Newsletter No. 389

No. 389, 19.12.2011 5 www.iso.cuhk.edu.hk/english/features/style-speaks/index.html 藝 文 風 景 A TOUCH OF CLASS 《世界》 紙本水彩 潘德恩 文學士（中國語言及文學）及教育學士（中國語文教育）同期結業雙學位課程 四年級學生 The World Watercolour on Paper Ikey Poon, Year 4, Bachelor of Arts in Chinese Language and Literature and Bachelor of Education in Chinese Language Education Co-terminal Double Degree Programme The Perplexing Plurals The inflection to –s, –es or –ies to indicate plurality may seem at first sight to be a straightforward matter, but any serious writer or editor should pay attention to the following. • detail Despite its countable status, its singular form is used in phrases such as in detail and go into detail . • talent It is countable when it refers to a person’s special skill or natural gift, but if referred to people with such skill or gift, no –s is required. Thus, The competition has attracted talent from all over the country, and those who made it to the final flaunted their talents in a show televised to millions. • offspring Some words, like the above example, never inflect even when used in a plural sense. Thus, a great man can never have mediocre offsprings . • grounds, commons, bounds When referring to a place or territory, all the above words cannot rid themselves of a sibilant ending. Examples are: school grounds, learning commons, out of bounds. • compound nouns Lastly, the plural inflection does not necessarily occur in the last word of a compound noun, e.g., sons in law, ladies in waiting, masters of ceremony, deans of students. Editor 陳炳城教授於香港完成中學課程後，負笈加拿大，於麥馬斯達大學取得學士、碩士 及博士學位。他於1992年加入中大，現為統計系副教授。他的研究興趣包括序列 統計，生存分析及實驗設計。 Prof. Chan Ping-shing completed his secondary education in Hong Kong. He then received his bachelor’s, master’s and PhD from McMaster University, Canada. Professor Chan joined CUHK in 1992 and is currently an associate professor in the Department of Statistics. His research interests cover order statistics, survival analysis and design of experiments. Censored data are a problem in all statistical analyses. The more serious becomes missing data, which happens when, say, only eight out of 10 questions in a questionnaire are answered or when a question that should have been posed was not due to oversight. Statisticians do not ignore censored or missing data. Using different mathematical models, they take such unapparent data together with all data collected into their calculations in order to arrive at more comprehensive and accurate statistical information. ‘The most commonly used method is conditional probability which infers censored or missing data and inputs it for calculation. The results are then compared to those obtained without that data. If the discrepancy is small, the data deduced are considered effective.’ Censored data are used in gauging the reliability and durability of industrial products, from furniture and electrical appliances to cars, airplanes, and even nuclear plants. Censored data are used to calculate their lifetime distribution, which is their performance under different circumstances and how long they’ll last. This is also Professor Chan’s present research focus. He explained that it is not easy to gather data to assess a product’s life-span under normal circumstances. At present, industry uses the accelerated life test which applies severe environmental stress to the product to induce rapid deterioration, and use the data inferred to calculate its life-span. The ones that survive the test are known as ‘censored observations’. Professor Chan’s research involves making maximum likelihood statistical inferences from data obtained from these tests, and thereby identifying the most effective accelerated life test for different products to help industry design tests that are efficient, accurate and cost-effective. ‘This shortens the time taken for products to reach the market,’ he says. ‘But the question of how to design a product so that it’s considered reliable and durable is at times a commercial decision. We only provide scientific data for reference.’ In Plain View 陳炳城教授（中）和他的研究團隊 Prof. Chan Ping-shing (centre) and his research team