Building on this basic truth about interpersonal influence,Dodds and I studied the dynamics of social contagion by conducting thousands of computer simulations of populations, manipulating a number of variables relating to people’s ability to influence others and their tendency to be influenced. Our work shows that the principal requirement for what we call “global cascades”– the widespread propagation of influence through networks – is the presence not of a few influentials but, rather, of a critical mass of easily influenced people, each of whom adopts, say, a look or a brand after being exposed to a single adopting neighbor.Regardless of how influential an individual is locally, he or she can exert global influence only if this critical mass is available to propagate a chain reaction.   

　　第四篇文章属于经济类，节选于09年4月份的《经济学人》(The Economist)，文章的结构形式和我们以前考过的结构类型相似。

　　原文如下：

　　Messenger, Shot

　　Accounting rules are under attack. Standard-setters should defend them. Politicians and banks should back off。

　　Economist Staff - The Economist

　　April 10, 2009

　　In public, bankers have been blaming themselves for their troubles. Behind the scenes, they have been taking aim at someone else: the accounting standard-setters. Their rules, moan the banks, have forced them to report enormous losses, and it's just not fair. These rules say they must value some assets at the price a third party would pay, not the price managers and regulators would like them to fetch. Unfortunately, banks' lobbying now seems to be working. The details may be arcane, but the independence of standard-setters, essential to the proper functioning of capital markets, is being compromised. And, unless banks carry toxic assets at prices that attract buyers, reviving the banking system will be difficult。

　　On April 2nd, after a bruising encounter with Congress, America's Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) rushed through rule changes. These gave banks more freedom to use models to value illiquid a

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