作者：shiyi18

College enrolment
大学注册

Boom times
雨后春笋般增长
Nov 12th 2009 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition

The recession drives young Americans back to learning
经济危机促使美国的年轻人重返校园
A BUSINESS that jacks up its prices during a recession is usually asking to lose customers. Not so America’s colleges, which are simultaneously raising tuition fees and experiencing record levels of enrolment. The Technical College System of Georgia, for instance, whose 28 campuses teach everything from power-line maintenance to dental hygiene, has sharply raised its fees, yet the number of students is up 24% from a year earlier. Campus parking lots are so full that “we got them parking in cow pastures,” says a spokesman.
通常来说，如果有一桩生意在经济危机时期提高价格，那么定会丧失其顾客。但是这一法则对美国的大学来说却毫不适用，它们在提高学费的同时却招来了史无前例的众多报名者。就拿乔治亚技术学院系统来说，其28个校区中从电力维修专业到牙科卫生专业均大幅增加了学费，但学生人数却比一年前增加了24%。一位发言人说，校园里的停车位已经满得“使我们不得不将车停到养牛的牧场里”。
继续阅读“”

Six Sigma
六西格玛
Nov 6th 2009
From Economist.com

A popular way for managers to put quality management into effect
管理者有效实施质量管理的途径

This is an approach to quality improvement based on the statistical work of Joseph Juran, one of two American pioneers of quality management in Japan. Sigma is a Greek letter used in mathematics to denote standard deviation, a statistical measure of the extent to which a series of numbers or readings deviates from its mean. One Sigma indicates a wide scattering of the readings. If the mean is the required quality standard of a particular process or product, then One Sigma quality is not very good. The higher the number, the closer the readings come to total perfection. At the Six Sigma level, there are only 3.4 defects per million.
这一方法是由约瑟夫•朱兰的统计结论发展而来，朱兰是将质量管理理念引入日本的两位先驱者中的一员。西格玛（σ）是一个希腊字母，表示数学里的标准差，即一系列数字偏离其均值的程度。一西格玛（σ）就表示这些产品（流程）的质量不如人意。西格玛（σ）的值越大，产品的合格率就越高。6西格玛（6σ）就表示次品率为3.4/100万。
继续阅读“”

India’s gold purchase
印度的黄金交易

Adornment and investment
装饰品与投资

Nov 5th 2009 | DELHI
From The Economist print edition

India is eager for the IMF’s bullion
印度渴望国际货币基金组织的黄金
继续阅读“”

Video games move online
视频游戏的云端转移

A giant sucking sound
巨大的吸食声

Nov 5th 2009
From The Economist print editio

The internet swallows another media business, but spits out some hope
互联网吞噬掉的是另一个媒体商业，但吐出的是希望

Now you can steal cars online, with your friends
现在你可以和朋友一起在线偷窃汽车

继续阅读“”

1Nestlé

The unrepentant chocolatier
不思悔改的巧克力制造商

Oct 29th 2009 | LAUSANNE AND VEVEY
From The Economist print edition

The world’s biggest food company is betting on an emerging class of health and nutrition products to spur its growth. But risks abound
世界头号食品公司将宝压在健康营养产品的新兴阶层以促进公司壮大。然而，危机四伏

IT IS a curious blend of kitchen and laboratory. From one room wafts the bittersweet smell of chocolate being gently heated and stirred by chocolatiers. Around the corner it is all science. A double row of cubicles contains human guinea pigs who sniff and taste from little tubs, scoring each on criteria such as sweetness or bitterness to produce complex flavour charts. Down the corridor, women in comfortable chairs talk about how chocolate makes them feel. Cameras and microphones record their most minute gestures for the scrutiny of psychologists and anthropologists

这种厨房与实验室的结合着实新奇。制造商将巧克力微微加热，使其散发出甜中带苦的口味。事情虽小确是科学。两排小隔间的实验对象嗅闻、品尝小盒中的食物，并根据甜、苦等标准打分，制造商据此创造复杂的口味系列。穿过走廊，很多女士坐在舒服的座椅上，描述吃巧克力的感觉。她们每一个细微的动作都被摄像机和麦克风记录下来，稍后心理学家和人类学家将对这些数据进行仔细分析。

继续阅读“”

伊拉克脆弱的防御

Jangling nerves
忧心忡忡

Oct 22nd 2009 | BAGHDAD
From The Economist print edition

As the Americans prepare to go and an election looms, anxiety is rising again
美军撤离 选举在即 忧虑又生
继续阅读“”

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Anti-corruption measures
Too little, too late?反腐败：力度不足，为时已晚？

Dec 13th 2006 | FRANKFURT
From The Economist print edition

Siemens belatedly wakes up to reputation risk
西门子终于意识到自己的声誉危机，可惜为时已晚

IT IS a dense, dramatic account of police raids, arrests and the investigation into allegations that at least euro200m ($265m) was siphoned out of secret bank accounts in Liechtenstein, Austria and Switzerland. A page-turning airport thriller? No, the 20-F filing submitted by Siemens, a German conglomerate, to the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, DC on December 11th. At the same time, the firm restated its earnings to take account of uncertainties over transactions being investigated by state prosecutors in at least three countries.
　　这是一段关于警方的搜查、逮捕、调查的叙述，紧张而生动，因有人声称至少2亿欧元（2.65亿美元）从列支敦士登、奥地利、瑞士的秘密银行帐户上被划走。你以为这是让你不忍释卷的惊险小说？不是的，这是12月11日德国西门子集团提交给华盛顿证券交易委员会的20-F文件。提交文件的同时，考虑到国家检查官正在至少三个国家调查其交易，后果难料，西门子还重估了利润。

继续阅读“[2006.12.13][business] Anti-corruption measures: Too little, too late?”

Leaders
Digital music

Music wants to be free
数字音乐：　音乐要走向自由

Feb 8th 2007
From The Economist print edition

Everyone will benefit if digital music is sold without copy-protection
如果数字音乐以无版权保护的方式出售，所有人都会从中受益。

IT IS not often that the company that dominates an industry, and is thus most wedded to the status quo, calls for the rules that govern the business to be changed. But that is what happened this week when Steve Jobs, the boss of Apple—which dominates digital music with its iPod music-player and iTunes music-store—published an essay on his firm’s website under the unassuming title “Thoughts on Music”.
　　一家处于行业霸主地位的公司通常是最想保持现状的，所以我们很少见到一位行业霸主呼吁改变行业规则。但以iPod数字音乐播放器称霸数字音乐领域的苹果电脑上周就这么做了－－苹果总裁斯蒂夫.钱伯斯（ Steve Jobs）上周在公司网站上发表了一篇名字平实的文章，叫《关于音乐的一些思考》。

继续阅读“[2007.2.10][Leaders]Digital music : Music wants to be free”

Evidence-based ethics
循证伦理学

Logical endings
逻辑终端
Mar 15th 2007
From The Economist print edition

Computers may soon be better than kin at predicting the wishes of the dying
也许不久之后，计算机将比亲属更了解人临死时的愿望

IN 1947 a psychologist called Theodore Sarbin made a controversial suggestion to a medical conference. He proposed that a doctor is really just a machine whose purpose is to make actuarial judgments about the best treatment for a patient. And not a very good machine, at that, for Sarbin also suggested that medicine would benefit if “we could replace [the doctor’s] eyes and brain with a Hollerith machine”.
在1947年的一次医学大会上，心理学家西奥多•沙宾（Theodore Sarbin）的意见引起了争论。他提出，医生不过是一台机器，其目的是为了对患者获得最优治疗方案作出保险精算的判断，而且还不是一台很好的机器。沙宾指出，如果“我们能够用一台霍勒里斯机器换掉（医生的）眼睛和大脑”，医学才会让人获益。

继续阅读“[2007.3.15]Evidence-based ethics: Logical endings”