Questões de Concurso Sobre verbos modais | modal verbs em inglês

          Green is the hot topic these days, and the concept
     is having an impact on the way people think about
     datacenters. Companies around the world are
     announcing ways to save energy and reduce costs by
5   buying new hardware and services. Yet, there is little
     guidance on how you can take action to control energy
     costs. In the past, electricity has been treated as an
     overhead expense, like the cost of space. But with rising
     power costs and issues regarding reliability, supply, and
10  capacity, electricity requires its own specific strategy.
          Projects regarding performance optimization and
     cost reduction are a part of everyday best practices in
     nearly every area of business. So why not treat energy
     cost in the same way?
15      As Information Technologies (IT) pros, many of us
     make decisions about the configuration and setup of
     servers, the specifications on the equipment our
     organizations purchase, and the requirements for
     datacenter upgrades and construction. We even provide
20  early design input during application development. When
     it comes to these projects, we obviously have a golden
     opportunity to be green and influence the energy
     efficiency of any datacenter.
          The first part of any strategy is to know your current
25  energy usage. You need to know where your energy is
     used and by what specific equipment, as well as what
     usage is efficient and what is wasteful in the datacenter.
     Unfortunately, it's rare to find power-consumption
     metering in place that can break down usage to a level
30  where people can see the results of their actions. Most
     organizations typically only see a monthly power bill
     that rolls up consumption into an overall bottom line.
     This offers little incentive for saving energy since
     individuals never see the impact of their decisions, and
35  there is no way for them to prove that their changes
     have actually saved energy.
          One of the first issues people confront when
     considering a green datacenter initiative is whether they
     have executive support. For the purpose of the article, I
40  am going to assume the answer is "not yet." Executive
     support requires a serious commitment that provides
     resources and budget for your initiative. And while there
     is a lot of talk about green datacenters, the reality is
     that there is still often a lack of serious support at the
45  executive level. If you did already have such executive
     support, you would probably be running a green
     datacenter right now.
          Still, even assuming you are not getting the support
     you need, there is a great deal you can do to push your
50  green datacenter initiative forward. So how do you
     determine effective actions to take in achieving your
     goals? Fortunately, energy efficiency is not a new
     concept and there is a lot that IT pros can learn from
     other industries. [.]
55      Anyway, for whichever direction you choose,
     planning an energy efficiency program for your datacenter
     will require collaboration across groups in IT. Until
     recently, the typical approach to planning IT solutions
     has been to ignore power costs early on during the design
60  phase, focusing on the hardware and software being
     purchased, along with the labor and hosting costs of
     the solution. When power is buried in the overhead cost
     of running solutions in a datacenter, energy efficiency
     is a low priority. Exposing the actual power being
65  consumed by solutions is the first critical step in changing
     the behavior of your organization.

By Dave Ohara
TechNet Magazine, October 2007

Read the text below in order to answer questions 26
to 30:

Anthony Harrington, American Ambassador in
Brazil
From 1999 through 2001

"Because I departed my post less than a year
ago, the changes have been neither entirely
monumental nor unforeseen. Most prominently
perhaps, Brazil has faced the effects of the severe
economic challenges of neighboring Argentina,
together with an international slow-down. Two
things stand out in this regard: first, Brazil is
weathering the storm better than most observers
anticipated, primarily because Brazil, under
President Cardoso, has already implemented
much of the key reform with which others are
struggling. Secondly, Brazil is uniquely positioned
and well-disposed to play a constructive role in
helping its neighbor through this storm.
Otherwise, I am pleased that Presidents Bush
and Cardoso are off to a positive start in their
relationship, beginning with an early visit in
Washington before I left Brasilia and another good
meeting recently".

Read the text below in order to answer questions 16
to 20:

Brazil-UK Relations

Brazilian President Fernando Henrique
Cardoso paid a brief visit to the United Kingdom
on 27-28 October 2001, accepting a last minute
invitation by British Prime Minister Tony Blair for a
private meeting. The two leaders met at
Chequers, Buckinghamshire, and were joined by
former American President Bill Clinton.
During the meeting, Blair and Cardoso had
the opportunity to discuss current global affairs
issues such as the ongoing international
campaign against terrorism, the forthcoming
World Trade Organization meeting in Doha and
the reform of the United Nations Security Council.
Speaking to the press before departing for
France, President Cardoso stated that during the
meeting they had agreed on the need for
immediate reform of the UN Security Council so
that the "fate of countries is not decided by a small
group of nations, as it is today".

Your answers to questions 23 to 27 must be based
on the review below, which is entitled "Illusions of
Empire: Defining the New American Order".

Illusions of Empire: Defining the New
American Order
Source: www.foreignaffairs.org
March/April 2004 (Adapted)

In his book The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism,
Secrecy, and the End of the Republic, Chalmers
Johnson advances the disturbing claim that the United
States' Cold War-era military power and far-flung base
system have, in the last decade, been consolidated in a
new form of global imperial rule. The United States,
according to Johnson, has become "a military
juggernaut intent on world domination."
Driven by a triumphalist ideology, an
exaggerated sense of threats, and a self-serving
military-industrial complex, this juggernaut is tightening
its grip on much of the world. The Pentagon has
replaced the State Department as the primary shaper of
foreign policy. Military commanders in regional
headquarters are modern-day proconsuls, warriordiplomats
who direct the United States' imperial reach.
Johnson fears that this military empire will corrode
democracy, bankrupt the nation, spark opposition, and
ultimately end in a Soviet-style collapse.

Your answers to questions 28 to 30 must be based on
the text below entitled "The real medicine":

The real medicine
Source: Newsweek (adapted)
Oct 17th 2005

People who survive a heart attack often
describe it as a wake-up call. But for a 61-year old
executive I met recently, it was more than that. This
man was in the midst of a divorce when he was
stricken last spring, and he had fallen out of touch
with friends and family members. The executive´s
doctor, unaware of the strife in his life, counseled him
to change his diet, start exercising and quit smoking.
He also prescribed drugs to lower cholesterol and
blood pressure. It was sound advice, but in combing
the medical literature, the patient discovered that he
needed to do more. Studies suggested that his risk of
dying within six months would be four times greater
if he remained depressed and lonely. So he joined
a support group and reordered his priorities, placing
relationships at the top of the list instead of the bottom.
His health has improved steadily since then, and so
has his outlook on life. In fact he now describes his
heart attack as the best thing that ever happened to
him. "Yes, my arteries are more open," he says. "But
even more important, I´m more open."

Your answers to questions 25 to 27 must be based on the
text below entitled "Flight of the French":

Flight of the French
Source: Newsweek (adapted)
Sept 26th/Oct 3rd 2005

The Belgians call them "fiscal refugees", but these
refugees wear Chanel. They are runaways from high
taxes in France. Officially, France has lost, on average,
one millionaire or billionaire tax payer per day for tax
reasons since 1997, when the government started trying
to track capital flight. Privately, economists say the
number is much higher. "The statistic is stupid," holds
French economist Nicolas Baverez. "It's as if, to count
contraband, you only counted what people declared at
the border."
While much of Europe has revised its tax codes, France's
fiscal inertia is virtually begging its rich to leave. Holding dear
its commitment to égalité and fraternité, France has bucked
the trend in the European Union, where most member states
have dropped the wealth tax since the mid-1990s. France
went the opposite way in 1997 by abolishing a cap that limited
the wealth-tax bill, which kicks in at incomes over 720,000
euros to 85% of a taxpayer's income. The result: some pay
more taxes than they earn in income.

Your answers to questions 21 to 24 must be based on the
text below entitled "A dip in the middle":

A dip in the middle
Source: The Economist (adapted)
Sep 8th 2005

Income tax has been paid in Britain for more
than two centuries. First introduced by William Pitt the
Younger to finance the war against Napoleonic France,
it is the Treasury´s biggest source of revenue, raising
30% of tax receipts. It arouses strong political emotions,
regarded as fair by some because it makes the rich pay a
bigger share of their income than the poor, but unfair by
others because it penalizes enterprise and hard work.
During the past 30 years, income tax has been
subject to sweeping changes, notably the cut in the top
rate from 98% to 40% under Margaret Thatcher between
1979 and 1988. Now another Conservative politician,
George Osborne, is floating a radical reform to match
that earlier exploit. The shadow chancellor announced
on September 7th that he was setting up a commission
to explore the possible introduction of a flat income tax
in Britain.
Introducing a flat income tax into Britain would
involve two main changes. At present, there are three
marginal tax rates. These three rates would be replaced
by a single rate, which would be considerably lower than
the current top rate. At the same time there would be an
increase in the tax-free personal allowance, currently
worth 4,895 pounds.

The oil and natural gas industry has developed and
applied an impressive array of innovative technologies to
improve productivity and efficiency, while yielding
environmental benefits. According to the U.S. Department
of Energy, "the petroleum business has transformed itself
into a high-technology industry."
State-of-the-art technology allows the industry to
produce more oil and natural gas from more remote
places - some previously unreachable - with significantly
less adverse effect on the environment. Among the
benefits: increased supply to meet the world's growing
energy demand, reduced energy consumption at oil and
natural gas facilities and refineries, reduced noise from
operations, decreased size of facilities, reduced
emissions of pollutants, better protection of water
resources, and preservation of habitats and wildlife.
With advanced exploration and production
technologies, the oil and gas industry can pinpoint
resources more accurately, extract them more efficiently
and with less surface disturbance, minimize associated
wastes, and, ultimately, restore sites to original or better
condition.
Exploration and production advances include
advanced directional drilling, slimhole drilling, and 3-D
seismic technology. Other segments of the industry have
benefited from technological advances as well. Refineries
are becoming highly automated with integrated process
and energy system controls; this results in improved
operational and environmental performance and enables
refineries to run harder and produce more products safer
than ever before. Also, new process equipment and
catalyst technology advances have been made very
recently to meet new fuel regulations requiring very low
levels of sulfur in gasoline and diesel.
Technology advances such as these are making it
possible for the oil and natural gas industry to grow in
tandem with the nation's energy needs while maintaining
a cleaner environment. The industry is committed to
investing in advanced technologies that will continue to
provide affordable and reliable energy to support our
current quality of life, and expand our economic horizons.
For example, we are researching fuel cells that may
power the vehicles of tomorrow with greater efficiency
and less environmental impact. We are investigating ways
to tap the huge natural gas resources locked in gas
hydrates. Gas hydrates are common in sediments in
the ocean's deep waters where cold temperatures and
high pressures cause natural gas and water to freeze
together, forming solid gas hydrates. Gas hydrates could
be an important future source of natural gas for our nation.
Some of our companies are also investigating
renewable energy resources such as solar, wind,
biomass and geothermal energy. By conducting research
into overcoming the many technological hurdles that limit
these energy resources, they hope to make them more
reliable, affordable and convenient for future use. Although
the potential for these energy resources is great,
scientists do not expect them to be a significant part of
the nation's energy mix for many decades. For this
reason, the industry must continue to invest in
conventional resources such as oil and natural gas. We
will need to rely on these important energy resources for
many decades to come.

READ TEXT I AND ANSWER QUESTIONS 21 TO 25:

TEXT I

The integral approach strategies adopted by
Favela-Bairro consist of proposals of integrated and
participative actions. The path that goes from welfare
to work should combine programs and services for
human and social development with labor and incomegeneration
opportunities. To be viable, however, social
promotion interventions should be focused on
geographical areas with a high concentration of poverty,
specifically on the poorest families.
An intersectoral decentralized and participative
approach can produce synergetic effects capable of
providing greater impact for poverty and inequality
reduction policies, and capable of contributing to their
sustainability.
Although Favela-Bairro has been based on the idea
of integrated urban infrastructure interventions, initially
the program did not incorporate all the basic components
of an integral approach strategy. These components
were gradually incorporated into its design as a result
of the participatory process and the transformations
that occurred in the municipal administration.
Favela-Bairro is the result of an evolving process
that resulted in the creation of a typical integral
development model with a territorial base that
incorporates life-cycle perspectives.
Rio de Janeiro inhabitants, either living in favelas
or not, recognize the importance of the Favela-Bairro
program. A public opinion poll carried out in 2003 asked
cariocas (as Rio residents are called) to choose from
a list of governmental programs the one to which the
next mayor should give priority. Favela-Bairro was
chosen in first place in all three rounds of the survey.
The same institute asked respondents about the most
important project for the city, and again Favela-Bairro
ranked first: 26.1 percent of respondents have elected
Favela-Bairro as more important than programs such
as minimum income, popular restaurants, and even
essential works in major city roads.

(www.worldbank.org on September 10, 2005)