[E353]Something in the air tonight|经济学人
本文音频及原文摘自杂志The Economist《经济学人》2016年第7期，Science and Technology版块。
Air quality
Tackling atmospheric pollution is hard. More data will help
Feb 13th 2016| LOS ANGELES
SINCE the 1940s, southern California has had a reputation for smog[烟雾;雾霾]. Things are not as bad as once they were but, according to the American Lung Association[美国肺脏协会;美国肺科协会], a health group, Los Angeles is still the worst city in the United States for levels of ozone[臭氧], nitrogen oxides[氧化氮;氮氧化合物], hydrocarbons[烃类;碳氢化合物] and carbon monoxide[ 一氧化碳]. Gazing[凝视;注视] down on the city from the Getty Centre[盖蒂中心], an art museum in the Santa Monica Mountains, haze[阴霾;薄雾;疑惑] can blot out[完全清除(思想、记忆等);遮盖] the view of the Pacific Ocean[太平洋]. Nor is the state’s bad air restricted to its south. Fresno[夫勒斯诺市(美国加利福尼亚州中部城市)], in the central valley, comes top of the list in America for year-round particulate pollution[粒状物污染]. Residents’ hearts and lungs are strained as a consequence.
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All of which, combined with California’s reputation as the home of technological innovation[技术革新;工艺革新;科技创新], makes the place ideal for developing and testing systems designed to monitor pollution in detail. And that is just what Aclima, a fledgling firm[新公司] in San Francisco, has been doing over the past few months. It has been trying out[试行;选点试行] arrays of monitoring stations, some of them mobile, that are intended to yield[产生;出产;得出] minute-to-minute maps[实时地图] of outdoor air pollution. Such stations will also be able to keep an eye on[照看;留意;密切注视] what is going on inside buildings, including offices.
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▷ fledgling ['fledʒlɪŋ]
【注释】
a) a young bird that has grown feathers and is learning to fly
(学飞的)幼鸟;无经验的人；刚会飞的幼鸟
b) A fledgling is a fuzzy baby bird just learning to fly, or someone (like a baby bird) who's brand new at doing something.
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The stations in Aclima’s arrays are triangular[三角的] and measure 20cm along a side. Each contains 12 off-the-shelf[现成的;常备的;成品的] sensors that detect pollutants such as ozone[臭氧], carbon monoxide[ 一氧化碳] and methane[甲烷], as well as the small particles of which smog is composed. They also monitor basic data such as temperature and humidity[湿度], which affect how pollution forms and lingers. The elements of an array may be fixed and spaced according to what exactly they are trying to measure. Or they can be attached to vehicles, so that entire roads can be sampled[被采样] routinely[日常地;常规地].
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To this end, Aclima has been collaborating with[与…合作] Google’s Street View system[谷歌街景系统], resulting in maps such as the one below. Davida Herzl, Aclima’s boss, says they have, as expected, revealed pollution highs on days when San Francisco’stransit workers went on strike[举行罢工] and the city’s inhabitants[居民]were forced to take to their cars. Conversely[相反地], “cycle to work” days have done their job by creating pollution lows.
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Aclima has already, at Google’s expense, mapped 20,000km (12,000 miles) of roads in the Bay Area[旧金山湾区] this way. It plans to produce a detailed map of the air quality of California’s most populous regions—those around Los Angeles, San Francisco and the Central Valley[中央山谷(指美国西部的一条峡谷)]—before the year is out[在年底以前]. It will then move on to the rest of America and (Ms Herzl hopes) beyond. For such outdoor work, most of its customers are likely to be charitable foundations[慈善基金,慈善机构] or governments. But Aclima hopes to make money from the private sector[私营部门;私营成分] as well, by measuring pollution levels indoors.
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Again, Google has acted as a guinea pig[供实验用的人(或物);豚鼠;天竺鼠]. It has been testing Aclima’s technology in its offices for the past two years, crunching through more than half a billion data points a day on the air quality within them. The result, according to Ms Herzl, is the world’s largest pollution-related database on indoor environments.
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Without wind and other weather to move them on, these data show, indoor levels of many nasties[脏东西;令人不快的事物] can be between two and five times those outside. The Googleplex is in Silicon Valley—a relatively clean part of the state. If such ratios also apply on a smoggy[烟雾弥漫的] day in LA, watch out.
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