jueves, 24 de marzo de 2011

Ingles Instrumental. Unidad 03. Aproximación del Texto

Unidad 3. Aproximación al texto.


     In order to read an entire piece of information about any topic, no matter if it’s a novel, a comic book or a newspaper, the technique you choose to do it will depend on the purpose for reading. For example, you might be reading for enjoyment, information, or to complete a task. If you are exploring or reviewing, you might skim a document. If you're searching for information, you might scan for a particular word. You need to adjust your reading speed and technique depending on your purpose. Many people consider skimming and scanning search techniques rather than reading strategies. However when reading large volumes of information, they may be more practical than reading. For example, you might be searching for specific information, looking for clues, or reviewing information.

Article #1

Faceless man, Dallas Wiens, gets miraculous transplant surgery



     CBS/AP) BOSTON - Dallas Wiens, a Texas construction worker horribly disfigured in a power plant accident two years ago, can finally face his future.
     After 15 hours of surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Wiens received the nation's full face transplant. The surgery happened last week, but the team of 30 doctors led by plastic surgeon Dr. Bohdan Pomahac are only beginning to talk about it today.
     Wiens is currently listed in good condition, the 25-year-old suffered an electrical accident in November 2008 that left him blind and without lips, a nose or eyebrows. In Boston, doctors transplanted an entire new face, including a nose, lips, skin and muscles and nerves that animate the skin and give sensation. The donor's identity was not disclosed.
     In an Associated Press story and a YouTube video last fall, Wiens spoke poignantly about why he wanted a transplant and how he wanted to smile again and feel kisses from his 3-year-old daughter. Face transplants give horribly disfigured people hope of a new option "rather than looking in the mirror and hating what they see," he said.
     This was the second face transplant the Boston hospital has performed; the previous one was in April 2009 -- the partial replacement of the face of a man who suffered traumatic facial injuries from a freak accident.
     The world's first face transplant, also a partial, was done in France in 2005 on a woman mauled by her dog. Doctors in Spain performed the first full face transplant last March for a farmer who was unable to breathe or eat on his own after accidentally shooting himself in the face.

Scanning
     Seleccione un texto  y escribe 4 preguntas puntuales sobre fechas, sitios, etc.) (utiliza una biografía referente a algún autor de tu área de experticia)
1.    ¿Cuáles son los posibles riesgos que se presenta una operación de esta magnitud?
2.    ¿Porque el Dr. Pomahac y el equipo conformado por 30 médicos esperaron varias semanas para hablar acerca de la cirugía?
3.    ¿De qué manera el trasplante completo de rostro afectara de manera positiva la vida de Dallas Wiens?
4.    ¿Existe o no alguna restricción por la cual un rostro no pueda ser colocado en cualquier cara?


Article #2

Tweety Was Right: Cats Are a Bird’s No. 1 Enemy



     American house cats “are like gypsy moths and kudzu — they cause major ecological disruption,” one scientist says. While public attention has focused on wind turbines as a menace to birds, a new study shows that a far greater threat may be posed by a more familiar antagonist: the pet house cat.  A new study in The Journal of Ornithology on the mortality of baby gray catbirds in the Washington suburbs found that cats were the No. 1 killer in the area, by a large margin.
     Nearly 80 percent of the birds were killed by predators, and cats were responsible for 47 percent of those deaths, according to the researchers, from the Smithsonian Institution and Towson University in Maryland. Death rates were particularly high in neighborhoods with large cat populations.
     Predation was so serious in some areas that the catbirds could not replace their numbers for the next generation, according to the researchers, who affixed tiny radio transmitters to the birds to follow them. It is the first scientific study to calculate what fraction of bird deaths during the vulnerable fledgling stage can be attributed to cats.
     “Cats are way up there in terms of threats to birds — they are a formidable force in driving out native species,” said Peter Marra of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, one of the authors of the study.
     The American Bird Conservancy estimates that up to 500 million birds are killed each year by cats — about half by pets and half by feral felines. “I hope we can now stop minimizing and trivializing the impacts that outdoor cats have on the environment and start addressing the serious problem of cat predation,” said Darin Schroeder, the group’s vice president for conservation advocacy.
     By contrast, 440,000 birds are killed by wind turbines each year, according to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, although that number is expected to exceed one million by 2030 as the number of wind farms grows to meet increased demand.
     The American Bird Conservancy generally supports the development of wind energy, but it argues that wind farms should be “bird smart” — for example, positioned so that they do not interfere with major migration paths or disturb breeding grounds, with their power lines buried to prevent collisions.
     “I’m excited about wind; we just have to be careful where and how we put the turbines,” said Dr. Marra, who studies threats to birds, including from climate change and habitat loss. He said the leading cause of bird deaths over all, as opposed to the catbird fledglings in the study, remained collisions with buildings, windows and towers, followed by predators.
     Yet wind turbines often provoke greater outrage than cats do, said Gavin Shire, vice president of the Bird Conservancy. “The idea of a man-made machine chopping a bird in half creates a visceral reaction,” he said, “while the idea of a predator with its prey in its mouth — well we’ve seen that on the Nature Channel. People’s reaction is that it is normal for cats to kill birds.”
     Household cats were introduced in North America by European colonists; they are regarded as an invasive species and have few natural enemies to check their numbers. “They are like gypsy moths and kudzu — they cause major ecological disruption,” Dr. Marra said.


Homework: Técnicas de lectura: Predicción, deducción, scanning y skimming
Predicción, deducción, Skimming.
 
                      Seleccione un texto que tenga una imagen.

                     Observe la imagen y conteste las siguientes preguntas.

                     De acuerdo al título y la imagen, ¿cuál cree usted que es el tópico que está a punto de leer?
     Observando cuidadosamente el titulo y la imagen del articulo seleccionado, a mi forma de ver, el tópico a desarrollar en este artículo es la gran cantidad de aves que son asesinadas por los gatos, causando que estos sean sus principales enemigos a la hora de sobrevivir.
                     ¿Cuál es la idea general del texto?
     La idea general del mismo es señalar la gran amenaza que representan los gatos para las aves presentes en una población de Washington Estados Unidos.

                     ¿Qué palabras se repiten?
     Leyendo varias veces el artículo, pude encontrar que las palabras que se repiten en mayor cantidad son: Cat, Bird, Catbirds, Wind, Predation, Predator, Turbine, threat, research.

                     ¿Qué palabras se parecen al español?
     En la búsqueda de algunas palabras parecidas al español o mejor dicho cognados verdaderos y falsos, se encontraron las siguientes: American, Ecological, Responsible, Institution, University, Generation, Radio, Scientific, Calculate, Formidable, Native, Species, Felines, Impacts, Serious, President, Conversation, Contrast, Demand, Interfere, Major, Lines, Habitat, Idea, Reaction, Normal, European. 

                     ¿Cuáles son las palabras en negrita, el titulo, subtitulo o gráficos que te ayudan a entender el texto?
     Más que cualquier palabra en general, un subtitulo o algo por el estilo, lo que observe en primer lugar y me ayudo a entender el articulo desde el primer instante fue la foto que apareció en el mismo, como se observa es muy grafica y no necesita observarse demasiado para poder saber de lo que se esta indagando.

                     ¿De qué trata el texto? Lee el primer párrafo y el último o la ultimas ideas del último párrafo.
     El articulo habla de los resultados que arrojo un estudio realizado a las afueras de Washington en donde la población de aves se ha disminuido drásticamente, y según los investigadores se debe a que los gatos domésticos son los principales causantes de dicho fenómeno, cabe destacar que las aves son nativas de esa población y a raíz de la llegada de los gatos provenientes de Europa, la cantidad de aves ha venido disminuyendo en forma drástica.

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