Questões de Inglês Você está resolvendo questões.

Snakebites: Like having my hand smashed by a hammer

Tulip Mazumdar

    David Williams has been bitten by a snake six
times. “The first time was pretty terrifying because I
didn’t know what to expect. It felt like having my hand
smashed with a hammer,” he says. “My last snakebite
[5] would have been a fatal one, but for the fact we were
carrying an emergency medical kit so we could do
something about it.”
    Dr Williams, an expert on snakebites at the
World Health Organization (WHO) — who travels the
[10] world collecting snake venoms to help develop new
treatments - says most victims “don’t have that lifesaving luxury”.
    The WHO calls snakebites “arguably the world’s
biggest hidden health crisis”, with one person
[15] dying from a bite every four minutes. Hundreds of
thousands of others are left seriously disfigured, with
many needing amputations. Snakebites mainly affect
people living in some of the poorest communities in
the poorest parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America.
[20] Farmers risk their lives and livelihoods every day
while simply tending to their crops, where deadly
snakes lurk. Children often become victims too.

    So now two major health organisations — the
WHO and the UK’s Wellcome Trust — are taking
[25] steps to tackle snakebites. The Wellcome Trust is
investing £80m into a new programme to invest in
new treatments and better access to effective anti-

venoms. And the WHO is preparing to publish a plan
to halve the number of deaths and disabilities caused
[30] by snakebites by 2030.
    “We’re at a very important point in the effort to do
something about snakebite for some of the poorest
people in the world,” says Dr Williams. “Many already
live in poverty and the consequence of snakebite is
[35] that they are driven further into debt and despair, even
if they survive.”
    Snakebite, though potentially lethal, is treatable.
Wellcome’s director of science, Prof Mike Turner,
says: “With access to the right anti-venom there is
[40] a high chance of survival. “While people will always
be bitten by venomous snakes, there is no reason so
many should die.”

    Dr Philip Price, science lead for snakebites at the
Wellcome Trust, says there is a “spiral of decline” when
[45] it comes to dealing with snakebites. “The treatments
are expensive, the people who need them often can’t
afford them, and in some cases people can’t make it
to the hospital in time.”

    Dr Price said that even when people do reach
[50] hospital, sometimes the doctors are not trained
adequately, and often treatments are not available. He
said patients may instead turn to traditional healers,
meaning they “fly under the radar” so “most countries
aren’t even aware they have a snakebite problem”.
[55]    Anti-venom treatment is made in the same way
that it has been for more than 100 years. The costly
and laborious process sees antibodies harvested
from horse blood to make anti-venom. But even so, it
is estimated that the world produces only a third of the
[60] anti-venom that it needs.
    The horses are given very low doses of snake
venom over long periods of time, so it does not harm
the animal, says Dr Price. “Eventually the blood is
taken from the horse, and the antibodies are purified
[65] out. The antibodies inside that blood then bind and
neutralise the venom. “It’s not without risk to inject this
directly into the patient.”

    These risks mean victims have to be treated
in hospitals, which can take hours or even days for
[70] people to travel to. That is often too late to save lives
and limbs.
    Another major challenge is that many of the anti-

venoms available are not actually effective. Different
types of snakebites need different types of anti-venom.
[75] In Africa, for example, up to 90% of available anti-

venom is thought to be ineffective. There is currently
no authoritative international list that exists of all the
anti-venoms available and what they actually treat.
    Despite the challenges, achieving the WHO goal
[80] of halving deaths and disabilities from snakebites over
the next decade is “not all that difficult”, according to
Dr Williams. He has spent decades working on
improving snakebite treatments and education,
particularly in Papua New Guinea.
[85]     “In 2003 in Papua New Guinea, one in every four
children who were bitten by snakes died. Today it’s
less than one in every 50.” Dr Williams says whilst
this is still too many deaths, the solution is “not rocket
science”.
[90]    “It’s about having safe, effective anti-venoms,
trained health workers, communities that are engaged
in the problem and are taught how better to prevent
snakebite, and what to do when someone is bitten.”
He said a desperately needed spotlight is finally being
[95] placed on this avoidable killer.

Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-48281557 Retrieved on: May 18, 2019.

Text

What does the word nationalist mean? (Part I)

    The dictionary's definition of the word seems innocent enough: a person devoted to nationalism (the devotion and loyalty to one's own country). But make no mistake about it. Nationalist is a loaded and controversial term.

    It dates back to the 17th century and rose into prominence during the uprisings in the 18th century that produced the American and French revolutions. But the word attained more of a negative connotation during the 20th century as it become associated with the nationalism movements in Europe that helped lead to World War I and World War II. Today the word is often associated with the far-right, racist ideologies of white nationalists.

    Nationalism has been on the rise worldwide, as evidenced by the success of nationalist political parties in Europe. And it had a double bang in 2016, as it powered Brexit in the UK and the election of Trump as US President. Steve Bannon, Trump's former top strategist, said Trump used an "economic nationalist agenda" to win.

From: shorturl.at/kmOR1 Accessed on 08/28/2019

Text

What does the word nationalist mean? (Part II)

    It's also a word that means different things to different people. "There are different definitions depending on whose nationalism you're talking about," Paul D. Miller, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, told CNN.

    "Scholars generally differentiate between civic and ethnic/sectarian nationalism, that is, between rooting American identity in the ideals of the American experiment versus rooting it in some aspect of our culture, heritage, history, language or ethnicity. Civic nationalism is the same as what I would call patriotism, and it is essential to a healthy democracy. The second kind of nationalism -- sectarian nationalism -- is pernicious and dangerous."

    But Raheem Kassam, a former senior adviser to Brexit leader Nigel Farage, rejects this second, more negative definition of nationalist.

    "Nationalism is not inherently ugly. It is in fact inherently beautiful," said Kassam, who is currently a fellow at the Middle East Forum.

    "Nationalism is a philosophy based around either the nation state, what we know colloquially as 'countries,' or around another identity factor, which could be religion, ethnicity, geography or even interests," he told CNN.

    "In the case of President Trump, he is no doubt using the word to outline his belief in a nation of people unified by beliefs, interests and a common history. This is typically what nationalism has meant since the earliest references to it in human history, though there have no doubt been periods where nationalism, just like socialism or other philosophies, has been used to divide rather than unite, which is ironically the antithesis of its purpose."

From: shorturl.at/kmOR1 Accessed on 08/28/2019

Texto para a questão

Samsung developing technology to create fake videos from one single photo.

With new technology like this in development, seeing will no longer mean believing.

news.com.au MAY 28, 2019

Researchers at Samsung’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Centre in Moscow have created an algorithm that can generate videos using only one image.

The development has caused some worry among technology experts and commentators, ¹who see it as a worrying step towards making fake content creation easier.

In a paper published in the preprint journal ArXiv, and in an accompanying video demo, the algorithm creates a video using a single still image, such as the Mona Lisa painting or a photo of Salvador Dali.

The video can be created using one single image but the more images are used, the better the quality.

A sample of 32 images produces a video of near lifelike accuracy

Current AI systems usually require the algorithm to scan large sets of data of a body and face before it can produce a moving picture based on it.

With this new technology, however, creating fake videos will become a lot easier.

The Samsung algorithm was trained using the publicly available VoxCeleb database which has more than 7000 images of celebrities from YouTube videos.

Since the algorithm recognises common characteristics of a person’s face and body, as opposed to specific traits of a subject, it’s able to quickly extrapolate images with little input.

This method also means that the technology is applicable toward non-celebrities and can be used on anyone, even people ²who died a long time ago and were never captured on video.

The AI is currently only able to produce “talking head” style videos from the shoulders up.

Skeptics of deepfake technology, as it is referred to, worry it will be used to spread misinformation and fake news or to steal people’s identity.

Texto para a questão

Samsung developing technology to create fake videos from one single photo.

With new technology like this in development, seeing will no longer mean believing.

news.com.au MAY 28, 2019

Researchers at Samsung’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Centre in Moscow have created an algorithm that can generate videos using only one image.

The development has caused some worry among technology experts and commentators, ¹who see it as a worrying step towards making fake content creation easier.

In a paper published in the preprint journal ArXiv, and in an accompanying video demo, the algorithm creates a video using a single still image, such as the Mona Lisa painting or a photo of Salvador Dali.

The video can be created using one single image but the more images are used, the better the quality.

A sample of 32 images produces a video of near lifelike accuracy

Current AI systems usually require the algorithm to scan large sets of data of a body and face before it can produce a moving picture based on it.

With this new technology, however, creating fake videos will become a lot easier.

The Samsung algorithm was trained using the publicly available VoxCeleb database which has more than 7000 images of celebrities from YouTube videos.

Since the algorithm recognises common characteristics of a person’s face and body, as opposed to specific traits of a subject, it’s able to quickly extrapolate images with little input.

This method also means that the technology is applicable toward non-celebrities and can be used on anyone, even people ²who died a long time ago and were never captured on video.

The AI is currently only able to produce “talking head” style videos from the shoulders up.

Skeptics of deepfake technology, as it is referred to, worry it will be used to spread misinformation and fake news or to steal people’s identity.