Linguistic research on adverbs has taken many forms: typological, morphological, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic. However, little work has been conducted on adverbs using the tools of quantitative sociolinguistics, and most of that work has focused solely on morphological variation of the -ly suffix. This work addresses the lacuna by examining two adverb phenomena using quantitative variationist methodology. Data come from two large, socially stratified, sociolinguistic corpora of vernacular English. The two corpora contain data collected in Ontario, Canada and in Northern England, and are comprised of the speech of over 150 speakers across all age groups. In the first case study, I examine a claim in usage guides (e.g., Swan 2001) that North American English widely permits pre-auxiliary adverbs in canonical, declarative sentences, while British English prohibits them unless accompanied by contrastive stress. As I show, the varietal differences in speech are not only minimal and unrelated to stress, but instead are highly circumscribed. In addition, I demonstrate that the positioning of adverbs observed here must involve post-syntactic processes. The second case study examines variability in the discourse adverb "actually" and several related adverbials (e.g., "really" and "in fact") and examines the path of grammaticalization (Traugott & Dasher 2002) in the two communities. I demonstrate that Canadians, regardless of sex or education level, prefer the more grammaticalized forms of "actually"; in the UK, the more grammaticalized use is less common, though some young men are leading a shift to the more grammaticalized pattern.

During the drying of a surface, the liquid evaporation acts to keep the temperature relatively constant, due to evaporative cooling. As the drying nears completion the liquid film begins to break, exposing areas that are no longer cooled through evaporation, which begin to heat. Although this heating can be measured with an Infrared (IR) camera, the sensitivity is often not sufficient to recognize the point at which the film breaks. Complicating the measurement is the changing emissivity that commonly occurs as objects dry. The sensitivity and emissivity issues can be addressed by analyzing the temperature in the area of interest and computing the coefficient of variance (COV) of the temperature. This technique is compared to temperature and standard deviation measurements made with an IR camera and the COV technique is shown to be superior for determining when the liquid film breaks. The film breakage point is found to vary with temperature and material roughness in two industrially significant applications: the drying of wood flakes and the drying of polymer films. Film breakage in wood flakes is related to detrimental finished quality problems and also to emission problems. The rate at which an adhesive dries affects the roughness of the polymer film and subsequently, the bond strength. The COV technique is used to predict the roughness of the finished polymer film. Use of the COV technique allows the drying of a liquid film to be visualized in a way that has been previously unreported.

Most of genes contained in a genome have been shown to exist in forms of families; however, little is known about their variation and evolution during the course of genome evolution. The present study shows that the numbers of the genes of the NBS-LRR-encoding gene family vary extremely significantly among different lines or cultivars of a species and among related species from the same genus. This suggests that plant genetics and evolution depend on not only gene sequence variation, but also the number of genes in multigene families. This study has further revealed that the variation of number of genes in the gene family in the Gossypium species is affected significantly not only by genome size variation, polyploidization and natural selection, but also by domestication/breeding. There is a positive correlation (P less than or equal to 0.05) between genome size and number of genes in the family, suggesting that species with larger genomes tend to have more NBS-LRR-encoding genes. It was observed that natural polyploids have significantly larger numbers of genes in the family and larger genomes than the artificial polyploids of their putative diploid ancestors. This indicates that polyploidization, perhaps post-polyploidization as well, either led to the loss of the genes in a gene family or slowed the process of gene number increase after polyploidization. It was shown that cultivated cottons have significantly more NBSLRR- encoding genes than wild species at both diploid and polyploidy levels. This result indicates that plant breeding likely allows accumulation of NBS-LRR-encoding genes that potentially provide resistance to pathogens. Therefore, plant breeders have selected not only for favorable alleles and favorable allele combinations, but also for the number of genes. Finally, difference (P less than or equal to 0.001) was found in number of genes in the NBS-LRR-encoding gene family among the species native to different geographical regions, suggesting that natural selection has played an important role in the variation in number of genes in the NBS-LRR-encoding gene family. The gene members that are favorable for fitness at the time are selected and accumulated in the genomes, but those that are not favorable for fitness at the time are lost in natural selection. As this is the first study in the field, further studies remain. These include, but not limited to, the universality of the findings in plants and animals, the universality of the findings in different gene families, genetics of the gene family size variation, relationship between the gene family size variation and phenotypic variation, gene family size variation and breeding, etc. Nevertheless, the findings obtained from this study are sufficient to shed light on many fundamental questions in biology, diversity and complexity of plants and animals.

­^¤å´£­n¡R Variation technique has always been one of the way of composing used by composers both in eastern and western music. During Beethoven's creative time, he worked on variation both technique and musical form frequently. Before 1800, he composed pieces based on variation technique for keyboard including 12 piano variations, few chambers and piano duets. After 1800, he started using variation more intensively. The pieces he wrote include in chambers, concertos and symphonies. Until 1815, the technique of variations became character on the late period of Beethoven. In this thesis, The definition of variation will be introduced first. The historical background of variation will be discussed from Middle age to Classic period. Before 1823, the types of variation can be differentiated as the independent variations and variation movements in large works. And the technique could be divided into four types which are ostinato variations¡Bcantus-firmus variations¡Bfixed-harmony variations and melodic variations with fixed harmony. And the form of variation can be divided into three types which are strophic variations¡Bhybrid variations and genre variations. Then, three string Quartets from different periods¡Bsymphony No.3 and some piano variations will be discussed from the point of view of Beethoven's variation technique. And 5 pieces from piano sonatas of Beethoven's works-- Op.14 No.2 II movement, Op.26 I movement, Op.57 II movement, Op.109 III movement, and Op.111 II movement-- will be described in detail on the background of composing and form analyzing. Finally, conclusion will be given. By adding variation movements to classic sonatas, Beethoven experienced the new technique of variation, and made these 5 sonatas much more unique and with variety.

As VLSI technology moves into the Ultra-Deep Sub-Micron (UDSM) era, manufacturing variations, power supply noise and temperature variations greatly affect the performance and yield of VLSI circuits. Clock Distribution Network (CDN), which is one of the biggest and most important nets in any synchronous VLSI chip, is especially sensitive to these variations. To address this problem variability-aware analysis and optimization techniques for VLSI circuits are needed. In the first part of this thesis an analytical bound for the unwanted skew due to interconnect variation is established. Experimental results show that this bound is safer, tighter and computationally faster than existing approaches. This bound could be used in variation-aware clock tree synthesis.The second part of the thesis deals with optimizing a given clock tree to minimize the unwanted skew variations. Non-tree CDNs have been recognized as a promising approach to overcome the variation problem. We propose a novel non-tree CDN obtained by adding cross links in an existing clock tree. We analyze the effect of the link insertion on clock skew variability and propose link insertion schemes. The non-tree CDNs so obtained are shown to be highly tolerant to skew variability with very little increase in total wire-length. This can be used in applications such as ASIC design where a significant increase in the total wire-length is unacceptable.

In the nineteenth century, Tchaikovsky was an important, representative composer in Russia and succeeds the prior previous musical development of Russia. Back then, I think this what was mean type of works were quite fundamental. In 1876, he had written the cello piece, ¡§Variation on a Theme Rococo,¡¨ and dedicated to a cellist, Fitzenhagen. Fitzenhagen changed the sequence for the variations, deleted and rewrote some segments. As a result, it made the version different from the one that was composed by Tchaikovsky. The version edited by Fitzenhagen was published, and it has been played until now. This lecture-recital document contains the following two main sections. First, it describes the biographical information about Tchaikovsky, his works accompanied by orchestra, and the friendship between Tchaikovsky and Fitzenhaen. The second part, compares the changes in the sequence of the variations between Fitzenhagen version and Tchaikovsky¡¦s Original version that examines the terminology, the role and the decoration of the bridge section ,and it offers some ways for practicing skills for Fitzenhagen¡¦s version.

Th. doct.--Universität Freiburg i.B.,, 1999. / Bibliogr. p. [275]-312.

This report examines the dynamic mood alternation attested in fear emotive clauses, i.e. (Me) temo que mi hija sea/es anoréxica, 'I fear/am afraid my daughter (SUBJ/IND) is anorexic'. It does so by using data gathered in electronic sources, implementing two model analyses from the vast literature on the topic and presenting and analyzing the results. It then concludes which of the two chosen models better predicts and clarifies the mood alternation usage for this phrase. The two models come from Terrel and Hooper (1974; Model A) and Lunn (1989 and 1995; Model B). It is expected that one of the two analyses will better explain mood choice patterns for temer(se) expressions and, in future research, it may become a validated tool to explain mood variation in other comment clauses as well. / text

Chromosomal rearrangements have been hypothesized to be the cause of reproductive isolation leading to speciation in diverse taxa. One model for chromosomal speciation, speciation by monobrachial centric fusions, is thought to apply to various groups of mammals, including members of the bat genus Rhogeessa (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae). Specifically, this model has been proposed to account for diversification within the R. tumida species complex. This species group exhibits a high degree of karyotypic variation, with little to no morphological differentiation between species. By examining phylogenetic data derived from DNA sequences of maternal, paternal and bi-parentally inherited markers, I investigate phylogenetic relationships of species within Rhogeessa and test expectations of the model of speciation by monobrachial centric fusions on members of the R. tumida complex. If chromosomal fusions caused speciation in Rhogeessa, I expect to see patterns of reproductive isolation between species differing by monobrachial fusions, and therefore each chromosomal form should be a monophyletic group. My data generally follow this pattern, with the exception of potential evidence for historical hybridization between R. tumida (2n = 34) and R. aeneus (2n = 32), where none is expected under the model. There is no evidence, however, of ongoing or recent hybridization between any taxa differing karyotypically. Moreover, the speciation model predicts that all populations which contain the same set of chromosomal fusions should freely interbreed, if chromosomal rearrangements are the sole cause for reproductive isolation. My data also show an exception to this prediction based on the observation of multiple genetic lineages of karyotypically identical R. tumida (2n = 34). This observation indicates that chromosomal differences cannot account for genetic diversification between the different lineages of R. tumida. Phylogeographic analyses indicate that lineages within this species could have diverged due to differences in habitat preferences. Overall, these data are generally consistent with speciation having occurred via reproductive isolation caused by chromosomal fusions. However, it does not appear that these rearrangements have caused complete reproductive isolation due to the evidence consistent with historical hybridization between Rhogeessa tumida and R. aeneus. The chromosomal mechanism is also not likely to be the only means by which diversification has taken place in Rhogeessa. Geographic factors have apparently influenced genetic divergence as well.

With the increase in complexity of modern electricity grids, the implementation of state-estimators has become a vital aspect of stability and contingency analyses for stable and secure power system operation. Transmission line reactance is an important component in the computation of state-estimators. Two models utilizing real-time synchrophasor data and ERCOT load information are proposed to compute Thevenin equivalent reactance. This thesis presents the results of implementing these methods to estimate the equivalent reactance of a transmission network between The University of Texas at Austin and The University of Texas, PanAm. / text