found that the organic fields averaged between 94 and 100 percent of the yields of nearby conventional crops. But this optimistic picture tells only half the story. Farmers cant grow such crops every year if they want to maintain or build soil nutrients without synthetic fertilizers. They need to alternate with soil-building crops such as pasture grasses and legumes such as alfalfa. So in the long term, the yield of staple grains such as wheat, rice and corn must go down. This is the biggest cost of organic farming. Vaclav Smil of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, estimates that if farmers worldwide gave up the 80 million tonnes of synthetic fertilizer they now use each year, total grain production would fall by at least half. Either farmer would have to double the amount of land they cultivate- at catastrophic cost to natural habitat or billions of people would starve. That doesnt mean farmers couldnt get by with less fertilizer. Technologically advanced farmers in wealthy countries, for instance, can now monitor their yields hectare by hectare, or even more finely, throughout a huge field. They can then target their fertilizer to the parts of the field where it will do the best, instead of responding to average conditions. This increases yield and decreases fertilizer use. Eventually, farmers may -incorporate long-term weather forecasts into their planning as well, so that they can cut back on fertilizer use when the weather is likely to make harvests poor anyway, says Ron Olson, an agronomist with CargillFertilizer in Tampa, Florida. Organic techniques certainly have their benefits, especially for poor farmers. But strictorganic agriculture, which prohibits certain technologies and allows others, isnt always better for the environment. Take herbicides, for example. These can leach into waterways and poison both wildlife and people. Just last month, researchers led by Tyrone Hayes at the University of California at Berkeley found that even low concentrations of atrazine, the most commonly used weedkiller in the US, can prevent frog tadpoles from developing properly. | Increasing population, draining irrigation, eroding farmland push agricultural industry to extremity. | e |
id_4458 | Organic Farming And Chemical Fertilizers The worlds population continues to climb. And despite the rise of high-tech agriculture, 800 million people dont get enough to eat. Clearly its time to rethink the food we eat and where it comes from. Feeding 9 billion people will take more than the same old farming practices, especially if we want to do it without felling rainforests and planting every last scrap of the prairie. Finding food for all those people will tax predicting farmersand researchersingenuity to the limit. Yet already, precious aquifers that provide irrigation water for some of the worlds most productive farmlands are drying up or filling with seawater, and arable land in China is eroding to create vast dust storms that redden sunsets as far away as North America. Agriculture must become the solution to environmental problems in 50 years. If we dont have systems that make the environment better~not just hold the fort-then were in trouble, says Kenneth Cassman, an agronomist at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. That view was echoed in January by the Curry report, a government panel that surveyed the future of farming and food in Britain. Its easy to say agriculture has to do better, but what should this friendly farming of the future look like? Concerned consumers come up short at this point, facing what appears to be an ever-widening ideological divide. In one corner are the techno-optimists who put their faith in genetically modified crops, improved agrochemicals, and computer-enhanced machinery; in the other are advocates of organic farming, who reject artificial chemicals and embrace back-to-nature techniques such as composting. Both sides cite plausible science to back their claims to the moral high ground, and both bring enough passion to the debate for many people to come away thinking were faced with a stark choice between two mutually incompatible options. Not so. If you take off the ideological blinkers and simply ask how the world can produce the food it needs with the least environmental cost, a new middle way opens. The key is sustainability: whatever we do must not destroy the capital of soil and water we need to keep on producing. Like todays organic farming, the intelligent farming of the future should pay much more attention to the health of its soil and the ecosystem its part of. But intelligent farming should also make shrewd and locally appropriate use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The most crucial ingredient in this new style of agriculture is not chemicals but information about whats happening in each field and how to respond. Yet ironically, this key element may be the most neglected today. Clearly, organic farming has all the warm, fuzzy sentiment on its side. An approach that eschews synthetic chemicals surely runs no risk of poisoning land and water. And its emphasis on building up natural ecosystems seems to be good for everyone. Perhaps these easy assumptions explain why sales of organic food across Europe are increasing by at least 50 percent per year. Going organic sounds idyllic-but its naive, too. Organic agriculture has its own suite of environmental costs, which can be worse than those of conventional farming, especially if it were to become the world norm. But more fundamentally, the organic versus-chemical debate focuses on the wrong question. The issue isnt what you put into a farm, but what you get out of it, both in terms of crop yields and pollutants, and what condition the farm is in when youre done. Take chemical fertilizers, which deliver nitrogen, an essential plant nutrient, to crops along with some phosphorus and potassium. It is a mantra of organic farming that these fertilizers are unwholesome, and plant nutrients must come from natural sources. But in fact, the main environmental damage done by chemical fertilizers as opposed to any other kind is through greenhouse gases-carbon dioxide from the fossil fuels used in their synthesis and nitrogen oxides released by their degradation. Excess nitrogen from chemical fertilizers can pollute groundwater, but so can excess nitrogen from organic manures. On the other hand, relying solely on chemical fertilizers to provide soil nutrients without doing other things to build healthy soil is damaging. Organic farmers dont use chemical fertilizers, so they are very good at building soil fertility by working crop residues and manure into the soil, rotating with legumes that fix atmospheric nitrogen, and other techniques. generates vital soil nutrients and also creates a soil that is richer in organic matter, so it retains nutrients better and is hospitable to the crops roots and creatures such as earthworms that help maintain soil fertility. Such soil also holds water better and therefore makes more efficient use of both rainfall and irrigation water. And organic matter ties up C02 in the soil, helping to offset emissions from burning fossil fuels and reduce global warming. Advocates of organic farming like to point out that fields managed in this way can produce yields just as high as fields juiced up with synthetic fertilizers. For example, Bill Liebhardt, a research manager at the Rodale Institute in Kutztown, Pennsylvania recently compiled the results of such comparisons for corn, wheat, soybeans, and tomatoes in the US and found that the organic fields averaged between 94 and 100 percent of the yields of nearby conventional crops. But this optimistic picture tells only half the story. Farmers cant grow such crops every year if they want to maintain or build soil nutrients without synthetic fertilizers. They need to alternate with soil-building crops such as pasture grasses and legumes such as alfalfa. So in the long term, the yield of staple grains such as wheat, rice and corn must go down. This is the biggest cost of organic farming. Vaclav Smil of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, estimates that if farmers worldwide gave up the 80 million tonnes of synthetic fertilizer they now use each year, total grain production would fall by at least half. Either farmer would have to double the amount of land they cultivate- at catastrophic cost to natural habitat or billions of people would starve. That doesnt mean farmers couldnt get by with less fertilizer. Technologically advanced farmers in wealthy countries, for instance, can now monitor their yields hectare by hectare, or even more finely, throughout a huge field. They can then target their fertilizer to the parts of the field where it will do the best, instead of responding to average conditions. This increases yield and decreases fertilizer use. Eventually, farmers may -incorporate long-term weather forecasts into their planning as well, so that they can cut back on fertilizer use when the weather is likely to make harvests poor anyway, says Ron Olson, an agronomist with CargillFertilizer in Tampa, Florida. Organic techniques certainly have their benefits, especially for poor farmers. But strictorganic agriculture, which prohibits certain technologies and allows others, isnt always better for the environment. Take herbicides, for example. These can leach into waterways and poison both wildlife and people. Just last month, researchers led by Tyrone Hayes at the University of California at Berkeley found that even low concentrations of atrazine, the most commonly used weedkiller in the US, can prevent frog tadpoles from developing properly. | organic agriculture is the way that environment-damaging technologies are all strictly forbidden. | c |
id_4459 | Organic farming and chemical fertilizers The worlds population continues to climb. And despite the rise of hightech agriculture, 800 million people dont get enough to eat. Clearly its time to rethink the food we eat and where it comes from. Feeding 9 billion people will take more than the same old farming practices, especially if we want to do it without felling rainforests and planting every last scrap of prairie. Finding food for all those people will tax farmers and researchers ingenuity to the limit. Yet already, precious aquifers that provide irrigation water for some of the worlds most productive farmlands are drying up or filling with seawater, and arable land in China is eroding to create vast dust storms that redden sunsets as far away as North America. Agriculture must become the solution to environmental problems in 50 years. If we dont have systems that make the environment better not just hold the fort-then were in trouble, says Kenneth Cassman, an agronomist at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. That view was echoed in January by the Curry report, a government panel that surveyed the future of farming and food in Britain. Its easy to say agriculture has to do better, but what should this friendly farming of the future look like? Concerned consumers come up short at this point, facing what appears to be an ever-widening ideological divide. In one corner are the techno-optimists who put their faith in genetically modified crops, improved agrochemicals and computer-enhanced machinery; in the other are advocates of organic farming, who reject artificial chemicals and embrace back-to-nature techniques such as composting. Both sides cite plausible science to back their claims to the moral high ground, and both bring enough passion to the debate for many people to come away thinking were faced with a stark choice between two mutually incompatible options. Not so. If you take off the ideological blinkers and simply ask how the world can produce the food it needs with the least environmental cost, a new middle way opens. The key is sustainability: whatever we do must not destroy the capital of soil and water we need to keep on producing. Like todays organic farming, the intelligent farming of the future should pay much more attention to the health of its soil and the ecosystem its part of. But intelligent farming should also make shrewd and locally appropriate use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The most crucial ingredient in this new style of agriculture is not chemicals but information about whats happening in each field and how to respond. Yet ironically, this key element may be the most neglected today. Clearly, organic farming has all the warm, fuzzy sentiment on its side. An approach that eschews synthetic chemicals surely runs no risk of poisoning land and water. And its emphasis on building up natural ecosystems seems to be good for everyone. Perhaps these easy assumptions explain why sales of organic food across Europe are increasing by at least 50 per cent per year. Going organic sounds idyllic but its naive, too. Organic agriculture has its own suite of environmental costs, which can be worse than those of conventional farming, especially if it were to become the world norm. But more fundamentally, the organic versus-chemical debate focuses on the wrong question. The issue isnt what you put into a farm, but what you get out of it, both in terms of crop yields and pollutants, and what condition the farm is in when youre done. Take chemical fertilizers, which deliver nitrogen, an essential plant nutrient, to crops along with some phosphorus and potassium. It is a mantra of organic farming that these fertilizers are unwholesome, and plant nutrients must come from natural sources. But in fact the main environmental damage done by chemical fertilizers as opposed to any other kind is through greenhouse gases- carbon dioxide from the fossil fuels used in their synthesis and nitrogen oxides released by their degradation. Excess nitrogen from chemical fertilizers can pollute groundwater, but so can excess nitrogen from organic manures. On the other hand, relying solely on chemical fertilizers to provide soil nutrients without doing other things to build healthy soil is damaging. Organic farmers dont use chemical fertilizers, so they are very good at building soil fertility by working crop residues and manure into the soil, rotating grain with legumes that fix atmospheric nitrogen, and other techniques. This generates vital soil nutrients and also creates a soil that is richer in organic matter, so it retains nutrients better and is hospitable to the crops roots and creatures such as earthworms that help maintain soil fertility. Such soil also holds water better and therefore makes more efficient use of both rainfall and irrigation water. And organic matter ties up CO 2 in the soil, helping to offset emissions from burning fossil fuels and reduce global warming. Advocates of organic farming like to point out that fields managed in this way can produce yields just as high as fields juiced up with synthetic fertilizers. For example, Bill Liebhardt, research manager at the Rodale Institute in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, recently compiled the results of such comparisons for corn, wheat, soybeans and tomatoes in the US and found that the organic fields averaged between 94 and 100 per cent of the yields of nearby conventional crops. But this optimistic picture tells only half the story. Farmers cant grow such crops every year if they want to maintain or build soil nutrients without synthetic fertilizers. They need to alternate with soil-building crops such as pasture grasses and legumes such as alfalfa. So in the long term, the yield of staple grains such as wheat, rice and corn must go down. This is the biggest cost of organic farming. Vaclav Smil of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, estimates that if farmers worldwide gave up the 80 million tonnes of synthetic fertilizer they now use each year, total grain production would fall by at least half. Either farmers would have to double the amount of land they cultivate at catastrophic cost to natural habitats or billions of people would starve. That doesnt mean farmers couldnt get by with less fertilizer. Technologically advanced farmers in wealthy countries, for instance, can now monitor their yields hectare by hectare, or even more finely, throughout a huge field. They can then target their fertilizer to the parts of the field where it will do the most good, instead of responding to average conditions. This increases yield and decreases fertilizer use. Eventually, farmers may incorporate long-term weather forecasts into their planning as well, so that they can cut back on fertilizer use when the weather is likely to make harvests poor anyway, says Ron Olson, an agronomist with Cargill Fertilizer in Tampa, Florida. Organic techniques certainly have their benefits, especially for poor farmers. But strict organic agriculture, which prohibits certain technologies and allows others, isnt always better for the environment. Take herbicides, for example. These can leach into waterways and poison both wildlife and people. Just last month, researchers led by Tyrone Hayes at the University of California at Berkeley found that even low concentrations of atrazine, the most commonly used weedkiller in the US, can prevent frog tadpoles from developing properly. | "organic agriculture" is the way that environment-damaging technologies are all strictly forbidden. | c |
id_4460 | Organic farming and chemical fertilizers The worlds population continues to climb. And despite the rise of hightech agriculture, 800 million people dont get enough to eat. Clearly its time to rethink the food we eat and where it comes from. Feeding 9 billion people will take more than the same old farming practices, especially if we want to do it without felling rainforests and planting every last scrap of prairie. Finding food for all those people will tax farmers and researchers ingenuity to the limit. Yet already, precious aquifers that provide irrigation water for some of the worlds most productive farmlands are drying up or filling with seawater, and arable land in China is eroding to create vast dust storms that redden sunsets as far away as North America. Agriculture must become the solution to environmental problems in 50 years. If we dont have systems that make the environment better not just hold the fort-then were in trouble, says Kenneth Cassman, an agronomist at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. That view was echoed in January by the Curry report, a government panel that surveyed the future of farming and food in Britain. Its easy to say agriculture has to do better, but what should this friendly farming of the future look like? Concerned consumers come up short at this point, facing what appears to be an ever-widening ideological divide. In one corner are the techno-optimists who put their faith in genetically modified crops, improved agrochemicals and computer-enhanced machinery; in the other are advocates of organic farming, who reject artificial chemicals and embrace back-to-nature techniques such as composting. Both sides cite plausible science to back their claims to the moral high ground, and both bring enough passion to the debate for many people to come away thinking were faced with a stark choice between two mutually incompatible options. Not so. If you take off the ideological blinkers and simply ask how the world can produce the food it needs with the least environmental cost, a new middle way opens. The key is sustainability: whatever we do must not destroy the capital of soil and water we need to keep on producing. Like todays organic farming, the intelligent farming of the future should pay much more attention to the health of its soil and the ecosystem its part of. But intelligent farming should also make shrewd and locally appropriate use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The most crucial ingredient in this new style of agriculture is not chemicals but information about whats happening in each field and how to respond. Yet ironically, this key element may be the most neglected today. Clearly, organic farming has all the warm, fuzzy sentiment on its side. An approach that eschews synthetic chemicals surely runs no risk of poisoning land and water. And its emphasis on building up natural ecosystems seems to be good for everyone. Perhaps these easy assumptions explain why sales of organic food across Europe are increasing by at least 50 per cent per year. Going organic sounds idyllic but its naive, too. Organic agriculture has its own suite of environmental costs, which can be worse than those of conventional farming, especially if it were to become the world norm. But more fundamentally, the organic versus-chemical debate focuses on the wrong question. The issue isnt what you put into a farm, but what you get out of it, both in terms of crop yields and pollutants, and what condition the farm is in when youre done. Take chemical fertilizers, which deliver nitrogen, an essential plant nutrient, to crops along with some phosphorus and potassium. It is a mantra of organic farming that these fertilizers are unwholesome, and plant nutrients must come from natural sources. But in fact the main environmental damage done by chemical fertilizers as opposed to any other kind is through greenhouse gases- carbon dioxide from the fossil fuels used in their synthesis and nitrogen oxides released by their degradation. Excess nitrogen from chemical fertilizers can pollute groundwater, but so can excess nitrogen from organic manures. On the other hand, relying solely on chemical fertilizers to provide soil nutrients without doing other things to build healthy soil is damaging. Organic farmers dont use chemical fertilizers, so they are very good at building soil fertility by working crop residues and manure into the soil, rotating grain with legumes that fix atmospheric nitrogen, and other techniques. This generates vital soil nutrients and also creates a soil that is richer in organic matter, so it retains nutrients better and is hospitable to the crops roots and creatures such as earthworms that help maintain soil fertility. Such soil also holds water better and therefore makes more efficient use of both rainfall and irrigation water. And organic matter ties up CO 2 in the soil, helping to offset emissions from burning fossil fuels and reduce global warming. Advocates of organic farming like to point out that fields managed in this way can produce yields just as high as fields juiced up with synthetic fertilizers. For example, Bill Liebhardt, research manager at the Rodale Institute in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, recently compiled the results of such comparisons for corn, wheat, soybeans and tomatoes in the US and found that the organic fields averaged between 94 and 100 per cent of the yields of nearby conventional crops. But this optimistic picture tells only half the story. Farmers cant grow such crops every year if they want to maintain or build soil nutrients without synthetic fertilizers. They need to alternate with soil-building crops such as pasture grasses and legumes such as alfalfa. So in the long term, the yield of staple grains such as wheat, rice and corn must go down. This is the biggest cost of organic farming. Vaclav Smil of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, estimates that if farmers worldwide gave up the 80 million tonnes of synthetic fertilizer they now use each year, total grain production would fall by at least half. Either farmers would have to double the amount of land they cultivate at catastrophic cost to natural habitats or billions of people would starve. That doesnt mean farmers couldnt get by with less fertilizer. Technologically advanced farmers in wealthy countries, for instance, can now monitor their yields hectare by hectare, or even more finely, throughout a huge field. They can then target their fertilizer to the parts of the field where it will do the most good, instead of responding to average conditions. This increases yield and decreases fertilizer use. Eventually, farmers may incorporate long-term weather forecasts into their planning as well, so that they can cut back on fertilizer use when the weather is likely to make harvests poor anyway, says Ron Olson, an agronomist with Cargill Fertilizer in Tampa, Florida. Organic techniques certainly have their benefits, especially for poor farmers. But strict organic agriculture, which prohibits certain technologies and allows others, isnt always better for the environment. Take herbicides, for example. These can leach into waterways and poison both wildlife and people. Just last month, researchers led by Tyrone Hayes at the University of California at Berkeley found that even low concentrations of atrazine, the most commonly used weedkiller in the US, can prevent frog tadpoles from developing properly. | There are only two options for farmers; they use chemical fertilizer or natural approach. | c |
id_4461 | Organic farming and chemical fertilizers The worlds population continues to climb. And despite the rise of hightech agriculture, 800 million people dont get enough to eat. Clearly its time to rethink the food we eat and where it comes from. Feeding 9 billion people will take more than the same old farming practices, especially if we want to do it without felling rainforests and planting every last scrap of prairie. Finding food for all those people will tax farmers and researchers ingenuity to the limit. Yet already, precious aquifers that provide irrigation water for some of the worlds most productive farmlands are drying up or filling with seawater, and arable land in China is eroding to create vast dust storms that redden sunsets as far away as North America. Agriculture must become the solution to environmental problems in 50 years. If we dont have systems that make the environment better not just hold the fort-then were in trouble, says Kenneth Cassman, an agronomist at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. That view was echoed in January by the Curry report, a government panel that surveyed the future of farming and food in Britain. Its easy to say agriculture has to do better, but what should this friendly farming of the future look like? Concerned consumers come up short at this point, facing what appears to be an ever-widening ideological divide. In one corner are the techno-optimists who put their faith in genetically modified crops, improved agrochemicals and computer-enhanced machinery; in the other are advocates of organic farming, who reject artificial chemicals and embrace back-to-nature techniques such as composting. Both sides cite plausible science to back their claims to the moral high ground, and both bring enough passion to the debate for many people to come away thinking were faced with a stark choice between two mutually incompatible options. Not so. If you take off the ideological blinkers and simply ask how the world can produce the food it needs with the least environmental cost, a new middle way opens. The key is sustainability: whatever we do must not destroy the capital of soil and water we need to keep on producing. Like todays organic farming, the intelligent farming of the future should pay much more attention to the health of its soil and the ecosystem its part of. But intelligent farming should also make shrewd and locally appropriate use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The most crucial ingredient in this new style of agriculture is not chemicals but information about whats happening in each field and how to respond. Yet ironically, this key element may be the most neglected today. Clearly, organic farming has all the warm, fuzzy sentiment on its side. An approach that eschews synthetic chemicals surely runs no risk of poisoning land and water. And its emphasis on building up natural ecosystems seems to be good for everyone. Perhaps these easy assumptions explain why sales of organic food across Europe are increasing by at least 50 per cent per year. Going organic sounds idyllic but its naive, too. Organic agriculture has its own suite of environmental costs, which can be worse than those of conventional farming, especially if it were to become the world norm. But more fundamentally, the organic versus-chemical debate focuses on the wrong question. The issue isnt what you put into a farm, but what you get out of it, both in terms of crop yields and pollutants, and what condition the farm is in when youre done. Take chemical fertilizers, which deliver nitrogen, an essential plant nutrient, to crops along with some phosphorus and potassium. It is a mantra of organic farming that these fertilizers are unwholesome, and plant nutrients must come from natural sources. But in fact the main environmental damage done by chemical fertilizers as opposed to any other kind is through greenhouse gases- carbon dioxide from the fossil fuels used in their synthesis and nitrogen oxides released by their degradation. Excess nitrogen from chemical fertilizers can pollute groundwater, but so can excess nitrogen from organic manures. On the other hand, relying solely on chemical fertilizers to provide soil nutrients without doing other things to build healthy soil is damaging. Organic farmers dont use chemical fertilizers, so they are very good at building soil fertility by working crop residues and manure into the soil, rotating grain with legumes that fix atmospheric nitrogen, and other techniques. This generates vital soil nutrients and also creates a soil that is richer in organic matter, so it retains nutrients better and is hospitable to the crops roots and creatures such as earthworms that help maintain soil fertility. Such soil also holds water better and therefore makes more efficient use of both rainfall and irrigation water. And organic matter ties up CO 2 in the soil, helping to offset emissions from burning fossil fuels and reduce global warming. Advocates of organic farming like to point out that fields managed in this way can produce yields just as high as fields juiced up with synthetic fertilizers. For example, Bill Liebhardt, research manager at the Rodale Institute in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, recently compiled the results of such comparisons for corn, wheat, soybeans and tomatoes in the US and found that the organic fields averaged between 94 and 100 per cent of the yields of nearby conventional crops. But this optimistic picture tells only half the story. Farmers cant grow such crops every year if they want to maintain or build soil nutrients without synthetic fertilizers. They need to alternate with soil-building crops such as pasture grasses and legumes such as alfalfa. So in the long term, the yield of staple grains such as wheat, rice and corn must go down. This is the biggest cost of organic farming. Vaclav Smil of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, estimates that if farmers worldwide gave up the 80 million tonnes of synthetic fertilizer they now use each year, total grain production would fall by at least half. Either farmers would have to double the amount of land they cultivate at catastrophic cost to natural habitats or billions of people would starve. That doesnt mean farmers couldnt get by with less fertilizer. Technologically advanced farmers in wealthy countries, for instance, can now monitor their yields hectare by hectare, or even more finely, throughout a huge field. They can then target their fertilizer to the parts of the field where it will do the most good, instead of responding to average conditions. This increases yield and decreases fertilizer use. Eventually, farmers may incorporate long-term weather forecasts into their planning as well, so that they can cut back on fertilizer use when the weather is likely to make harvests poor anyway, says Ron Olson, an agronomist with Cargill Fertilizer in Tampa, Florida. Organic techniques certainly have their benefits, especially for poor farmers. But strict organic agriculture, which prohibits certain technologies and allows others, isnt always better for the environment. Take herbicides, for example. These can leach into waterways and poison both wildlife and people. Just last month, researchers led by Tyrone Hayes at the University of California at Berkeley found that even low concentrations of atrazine, the most commonly used weedkiller in the US, can prevent frog tadpoles from developing properly. | In order to keep nutrient in the soil, organic farmers need to rotate planting method. | e |
id_4462 | Organic farming and chemical fertilizers The worlds population continues to climb. And despite the rise of hightech agriculture, 800 million people dont get enough to eat. Clearly its time to rethink the food we eat and where it comes from. Feeding 9 billion people will take more than the same old farming practices, especially if we want to do it without felling rainforests and planting every last scrap of prairie. Finding food for all those people will tax farmers and researchers ingenuity to the limit. Yet already, precious aquifers that provide irrigation water for some of the worlds most productive farmlands are drying up or filling with seawater, and arable land in China is eroding to create vast dust storms that redden sunsets as far away as North America. Agriculture must become the solution to environmental problems in 50 years. If we dont have systems that make the environment better not just hold the fort-then were in trouble, says Kenneth Cassman, an agronomist at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. That view was echoed in January by the Curry report, a government panel that surveyed the future of farming and food in Britain. Its easy to say agriculture has to do better, but what should this friendly farming of the future look like? Concerned consumers come up short at this point, facing what appears to be an ever-widening ideological divide. In one corner are the techno-optimists who put their faith in genetically modified crops, improved agrochemicals and computer-enhanced machinery; in the other are advocates of organic farming, who reject artificial chemicals and embrace back-to-nature techniques such as composting. Both sides cite plausible science to back their claims to the moral high ground, and both bring enough passion to the debate for many people to come away thinking were faced with a stark choice between two mutually incompatible options. Not so. If you take off the ideological blinkers and simply ask how the world can produce the food it needs with the least environmental cost, a new middle way opens. The key is sustainability: whatever we do must not destroy the capital of soil and water we need to keep on producing. Like todays organic farming, the intelligent farming of the future should pay much more attention to the health of its soil and the ecosystem its part of. But intelligent farming should also make shrewd and locally appropriate use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The most crucial ingredient in this new style of agriculture is not chemicals but information about whats happening in each field and how to respond. Yet ironically, this key element may be the most neglected today. Clearly, organic farming has all the warm, fuzzy sentiment on its side. An approach that eschews synthetic chemicals surely runs no risk of poisoning land and water. And its emphasis on building up natural ecosystems seems to be good for everyone. Perhaps these easy assumptions explain why sales of organic food across Europe are increasing by at least 50 per cent per year. Going organic sounds idyllic but its naive, too. Organic agriculture has its own suite of environmental costs, which can be worse than those of conventional farming, especially if it were to become the world norm. But more fundamentally, the organic versus-chemical debate focuses on the wrong question. The issue isnt what you put into a farm, but what you get out of it, both in terms of crop yields and pollutants, and what condition the farm is in when youre done. Take chemical fertilizers, which deliver nitrogen, an essential plant nutrient, to crops along with some phosphorus and potassium. It is a mantra of organic farming that these fertilizers are unwholesome, and plant nutrients must come from natural sources. But in fact the main environmental damage done by chemical fertilizers as opposed to any other kind is through greenhouse gases- carbon dioxide from the fossil fuels used in their synthesis and nitrogen oxides released by their degradation. Excess nitrogen from chemical fertilizers can pollute groundwater, but so can excess nitrogen from organic manures. On the other hand, relying solely on chemical fertilizers to provide soil nutrients without doing other things to build healthy soil is damaging. Organic farmers dont use chemical fertilizers, so they are very good at building soil fertility by working crop residues and manure into the soil, rotating grain with legumes that fix atmospheric nitrogen, and other techniques. This generates vital soil nutrients and also creates a soil that is richer in organic matter, so it retains nutrients better and is hospitable to the crops roots and creatures such as earthworms that help maintain soil fertility. Such soil also holds water better and therefore makes more efficient use of both rainfall and irrigation water. And organic matter ties up CO 2 in the soil, helping to offset emissions from burning fossil fuels and reduce global warming. Advocates of organic farming like to point out that fields managed in this way can produce yields just as high as fields juiced up with synthetic fertilizers. For example, Bill Liebhardt, research manager at the Rodale Institute in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, recently compiled the results of such comparisons for corn, wheat, soybeans and tomatoes in the US and found that the organic fields averaged between 94 and 100 per cent of the yields of nearby conventional crops. But this optimistic picture tells only half the story. Farmers cant grow such crops every year if they want to maintain or build soil nutrients without synthetic fertilizers. They need to alternate with soil-building crops such as pasture grasses and legumes such as alfalfa. So in the long term, the yield of staple grains such as wheat, rice and corn must go down. This is the biggest cost of organic farming. Vaclav Smil of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, estimates that if farmers worldwide gave up the 80 million tonnes of synthetic fertilizer they now use each year, total grain production would fall by at least half. Either farmers would have to double the amount of land they cultivate at catastrophic cost to natural habitats or billions of people would starve. That doesnt mean farmers couldnt get by with less fertilizer. Technologically advanced farmers in wealthy countries, for instance, can now monitor their yields hectare by hectare, or even more finely, throughout a huge field. They can then target their fertilizer to the parts of the field where it will do the most good, instead of responding to average conditions. This increases yield and decreases fertilizer use. Eventually, farmers may incorporate long-term weather forecasts into their planning as well, so that they can cut back on fertilizer use when the weather is likely to make harvests poor anyway, says Ron Olson, an agronomist with Cargill Fertilizer in Tampa, Florida. Organic techniques certainly have their benefits, especially for poor farmers. But strict organic agriculture, which prohibits certain technologies and allows others, isnt always better for the environment. Take herbicides, for example. These can leach into waterways and poison both wildlife and people. Just last month, researchers led by Tyrone Hayes at the University of California at Berkeley found that even low concentrations of atrazine, the most commonly used weedkiller in the US, can prevent frog tadpoles from developing properly. | Chemical fertilizer currently are more expensive than the natural fertilizers. | n |
id_4463 | Organic farming and chemical fertilizers The worlds population continues to climb. And despite the rise of hightech agriculture, 800 million people dont get enough to eat. Clearly its time to rethink the food we eat and where it comes from. Feeding 9 billion people will take more than the same old farming practices, especially if we want to do it without felling rainforests and planting every last scrap of prairie. Finding food for all those people will tax farmers and researchers ingenuity to the limit. Yet already, precious aquifers that provide irrigation water for some of the worlds most productive farmlands are drying up or filling with seawater, and arable land in China is eroding to create vast dust storms that redden sunsets as far away as North America. Agriculture must become the solution to environmental problems in 50 years. If we dont have systems that make the environment better not just hold the fort-then were in trouble, says Kenneth Cassman, an agronomist at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. That view was echoed in January by the Curry report, a government panel that surveyed the future of farming and food in Britain. Its easy to say agriculture has to do better, but what should this friendly farming of the future look like? Concerned consumers come up short at this point, facing what appears to be an ever-widening ideological divide. In one corner are the techno-optimists who put their faith in genetically modified crops, improved agrochemicals and computer-enhanced machinery; in the other are advocates of organic farming, who reject artificial chemicals and embrace back-to-nature techniques such as composting. Both sides cite plausible science to back their claims to the moral high ground, and both bring enough passion to the debate for many people to come away thinking were faced with a stark choice between two mutually incompatible options. Not so. If you take off the ideological blinkers and simply ask how the world can produce the food it needs with the least environmental cost, a new middle way opens. The key is sustainability: whatever we do must not destroy the capital of soil and water we need to keep on producing. Like todays organic farming, the intelligent farming of the future should pay much more attention to the health of its soil and the ecosystem its part of. But intelligent farming should also make shrewd and locally appropriate use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The most crucial ingredient in this new style of agriculture is not chemicals but information about whats happening in each field and how to respond. Yet ironically, this key element may be the most neglected today. Clearly, organic farming has all the warm, fuzzy sentiment on its side. An approach that eschews synthetic chemicals surely runs no risk of poisoning land and water. And its emphasis on building up natural ecosystems seems to be good for everyone. Perhaps these easy assumptions explain why sales of organic food across Europe are increasing by at least 50 per cent per year. Going organic sounds idyllic but its naive, too. Organic agriculture has its own suite of environmental costs, which can be worse than those of conventional farming, especially if it were to become the world norm. But more fundamentally, the organic versus-chemical debate focuses on the wrong question. The issue isnt what you put into a farm, but what you get out of it, both in terms of crop yields and pollutants, and what condition the farm is in when youre done. Take chemical fertilizers, which deliver nitrogen, an essential plant nutrient, to crops along with some phosphorus and potassium. It is a mantra of organic farming that these fertilizers are unwholesome, and plant nutrients must come from natural sources. But in fact the main environmental damage done by chemical fertilizers as opposed to any other kind is through greenhouse gases- carbon dioxide from the fossil fuels used in their synthesis and nitrogen oxides released by their degradation. Excess nitrogen from chemical fertilizers can pollute groundwater, but so can excess nitrogen from organic manures. On the other hand, relying solely on chemical fertilizers to provide soil nutrients without doing other things to build healthy soil is damaging. Organic farmers dont use chemical fertilizers, so they are very good at building soil fertility by working crop residues and manure into the soil, rotating grain with legumes that fix atmospheric nitrogen, and other techniques. This generates vital soil nutrients and also creates a soil that is richer in organic matter, so it retains nutrients better and is hospitable to the crops roots and creatures such as earthworms that help maintain soil fertility. Such soil also holds water better and therefore makes more efficient use of both rainfall and irrigation water. And organic matter ties up CO 2 in the soil, helping to offset emissions from burning fossil fuels and reduce global warming. Advocates of organic farming like to point out that fields managed in this way can produce yields just as high as fields juiced up with synthetic fertilizers. For example, Bill Liebhardt, research manager at the Rodale Institute in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, recently compiled the results of such comparisons for corn, wheat, soybeans and tomatoes in the US and found that the organic fields averaged between 94 and 100 per cent of the yields of nearby conventional crops. But this optimistic picture tells only half the story. Farmers cant grow such crops every year if they want to maintain or build soil nutrients without synthetic fertilizers. They need to alternate with soil-building crops such as pasture grasses and legumes such as alfalfa. So in the long term, the yield of staple grains such as wheat, rice and corn must go down. This is the biggest cost of organic farming. Vaclav Smil of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, estimates that if farmers worldwide gave up the 80 million tonnes of synthetic fertilizer they now use each year, total grain production would fall by at least half. Either farmers would have to double the amount of land they cultivate at catastrophic cost to natural habitats or billions of people would starve. That doesnt mean farmers couldnt get by with less fertilizer. Technologically advanced farmers in wealthy countries, for instance, can now monitor their yields hectare by hectare, or even more finely, throughout a huge field. They can then target their fertilizer to the parts of the field where it will do the most good, instead of responding to average conditions. This increases yield and decreases fertilizer use. Eventually, farmers may incorporate long-term weather forecasts into their planning as well, so that they can cut back on fertilizer use when the weather is likely to make harvests poor anyway, says Ron Olson, an agronomist with Cargill Fertilizer in Tampa, Florida. Organic techniques certainly have their benefits, especially for poor farmers. But strict organic agriculture, which prohibits certain technologies and allows others, isnt always better for the environment. Take herbicides, for example. These can leach into waterways and poison both wildlife and people. Just last month, researchers led by Tyrone Hayes at the University of California at Berkeley found that even low concentrations of atrazine, the most commonly used weedkiller in the US, can prevent frog tadpoles from developing properly. | Increasing population, draining irrigation, eroding farmland push agricultural industry to extremity. | e |
id_4464 | Organisations are encouraged to provide employees with flexible working opportunities through work-life balance strategies, and workers are increasingly attracted to organizations that offer such strategies. For employees, the opportunity to work and family life, workplace stress, and work overload. However, some senior managers are reluctant to fully support these initiatives due to the substantial costs involved, which escalate with staff numbers. Then again, the cost of implementing flexible working strategies can be Compensated by a reduction in absenteeism and improvements in organizational commitment and employee motivation. | The cost of implementing flexible working strategies is not dependent on the number of employees. | c |
id_4465 | Organisations are encouraged to provide employees with flexible working opportunities through work-life balance strategies, and workers are increasingly attracted to organizations that offer such strategies. For employees, the opportunity to work and family life, workplace stress, and work overload. However, some senior managers are reluctant to fully support these initiatives due to the substantial costs involved, which escalate with staff numbers. Then again, the cost of implementing flexible working strategies can be Compensated by a reduction in absenteeism and improvements in organizational commitment and employee motivation. | Employees who have flexible working hours will have happier home lives compared to those who do not. | n |
id_4466 | Organisations are encouraged to provide employees with flexible working opportunities through work-life balance strategies, and workers are increasingly attracted to organizations that offer such strategies. For employees, the opportunity to work and family life, workplace stress, and work overload. However, some senior managers are reluctant to fully support these initiatives due to the substantial costs involved, which escalate with staff numbers. Then again, the cost of implementing flexible working strategies can be Compensated by a reduction in absenteeism and improvements in organizational commitment and employee motivation. | A likely increase in employee motivation would not be a reason for an organization to implement strategies aimed at improving employees work-life balance. | c |
id_4467 | Organizations are encouraged to provide employees with flexible working opportunities through work-life balance strategies, and workers are increasingly attracted to organizations that offer such strategies. For employees, the opportunity to work and family life, workplace stress, and work overload. However, some senior managers are reluctant to fully support these initiatives due to the substantial costs involved, which escalate with staff numbers. Then again, the cost of implementing flexible working strategies can be compensated by a reduction in absenteeism and improvements in organizational commitment and employee motivation. | A likely increase in employee motivation would not be a reason for an organization to implement strategies aimed at improving employees work-life balance. | c |
id_4468 | Organizations are encouraged to provide employees with flexible working opportunities through work-life balance strategies, and workers are increasingly attracted to organizations that offer such strategies. For employees, the opportunity to work and family life, workplace stress, and work overload. However, some senior managers are reluctant to fully support these initiatives due to the substantial costs involved, which escalate with staff numbers. Then again, the cost of implementing flexible working strategies can be compensated by a reduction in absenteeism and improvements in organizational commitment and employee motivation. | The cost of implementing flexible working strategies is not dependent on the number of employees. | c |
id_4469 | Organizations are encouraged to provide employees with flexible working opportunities through work-life balance strategies, and workers are increasingly attracted to organizations that offer such strategies. For employees, the opportunity to work and family life, workplace stress, and work overload. However, some senior managers are reluctant to fully support these initiatives due to the substantial costs involved, which escalate with staff numbers. Then again, the cost of implementing flexible working strategies can be compensated by a reduction in absenteeism and improvements in organizational commitment and employee motivation. | Employees who have flexible working hours will have happier home lives compared to those who do not. | n |
id_4470 | Organizations are encouraged to provide employees with flexible working opportunities through work-life balance strategies, and workers are increasingly attracted to organizations that offer such strategies. For employees, the opportunity to work and family life, workplace stress, and work overload. However, some senior managers are reluctant to fully support these initiatives due to the substantial costs involved, which escalate with staff numbers. Then again, the cost of implementing flexible working strategies can be compensated by a reduction in absenteeism and improvements in organizational commitment and employee motivation. | Removing work-life balance strategies could result in an associated reduction in absenteeism. | c |
id_4471 | Organizations are encouraged to provide employees with flexible working opportunities through work-life balance strategies, and workers are increasingly attracted to organizations that offer such strategies. For employees, the opportunity to work and family life, workplace stress, and work overload. However, some senior managers are reluctant to fully support these initiatives due to the substantial costs involved, which escalate with staff numbers. Then again, the cost of implementing flexible working strategies can be compensated by a reduction in absenteeism and improvements in organizational commitment and employee motivation. | Organisations that implement work-life balance strategies will recruit more motivated staff. | n |
id_4472 | Our international institutions and treaties have failed to move with the times. They were formed to provide a system through which to tackle common threats while protecting national interests. But interdependence has advanced beyond anything imagined then and in recent times the global institutions have proved totally powerless at providing successful global authority. All too often efforts to address the many common challenges are pulled down by narrow national interests. | In the passage the treater dependence is explained. | c |
id_4473 | Our international institutions and treaties have failed to move with the times. They were formed to provide a system through which to tackle common threats while protecting national interests. But interdependence has advanced beyond anything imagined then and in recent times the global institutions have proved totally powerless at providing successful global authority. All too often efforts to address the many common challenges are pulled down by narrow national interests. | In the passage, the failure to tackle common threats is attributed to national interests. | e |
id_4474 | Our international institutions and treaties have failed to move with the times. They were formed to provide a system through which to tackle common threats while protecting national interests. But interdependence has advanced beyond anything imagined then and in recent times the global institutions have proved totally powerless at providing successful global authority. All too often efforts to address the many common challenges are pulled down by narrow national interests. | The passage is concerned with our collective failure to protect the environment from the damage wreaked by individual companies and nations. | c |
id_4475 | Our international institutions and treaties have failed to move with the times. They were formed to provide a system through which to tackle common threats while protecting national interests. But interdependence has advanced beyond anything imagined then and in recent times the global institutions have proved totally powerless at providing successful global authority. All too often efforts to address the many common challenges are pulled down by narrow national interests. | The passage does not touch on potential solutions, only the problem of ineffectual global governance. | e |
id_4476 | Our international institutions and treaties have failed to move with the times. They were formed to provide a system through which to tackle common threats while protecting national interests. But interdependence has advanced beyond anything imagined then and in recent times the global institutions have proved totally powerless at providing successful global authority. All too often efforts to address the many common challenges are pulled down by narrow national interests. | An entirely new system of global governance is required to address the many common global challenges. | n |
id_4477 | Our international institutions and treaties have failed to move with the times. They were formed to provide mechanisms through which to confront common threats while protecting national interests. But interdependence and interconnectedness have advanced beyond anything imagined at that time and the global institutions have proved utterly impotent at providing effective global governance. On the one hand we have a fast emerging global economy and a spectrum of global communities but no effective global governance. All too often efforts to address the many common challenges are pulled down by narrow national interest. Collectively we have proved incapable of protecting the environment from the damage wreaked by individual companies and nations. Those institutions have proved powerless. The world lacks and increasingly needs mechanisms capable of protecting the collective. | The author believes that the world needs a new system of global stewardship. | e |
id_4478 | Our international institutions and treaties have failed to move with the times. They were formed to provide mechanisms through which to confront common threats while protecting national interests. But interdependence and interconnectedness have advanced beyond anything imagined at that time and the global institutions have proved utterly impotent at providing effective global governance. On the one hand we have a fast emerging global economy and a spectrum of global communities but no effective global governance. All too often efforts to address the many common challenges are pulled down by narrow national interest. Collectively we have proved incapable of protecting the environment from the damage wreaked by individual companies and nations. Those institutions have proved powerless. The world lacks and increasingly needs mechanisms capable of protecting the collective. | The passage is correctly classified as an example of the liberal school of political thinking. This school of thought argues that the interests of the nation state must be protected and the individual must be protected from the excesses of government. | c |
id_4479 | Our international institutions and treaties have failed to move with the times. They were formed to provide mechanisms through which to confront common threats while protecting national interests. But interdependence and interconnectedness have advanced beyond anything imagined at that time and the global institutions have proved utterly impotent at providing effective global governance. On the one hand we have a fast emerging global economy and a spectrum of global communities but no effective global governance. All too often efforts to address the many common challenges are pulled down by narrow national interest. Collectively we have proved incapable of protecting the environment from the damage wreaked by individual companies and nations. Those institutions have proved powerless. The world lacks and increasingly needs mechanisms capable of protecting the collective. | It can be inferred from the passage that we are in the middle of a global revolution. | c |
id_4480 | Our newly written organisational charter emphasises commitment to the creation of long term value through the discovery, development and conversion of new business initiatives. This statement expresses our company's inherent dynamic nature. The charter aims to communicate our dynamism by highlighting our readiness to explore new initiatives, our skill in pushing these to fruition and our ability to capitalise profits. The charter aims to instil this spirit within every single employee. | Employees internalise the values in the charter and adopt the spirit of the company. | n |
id_4481 | Our newly written organisational charter emphasises commitment to the creation of long term value through the discovery, development and conversion of new business initiatives. This statement expresses our company's inherent dynamic nature. The charter aims to communicate our dynamism by highlighting our readiness to explore new initiatives, our skill in pushing these to fruition and our ability to capitalise profits. The charter aims to instil this spirit within every single employee. | Every single employee is inculcated with the company's inherent dynamic nature. | e |
id_4482 | Our newly written organisational charter emphasises commitment to the creation of long term value through the discovery, development and conversion of new business initiatives. This statement expresses our company's inherent dynamic nature. The charter aims to communicate our dynamism by highlighting our readiness to explore new initiatives, our skill in pushing these to fruition and our ability to capitalise profits. The charter aims to instil this spirit within every single employee. | The company's dynamism is communicated in three attributes. | e |
id_4483 | Our solar system has nine planets, each of which orbits the sun in an anticlockwise direction on the same plane so forming a disc-shaped system. The four inner ones, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, are spheres of rock while the four much larger outer planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, are gigantic balls of gas with liquid and solid cores. Pluto is the exception in that it is the most distant of the planets from the sun but is, like the inner planets, made up of a sphere of rock rather than a large amount of gas, as are its distant neighbours. All the outer planets and two of the inner planets have at least one moon. Saturn has the most with 20. | Mercury is the planet closest to the sun. | n |
id_4484 | Our solar system has nine planets, each of which orbits the sun in an anticlockwise direction on the same plane so forming a disc-shaped system. The four inner ones, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, are spheres of rock while the four much larger outer planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, are gigantic balls of gas with liquid and solid cores. Pluto is the exception in that it is the most distant of the planets from the sun but is, like the inner planets, made up of a sphere of rock rather than a large amount of gas, as are its distant neighbours. All the outer planets and two of the inner planets have at least one moon. Saturn has the most with 20. | Pluto has at least one moon. | e |
id_4485 | Our solar system has nine planets, each of which orbits the sun in an anticlockwise direction on the same plane so forming a disc-shaped system. The four inner ones, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, are spheres of rock while the four much larger outer planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, are gigantic balls of gas with liquid and solid cores. Pluto is the exception in that it is the most distant of the planets from the sun but is, like the inner planets, made up of a sphere of rock rather than a large amount of gas, as are its distant neighbours. All the outer planets and two of the inner planets have at least one moon. Saturn has the most with 20. | There are four outer planets. | c |
id_4486 | Our solar system has nine planets, each of which orbits the sun in an anticlockwise direction on the same plane so forming a disc-shaped system. The four inner ones, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, are spheres of rock while the four much larger outer planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, are gigantic balls of gas with liquid and solid cores. Pluto is the exception in that it is the most distant of the planets from the sun but is, like the inner planets, made up of a sphere of rock rather than a large amount of gas, as are its distant neighbours. All the outer planets and two of the inner planets have at least one moon. Saturn has the most with 20. | Mars is further from the sun than Jupiter. | c |
id_4487 | Outdoor training programmes are becoming increasingly popular as a form of development activity for sales staff. A key strength of these courses is that they bring together individuals of varying ages, from a wide range of organisations and backgrounds. Participants spend up to two weeks in relatively isolated parts of the country, completing activities such as rock-climbing, sailing and bushwalking. These courses are designed to improve a number of skills, such as communication and team-working, and are also supposed to improve an individual's self-awareness. Opinions vary about the effectiveness of these courses, with some participants giving very positive feedback about their usefulness and others expressing reservations about how transferable the skills learnt are to the workplace. | Participants normally find that their communication skills improve | n |
id_4488 | Outdoor training programmes are becoming increasingly popular as a form of development activity for sales staff. A key strength of these courses is that they bring together individuals of varying ages, from a wide range of organisations and backgrounds. Participants spend up to two weeks in relatively isolated parts of the country, completing activities such as rock-climbing, sailing and bushwalking. These courses are designed to improve a number of skills, such as communication and team-working, and are also supposed to improve an individual's self-awareness. Opinions vary about the effectiveness of these courses, with some participants giving very positive feedback about their usefulness and others expressing reservations about how transferable the skills learnt are to the workplace. | The participants who benefit the most from the courses also enjoy them the most. | n |
id_4489 | Outside the cities, people have no alternative but to drive their cars to get their children to school, get to hospitals and to go shopping. They already pay among the highest petrol duties in the world and an annual road tax that raises far more than is spent on the national infrastructure. Now they face, within a decade, the introduction of road charging, an additional tax that will be charged for each mile travelled. The aim of these additional taxes is to free the roads of traffic, so speeding up businesses and improving the nations productivity and efficiency. Then the well off will be able to drive along unencumbered by the mass of ordinary drivers, and the congestion of the rush hour will be a thing of the past. | The rich will be able to drive along unencumbered by the mass of ordinary drivers only if the charges are so high that the majority of road users are priced off the roads. | e |
id_4490 | Outside the cities, people have no alternative but to drive their cars to get their children to school, get to hospitals and to go shopping. They already pay among the highest petrol duties in the world and an annual road tax that raises far more than is spent on the national infrastructure. Now they face, within a decade, the introduction of road charging, an additional tax that will be charged for each mile travelled. The aim of these additional taxes is to free the roads of traffic, so speeding up businesses and improving the nations productivity and efficiency. Then the well off will be able to drive along unencumbered by the mass of ordinary drivers, and the congestion of the rush hour will be a thing of the past. | People living outside the cities already pay a higher rate of duty on petrol than those living in the city. | n |
id_4491 | Outside the cities, people have no alternative but to drive their cars to get their children to school, get to hospitals and to go shopping. They already pay among the highest petrol duties in the world and an annual road tax that raises far more than is spent on the national infrastructure. Now they face, within a decade, the introduction of road charging, an additional tax that will be charged for each mile travelled. The aim of these additional taxes is to free the roads of traffic, so speeding up businesses and improving the nations productivity and efficiency. Then the well off will be able to drive along unencumbered by the mass of ordinary drivers, and the congestion of the rush hour will be a thing of the past. | A significant flaw in the case made in the passage would emerge if there were an affordable public transport system serving rural locations. | e |
id_4492 | Outsourcing purchasing services from an external supplier rather than performing the work internally is a popular but politically sensitive means of cutting costs. There has been an increasing use of third parties for HR functions, such as managing payroll and other employee data, and for traditional Finance functions, such as invoice services. The manufacture of goods has even become part of this trend; though the design function is typically kept in-house. Third party call centre operatives can offer customer service expertise that may be more expensive to provide in-house. Offshoring, when functions are moved abroad, often to India or China, where the average wage is considerably lower raises job protection issues. The potential profits from outsourcing operations encourage underdeveloped countries to invest in the necessary educational infrastructure and skills training that are required to support such business. Still, higher corporate profits may be seen to be at the expense of low-wage economies, and the cost benefits are not always passed on to the consumer. Additionally the consumer may not benefit from an improved quality of customer service. Outsourcing decreases prices in another way the competitive marketplace in which service providers companies operate gets squeezed. | The outsourcing trend has led to a reduction in the cost of consumer goods. | n |
id_4493 | Outsourcing purchasing services from an external supplier rather than performing the work internally is a popular but politically sensitive means of cutting costs. There has been an increasing use of third parties for HR functions, such as managing payroll and other employee data, and for traditional Finance functions, such as invoice services. The manufacture of goods has even become part of this trend; though the design function is typically kept in-house. Third party call centre operatives can offer customer service expertise that may be more expensive to provide in-house. Offshoring, when functions are moved abroad, often to India or China, where the average wage is considerably lower raises job protection issues. The potential profits from outsourcing operations encourage underdeveloped countries to invest in the necessary educational infrastructure and skills training that are required to support such business. Still, higher corporate profits may be seen to be at the expense of low-wage economies, and the cost benefits are not always passed on to the consumer. Additionally the consumer may not benefit from an improved quality of customer service. Outsourcing decreases prices in another way the competitive marketplace in which service providers companies operate gets squeezed. | Outsourcing refers to the use of a third party supplier to provide either HR or Finance functions. | c |
id_4494 | Outsourcing purchasing services from an external supplier rather than performing the work internally is a popular but politically sensitive means of cutting costs. There has been an increasing use of third parties for HR functions, such as managing payroll and other employee data, and for traditional Finance functions, such as invoice services. The manufacture of goods has even become part of this trend; though the design function is typically kept in-house. Third party call centre operatives can offer customer service expertise that may be more expensive to provide in-house. Offshoring, when functions are moved abroad, often to India or China, where the average wage is considerably lower raises job protection issues. The potential profits from outsourcing operations encourage underdeveloped countries to invest in the necessary educational infrastructure and skills training that are required to support such business. Still, higher corporate profits may be seen to be at the expense of low-wage economies, and the cost benefits are not always passed on to the consumer. Additionally the consumer may not benefit from an improved quality of customer service. Outsourcing decreases prices in another way the competitive marketplace in which service providers companies operate gets squeezed. | Outsourcing providers compete aggressively for client contracts. | e |
id_4495 | Outsourcing purchasing services from an external supplier rather than performing the work internally is a popular but politically sensitive means of cutting costs. There has been an increasing use of third parties for HR functions, such as managing payroll and other employee data, and for traditional Finance functions, such as invoice services. The manufacture of goods has even become part of this trend; though the design function is typically kept in-house. Third party call centre operatives can offer customer service expertise that may be more expensive to provide in-house. Offshoring, when functions are moved abroad, often to India or China, where the average wage is considerably lower raises job protection issues. The potential profits from outsourcing operations encourage underdeveloped countries to invest in the necessary educational infrastructure and skills training that are required to support such business. Still, higher corporate profits may be seen to be at the expense of low-wage economies, and the cost benefits are not always passed on to the consumer. Additionally the consumer may not benefit from an improved quality of customer service. Outsourcing decreases prices in another way the competitive marketplace in which service providers companies operate gets squeezed. | Low wage countries may need to enhance their infrastructure to attract outsourcing contracts. | e |
id_4496 | Outsourcing purchasing services from an external supplier rather than performing the work internally is a popular but politically sensitive means of cutting costs. There has been an increasing use of third parties for HR functions, such as managing payroll and other employee data, and for traditional Finance functions, such as invoice services. The manufacture of goods has even become part of this trend; though the design function is typically kept in-house. Third party call centre operatives can offer customer service expertise that may be more expensive to provide in-house. Offshoring, when functions are moved abroad, often to India or China, where the average wage is considerably lower raises job protection issues. The potential profits from outsourcing operations encourage underdeveloped countries to invest in the necessary educational infrastructure and skills training that are required to support such business. Still, higher corporate profits may be seen to be at the expense of low-wage economies, and the cost benefits are not always passed on to the consumer. Additionally the consumer may not benefit from an improved quality of customer service. Outsourcing decreases prices in another way the competitive marketplace in which service providers companies operate gets squeezed. | Offshoring is synonymous with outsourcing. | c |
id_4497 | Over $50 billion was spent shopping online last year and it is hardly surprising that criminals want a share of the action. No businessman or woman in his or her right mind would leave a shop unattended, unlocked and without an alarm and most take precautions to protect their virtual shops too but not to the same degree of security. Many businesses do little more than install a firewall and antivirus and anti-spyware software and they believe this is all the security that is required. But the more recent developments in online threats are no longer guaranteed to be excluded by the most commonly available security software. Retailers should take professional advice on the system and consider redirecting all of their inbound and outbound traffic to web security specialists who scan all traffic and block threats. Extra special care needs to be taken with the management of systems involved in the handling of payments by credit cards. | Firewalls and antivirus and anti-spyware software are the virtual equivalents of shop assistants, locks and alarms. | c |
id_4498 | Over $50 billion was spent shopping online last year and it is hardly surprising that criminals want a share of the action. No businessman or woman in his or her right mind would leave a shop unattended, unlocked and without an alarm and most take precautions to protect their virtual shops too but not to the same degree of security. Many businesses do little more than install a firewall and antivirus and anti-spyware software and they believe this is all the security that is required. But the more recent developments in online threats are no longer guaranteed to be excluded by the most commonly available security software. Retailers should take professional advice on the system and consider redirecting all of their inbound and outbound traffic to web security specialists who scan all traffic and block threats. Extra special care needs to be taken with the management of systems involved in the handling of payments by credit cards. | Online shopping offers the criminal the promise of rich pickings. | e |
id_4499 | Over $50 billion was spent shopping online last year and it is hardly surprising that criminals want a share of the action. No businessman or woman in his or her right mind would leave a shop unattended, unlocked and without an alarm and most take precautions to protect their virtual shops too but not to the same degree of security. Many businesses do little more than install a firewall and antivirus and anti-spyware software and they believe this is all the security that is required. But the more recent developments in online threats are no longer guaranteed to be excluded by the most commonly available security software. Retailers should take professional advice on the system and consider redirecting all of their inbound and outbound traffic to web security specialists who scan all traffic and block threats. Extra special care needs to be taken with the management of systems involved in the handling of payments by credit cards. | The antivirus and anti-spyware software usually updates automatically and so the business owner is led to believe that their security will remain up to date too. | n |
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