VOA Special English Index

1. The Many Sounds of College Radio
2. US Doctor Group Urges Autism Testing for All Babies
3. Microsoft, the EU and Facebook

The Many Sounds of College Radio

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This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

No two college radio stations sound alike.

(SOUND)

Some stations have a low-budget sound and students do all the work. Others, like WBRU at Brown University in Rhode Island, have a professional operation heard throughout their communities.

College stations play all kinds of music, from jazz to hard rock. Many also have news, including national or international programming.

More than three hundred college radio and television stations belong to a group called Collegiate Broadcasters Incorporated. CBI helps organize a National College Media Conference which this year took place in Washington. Hundreds of students, professors and media professionals were at the four-day event last week.

Warren Kozirenski at the State University of New York-Brockport is chairman of CBI. He points to WBRU as an example of a commercial station, meaning it earns money by selling time to advertisers.

The station is licensed by the Federal Communications Commission which polices the public airwaves. For example, the station could be fined if it broadcasts offensive language.

Many colleges and universities operate stations that are also licensed by the F.C.C but do not sell advertising. They raise money other ways, including donations from listeners. Stations like these including KTRU at Rice University in Houston are known as public broadcasters.

(SOUND)

College radio stations may receive money from the student government or their school administration. Warren Kozirenski says a majority have small budgets of less than fifty thousand dollars a year.

Some stations do not broadcast over the public airwaves so they do not have to follow F.C.C. rules. They stream their programming over the Internet or are heard through cable systems. Or they use low-power transmitters heard only on school grounds. Still, many of their adult advisers want the young broadcasters to act professional.

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Jill Moss. I’m Steve Ember.

US Doctor Group Urges Autism Testing for All Babies

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This is the VOA Special English Health Report.

The American Academy of Pediatrics says all children should be tested for autism by the age of two.

Autism is a general term for a group of brain disorders that limit the development of social and communication skills. Medical professionals call them autism spectrum disorders.

Experts say autism is permanent and cannot be cured. But there are ways to treat it that they say can reduce the severity. The academy says the earlier treatment begins, the better the results.

The medical group released two reports Monday with detailed information to help doctors identify autism. Chris Johnson at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio was one of the authors. She says doctors should look for signs of autism when they examine babies at eighteen months and twenty-four months.

Doctors traditionally consider the possibility of autism only if a child shows delayed speech or unusually repetitive behaviors. These may be clear signs of it, but they usually do not appear until a child is two or three years old.

Doctor Johnson says the medical profession has learned a lot about earlier signs of autism. She says the identification process can begin in the waiting room at a doctor’s office.

Parents could answer a list of written questions about their baby. Then the doctor could perform tests as simple as observing the baby's ability to follow a moving object with its eyes. Experts say failing to watch a moving object may be a sign of autism.

Doctors and parents can also look for behaviors that are normal in babies under one year of age. For example, does the baby appear to respond to a parent’s voice? Does the baby make eye contact? Does the baby wave or point at things?

Young children usually have a favorite soft object like a stuffed animal or a blanket. But children with autism may like hard objects instead, and want to hold them at all times. They may not turn when a parent says their name or when the parent points at something and says "Look at that."

Doctor Johnson says the goal of the new advice is early intervention instead of the traditional "wait and see" method to identify autism.

The second report from the American Academy of Pediatrics deals with management of autism cases. We will discuss that next week.

And that's the VOA Special English Health Report, written by Caty Weaver. Our reports are online at voaspecialenglish.com. I’m Steve Ember.

Vocabulary:
pediatric
autism
disorder
spectrum
autism spectrum disorders: 泛自闭症障碍症候群
severity
repetitive
profession
stuff
intervention

Microsoft, the EU and Facebook

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This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.

This week, Microsoft agreed to end its fight against European Union competition officials. The world's largest software company withdrew its remaining appeals at a European court.

Microsoft has faced record European Union fines and may still owe more. But it says it wants to put its energies into meeting its legal duties and strengthening its relationship with the European Commission.

In 2004, the commission ordered Microsoft to share information with competitors. This information would help them develop software for server computers to "interoperate," or work easily, with Windows.

Windows is the Microsoft operating system found on more than ninety percent of personal computers. The company argued that it needed to protect trade secrets.

But now, Microsoft has agreed to share secret information with developers for a one-time payment of 10,000 euros. That is about 14,000 dollars at current exchange rates.

Microsoft also wanted to charge competitors almost six percent of the sales from products that use its information. But in the end it agreed to charge less than half a percent for worldwide use.

The European Union began to investigate Microsoft in 1998 after Sun Microsystems accused the company of being anti-competitive. Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, fought back. But last month, it lost a big ruling. The second-highest court in the European Union agreed that Microsoft abused its market position.

In a separate case, Microsoft decided last week not to appeal a thirty-four million dollar fine by the Fair Trade Commission in South Korea.

But Microsoft could at least claim a victory in one of its efforts to expand its Internet business. This week it won the right to invest in Facebook and to expand an advertising partnership with the social networking site. Facebook chose Microsoft over Google, the leading Internet search company.

Microsoft will invest 240 million dollars to buy a one and one-half percent interest. Microsoft values Facebook at fifteen billion dollars. Facebook reportedly expects about one hundred fifty million dollars in revenue this year. The company will be four years old in February and says the site has almost fifty million active users.

And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter. Our reports are online with transcripts at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Jim Tedder.

Vocabulary:
revenue
February