Singing Alarms Could Save the Blind
If you cannot see, you may not be able to1 find your way out of a burning building — and that could be fatal. A company in Leeds could change all that2____1____ directional sound alarms capable of guiding you to the exit.
Sound Alert, a company____2____ the University of Leeds, is installing the alarms in a residential home for____3____ people in Sommerset and a resource centre for the blind in Cumbria.____4____ produce a wide range of frequencies that enable the brain to determine where the____5____ is coining from.
Deborah Withington of Sound Alert says that the alarms use most of the frequencies that can be____6____ by humans. “It is a burst of white noise____7____ people say sounds like static on the radio，” she says. “Its life-saving potential is great.”
She conducted an experiment in which people were filmed by thermal-imaging cameras trying to find their way out of3 a large____8____ room. It____9____ them nearly four minutes to find the door____10____ a sound alarm, but only 15 seconds with one.
Withington studies how the brain____11____ sounds at the university. She says that the____12____ of a wide band of frequencies can be pinpointed more easily than the source of a narrow band. Alarms____13____ the same concept have already been installed on emergency vehicles.
The alarms will also include rising or falling frequencies to indicate whether people should go up____14____ down stairs. They were____15____ with the aid of a large grant from British Nuclear Fuels.
詞匯：
directional adj.定向的
exit n.出口
install v.安裝
residential adj.居住的
static n.靜電噪聲
potential n.潛力
thermal-imaging熱效應成像
pinpoint v.精確地確定
concept n.概念，觀念
emergency n.緊急情況
grant n.授予物，準許
注釋：
1.在謂語動詞中，不能并列使用兩個情態(tài)動詞，如may和can就不能并列使用。如果由于表達需要，要同時用“可能”和“能夠”，就得說(寫)成may be able to。如：
I may be able to come tomorrow, but I cannot promise.
我可能明天來，但我不可能作出承諾。
2.that指第一句所表達的意思。
3.... find their way out of ...：意為“找到從出去的路”。