[時事英文] Alzheimer’s Prediction May Be Found in Writing Tests

沒想到英文寫作可以用來預測阿爾茨海默症。

受試者當中應該沒有第二語言學習者吧。

音檔: https://bit.ly/3lcBTxr

★★★★★★★★★★★★

Alzheimer’s Prediction May Be Found in Writing Tests
阿爾茨海默症可以預測嗎？寫作測試也許提供了答案

Is it possible to predict who will develop Alzheimer’s disease simply by looking at writing patterns years before there are symptoms? According to a new study by IBM researchers, the answer is yes. And, they and others say that Alzheimer’s is just the beginning. People with a wide variety of neurological illnesses have distinctive language patterns that, investigators suspect, may serve as early warning signs of their diseases.

• Alzheimer’s disease 阿爾茨海默症
• symptoms 癥狀、症狀
• according to a new study 根據一個新研究
• a wide variety of 多種～的
• neurological illnesses 神經系統疾病
• distinctive language patterns 獨特的語言模式
• an early warning sign of ～的早期預警訊號

有沒有可能在出現癥狀之前的幾年裡，僅僅通過觀察書寫模式來預測誰會患上阿爾茨海默症？ 根據IBM研究人員的一項新研究，答案是肯定的。而且，他們和其他一些研究人員表示，阿爾茨海默症的預測只是開始。研究人員懷疑，患有多種神經系統疾病的人都有著獨特的語言模式，可能是他們疾病的早期預警信號。

★★★★★★★★★★★★

The researchers examined the subjects’ word usage with an artificial intelligence program that looked for subtle differences in language. It identified one group of subjects who were more repetitive in their word usage at that earlier time when all of them were cognitively normal. These subjects also made errors, such as spelling words wrongly or inappropriately capitalizing them, and they used telegraphic language, meaning language that has a simple grammatical structure and is missing subjects and words like “the,” “is” and “are.”

• word usage 詞彙使用情況
• subtle differences 細微差別
• artificial intelligence 人工智慧
• repetitive 重複的
• telegraphic language* 電報式語言
• simple grammatical structure 簡單的語法結構

研究人員利用一個人工智慧程序，檢查受試者的詞彙使用情況，尋找語言上的細微差別。他們鑒定出一組受試者，在早期所有人的認知能力都正常的情況下，他們的用詞重複情況更為嚴重。這些測試對象還會犯一些錯誤，比如拼寫錯誤或者大寫使用不當，而且會使用電報式語言——語法結構簡單，漏掉主語以及「the」、「is」和「are」這樣的詞。

*telegraphic language is speech during the two-word stage of language acquisition in children, which is laconic and efficient but lack of function words, tense and plural endings on nouns.

★★★★★★★★★★★★

The members of that group turned out to be the people who developed Alzheimer’s disease. The A.I. program predicted, with 75 percent accuracy, who would get Alzheimer’s disease, according to results published recently in The Lancet journal EClinicalMedicine. “We had no prior assumption that word usage would show anything,” said Ajay Royyuru, vice president of health care and life sciences research at IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., where the A.I. analysis was done.

• develop a disease 患上疾病
• with % accuracy 準確率達～％
• no prior assumption 沒有先想到、先假設到
• usage （詞語或語言的）用法
• A.I. analysis 人工智慧分析

這群人後來都患上了阿爾茨海默症。根據《柳葉刀》(The Lancet)子刊《臨床醫學》(EClinicalMedicine)最近發表的研究結果，該人工智慧能夠預測誰將患上阿爾茨海默症，準確率達75%。「我們之前沒有想到用詞情況還有這個用途，」紐約州約克敦高地的IBM托馬斯·沃森研究中心(IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center)醫療保健和生命科學研究副總裁阿賈伊·羅伊尤魯(Ajay Royyuru)說。人工智慧分析就是在該中心進行的。

★★★★★★★★★★★★

文章來自《紐約時報》: https://nyti.ms/3pXsI5l

圖片來源: http://bit.ly/3qsX3sb

【每日國際選讀：5大抗疫好用單字】
週日，來回顧學過的好用英文
開啟「接收通知」和「搶先看」每天吸收雙語時事新知

回顧我們在紐西蘭抗疫學到的用法
➡️ https://reurl.cc/5lD5Dv

1️⃣ excursion 短程旅行、郊遊
essential 必要的、不可或缺的、至關重要的
solitary 獨自的、單一的

Excursions had to be essential, and solitary.
非必要不得外出，而且得獨自行動。

2️⃣ vulnerable 易受傷的、脆弱的
flare-up 爆發、驟燃
It makes it vulnerable to future flare-ups, if it relaxes current restrictions on travel.
若放鬆目前的旅遊限制，則容易受未來疫情爆發的影響。

3️⃣ standstill 靜止、停頓

The lockdown brought the country to a virtual standstill.
封鎖使全國完全陷入停滯。

✍️ 常用 virtual standstill 來形容，是因為不可能真的完全不動，但看似幾乎沒動。像是 Traffic came to a virtual standstill for more than an hour. 交通整整停止了一個多小時。

4️⃣ dire 嚴重的、危急的
5️⃣ contract 名詞是合約（重音在前），動詞是收縮、感染（重音在後）

The most dire forecasts predict New Zealand’s economy could contract by as much as 10%
最嚴重的預測為紐國經濟萎縮10%。

很高興你回顧到這邊
現在加入每日國際選讀計畫
即可解鎖完整語音導讀版！

——
❓Quiz: How do you pronounce contract when it’s a verb?

🙋🏻‍♀‍🙋🏼‍♀‍
A. stress on the first syllable 重音放第一音節
B. stress on the second syllable 重音放第二音節
C. whatever 隨便
-
【每日商業英文計畫，熱烈招生中！】
華爾街日報訂閱超值方案 📰
專屬 #臉書社團，浩爾 #每日語音導讀
「留言+1」，就送你 #優惠碼 及 #導讀試聽！