1. A penetrable screw cap comprising:
a generally cylindrical core structure configured to be screwed onto an open-ended vessel, the core structure being a molded plastic formed to have an opening extending therethrough; and
first and second disk-shaped, frangible seals affixed to the core structure, wherein the second seal is axially aligned with and positioned below the first seal in a spaced-apart relationship, and wherein the second seal is constructed and arranged to provide a barrier to the passage of a fluid through the opening formed in the core structure,
wherein the cap is capable of being penetrated by a plastic pipette tip, and
wherein the first and second seals are constructed and arranged so that air passageways are formed between a plastic pipette tip and the first and second seals when the pipette tip penetrates the first and second seals.
2. The cap of claim 1, wherein the core structure comprises an inwardly extending ledge, and wherein the second seal is affixed to a surface of the ledge.
3. The cap of claim 2, wherein the ledge comprises a depending skirt.
4. The cap of claim 3, wherein the second seal is affixed to a bottom surface of the skirt.
5. The cap of claim 2, wherein the first seal is affixed to a top surface of the core structure.
6. The cap of claim 1, wherein the first seal is modified to facilitate penetration of the first seal by a plastic pipette tip, and wherein the modification reduces the tensile strength of the first seal.
7. The cap of claim 6, wherein the first seal is modified to include perforations that facilitate penetration of the first seal by a plastic pipette tip.
8. The cap of claim 1 further comprising a filter interposed between the first and second seals.
9. The cap of claim 8, wherein the filter is comprised of a resilient material.
10. The cap of claim 8, wherein the filter is gas permeable.
11. The cap of claim 10, wherein the filter is constructed and arranged to trap an aerosol andor bubbles.
12. The cap of claim 1, wherein the cap does not include a filter interposed between the first and second seals.
13. The cap of claim 1, wherein the first and second seals tear when penetrated by a plastic pipette tip, thereby forming air passageways between the pipette tip and the first and second seals.
14. A collection device comprising the cap of claim 1 screwed onto an open end of a fluid-holding vessel, thereby providing a substantially leak-proof seal between the cap and the vessel.
15. A method for removing a fluid substance from the collection device of claim 14, the method comprising the steps of:
(a) penetrating the first and second seals with a plastic pipette tip, thereby forming air passageways between the pipette tip and the first and second seals;
(b) drawing a fluid substance contained in the vessel into the pipette tip; and
(c) removing the pipette tip from the collection device.
16. The method of claim 15, wherein the core structure comprises an inwardly extending ledge, and wherein the second seal is affixed to a surface of the ledge.
17. The method of claim 16, wherein the ledge comprises a depending skirt.
18. The method of claim 17, wherein the second seal is affixed to a bottom surface of the skirt.
19. The method of claim 16, wherein the first seal is affixed to a top surface of the core structure.
20. The method of claim 15 further comprising a filter interposed between the first and second seals.
21. The method of claim 20, wherein the filter is comprised of a resilient material.
22. The method of claim 20, wherein the filter is gas permeable.
23. The method of claim 22, wherein the filter is constructed and arranged to trap an aerosol andor bubbles.
24. The method of claim 15, wherein the cap does not include a filter interposed between the first and second seals.
25. The method of claim 15, wherein the first and second seals are torn in step (a), thereby forming the air passageways between the pipette tip and the first and second seals.
26. The method of claim 15, wherein the collection device contains a specimen-retrieval device within an interior space of the collection device.
27. The method of claim 15 further comprising, after step (c), the step of amplifying a target nucleic acid sequence present in the fluid substance removed from the collection device in step (c).
28. The method of claim 15, wherein the second seal is welded to the core structure.
29. The method of claim 15, wherein the second seal is affixed to the core structure with an adhesive.
30. The cap of claim 1, wherein the second seal is welded to the core structure.
31. The cap of claim 1, wherein the second seal is affixed to the core structure with an adhesive.
The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.
1. A computer system to create a morphological electronic dictionary for a natural language, the computer system comprising:
a processor;
an electronic memory configured with electronic instructions to cause the computer system to perform steps, the electronic instructions including:
identify each word token in the text corpus;
apply paradigm rules to each word token in the text corpus;
generate one or more hypotheses about a part of speech for base forms of each word token;
select other word inflected forms corresponding to the base form of each word token;
verify each hypothesis of the one or more hypotheses for each base form of each word token based on ratings;
add grammatical values and inflection paradigms to each base form of each word token for each verified hypothesis;
obtain information about one or more morphological descriptions for each word token with a verified hypothesis; and
add the base form of each word token with the morphological descriptions to the electronic morphological dictionary of the natural language for each verified hypothesis.
2. The computer system of claim 1, the instructions further including: creating an initial morphological description having word inflection rules for groups of words in the natural language.
3. The computer system of claim 1, wherein each of the morphological descriptions comprises one or more word inflection rules.
4. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the morphological descriptions comprise one or more word formation rules.
5. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the morphological descriptions comprise a grammatical system of the natural language.
6. The computer system of claim 5, wherein the grammatical system of the natural language comprises a set of grammatical categories and the grammemes thereof.
7. The computer system of claim 1, further comprising:
using additional ratings for one or more hypotheses where verification is initially unsuccessful.
8. The computer system of claim 7, wherein the addition additional ratings are obtained from checking the base form of each word token against a word list of a dictionary.
9. The computer system of claim 7, wherein the addition additional ratings are obtained from checking the base form of each word token with a spelling checker component.
10. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the one or more paradigm rules applied to each word token comprise rules for changing each word token, the rules selected from the group consisting of: adding an affix, removing an affix, adding an ending, removing an ending, and combinations thereof.
11. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the grammatical values added to the base form of each word token comprise information about a part of speech for each word token.
12. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the inflection paradigms added to the base form of each word token comprise inflection rules for each word token.
13. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the natural language comprises a natural language selected from the group consisting of: English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Portuguese, Slovak, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, Greek, Bulgarian, Turkish, Tatar, Hindi, Serbian, Croatian, Romanian, Slovenian, Macedonian, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew, and Swahili.
14. A computer system to generate a morphological electronic dictionary for a natural language, the computer system comprising:
a processor;
an electronic memory configured with electronic instructions to cause the computer system to perform steps, the electronic instructions including:
create an initial morphological description having word inflection rules for groups of words in the natural language;
analyze by the computer system a plurality of text corpuses in the natural language, including:
identifying each word token in each text corpus of the natural language;
applying one or more paradigm rules to each word token in each text corpus;
generating one or more hypotheses about parts of speech for base forms of each word token;
searching for other word inflected forms corresponding to the base form of each word token;
verifying each hypothesis of the one or more hypotheses for each base form of each word token based on ratings to identify verified hypotheses;
adding grammatical values and inflection paradigms to each base form of each word token for each verified hypothesis; and
obtaining information about one or more morphological descriptions for each word token with a verified hypothesis; and
add the base form of each word token with the morphological descriptions to the morphological electronic dictionary for each verified hypothesis.
15. The computer system of claim 14, wherein the morphological descriptions comprise one or more word inflection rules.
16. The computer system of claim 14, wherein the morphological descriptions comprise one or more word formation rules.
17. The computer system of claim 14, wherein the morphological descriptions comprise a grammatical system of the natural language.
18. The computer system of claim 14, wherein the natural language comprises a natural language selected from the group consisting of: English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Portuguese, Slovak, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, Greek, Bulgarian, Turkish, Tatar, Hindi, Serbian, Croatian, Romanian, Slovenian, Macedonian, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew, and Swahili.