First, America has made particularly big productivity strides in retailing, where big firms such as Wal-Mart have been able to open sprawling warehouses and superstores around the country.

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The quest to engineer body parts has made big strides in recent years as scientists have attempted to grow more and more complex organs.

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While Apple maintained the top spot for the ninth time in a row through US customers' happiness with the hardware design and ease of use, most of its major competitors made big strides in reliability, speed and camera quality in the past half-year -- to the point where there was a virtual dead heat for second place between HTC, Motorola, Nokia and Samsung.

ENGADGET

Despite big strides forward in technology, adoption and the ethnography of social technology, the gap between vision and reality is big.

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Grosjean, 22, and Clement, 23, have so far done little in Paris but after breaking through in Australia will be confident of making big strides on home soil.

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All in all, however, the foreign firms, especially the big American investment banks, are making huge strides.

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