Singapore’s Mixed Reality Lab is working on new ways of interacting with computers, including wearable devices and a virtual war

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问题     Singapore’s Mixed Reality Lab is working on new ways of interacting with computers, including wearable devices and a virtual war room that will allow officials to work together online as if they were all in one place. Its director is a spiky-haired Australian, a postmodern match for the fictional British agent James Bond’s tool man, Q. It is funded by the Defense Science & Technology Agency, which controls half the $5 billion defense budget, and sponsors hundreds of research projects every year. The agency came to worldwide attention last year when it took just one day to customize a thermal scanner in order to detect travelers with high fever, helping to stem the spread of SARS.
    DSTA is now working on a range of projects that are attracting attention in both the commercial and military worlds. It devised an air-conditioning system that harnesses melting ice and cool seawater to conserve electricity at the new Changi Naval Base, and could have broad civilian applications.
    Singapore can easily afford Western hardware, but off-the-shelf products are often unsuitable for the tropical conditions in Southeast AsiA. For example, the DSTA is funding development of an anti-chemical-weapons suit that works not as a shield, but as a sort of weapon. The Singaporean garments made of a revolutionary plastic-like material that is much lighter and cooler than traditional fabrics, actually degrade suspect substances on contact.
    Much of the agency’s work is geared toward helping this resource-poor city-state overcome its natural limitations, says its director of R&D, William Lau Yue Khei. Conserving manpower is one of the agency’s most critical assignments, because Singapore is a nation of 4 million people dwarfed by larger neighbors, including Indonesia and MalaysiA. Right now, the biggest DSTA project is computerizing a stealth warship so that it can run on half the usual crew. Making equipment lighter is a particular agency specialty, because the universal military rule of thumb is that a soldier should carry no more than one third his body weight, and that means that smaller Singaporean soldiers should carry no more than 24 kilos, or 20 percent less than Europeans, says DSTA project manager Choo Hui Weing. One such program: the Advanced Combat Man System, has produced a lightweight handguard that controls an integrated laser range finder, digital compass and a targeting camerA. Top that, Q.
The main purpose of the passage is to______.

选项 A、analyze Singapore’s defense system
B、summarize the contributions of DSTA
C、introduce the technical advantages of a small country
D、describe the roles and achievements of a government agency

答案B

解析 综观全文可知,全文在于说明DSTA的贡献。
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