Ⅰ.阅读理解
When my 8-month-old cries, I ask him if he's hungry, or wet or just needs a hug.
“Babububuu，” he says.
What I need is a baby cry translator. That's just what a team of researchers say they've developed.
“Experienced nurses or pediatricians (儿科医师) can identify why baby is crying because they have experience，” says Lichuan Liu, a professor of electrical engineering at Northern Illinois University, who conducted the research. “We talked to them, and they mentioned that based on the cry's sound there're some clues (线索)．”
So Liu set out to identify the features of cries that can help mark them as expressions of pain or discomfort. These features include differences in pitch (音高) and frequency. The team then developed an algorithm (算法) based on automatic speech recognition to detect and identify these features. This “cry language recognition algorithm” was trained on recordings of baby cries taken from a hospital. It uses compressed sensing, a process that reconstructs a signal based on incomplete data. It can identify a baby's cry against a background of, say, adult speech or loud television sounds. By classifying different cry features, like pitch, the algorithm can suggest whether the cry is due to sickness or pain, and identify the degree of urgency.
The team had experienced pediatric care providers assess forty-eight baby cry recordings for probable cause of crying — hunger, tiredness, etc. They then compared these to the algorithm's assessments. The algorithm agreed with the humans 70% of the time. Generally, so-called “uncommon cry signals” — signs of pain or sickness — are high-pitched and very loud compared to ordinary crying.
Liu and her team continue to train the technology for greater accuracy. They also plan to add more features, like the ability to identify and classify movement and facial expressions. This could help give a more detailed reading of baby's emotional (情感的) and physical state. They also hope to begin human trials in the near future.
语篇解读：本文是一篇说明文。文章主要介绍了一款儿童哭声识别器。
1．Why does the author mention the 8-month-old child?
A．To draw attention to baby cries.
B．To prove baby cries are common.
C．To lead in a translator for baby cries.
D．To show the use of cry translators.
解析：选C 推理判断题。根据第三段内容可推断，作者在开头提到八个月大的小孩是为了引出婴儿哭声翻译器话题。故选C。
2．What inspired Lichuan Liu's idea of doing the study?
A．Pediatric care workers' words.
B．The pediatricians' strong requests.
C．Her own nursing experiences.
D．Her doubts about the previous research.
解析：选A 推理判断题。根据第四段最后一句和第五段首句可推断，是儿科护理工作人员的话语促使Lichuan Liu做这个研究。故选A。
3．What did the researchers do in the study?
A．They collected baby cries from big hospitals.
B．They got 48 baby cry recordings evaluated.
C．They created an automatic speech recognition.
D．They analyzed cry features with compressed sensing.
解析：选B 细节理解题。根据倒数第二段前两句可知，研究者在这个研究中评估了48个婴儿哭声记录。故选B。
4．What can we know about Liu's cry language recognition algorithm?
A．It has been widely used in daily life.
B．It's mainly meant for hungry cry signals.
C．It has been proved effective on babies.
D．It's only been tested on recorded cries now.
解析：选D 推理判断题。根据最后一段内容可推断，Liu的哭声语言识别算法目前只用于测试录制的哭声。故选D。
