Recording 2

　　With the use of driver-less vehicles seemingly inevitable, mining companies in the vast Australian desert state of Western Australia are definitely taking the lead. Iron ore is a key ingredient in steel-making. The mining companies here produce almost 300 million tons of iron ore a year. The 240 giant autonomous trucks in use, in the Western Australian mines, can weigh 400 tons, fully loaded. And travel at speeds of up to sixty kilometers per hour. They are a technological leap, transporting iron ore along routes which run for hundreds of kilometers from mines to their destinations. Here when the truck arrives at its destination, staff in the operation center direct it precisely where to unload. Vast quantities of iron ore are then transported by autonomous trains to ocean ports. Advocates argue these automated vehicles will change mining forever. It may only be five years before the use of automation technology leads to a fully robotic mine. A range of factors has pushed Western Australia's desert region to the lead of this automation revolution. These include the huge size of the minds, the scale of equipment and the repetitive nature of some of the work. Then there’s the area's remoteness, at 502,000 square kilometers. It can sometimes make recruiting staff a challenge. Another consideration is the risks when humans interact with large machinery. There are also the financial imperatives. The ongoing push by the mining corporations to be more productive and more efficient is another powerful driver in embracing automation technology. The concept of a fully autonomous mind is a bit of a misleading term, however. This is because the more technology is put into the field, the more people are needed to deploy, maintain and improve it. The automation and digitization of the industry is creating a need for different jobs. These include data scientists and engineers in automation and artificial intelligence. The mining companies claim automation and robotics present opportunities to make mining more sustainable and safer. Employees will be offered a career that is even more fulfilling and more rewarding. Workers' union have accepted the inevitability of the introduction of new technology. But they still have reservations about the rise of automation technology. Their main concern is the potential impact on remote communities. As automation spreads further, the question is how these remote communities will survive when the old jobs are eliminated? And this may well prove to be the most significant impact of robotic technology in many places around the world.

　　Q19: What does the passage say about the mining industry in Western Australia?

　　Q20: What is the impact of the digitization of the mining industry?

　　Q21: What is the attitude of workers' union towards the introduction of new technology?

　　Recording 3

　　According to official statistics, Thailand's annual road death rate is almost double the global average. Thai people know that their roads are dangerous, but they don't know this could easily be changed. Globally, road accidents kill more people every year than any infectious disease. Researchers at the institute for health metrics and evaluation in America put the death toll in 2017 at 1.24 million. According to the institute, the overall number of deaths has been more or less static since the turn of the century. But that disguises a lot of changes in individual countries. In many poor countries, road accidents are killing more people than ever before. Those countries have swelling, young populations are fast-growing fleet of cars and motorbikes and a limited supply of surgeons. It is impossible to know for sure, because official statistics are so inadequate. But deaths are thought to have risen by 40% since 1990 in many low income countries. In many rich countries, by contrast, roads are becoming even safer. In Estonia and Ireland, for example, the number of deaths has fallen by about two thirds since the late 1990s. But the most important and intriguing changes are taking place in middle income countries, which contain most of the world's people and have some of the most dangerous roads. According to researchers in China and South Africa, traffic deaths have been falling since 2000. And in India since 2012, and the Philippines reached its peak four years ago. The question is whether Thailand can soon follow suit. Rob Mckinney, head of the International Road Assessment Program, says that all countries tend to go through three phases. They begin with poor, slow roads. In the second phase, as they grow wealthier, they pave the roads, allowing traffic to move faster and pushing up the death rate. Lastly, in the third phase, countries act to make their roads safer. The trick, then, is to reach the third stage sooner by focusing earlier and more closely on fatal accidents. How to do that? The solution lies not just in better infrastructure, but in better social incentives. Safe driving habits are practices which people know they should follow that often don’t. Dangerous driving is not a fixed cultural trait, as some imagine. People respond to incentives such as traffic laws that are actually enforced.

　　Q22: What does the speaker say about traffic accidents in Thailand?

　　Q23: What do we learn from an American institute statistics regarding road deaths?

　　Q24: What is said about middle income countries?

　　Q25: What else could be done to reduce fatal road accidents in addition to safer roads?

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