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Taking natural objects such as rocks , bones , clouds and flowers for subject matter , Georgia O'Keeffe reduced them to their simplest form , often by employing a close-up view or some other unusual vantage point . With such techniques , including the use of thin paint and clear colors to emphasize a feeling of mystical silence and space , she achieved an abstract simplicity in her paintings . O'Keeffe spent a summer in New Mexico in 1929 and the bleak landscape and broad skies of the desert so appealed to her that she later settled there permanently . Cows' skulls and other bare bones found in the desert were frequent motifs in her paintings. Other common subjects included flowers , the sky , and the horizon lines of the desert. After O'Keeffe's three-month trip around the world by plane in 1959, the sky "paved with clouds" as seen from an airplane also became one of her favorite motifs and the subject of her largest work ,a 24-foot mural that she began in 1966. 重点单词： Researchers have found that migrating animals use a variety of inner compasses to help them navigate. Some steer by the position of the Sun. Others navigate by the stars. Some use the Sun as their guide during the day, and then switch to star navigation by night. One study shows that the homing pigeon uses the Earth's magnetic fields as a guide in finding its way home, and there are indications that various other animals , from insects to mollusks , can also make use of magnetic compasses. It is of course very useful for a migrating bird to be able to switch to a magnetic compass when clouds cover the Sun; otherwise it would just have to land and wait for the Sun to come out again. Even with the Sun or stars to steer by , the problems of navigation are more complicated than they might seem at first. For example , a worker honeybee that has found a rich source of nectar and pollen flies rapidly home to the hive to report. A naturalist has discovered that the bee scout delivers her report through a complicated dance in the hive, in which she tells the other workers not only how far away the food is , but also what direction to fly in relation to the Sun. But the Sun does not stay in one place all day. As the workers start out to gather the food , the Sun may already have changed its position in the sky somewhat. In later trips during the day, the Sun will seem to move farther and farther toward the west. Yet the worker bees seem to have no trouble at all in finding the food source. Their inner clocks tell them just where the Sun will be , and they change their course correspondingly . 重点单词： Thomas Alva Edison, the symbolic proprietor of the burgeoning electrical industry, stressed a preference for plain figuring over scientific formulas. "Oh , these mathematicians make me tired!" he once gibed. "When you ask them to work out a sum they take a piece of paper, cover it with rows of A's, B's , and X's ,Y's ... scatter a mess of flyspecks over them, and give you an answer that's all wrong." Nonetheless , while Edison's approach to invention was often cut-and-try , it was highly systematic. His laboratory at Menlo Park, New Jersey , was equipped with a rich variety of scientific instruments , and its library shelves included the latest scientific books as well as periodicals. Edison also employed some scientists, including the mathematical physicist Francis R. Upton. But Americans of the day, with no small encouragement from the inventor himself , typically thought of Edison as the practical, unschooled inventor who needed no science. And it was true that neither mathematical nor scientific training necessarily made ordinary mortals a match for Edison's kind of genius . 重点单词： Just how salt became so crucial to our metabolism is a mystery; one appealing theory traces our dependence on it to the chemistry of the late Cambrian seas. It was there , a half-billion years ago, that tiny metazoan organisms first evolved systems for sequestering and circulating fluids. The water of the early oceans might thus have become the chemical prototype for the fluids of all animal life - the medium in which cellular operations could continue no matter how the external environment changed. This speculation is based on the fact that , even today, the blood serums of radically divergent species are remarkably similar . Lizards , platypuses, sheep , and humans could hardly be more different in anatomy of eating habits , yet the salt content in the fluid surrounding their blood cells is virtually identical. As early marine species made their way to freshwater and eventually to dry land , sodium remained a key ingredient of their interior , if not their exterior , milieu. The most successful mammalian species would have been those that developed efficient hormonal systems for maintaining the needed sodium concentrations. The human body , for example , uses the hormones renin , angiotensin , and aldosterone to retain or release tissue fluids and blood plasma. The result , under favorable conditions , is a dynamic equilibrium in which neither fluid volume nor sodium concentration fluctuates too dramatically. But if the body is deprived of salt , the effects soon become dangerous , despite compensatory mechanisms . 重点单词： One of the more discernible trends in the financial-service
industry in recent times has been the adoption
of programs designed to encourage more personalized relationships
between an institution's employees and its clients, particularly
those clients who are major depositors. The expression
most commonly used to describe this type of program is
"relationship banking ". A good definition
is provided in the 1985 book Marketing Financial Services:
Implicit within any definition of relationship banking is recognition that the financial- service requirements of one individual or relatively homogeneous group will likely be substantially different from those of another individual or group. A successful relationship banking program is , therefore , dependent in a large part on the development of a series of financial-service "packages", each designed to meet the needs of identifiable homogeneous groups. Another dimension of relationship banking is the development of highly personalized relationships between employee and client. In most financial institutions today the client is serviced by any employee who happens to be free at the time , regardless of the nature of the transaction. Personalized relationships are therefore difficult to establish. In a full relationship banking program , however, the client knows there is one individual within the institution who has intimate knowledge of the client's requirements and preferences regarding complex transactions. Over time, the client develops a high level of confidence in this employee. In short , a personalized relationship evolves between client and employee . 重点单词： |
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