Pool Watch Swimmers can drown in busy swimming pools when lifeguards(救生员) fail to notice that they are in trouble. The Royal

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问题                                 Pool Watch
   Swimmers can drown in busy swimming pools when lifeguards(救生员) fail to notice that they are in trouble. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents says that on average 15 people drown in British pools each year, but more suffer major injury after getting into difficulties. Now a French company has developed an artificial intelligence system called Poseidon that sounds the alarm when it sees someone in danger of drowning.
   When a swimmer sinks towards the bottom of the pool, the new system sends an alarm signal to a poolside(游泳池边) monitoring station and a lifeguard’s pager. In trials(试验)at a pool in Ancenis, near Nantes, it saved a life within just a few months, says Alistair McQuade, a spokesman for its maker, Poseidon Technologies.
   Poseidon keeps watch through a network of underwater and overheard video cameras. AI software analyses the images to work out swimmers trajectories(轨道). To do this reliably, it has to tell the difference between a swimmer and the shadow of someone being cast onto the bottom or side of the pool. "The underwater environment. Is a very dynamic one, with many shadows and reflections dancing around, " says McQuade.
   The software does this by "projecting" a shape in its field of view onto an image of the far wall of the pool. It does the same with an image from another camera viewing the shape from a different angle. If the two projections are in the same position, the shape is identified as a shadow and is ignored. But if they are different, the shape is a swimmer and so the system follows its trajectory.
   "To pick out potential drowning victims, anyone in the water who starts to descend slowly is added to the software’s "pre-alert" list," says McQuade. Swimmers who then stay immobile on the pool bottom for 5 seconds or more are considered in danger of drowning. Poseidon double-cheeks that the image really is of a swimmer, not a shadow, by seeing whether it obscures the pool’s floor texture when viewed from overhead (在头顶上). If so, it alerts the lifeguard, showing the swimmer’s location on a poolside screen.
   The first full-scale Poseidon system will be officially opened next week at a pool in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. One man who is impressed with the idea is Travor Baylis, inventor of the clockwork(时钟机构) radio. Baylis runs a company that installs swimming pools — and he was once an underwater escapologist (表演脱身术的人) with a circus. "I say full marks to them if this works and can save lives, " he says. But he adds that any local authority spending £30,000-plus on a Poseidon system ought to be investing similar amounts in teaching children to swim.
What is required of AI software to save a life?

选项 A、It must be able to swim.
B、It must keep walking round the pool.
C、It can distinguish between a swimmer and a shadow.
D、It can save a life within a few months.

答案C

解析 第三段提到“它(人工智能软件)必须能区分一个游泳的人与投射的池底或池壁的某个人的影子”。A项意思是:它必须能游泳;B项意思是:它必须在游泳池周围来回走;D项意思是:它在几个月中就拯救了一条生命。只有C想可以从原文中推断出来,故选C。
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