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You will read a magazine article about volcanoes.

volc anoes. Answer the questions
based on what you have read.

 Volcanoes have existed since the birth of the earth, and they have helped
he lped
shape the continents as we know them. The word volcano is thought to
have come from Roman mythology, specifically derived from Vulcan,
the Roman god of fire who was thought to be Jupiter’s blacksmith and
responsible for making arrows and shields. Vulcan also had a Greek
equivalent, known as Hephaestus, whose name means “burning” or
“flaming.” Volcanoes were featured in ancient poetry, where they are
described as the blacksmith’s workshop. When a mountain erupted, the
ancients thought it was caused by smoke escaping through the chimney
of Vulcan’s w orkshop
orkshop when he was at work.

But what are volcanoes, really? A volcano is an opening in the Earth’s

surface which allows hot magma, volcanic ash and gases to escape from
the magma chamber below the surface. Volcanic eruptions can cause
destruction and consequent disaster in several different ways. One is the
 volcanic eruption itself, causing harm from the explosion of the volcano
or the immediate fall of rock. Then there is lava - molten rock or liquid
rock - that may be produced during the eruption of a volcano. As it
leaves the volcano, the hot lava destroys any buildings and plants in its
path. Third, there is volcanic ash, consisting of fragments of pulverized
rock, minerals and volcanic glass, which may form a cloud and settle
thickly in nearby locations. When volcanic ash is mixed with water it
forms a concrete-like material, and in sufficient quantity, ash may cause
roofs to collapse under its weight. Small quantities of volcanic ash will
also harm humans if inhaled.

However, the main danger to humans in the immediate surroundings of

a volcanic eruption is pyroclastic flows. These are currents of hot gas and
rock which can reach speeds of up to 700 kmh (450 mph) and
temperatures of about 1,000 °C (1,830 °F). It is believed that the Roman
town of Pompeii near Naples was destroyed by a pyroclastic flow in the
eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, and that heat was the main cause
of death of people and not, as previously believed, the inhalation of ash.
 One recent volcanic eruption causing chaos and disaster was the
Puyehue-Cordón Caulle eruption in Chile in 2011. At least 3,500 people
 were evacuated from nearby areas, while the ash cloud was blown across
cities all around the Southern hemisphere, creating travel chaos when
airlines were forced to cancel hundreds of flights. Ash poses a threat to
aircrafts because once sucked into engines, it can be transformed into
molten glass by the high engine temperatures and can cause an engine to
fail. Further, ski resorts in Argentina had to be closed, a nearby river was
contaminated and its temperature rose to 45 °C (113 °F) and pastureland
in Southern Argentina was destroyed
 Computer science professor Mark Brown appreciates the power of nonverbal
communication. Calling himself a human-computer interaction specialist, Brown
focuses his work on replicating characteristics of human behavior in robots or
animatronic characters. Brown is leading a team that is developing and creating
 various computer algorithms based on how people communicate without words.
 These algorithms are then used to program devices, like robots, to look and act
more human-like, helping to bridge the gap between man and machine.

 A critical part of the human-robot gap centers on communication. When we talk

 with someone, words are not the only influence on a listener’s understanding. Other
subtle factors –  such as tone of voice, body language and eye contact  –  also have
powerful communicative potential. Some robotics researchers have focused on
gesture, tone of voice and facial expressions. Recently, for example, a group of
researchers in Singapore released a computer program whose algorithm recognizes
human gestures quickly and accurately. They tested the software by integrating it
 with ShapeTape, a special jacket that uses fiber optics and sensors to monitor the
bending and twisting of hands and arms. In tests, five different users wore the
ShapeTape jacket and used it to control a virtual robot through simple arm motions
that represented commands such as forward, backward, faster or slower. The
researchers found that 99.15% of gestures were correctly translated by their system.
 A particularly important achievement of this software is how easy it is to add new
commands, by demonstrating a new control gesture just a few times. The next step
in improving the gesture recognition system is to allow humans to control robots
 without the need to wear any special devices.

Brown has focused his most recent research on human gaze, the facet of nonverbal
communication he finds most intriguing. “It turns o ut that gaze tells us all sorts of
things about attention, about mental states, about roles in conversations,” he says.
For example, if a person focuses his or her gaze on a specific individual while
talking to a group of people, it communicates that what is being said is especially
relevant to that individual.

Research also shows that when a person finishes saying something in a c onversation
and directs his or her gaze to one particular person, that person is likely to take the
next turn speaking in the discussion. These nonverbal cues tell people where our
attention is focused and what we mean when we direct a question or comment in a
conversation. When people really mean what they are saying, they might open up
their eyes and look at the person they are talking to and really try to communicate
their message or thought through facial and other cues.

 To convert these subtle cues of human communication into data and language that
can be used by a robot, Brown’s team takes the same approach as the Singapore
team. They break down each human cue or gesture into minute segments or sub-
mechanisms –  such as the direction of the eyes versus the direction of the head or
how the body is oriented –  which can be modeled. Then certain temporal
dimensions are added to the model, such as the length of time a target is looked at.
 When building robots for roles in teaching, for example, Brown incorporates these
nonverbal behaviors in the control software. The research team has found robot -
assisted learning improves when a robot teacher uses these visual cues.

Brown’s goal is not to duplicate a human being in robot form, or have robots mimic
people on a one-to-one basis. Instead, he seeks to find key mechanisms which help
humans communicate effectively, reproduce them in many different robots and
enable these systems to connect with humans as humans communicate with each
other. He believes that this kind of robot development has significant potential for
assistive technologies. For example, he wants to explore how a “smart” robot  who
communicates like a person might assist people with disabilities to lead fuller and
more comfortable lives.
 The phrase “free trade” is a flashpoint for many people, particularly those involved
in government, international commerce or the media. Proponents perpetuate the
 view that foreign investment in developing countries is so helpful to those countries
that it’s practically philanthropy. Those on the other side of the debate say that in
reality, free trade and foreign investment are euphemisms, pretty-sounding names
for a nasty business, namely, the exploitation of developing countries by powerful
international corporations.

 What are the basic arguments people use to attack and defend free trade? The
attackers cite three primary arguments against free trade. First, developed countries
benefit by investment in countries in which basic human rights violations are a
fundamental part of the culture. Indeed, those violations often make the free trade
investment extremely profitable, with the result that f ree trade investment tacitly
encourages anti-democratic governments in countries in which workers suffering
under corrupt regimes are voiceless and desperate. Low wages and long hours for
low-skilled work make global companies financially viable. Profit-makers have little
or no regard for human rights or social cost.

Second, say the attackers, the environmental damage caused to developing coun tries
by Western corporations’ resource extraction, ranging from guano in the Pacific
Islands in the 19th century to oil in Nigeria today, is appalling. Local populations
don’t benefit from the financial windfall created by the free trade inspired
investment; the resources and the profits all go offshore. Most of the skilled labor is
brought in from outside the country, leaving only the low-skilled jobs. After a few
years only the mess is left behind, along with a profoundly disrupted society.

 Third, free trade is far from being the inter-governmental cooperative endeavor it
may appear to be. Indeed, the heads of government in powerful Western nations,
 who espouse free trade and foreign investment as pillars of democracy, are indebted
to business interests. International corporations demand direct access to
international markets and property in developing countries from their governments,
 while at the same time demanding protection of their interests in the form of trade
barriers from their own governments.

 The defenders, however, flatly reject the charge of economic exploitation —  all

benefits accruing to the investor and none to the object of investment. Nearly two
hundred years ago, they contend, renowned British economist and stockbroker
David Ricardo proved definitively in his law of “comparative advantage” that free
trade benefits both parties despite disparities in wealth and power.

Defenders often point out that in developing countries, the so- called “exploitative”
 wages international companies pay local workers are typically 50%-75% above
prevailing rates in the host countries  –  and the work is almost always safer to boot.
 The workers are worth the premium paid above local wages because the investing
corporation has already made them more valuable as a result of their employment
and training in new industries. And new infrastructure built by international
companies in order to do business does not disappear; the roads, the
telecommunication networks, the sewers and clean water supply are permanent
assets. They enable the country to support more new industry employing local
people at still higher salary levels. Hong Kong is the classic modern example of this
cycle. Fifty years ago it was one of the poorest places on the globe. Yet, by dint of
hard work and by embracing free trade and foreign investment, the peo ple have
lifted themselves out of their poverty to such a point that today th ey are, by some
measures, the richest on Earth.

 As to the issue of environmental damage as a result of free trade, defenders say that
this is pure and simple nonsense. The simple fact is, they argue, that rich nations
have clean environments and poor nations do not. As countries get rich, they clean
up their backyards. Poor countries will clean themselves up if given a chance to
become rich enough to afford the luxury of doing so. Concern for the environment
is a polemical dodge: wealthy is healthy. The real question is how best to bring
 wealth to poor countries, and if rich countries also benefit by making that shift
possible, what is the harm in that?