Login or register (free and only takes a few minutes) to participate in this question.
You will also have access to many other tools and opportunities designed for those who have language-related jobs (or are passionate about them). Participation is free and the site has a strict confidentiality policy.
Mathematically, positive, negative and "none" would be expressed as >0, <0 and 0, and I agree, of course, that a negative response could actually contain some useful information - unless you're a GI, that is... But I still like "valid comparison".
Nope, "no response" is not the same as a negative response, which may contain a code that indicates the reason for the explicit negative response. (Machines may be more communicative than GIs!) This link may discuss some relevant details: http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/zos/v1r12/index.jsp...
My suggestion wasn't intended to be taken seriously! But here's a tricky question: is no response a negative response? The US military might agree that it was: 'is it responding, sergeant?' 'Negative, sir!' (why say "no" when "negative" sounds so much more important?)
If this is an authentication process in a telecommunications system, I suspect that there are two possible responses: positive response or negative response (plus, for sticklers, no response). I don't think that "responding well" is an option.
Of course, you COULD put "which responded well/positively to the comparison", which is terribly ponderous and not terrific English. Depending on what has previously been written, I'm guessing the text refers to bits of kit which have passed some sort of compatibility test, so you could say: "... to select various/different compatible devices"// Just read the previous question: for this one, "valid comparison" should cover it.
Automatic update in 00:
Answers
55 mins confidence:
that compared positively
Explanation: Simplest way.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 1 hr (2011-09-20 15:30:29 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
I suppose they are measured against a required specification model. In this case, it means that acceptable devices must actually exceed the minimum requirements.
Sangro Local time: 14:40 Specializes in field Native speaker of: English, Romanian PRO pts in category: 16
comparing/which have shown to compare favorably with the standard (comparison)
Explanation: Hello,
I really am not sure I'm getting the context here, but this might be the general idea here.
I agree with Chris in that this needs to read like natural English (once you get the meaning)
répondu positivement = have shown to compare favorably (you could perhaps just say "comparing favorably with the...", excluding "which have shown" bit)
comparaison = standard (comparison)
ADV performance has been shown to compare favorably with laser Doppler systems costing ten times as much. In addition, the ADV is extremely simple to set ...
The translation workplace 
