negotiate

I'm privy to the confidential information

persuade/ convince

force it through

Mike deserved that raise

major desicion

negotiate a bussiness deal

economic climate

good at accounting

too many debts to settle

profit sharing scheme for the workforce

The decision to reprimand Randall for unilateral offering Alice a pay raise was made by a consensus by the managers.

Most companies like to offer their employees such perks like company cars or vacaions, as incentives to work hard.

offer her incentives to stay with us

interpreter

do not create a good impression within the company

whether this pay raise will go through or not

rival

defect to a competitor

commodity

fluctuate

portfolio

itinerary

travel allowance

speculator

roundtrip

make a killing

viable / feasible

endoscope surgery

Medical researchers keep looking for less invasive ways to perform operations. The aim is to cut less and to reduce pain and recovery time. Some researchers see a future in NOTES. NOTES is short for Natural Orifice Translumenal Endoscopic Surgery.

In simple terms, what this means is the removal of diseased organs through the body's natural openings. For example, a man in California recently had his appendix removed through his mouth.Twenty-five years ago, having your appendix removed meant staying in the hospital for as long as a week. Patients returned home with an ugly and permanent scar on their abdomen.

But since the late nineteen eighties, laparoscopic surgery has gained popularity. It leaves only small marks where holes were made in the skin. The doctor works with a system called a laparoscope, usually connected to a video camera. Laparoscopic surgery rarely requires a hospital stay.

With the newest kind of surgery, doctors make a small cut in the patient's belly button. A camera is placed through the hole to help guide the surgical instrument.

national teacher

A science teacher from Prineville, Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest, is the new National Teacher of the Year.

Michael Geisen is thirty-five years old. He was a forester. But he decided he would rather work with growing minds than with growing trees. Seven years ago, he got a master's degree in teaching and a job at Crook County Middle School. Crook County has high rates of poverty.

He brought new energy to the science department. He also created school projects to get parents involved in their children's work. One girl who was recently in his class said he could probably make it interesting to watch grass grow.

During lunch, his students come to his room to talk, get help, visit his turtle and sometimes join him in playing guitar. He writes songs and develops games about science. He says one of his goals as a teacher is to create people who will continue to learn throughout their lives.

Michael Geisen studied forest resource management and graduated with high honors from the University of Washington. He says he tries to be creative with each activity. He does not like to use textbooks much. When students know that the work is local and useful to their lives, he says, they start to ge

investment

make a killing

privatized

portfolio

bricks- and- mortar

every one wants to be a stag.

this section is saturated

triple

I'm a conservative

is not your best bet

bankrupt

flotation

initial public offering

equity (stock)

stock broker

dealer

bear/bull/stag

corriki.org

Wikis are Web sites designed for cooperative work. Users can easily create or change the content. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, is the best known wiki. A newer example is Curriki, a curriculum wiki. Curriki.org is a learning community for developing and sharing educational materials for free. It says it has forty thousand members in two hundred countries

The materials are for kindergarten through grade twelve. The subject areas are mathematics, science, technology, reading, language arts and languages. In addition to English, there are some materials in French, German, Hindi, Portuguese and Spanish. A curriculum-building tool helps educators create lesson plans on the site. The idea is for members to donate resources that represent best practices.

Curriki's partners include Sesame Workshop, which has created videos and lesson plans to teach children about cultural differences. Another company, Atomic Learning, has provided videos for teaching about technology.

Members who donate materials are listed on the site. Comments and criticisms about materials are also posted. Anyone can use Curriki.org to teach others or themselves. The materials can be printed or saved to a CD.

Curriki is also working on several international projects. One of them involves teacher training for Indonesia. In South Africa, Curriki has been working on a research project on the process of building free and open curriculum.

In two thousand four, the Sun Microsystems company launched the Global Education and Learning Community. Two years later, Sun established it as an independent nonprofit organization and changed the name to Curriki.

Bobbi Kurshan is the executive director. She says a team of experts rates material on Curriki on a scale of one to three. The volunteers judge if the information is complete, if it is right for the age level and if it is written well.

The name "wiki" comes from a Hawaiian word for "quick." But Bobbi Kurshan says she recognizes that many teachers may not be quick to trust free, open-source materials. She says people should trust the educational community on Curriki to do the right thing. In her words, "We're changing the way we build curriculum."

wildlife services

The United States Department of Agriculture has a program called Wildlife Services. Its job is to help protect agricultural and other resources from threats and damage by wildlife. Often that means helping farmers deal with unwelcome visitors.

One example from Wildlife Services of its work involved a farmer in Washington state, in the Pacific Northwest. Several years ago, thousands of Canada geese landed on his fields. The geese began to eat his carrot crop.

Biologists from the program suggested that the farmer use noise-making devices and other measures to scare the large birds away. These efforts apparently succeeded.

Wildlife Services also has a livestock protection program. The agency kills foxes, badgers and other predators. Critics, however, say too many animals are killed that do not threaten livestock.

The Wildlife Services program is part of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, or APHIS. APHIS offers some suggestions of ways to keep away predators.

Game and donate

Whoever thought learning new words could feel socially responsible? A Web site called FreeRice.com is an English vocabulary game. It explains its purpose like this: "For each word you get right, we donate 20 grains of rice through the UN World Food Program to help end hunger."

The site began in October. It says thirty billion grains of rice have been donated so far. The United Nations World Food Program does not really get rice. The donations are given in the form of money. Advertisers whose names appear with links at the bottom of the game pay for the rice. Individuals can also become sponsors.

Words are presented with four choices of answers. Players click on the one that best defines the word. If they answer correctly, they get a harder word. If they choose wrong, they get an easier word. Spoken pronunciations are also provided.

Currently, the FreeRice game has fifty-five levels of difficulty. Players rarely get past level forty-eight."Does FreeRice make any money from this?" That is one of the frequently asked questions on the site. "No, it does not. FreeRice runs the site at no profit," says the answer.

Internet businessman John Breen created FreeRice. Since October, five hundred seventy metric tons of rice have been donated, enough to feed about a million and a half people for one day.The game is said to be especially popular with college students and young people who visit social networking sites.

Jennifer Parmelee is a World Food Program spokeswoman in Washington. She says cash donations help the agency to buy food locally and transport it quickly to where it is needed.

For example, with donations from the site, rice for Nepal was recently bought in the area at half the world market price. Bangladesh, Cambodia and Uganda also have received food through FreeRice.

Over the last nine months, though, the cost to secure food aid has increased fifty-five percent. Jennifer Parmelee says this is the biggest crisis the World Food Program has faced in its forty-five year history. She says creative projects like FreeRice are badly needed right now.

Physical acitvity

Common sense would tell us that physically active children may be more likely to become active and healthy adults.

In the United States, elementary and middle schools are advised to give students two and a half hours of physical activity a week. That is what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Heart Association recommend. They say high schools should provide about four hours of physical activity each week.

Yet many schools across the country have reduced their physical education programs. Criticism of the cuts has led in some places to efforts to give students more time for exercise, not less. The future health of Americans may depend on it.

Just this week, a study reported that life expectancy has fallen or is no longer increasing in some parts of the United States. The situation is worst among poor people in the southern states, and especially women. Public health researchers say it is largely the result of increases in obesity, smoking and high blood pressure. They also blame differences in health services around the country.

malaria treatment

A Brazilian drug company and a nonprofit group have developed a new, simplified malaria treatment. Patients have to take only one tablet a day for three days for some ages, or two tablets a day for three days for other ages.

The medicine combines two existing malaria drugs, artesunate and mefloquine. This combination has been widely used in recent years in Latin America and Southeast Asia.

The Brazilian government will make the new treatment available throughout Latin America and Southeast Asia over this year and next. The fixed-dose drug will be offered to public agencies at a target price of two and a half dollars for the full adult treatment.

Bernard Pecoul is head of the nonprofit group, called the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative. He says the new formulation is safe and fast-acting, and effective for children and adults.

The World Health Organization says artemisinin-based combination treatments are the best way to treat common malaria. Research shows that the simpler the treatment, the more likely people are to complete it. People increase the risk of drug resistance when they do not complete a full treatment.

eHold

eHold was founded in 1987 by Pere Petain and Claire Clemenceau, both of whom had previously worked in the research and development section of the hardware division of HAL, the multinational computer giant. They were interested in starting up a company that would satisfy the needs of home and small business users, focusing on imaging devices and sound devices. They began the company with less than $1 million in start-up capital, in a small rented space in the outskirts of Paris, and with two part-time employees.
The company grew quickly from these humble beginnings. By 1993 it employed more than four hundred people while producing a product line that included hand-held and table-top scanners, sound cards, digital mixing boards, midi keyboards, and laptop computers. At this time it went public; it is now traded on the Paris Stock Exchange.
By the late 90s eHold had changed its focus in order to play a pioneering role in a number of new and promising technologies: sub-laptop computers, including palm-sized and pocket-sized devices, web cams and other digital cameras, external storage media and reading devices for them, and infrared port systems and improved USB hubs to facilitate transfer of data from peripheral devices to base units.
eHold is the third largest producer of non-printer peripheral devices in the European Union. Today it has more than four thousand employees working at seventeen centers in six countries besides France. The annual turnover of the company is more than €7 billion ($6.3 billion).
Gross profits for the last fiscal year were up more than 25% compared to the previous year, while net income rose more than 30%, as a result of increased efficiency in distribution. It is expected that revenue will continue to rise in the coming years, as recent research projects begin to bear fruit in the sale of new products.

Quotation

I'm sure this operation will be viable. (feasible)

eHold was founded in 1987 by Pere.

Starting up a company requires people, start-up money, and ideas.

The annual turnover of the company is $7 millions.

gross profit / net income

fiscal

The company's revenue is expected to continue to rise in the next few years.