Струкова Сборник дополнителных текст 2014

МИНИСТЕРСТВО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ И НАУКИ РОССИЙСКОЙ ФЕДЕРАЦИИ

НАЦИОНАЛЬНЫЙ ИССЛЕДОВАТЕЛЬСКИЙ ЯДЕРНЫЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ «МИФИ»

Ю. Н. Струкова

Сборник дополнительных текстов по английскому языку

для развития навыков самостоятельной работы аспирантов

Рекомендовано к изданию УМО «Ядерные физика и технологии»

Москва 2014

Предисловие

Данное пособие предназначается для аспирантов, специализирующихся в области экономики и финансов («Финансы», «Бухучёт», «Банковское дело»).

Цель пособия состоит в том, чтобы развивать навыки восприятия специальной литературы на английском языке, развивать навыки устного перевода способствовать развитию устной речи у аспирантов.

Данное пособие включает в себя современные аутентичные тексты и задания к ним.

Пособие предназначено для аспирантов НИЯУ МИФИ, а также может использоваться на занятиях с бакалаврами и магистрантами.

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Unit 1

Warming up activities

What is it big data? How do people want to reap the benefits using big data?

Vocabulary:

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

(OECD) – Организация экономического сотрудничества и развития, ОЭСР

data-mining – глубинный анализ данных government officials – правительственный чиновник stock-market – фондовая биржа

Read the following text carefully and answer the following questions:

1.Why is it so difficult to define big data?

2.What is impediment for big data?

3.What consequences can using big data?

4.What shall we do to get the information from companies?

Elusive big data

The thing, and not the thing

THE ECONOMIST

Feb 18th 2013, 20:49 by K.N.C | PARIS

HOW to define big data? At a meeting of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development last week, about 150 delegates were asked to raise their hands if they had heard of the term all had. How many felt comfortable giving a definition? Only about 10% . And these were government officials who will be called upon to devise policies on supporting or regulating big data.

The conference theme was "knowledge-based capital". The good news is that the wise minds at the OECD can see there is something new and important taking place with the role of data in business and socie-

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ty, and they want to shape the intellectual agenda. The problem is that the civil servants and academics who flock to the meetings aren't always as avant garde in their thinking. That is not to say the event wasn't useful it was. But there is much more to play for.

Take the session on accounting for intangibles. Thomas Günther of the Technical University of Dresden spoke about the ridiculousness of accountancy rules for things like brands, in which "goodwill" is treated as an expense but not an asset if it is developed internally; it only becomes an asset if it is acquired through a market transaction even though it is the same thing, one day to the next. This begs the question of how to place a value on the data that firms hold. For instance, as much as one-third of Amazon's sales are said to come from its recommendation engine: shouldn't the vast pool of data that the company has on customers be considered an asset? But the idea went unaddressed.

Then there is intellectual property. It is a major impediment for big data. For example, data mining techniques to put tens of thousands of research papers through a computer to spot patterns that may otherwise be missed (such as a drugs' side effects being eliminated in the presence of another drug) has shown promise. But copyright law means these sort of "meta mining" studies require researchers to buy access to each article, just as if it were the 19th century and a pair of human eyes were to read it. Yet this and other issues weren't raised. Instead, officials from national patent offices bellyached about things like the backlog and time it takes to examine a patent. Worthy matters, yes, but not cutting edge ones.

Just as delegates thought they were talking about "knowledge based capital" as something with which they were familiar, the issues were more novel than they imagined. The users of information are different with big data than in the past. They talk about one thing, but something else is happening. They are looking at the front door when it's creeping through the side window.

The American economist Michael Mandel of the Progressive Policy Institute did an excellent job of putting a stake in the ground, defining big data as the idea that data is an economic input as well as an output (building on his paper on measuring the data driven economy from last autumn). Jakob Haesler, the boss of Tinyclues, a Paris based start up, raised a worry that big data may mean we lose a degree of transparency in why computers make the decisions they do. A recent article in Nature

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relied on a formula so complex that it couldn't be published in print. And as the data always change and algorithms adapt, it is not clear that the scientific standard of reproducibility may hold. Big data raises epistemological questions, he concluded.

Depressingly, a European delegate asked about possibly of taxing data as a way to fill national coffers. The idea is similar to the "bit tax" that floated around Brussels in the 1990s. A big data tax smacks as retrograde czarist that a nation might strangle a nascent area of economic growth by having the state enrich itself before its citizens can even reap the benefits.

The best comment of the day came from Andrew Wyckoff, the director of the division handling science and technology. The big data world relies on information, but we don't have any information about it with which to understand what is happening. How do we get the data?, he asked. As he explained: we have really good figures for R&D spending because companies break it out in their stock market filings. And they do that because they get a tax credit.

"To measure is to know," Lord Kelvin is said to have remarked. We need data about big data.

Fill the gaps using the words:

Tax, policies, market, relied, intangibles

1.It only becomes an asset if it is acquired through a transaction even though it is the same thing, one day to the next.

2.The companies get a … credit.

3.Take the session on accounting for.

4.A recent article in Nature … on a formula so complex that it couldn't be published in print.

5.These were government officials who will be called upon to devise … on supporting or regulating big data.

Write down all words connected with economy

Make up your plan to this article

Reproduce the text using your list of the words and your plan

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Unit 2

Warming up activities

Will the world’s most important economies be different in the next twenty years?

Do any companies feel pressure from competing Korean and Chinese manufacturers selling cheaper equipment?

Vocabulary:

the outset – начало crucial – решающий therefore – поэтому

to strengthen – усиливать

drastic declines – резкое снижение far-reaching steps – меры на будущее

boosting our performance – повышение производительности profit margin – размер прибыли

competitiveness – конкурентоспособность

Read the following text quickly and answer the following questions:

1.How is the map of the world’s most important economies changing?

2.Why are we continuing to strengthen our position in second wave countries?

3.What did Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in fall 2011 send?

4.What is the goal of two year company-wide program “Siemens 2014”?

The map of the world’s most important economies is changing

Yes. And we intend to be part of this development from the outset. Especially Second Wave Emerging Countries (SEWEC) are crucial areas of growth and will play an important role in the future. Therefore we are continuing to strengthen our position in second wave countries such as Indonesia, Turkey, Colombia, Mexico, South Africa, Thailand and Vietnam.

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Despite the forecasts predicting economic growth in the BRIC countries, the economy is still slowing down.

But Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in fall 2011 sent a signal that foreign investors can count on legal guarantees and the protection of their intellectual property rights in the country. So they will definitely remain very important drivers of the worldwide economy and they are still important for us, too. Therefore I don’t anticipate more drastic declines in growth in this region. The same applies for Europe. Due to drastic declines in the crisis countries, industrial production has dropped since mid 2011. But the European Union has taken important and far reaching steps to overcome the crisis. So things are on the right track, but without a doubt 2013 will be a year of transition for Siemens.

We do not fear competition. But we didn’t fully succeed in significantly boosting our performance vis-à-vis competitors, as we did in recent years. So Siemens kind of lagged behind its own high objectives. To get back to reaching our own goals, we’ve launched our two year company-wide program “Siemens 2014”. Its goal is to raise our Total Sectors profit margin from 9.5 percent last fiscal year to at least 12 percent by fiscal 2014. In total, we are aiming to reduce costs by €6 billion, increase our competitiveness, and become faster and less bureaucratic. So we know what we have to do and we are doing it!

Fill the gaps using the words:

Growth, launched, costs, applies, crisis

1.We are aiming to reduce …

2.The same for Europe.

3.To get back to reaching our own goals, we’ve … our two year company wide program “Siemens 2014”.

4.But the European Union has taken important and far reaching steps to overcome the …

5.Despite the forecasts predicting economic … in the BRIC countries, the economy is still slowing down.

Write down all words connected with economy

Make up your plan to this article

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Reproduce the text using your list of the words and your plan

Do you know anything about Investing? What kind of strategy are investors choosing while the market remains?

Vocabulary:

downward spiral – нисходящая спираль volatility – изменчивость

outcomes – результаты to rely on – полагаться на equity – капитал

ratio – отношение

consumer debt – потребительский долг

diversify – диверсифицировать, всесторонне развиться

Read the following text quickly and answer the following questions:

1.What will happen if there is conflict in the Middle East?

2.What will slow the process of recovery in the States? Where will it lead?

3.Which directions will Russia choose to go in?

4.Who do investors compare Russian securities with? What do they discover?

«I prefer Investing in New and Innovation Sectors»

Kendrick, in your opinion, do foreign investors find Russia attractive nowadays?Well, as you know, oil prices have the greatest impact on investment decisions in Russia, speaking from a macroeconomic point of view. So if there is conflict in the Middle East, it can raise these prices and attract the attention of potential investors. On the other hand, though, the current downward spiral of the European Union could lower oil prices, and that volatility in the European economy could reduce the demand for US products as well. This will slow the process of recovery in the States, leading to a global stagflation and a drop in oil prices, up to 50 - 60% from its current levels. Looking at all these possible outcomes, it’s clear that there is a large amount of uncertainty in the economic future of Russia. And to add to that, investors today have no way

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