首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
The National Ecological Observatory Network, funded by Congress for $434 million, will equip 106 U. S. sites with sensors to gat
The National Ecological Observatory Network, funded by Congress for $434 million, will equip 106 U. S. sites with sensors to gat
admin
2016-03-10
70
问题
The National Ecological Observatory Network, funded by Congress for $434 million, will equip 106 U. S. sites with sensors to gather ecological data all day, every day, for 30 years after it goes operational in 2017. The Human Brain Project, supported by $1.6 billion from the European Union, intends to create a supercomputer simulation of a working human brain, including all 86 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses(神经键). The International Cancer Genome(基因组)Consortium, 74 research teams across 17 countries spending an estimated $ 1 billion, is compiling 25,000 tumor genome sequences from 50 types of cancers. Big data is big business in the life sciences, attracting lots of money and prestige. It’s relatively young: the move toward big data can be traced back to 1990, when researchers joined together to sequence all 3 billion letters in the human genome. That project concluded in 2003, and since then, the life sciences have become a data juggernaut(强大的破坏力), propelled forward by new sequencing and imaging technologies that accumulate data at astonishing speeds.
But not all scientists think bigger is better. As of July 9, 2014, for example, more than 450 researchers had signed a public letter criticizing the Human Brain Project, citing a "significant risk" that the project will fail to meet its goal. One neuroscientist called the project " a waste of money," while another bluntly said the idea of simulating the human brain is downright "crazy". Other big data projects have also been criticized, especially for cost and lack of results. The core of recent criticisms against big data projects is the concern that expensive, massive data sets on biological phenomena—including the brain, the genome, the biosphere(生物圈)and more—won’t necessarily lead to scientific discoveries. " One of the problems with ideas about big data is the implicit notion that simply having lots of data will answer questions for you, and it won’t," says J. Anthony Movshon, a neuroscientist at New York University. Large data sets are useful only when combined with the right tools and theories to interpret them, he says, and those have largely been lacking in the life sciences. That’s one reason biological data is piling up far faster than it is being analyzed. "We have an inability to slow down and focus," says Kenneth Weiss, an evolutionary geneticist at Penn State University. "I wouldn’t say big data is bad, but it’s a fad, and we’re not learning a lesson from it. "
Other areas of science, such as physics and astronomy, have a rich history of big data, as well as the organization and infrastructure to use that data. Take the Hubble Space Telescope, which has made 1 million observations, amounting to over 100 terabytes of data, since its launch in 1990. More than 10,000 scientific articles have been published using that data, including the discovery of dark energy and the age of the universe. Or consider the Large Hadron Collider, a particle accelerator that produces tens of terabytes of data each night. In 2012, that data confirmed the existence of the Higgs boson, also called the " God particle," among other high-profile discoveries in particle physics. The life sciences, on the other hand, have barreled(高速行进)ahead in data collection without the ability to determine which types of data are most useful, how to share it, or how to reproduce results. Research and funding institutions recognize this limitation, says Philip Bourne, associate director for data science at the National Institutes of Health, and the NIH is working to set aside funding and manpower to find ways to make data usable. Bourne is optimistic: " Making full use of very large amounts of data takes time, but I think it will come," he says.
Bourne and others, like David Van Essen, lead investigator of the $40 million NIH-funded Human Connectome Project(HCP), believe that gathering data first and asking questions second is a new, exciting way to make discoveries about the natural world. The HCP, a consortium of 36 investigators at 11 institutions, is a big data effort to map the connections in the brain using high-resolution brain scans and behavioral information from 1,200 adults. According to the project’s website, the HCP data set will "reveal much about what makes us uniquely human and what makes every person different from all others. " On the other hand, there’s not a single hypothesis in sight. This is a fundamentally different way of doing science from hypothesis-driven experiments, the traditional bedrock of the scientific method, and many researchers have their doubts about it. " Science depends upon predictions being generated and those hypotheses being tested," says ecologist Robert Paine of the University of Washington. "Mega models won’t bring us to the promised land. " Others say the effort required to gather the data simply doesn’t warrant the price tag: " The idea that you should collect a lot of information because somewhere in this chaff(谷壳)is a little bit of wheat is a poor case for using a lot of money," says Movshon.
Which of the following is NOT a shared characteristic of the projects mentioned in the first paragraph?
选项
A、Focusing on the field of life science.
B、Being supported by government.
C、Spending large amounts of money.
D、Dealing with a massive quantity of data.
答案
B
解析
细节题。由题干定位至第一段。第一段介绍了三个科研项目:The National EcologicalObservatory Network,The Human Brain Project和The International Cancer Genome Consortium,第一个项目由美国国会资助,第二个项目由欧盟资助,第三个项目没有交代背后支持者,因此,“政府支持”不是这三个科研项目的共同特征,故答案为[B]。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/Wo7O777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
TherehasbeenanecologicaltriumphintheprovincesofSwedenwhereIhavespentthepastthreeweeks.Thewolfandthelynx(
HowtoEnsureSurvivalintheCollegeDormLifeincollegedormcanbehard,especiallyforthefirst-years.HereShahJ.Ch
HowtoEnsureSurvivalintheCollegeDormLifeincollegedormcanbehard,especiallyforthefirst-years.HereShahJ.Ch
WhichofthefollowingstatementsaboutlanguageisNOTtrue?
Wheredoesmoralitycomefrom?ThroughoutthehistoryofWesterncivilizationthinkershaveusuallyansweredeitherthatitcome
WhenIwasgrowingup,Iwasembarrassedtobeseenwithmyfather.Hewasseverelycrippledandveryshort,andwhenwewouldw
Thereisanever-endingsupplyofbusinessgurustellingushowwecan,andmust,domore.SherylSandbergurgeswomento"Lean
Howmenfirstlearnedtoinventwordsisunknown;inotherword,theoriginoflanguageisamystery.Allwereallyknowis【M1】
我不敢说生命是什么,我只能说生命像什么。生命像向东流的一江春水,他从最高处发源,冰雪是他的前身。他聚集起许多细流,合成一股有力的洪涛,向下奔注,他曲折的穿过了悬崖峭壁,冲倒了层沙积土,挟卷着滚滚的沙石,快乐勇敢地流走,一路上他享受着他所遭遇的一切
PASSAGETHREEWhatdoeslifemeantotheauthor?
随机试题
科学研究日趋复杂性导致多作者科技文章增长,涉及多个医院病人的临床实验报告,通常由每个参与医院的参与医生共同署名。类似地,如果实验运用了多个实验室开展的子系统,物理学论文报导这种实验结果时,每个实验室的参与人员也通常是论文作者。如果以上所述为真。下面哪一项一
镍及镍基合金焊接过程中,不宜采用大的热输入来增加熔透性。
诊断慢性支气管炎的主要依据是
患者,女,58岁。下唇糜烂。临床检查:见下唇红,有1cm×1.2cm血痂,中央凹陷,边缘微隆,有放射状白色短条纹。治疗该病可选用
胁痛的病变主要涉及到( )。
其性走窜,久服易伤正气的是()。
根据相关法律、法规的规定,一切从大局出发,正确处理局部利益与整体利益、近期建设与长远发展、经济发展与环境保护、开发改造与历史文化遗产保护等方面的关系,这体现了城乡规划行业职业道德规范的()内容。
关于德才兼备,理解正确的有()。
今年我国将稳步扩大专业技术类公务员管理试点,抓紧研究启动税务、海关、_______等系统专业技术类公务员管理试点。
IwishIcouldhaveattendedthejobfairyesterday,butI________it.
最新回复
(
0
)