Results Of Prior Analysis Research Articles

The Use of the English Progressive Form in Discourse: An Analysis of a Corpus of Interview Data

The form and meaning of the English progressive have received a great deal of attention in linguistic and corpus-linguistic literature. The pragmatic/discourse uses of the progressive, however, are much less comprehensively understood from a corpus-linguistic perspective, largely because of the limitations of machine reading of discourse contexts. This paper uses a corpus-linguistic approach to categorizing and counting the distributions of some pragmatic functions for the English present and past progressive, replicating some, but challenging other, results of prior analyses of the progressive. Specifically, we address the use of the progressive in prompt/response sequences, in referring to co-text and its extent of agreement or disagreement with that co-text, in providing narrative background, and in interpreting prior discourse. We also provide several semantic features summarized through the corpus. The analyzed data comes from a corpus of 12.2 million words of spoken data—interviews from U.S. television and radio programs—and are selected via a systematic method. We finally discuss pedagogical and other implications.

Selection of the optimal configuration for a flexible surface mount assembly system based on the interrelationships among the flexibility elements

Flexibility has been widely recognized as a key competitive factor for manufacturing firms coping with the increasingly turbulent manufacturing environment today. Establishing a flexible surface mount assembly (SMA) system is critical for organizations to achieve a cost-effective assembly and gain competitive advantages in the printed circuit board (PCB) assembly industry. To find a practicable operating strategy, a multi-criteria decision-making framework that combines the analytic network process (ANP) with the consistent fuzzy preference relations (CFPR) is proposed to explore the interrelationships among the six dimensions and twenty-one criteria of manufacturing flexibility and resolve the uncertainty and divergence between decision-makers with the least amount of pairwise comparisons. Based on the results of prior analysis, an optimum configuration of a flexible SMA system is suggested for the capacity investment intended by a Taiwan electronics manufacturing service (EMS) provider to quickly respond to dynamic production requirements.

Performance of the Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) Airlock Coolant Loop Remediation (A/L CLR) Hardware

An EMU water processing kit (Airlock Coolant Loop Recovery A/L CLR) was developed as a corrective action to Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) coolant flow disruptions experienced on the International Space Station (ISS) in May of 2004 and thereafter. Conservative schedules for A/L CLR use and component life were initially developed and implemented based on prior analysis results and analytical modeling. The examination of postflight samples and EMU hardware in November of 2006 indicated that the A/L CLR kits were functioning well and had excess capacity that would allow a relaxation of the initially conservative schedules of use and component life. A relaxed use schedule and list of component lives was implemented thereafter. Since the adoption of the relaxed A/L CLR schedules of use and component lives, several A/L CLR kit components, transport loop water samples and sensitive EMU transport loop components have been examined to gage the impact of the relaxed requirements. The intent of this paper is to summarize the findings of that evaluation, and to outline updated schedules for A/L CLR use and component life.

Development of a highly sensitive semi-quantitative real-time PCR and molecular beacon probe assay for the detection of respiratory syncytial virus

Molecular beacons are a novel class of oligonucleotide probe capable of reporting the accumulation of target amplicon during real-time PCR by the emission of a fluorescent signal. A novel assay for the detection and estimation of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) nucleic acid in clinical specimens based on real-time PCR utilising such a probe was developed. The probe consisted of two short arm sequences and a central loop sequence complementary to a region of the N gene (the target amplicon). The probe was characterised and a semi-quantitative nested real-time PCR using a LightCycler instrument was optimised. Standard curves were generated using cycle threshold ( C t) values calculated from several assays over a range of logarithmic RSV titres. Linear coefficient correlations were close to one ( r 2=0.998) and the detection limit of the optimised assay was reproducibly shown to be 1×10 −4 pfu/ml. The intra-assay coefficient of variation (CV) of C t values of the optimal assay was 0.8% and the CV of quantification data was 6.6%. The interassay CV of C t values was 2.0% and the quantification CV was 6.7%. The validity of the assay for the detection of RSV in clinical specimens was assessed by analysing ten specimens previously assayed in a different laboratory. Real-time PCR analysis was completely consistent with the results of prior analysis. The rapidity, sensitivity and specificity of the assay should greatly facilitate epidemiological studies, particularly in adults as existing methods perform better on clinical specimens from children.