A Corpus-based View of Lexical Gender in Business Letters

This article investigates lexical gender in specialized communication. The key method of analysis is that of forms of address, professional titles, and ’generic man’ in a one million word corpus of business letters. This paper found a mixed results:on the one hand, the ’male-as-norm’ principle contributes to reinforcing typical gender stereotypes:for example, for each woman referred to in the corpus, there are more than 3 occurrences for man. On the other hand, advocates of non-sexist English have also influenced written Business English:for example, Ms is more frequent than Mrs. or Miss, which sustains the claim that equates Ms with professional settings. This article ends by discussing the ways in which the research findings of this study could positively impact upon the teaching of Business English.     

自由赞歌--读《奴隶之歌》有感

This is a review on Longfellow‘s poem “The Slave‘s Dream“, in which the poet described vividly the miserable life of a slave who finally died in the field while dreaming about his happy and free life in his previous tribe. This poem is a song of freedom which, on one hand, discloses the evils of the slavery, on the other hand, makes us cherish our own freedom more than before. Freedom is the most valuable thing in one‘s life. The history of the development of the human being‘s society is one that people strived for liberty.     

Deletions in the genomes of fifteen inbred mouse lines and their possible implications for fat accumulation

Copy number variants (CNVs) are pieces of genomic DNA of 1000 base pairs or longer which occur in a given genome at a different frequency than in a reference genome. Their importance as a source for phenotypic variability has been recognized only in the last couple of years. Chromosomal deletions can be seen as a special case of CNVs where stretches of DNA are missing in certain lines when compared to the reference genome of the mouse line C57BL/6, for example. Based upon more than 8 million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the fifteen inbred mouse lines which were determined in a whole genome chip based resequencing project by Perlegen Sciences, we detected 20166 such long chromosomal deletions. They cover altogether between 4.4 million and 8.8 million base pairs, depending on the mouse line. Thus, their extent is comparable to that of SNPs. The chromosomal deletions were found by searching for clusters of missing values in the genotyping data by applying bioinformatics and biostatistical methods. In contrast to isolated missing values, clusters are likely the consequence of missing DNA probe rather than of a failed hybridization or deficient oligos. We analyzed these deletion sites in various ways. Twenty-two percent of these deletion sites overlap with exons; they could therefore affect a gene's functioning. The corresponding genes seem to exist in alternative forms, a phenomenon that reminds of the alternative forms of mRNA generated during gene splicing. We furthermore detected statistically significant association between hundreds of deletion sites and fat weight at the age of eight weeks.     

On Cultures of Curriculum in Mass Higher Education-Taking SEIB in GDUFS as an Example

The thesis focuses on the reconstruction of cultures of curriculum,their qualities of cultural reflection,generativity,and the renewal of their natures and logics,in order to serve for the practice of quality education.By taking the cultures of curriculum of School of English for International Business (SEIB) in Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (GDUFS) as an example,the thesis adopts qualitative approach,on the one hand,to obtain the current situation of cultures of curriculum by exploring the contemporary value orientation of curriculum in Business English (BE) major;on the other hand,to be aware of teachers’ and students’understandings of cultures of curriculum for comparison by a survey for students and in-depth interviews for both of the two parts.Consequently,problems are identified and solved through seeking the reconstruction of cultures of curriculum which aims at pursuing cultures of curriculum as they ought to be.     

A Corpus-based Investigation of NEED in Written American English

As one of the most frequent words in the English language,the study of NEED has attracted the attention of linguists in the late decades.Nonetheless,none of the previous research had ever examined the diachronic variation of NEED in American English from 1810s to 2000s as this study did,thus not in a position to make a comprehensive observation of NEED variation.The present study is based on a well-balanced corpora-Corpus of Historical American English(COHAE)1 to investigate the diachronic change of NEED in written American English.Moreover,intra-linguistic and extra-linguistic factors were analyzed to provide reasonable explanations for the differences in frequency.The aim was to improve the understanding of the development and variation of NEED usage in American English.The study suggests that before the 1900s,NEED as a model and verb in American English shows a distinct and complex picture different from that in the British English,but it shows similar development since then.It also finds that need to is undergoing grammaticalization.Another finding worth noting is that NEED undertakes degrammaticalization on the one hand and experiences regrammaticalization on the other hand.     

星闻

1.Canadian pop diva Celine Dion’S palatial(富丽堂皇的)Florida home is up for sale.and the“king looking for a castle”will have to come up with $20 million to move in.Themansion in Jupiter,near the swanky resort(胜地)of Palm     

The ABC of ELT... TBL ——In this Issue,Jane and Dave Willis look at Task-Based Learning

TBL, also known as TBLT (task-based learning and teaching) and, in the USA, as TBL (task-based instruction) is an approach which uses communication tasks as the central focus for language teaching and learning. Basically the term task in TBL, refers to a meaning -focused activity. There are a number of definitions in the literature, but they can be characterized also follows: the learner s principle focus is on exchanging and understanding meanings, rather than on practice of pre-specified forms or patterns there is some kind of communicative purpose or goal set for the task, so learners know what they are expected to achieve by the end tasks can involve any or all four skills, e. g. a     

2-D nano-positioning system for AFM based on H∞ control

Nano-manipulation technology is an emerging field in the development of modern science and technology. Atomic force microscope （AFM）, a sharp weapon for nano imaging and nanomanipulation, which is honored as ＂eye＂ and ＂hand＂ of nano-technology. However, due to the hysteresis, creep and other nonlinearity of piezoelectric ceramics tube （PZT） as well as the probe＇s tip deviations caused by cantilever deformation, AFM has larger error of relative displacement between probe and sample, which creates enormous inconvenience to the nano-manipulation and repositioning. As to improve positioning accuracy, this dissertation presents a novel AFM＇s X-Y dimensional nano-positioning control system with large-scale based on H∞ control. Through careful research on variety of influence factors on AFM＇s precise nano-manipulation, a composite control strategy based on feedforward compensation control of cantilever probe tip＇s offset and H∞ control of piezoelectric scanner is presented in this paper. In the end, simulation results can also testify the tracking ability and better nano-positioning performance of the system.     

Hollywood

To many people, the word Hollywood has two meanings. Hollywood is an area in Los Angeles. Hollywood is also the American movie industry. In 1918, after four years of war, which had left millions of people dead, the people alive began to look for a better and happier world. The cinema supplied an answer. With little money, people could forget their unhappy lives and dream(向往) of better ones. In Hollywood, the warm climate(气候) and     

Brain MRI segmentation using KFCM and Chan-Vese model

To extract region of interests (ROI) in brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with more than two objects and improve the segmentation accuracy, a hybrid model of a kernel-based fuzzy c-means(KFCM) clustering algorithm and Chan-Vese (CV) model for brain MRI segmentation is proposed. The approach consists of two successive stages. Firstly, the KFCM is used to make a coarse segmentation, which achieves the automatic selection of initial contour. Then an improved CV model is utilized to subdivide the image. Fuzzy membership degree from KFCM clustering is incorporated into the fidelity term of the 2-phase piecewise constant CV model to obtain accurate multi-object segmentation. Experimental results show that the proposed model has advantages both in accuracy and in robustness to noise in comparison with fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering, KFCM, and the hybrid model of FCM and CV on brain MRI segmentation.