- •§ 1. Introduction: the traditional approach to the English articles
- •Follow-Up Work
- •§ 2. The status of the article in English
- •Follow-Up Work
- •§ 3. The conceptual approach to the English article system
- •Follow-Up Work
- •§ 4. The conceptual analysis of article forms of nouns in speech
- •Follow-Up Work
- •Follow-Up Work
- •Follow-Up Work
- •Follow-Up Work
- •§ 8. The stylistic functions of article forms of nouns in English
- •Follow-Up Work
- •§ 9. The functional-stylistic omission of the article
- •Follow-Up Work
- •§ 10. Summary
- •Beyond the Blue Mountains
- •Life on a Desert Island
- •In the Margin
- •Memories of …. Great actress
- •You Can’t Teach Managers
- •Patients Get the Message
- •Alzheimer’s telltale protein
- •Homeopathy
- •School for Scandal
- •Is ….. Mba responsible for …..Moral turpitude at ….. Top?
- •Ride and prejudice Why the return of product placement is nothing to worry about
- •La Belle Monique
- •An English Lesson
- •Alaska’ Dirty Dollars
- •Pigeons ‘not so bird-brained’
- •Two Topics of Conversation
- •The Thoughts of Henry Wilt
- •The Center of Our Galaxy
- •Forbidding Fruit
- •Two New Dinosaur Species Found in Antarctica
- •Fire Message in Plain English
- •The Japanese Sense of Beauty
- •On the Brink of Tranquillity
- •Small ads are flooding away from newspapers and onto the internet
- •Stop the world, we want to get off
- •Improvements in the visa-issuing process for foreign scientists
- •Sources
- •E.A. Dolgina English Articles and their Role in the Cognitive Process of Categorization
- •References
Improvements in the visa-issuing process for foreign scientists
In ….. days since September 11th 2001, ….. news for foreign scientists and students who wished to work in—or even visit—America has been grim. Delays in issuing visas soared, and applications to American graduate schools by foreign science students sank by 30%. This has been bad not only for ….. individuals concerned, but for science as ….. whole.
In ….. past few days, though, some good news has emerged. On February 14th, America's State Department announced that "Visa Mantis" clearances—required for scientists working in …..sensitive areas—would be given for four years to students and two to working scientists, up from ….. previous limit of ….. year. Visa Mantis is ….. system for doing background checks on ….. visa applicant. Data on ….. applicant are sent from ….. American consulate in ….. applicant's country to ….. Federal Bureau of Investigation and "other agencies"—….. bureaucratic euphemism for ….. intelligence agencies. These search their databases and reply to …. State Department with any objections. ….. department, in turn, replies to ….. consulate.
Part of ….. problem with the Visa Mantis system was that it entailed lengthy delays. ….. report issued in February 2004 by ….. Government Accountability Office (GAO), ….. congressional watchdog, found that ….. average wait for ….clearance during spring 2003 had been 67 days. According to ….. State Department, those delays are now down to ….. average of ….. two weeks— a claim that ….. GAO is expected to confirm in ….. updated report that was being prepared for….. release as …. Economist went to …..press.
…..Mantis clearance is necessary but not sufficient for …. visa. But processing times for visas themselves seem to be improving as well. America's National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, ….. chief professional bodies of those disciplines, collect …..informal data on those cases of long delays that are reported to them (approximately 800 a year). These show that delays decreased from ….. average of 145 days in 2003 to 65 days in 2004.
Much remains to be done—two months is still quite ….. while to wait. And as Maura Harty, the State Department official in charge of consular affairs, puts it, "the loss of even one qualified student to another nation is one too many."
Quite so. But while America now seems to grasp …. cost of treating foreign brains badly, Britain does not. New figures show the number of foreign students admitted to British universities in 2004 fell by 5.3%. That may reflect ….. stonking fees charged for visas since 2003—which, to universities' dismay, …. government has just decided to double.
The Economist (Feb 17th 2005)
Sources
The Bible, W. Shakespeare, J. Austen, Ch. Bronte, T. Hardy, J. Galsworthy, O. Wilde, V. Woolf, S.W. Maugham, S.F. Fitzgerald, S. Hill, M. Spark, I. Murdoch, D. Lodge, J. Le Carre, P. Lively, F. Weldon, J. Cusack, P. D. James, T. F. King, M. E Tennant, M. Gunther, J. Thurber, A. Bierce, M. Schorer, A. Thorne, J. Finney, A. Christie, J. Barnes, J. R.R. Tolkien.