IELTS Research Reports

An empirical investigation of the process of writing Academic Readingtest items for the International English Language Testing Systemfull width of the corridor at a point 366 metres away, and can switch to a wider field of view as thebird approaches. Each camera captures 20 frames per second, and the software continually examinesthe images, carrying out statistical background subtraction to allow for changing weather conditions,and looking for large connected foreground components on every seventh image. In this way, thesystem has already collected clear images of geese. In its first 120 days, operating for 8 hours per day,it captured a total of 76 million images, but the software selected only 5,825 of these for storage. Thisautonomous system has already demonstrated its success in capturing images of large birds, and itspowerful selectivity avoids wasting experts’ time.A more general project to develop “Collaborative Observatories for Natural Environments” (CONE) isunderway at the Universities of Texas A & M and UC Berkeley, with input from natural scientists anddocumentary filmmakers, funded by the National Science Foundation. The observatories are located inthe field and are run on solar energy. They incorporate sensors and actuators and software to carry outa periodic systematic observation of the surrounding scene, or automatically point the camera in thedirection of a sensed event, and also respond to the signals of biologists who are making observationsand inputting instructions from their laboratories. This combination of teleoperation and autonomybuilds upon years of work by Professor Ken Goldberg, an engineering professor, and Dr Dehzen Song,assistant professor of computer science. Song’s work involved the development of a system that allowsmultiple users to share simultaneous live control of a camera via the internet. The system collectsthe requests from users and calculates, for example, which zoom setting would best satisfy them all.This advance in intelligent software has helped CONE biologists to improve the selectivity of imagescaptured and stored, and improved the responsiveness of remote systems to their live imaging needs.Experienced Group: JaneItemsQuestions 1 - 5Do the following statements agree with the information in Reading Passage I?In boxes 1 - 5 on your answer sheet, writeTRUEFALSEif the statement agrees with the informationif the statement contradicts the informationNOT GIVEN if there is no information on this1 The equipment in wildlife experiments is programmed to obtain data at random intervals.2 There is little chance that the equipment used will capture the species being investigated.3 There are insufficient experts to examine the different species that are recorded infield studies.4 The organisations that produce surveillance cameras also make cameras forwildlife filming.5 The movement of animals through an area will activate some cameras.IELTS Research Reports Volume 11357