Students writing emails to faculty: An examination of e-politeness among native and non-native speakers of English

This study combines interlanguage pragmatics and speech act research with computer-mediated communication and examines how native and non-native speakers of English formulate low- and high-imposition requests to faculty. While some research claims that email, due to absence of non-verbal cues, encourages informal language, other research has claimed the opposite. However, email technology also allows writers to plan and revise messages before sending them, thus affording the opportunity to edit not only for grammar and mechanics, but also for pragmatic clarity and politeness.The study examines email requests sent by native and non-native English speaking graduate students to faculty at a major American university over a period of several semesters and applies Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper’s (1989) speech act analysis framework – quantitatively to distinguish levels of directness, i.e. pragmatic clarity; and qualitatively to compare syntactic and lexical politeness devices, the request perspectives, and the specific linguistic request realization patterns preferred by native and non-native speakers. Results show that far more requests are realized through direct strategies as well as hints than conventionally indirect strategies typically found in comparative speech act studies. Politeness conventions in email, a text-only medium with little guidance in the academic institutional hierarchy, appear to be a work in progress, and native speakers demonstrate greater resources in creating e-polite messages to their professors than non-native speakers. A possible avenue for pedagogical intervention with regard to instruction in and acquisition of politeness routines in hierarchically upward email communication is presented

Neue Welthandelsrunde statt neuer Protektionismus

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Higher mortality of patients on haemodialysis with pancreatic diabetes compared to type 2-diabetes

In rare cases (1-8%) diabetic patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) suffer from diabetic nephropathy (dNP) due to pancreatic diabetes mellitus (PDM). Aim of this study was to investigate differences in the outcome of patients with PDM and those with type 2 diabetes

Integration of a 2D Vision System into a Control of an Industrial Robot

Industrial robots play an important role in today’s production. They are mostly tied to the production process by teached orders. To make industrial robots more flexible and more interesting for the industry, they are often additionally equipped with a vision system. Thus, they are not bound by their fixed program and able to adapt their path to each object individually. This paper explains the cooperation of a six-axis industrial robot and a 2D-Vision System. Here, the precision of the robot and the accuracy of the vision system are combined. The vision system In Sight Micro 1100 acquires quality and localization tasks. It locates the object, inspects it and judged its quality. These results are finally send to the robot controller of KUKA KRC 2 Edition 2005 in the form of coordinates and are ultimately put into action by the industrial robot KUKA KR 16-2. With the software In Sight Explorer 4.8.0 a visual order can be created and adapted to the existing conditions. It offers a variety of preset localizing and qualitative tools. Alternatively, there is the possibility to created special tools in a spreadsheet program. The paper describes the interface between vision system and robot. Finally, an inspection station for work piece quality control is created from the derived results

Performance of additive manufactured hydrodynamic tilting pad bearings with internal pad cooling

LectureThe demand for higher power densities in gear-type compressors is pushing the loading of its already highly loaded pinions to even higher levels. The typically applied tilting-pad bearings are exposed to high circumferential speeds and high specific bearing loads, thus causing high bearing pad temperatures. The bearing design and especially the maximum realizable pad temperature becomes more and more the limiting design factor. With the draft of the next API 617 9th Edition, tightening the maximum acceptable bearing pad temperature to 203°F (95°C), bearing performance will become an even more determining factor for sound turbomachinery performance.This paper presents a bearing pad design with three-dimensional cooling ducts inside the pad, realized by means of additive manufacturing (AM). A full-scale bearing test-rig was applied for extensive bearing testing up to circumferential speeds of 459.3 ft/s (140m/s) and specific bearing loads up to 362.6 PSI (25bar). Comparisons of the test results with conventionally manufactured bearing pads show the potential of AM bearing pads not only for gear-type compressors but also for high speed and low load turbomachinery

The Contribution of CALL to Advanced-Level Foreign/Second Language Instruction

This paper evaluates the contribution of instructional technology to advanced-level foreign/second language learning (AL2) over the past thirty years. It is shown that the most salient feature of AL2 practice and associated Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) research are their rarity and restricted nature. Based on an analysis of four leading CALL journals (CALICO, CALL, LL&T, ReCALL), less than 3% of all CALL publications deal with AL2. Moreover, within this body of research, the range of languages involved is very restricted. Three languages, English, German and French, account for nearly 87% of the studies. Likewise, in nearly 81% of the cases, the learning focus is on the written language. Attention to oral-aural skills accounts for only 18% of all AL2 CALL projects. Whatever the targeted language or linguistic focus, the most striking aspect of advanced-level L2 CALL studies is the lack of information given regarding the competency level of students and the linguistic level of the activities undertaken. The determination of these critical parameters is thus of necessity very much a highly interpretive process. Based on the available evidence, it is estimated that half of the learners in these AL2 studies were in fact within the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) B1 range, i.e. below what would generally be considered as advanced-level competency. So, too, half of the assigned tasks were deemed to have been below the B2 level, with 40% of these below the B1 level. This study concludes that both quantitatively and qualitatively the contribution of instructional technology to advanced-level L2 acquisition has been very limited