Translating by post-editing: is it the way forward?

Translation memory tools now offer the translator to insert post-edited machine translation segments for which no match is found in the databases. The Google Translator Toolkit does this by default, advising in its Settings window: “Most users should not modify this”. Post-editing of no matches appears to work on engines trained with specific bilingual data on a source written under controlled language constraints. Would this, however, work for any type of task as Google’s advice implies? We have tested this by carrying out experiments with English–Chinese trainees, using the Toolkit to translate from the source text (the control group) and by post-editing (the experimental group). Results show that post-editing gains in productivity are marginal. With regard to quality, however, post-editing produces significantly better statistical results compared to translating manually. These gains in quality are observed independently of language direction, text difficulty or translator’s level of performance. In light of these findings, we discuss whether translators should consider post-editing as a viable alternative to conventional translation.     

Generating B-spline curves with points, normals and curvature constraints: a constructive approach

This paper presents a constructive method for generating a uniform cubic B-spline curve interpolating a set of data points simultaneously controlled by normal and curvature constraints. By comparison, currently published methods have addressed one or two of those constraints (point, normal or cross-curvature interpolation), but not all three constraints simultaneously with C2 continuity. Combining these constraints provides better control of the generated curve in particular for feature curves on free-form surfaces. Our approach is local and provides exact interpolation of these constraints.     

Data administration in the organization: What is it,who does it and why?

Those who work in the field of database are constantly being challenged both by the burgeoning nature of the field and by the rapidity of new developments. One of the new emerging areas is ‘data administration’; this refers to the management, planning and documentation of the data resource of a company.The key concept in the move towards data administration has been that data, like people, money and materials should be treated as a critical resource that any company has to manage. Providing accurate, relevant and timely information entails a significant cost for a company and presents a substantial challenge.     

The space of EDF deadlines: the exact region and a convex approximation

It is well known that the performance of computer controlled systems is heavily affected by delays and jitter occurring in the control loops, which are mainly caused by the interference introduced by other concurrent activities. A common approach adopted to reduce delay and jitter in periodic task systems is to decrease relative deadlines as much as possible, but without jeopardizing the schedulability of the task set. In this paper, we formally characterize the region of admissible deadlines so that the system designer can appropriately select the desired values to maximize a given performance index defined over the task set. Finally we also provide a sufficient region of feasible deadlines which is proved to be convex.

Joining the blunt and the pointy end of the spear: towards a common framework of joint action,human–machine cooperation,cooperative guidance and control,shared, traded and supervisory control

To introduce this special issue of shared and cooperative control, we will look into history of tools in cooperation between humans and aim to unify the plethora of related concepts and definitions that have been proposed in recent years, such as shared control, human–machine cooperation and cooperative guidance and control. Concretely, we provide definitions to relate these concepts and sketch a unifying framework of shared and cooperative control that sees the different concepts as different perspectives or foci on a common design space of shared intentionality, control and cooperation between humans and machines. One working hypothesis which the article explores is that shared control can be understood as cooperation at the control layer, while human–machine cooperation can include shared control, but can also extend towards cooperation at higher layers, e.g., of guidance and navigation, of maneuvers and goals. The relationship between shared control and human–machine cooperation is compared to the relationship between the sharp, pointy tip and the (blunt) shaft of a spear. Shared control is where cooperation comes sharply into effect at the control layer, but to be truly effective it should be supported by cooperation on all layers beyond the operational layer, e.g., on the tactical and strategic layer. A fourth layer addresses the meta-communication about the cooperation and supports the other three layers in a traversal way.

     

Accessibility,usability, and security evaluation of universities’ prospective student web pages: a comparative study of Europe,North America,and Oceania

Universal Access in the Information Society - Universities' prospective student web pages aim to disseminate information about their academic and social opportunities to their stakeholders;...     

Diversity and variation in biomechanical exposure: what is it, and why would we like to know?

Trends in global working life suggest that the occurrence of jobs characterized by long-lasting low-level loads or repetitive operations is increasing. More physical "variation" is commonly believed to be a remedy against musculoskeletal disorders in such jobs. One aim of the present paper was to shortly review the validity of this conviction. An examination of the available epidemiologic literature pointed out that the effectiveness of initiatives like job rotation or more breaks is weakly supported by empirical evidence, and only for short-term psychophysical outcomes. Only a limited number of studies have been devoted to physical variation, and concepts and metrics for variation in biomechanical exposure are not well developed. Thus, as a second objective, the paper proposes a framework for investigating and evaluating aspects of exposure variation, based on explicit definitions of variation as "the change in exposure across time" and diversity as "the extent that exposure entities differ". Operational methods for assessing these concepts are also discussed.     

An empirical comparison of consumer usability preferences in online shopping using stationary and mobile devices: results from a college student population

To determine the differences in user preferences between electronic and mobile commerce in consumer shopping, a 25-item survey concerning usability aspects of the two media was implemented on one hundred and eighteen college e-shoppers with experience in mobile devices. The Mobile Commerce Comparison Survey (MCCS) had four validated comparison factors: human factors-related, interface features, product-, and service-related factor. The comparison concludes that usability issues are perceived to be behind in m-commerce, and that m-commerce should be a shopping medium complementary to classic e-commerce rather than a direct alternative to it. Future studies may include empirical usability experiments for m-commerce tasks.     

Orchestration of network instruments: a way to de-emphasize the partition between incremental change and innovation?

Incremental change and innovation are often regarded as two separate concepts, with some interconnections. Based on two practical cases that emphasize respectively incremental change and innovation, the article discusses whether a division between these concepts can be maintained. Action research is seen as having a central role, offering an integral working method in industrial networks.

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Why ‘GSA: a gravitational search algorithm’ is not genuinely based on the law of gravity

This letter highlights a fundamental inconsistency in the formulation of the Gravitational search algorithm (GSA) (Rashedi et al., Inf Sci 2232?C48, 2009). GSA is said to be based on the law of gravity, that is, candidate solutions attract each other in the search space based on their relative distances and ??masses?? (qualities). We show that, contrary to what is claimed, GSA does not take the distances between solutions into account, and therefore cannot be considered to be based on the law of gravity.     

Teachers Constructing Concepts of Mathematics for Teaching and Learning: “It's like the roots beneath the surface,not a bigger garden”

Abstract

Conceptually rich classroom learning environments can only be supported by teachers with appropriate mathematical knowledge. A lack of clarity exists as to whether or how such teacher knowledge might go beyond knowledge of the relevant curriculum. This study contributes to the field by investigating further examples of what appropriate teacher mathematical knowledge might be, as rooted and contextualized in teachers’ daily classroom practices. Teacher journaling, individual meetings, and teacher focus-group discussions were used to identify relevant examples, and ultimately continue to collectively describe, in a specific, contextually based and practitioner-developed manner, the mathematical knowledge required for elementary teaching.     

Sustainability of Open Source software communities beyond a fork: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?

Many organisations are dependent upon long-term sustainable software systems and associated communities. In this paper we consider long-term sustainability of Open Source software communities in Open Source software projects involving a fork. There is currently a lack of studies in the literature that address how specific Open Source software communities are affected by a fork. We report from a study aiming to investigate the developer community around the LibreOffice project, which is a fork from the OpenOffice.org project. In so doing, our analysis also covers the OpenOffice.org project and the related Apache OpenOffice project. The results strongly suggest a long-term sustainable LibreOffice community and that there are no signs of stagnation in the LibreOffice project 33 months after the fork. Our analysis provides details on developer communities for the LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice projects and specifically concerning how they have evolved from the OpenOffice.org community with respect to project activity, developer commitment, and retention of committers over time. Further, we present results from an analysis of first hand experiences from contributors in the LibreOffice community. Findings from our analysis show that Open Source software communities can outlive Open Source software projects and that LibreOffice is perceived by its community as supportive, diversified, and independent. The study contributes new insights concerning challenges related to long-term sustainability of Open Source software communities.     

Who puts the best “face” forward on Facebook?: Positive self-presentation in online social networking and the role of self-consciousness,actual-to-total Friends ratio,and culture

The present research investigated how individual, interpersonal, and cultural variables influence positive self-presentation in online social networking. In particular, we examined the role of self-consciousness, actual-to-total Friends ratio, and culture in positive self-presentation on Facebook. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with college-age participants in the United States (n = 183) and South Korea (n = 137). Results showed that self-consciousness (public vs. private) and actual-to-total Friends ratio were not significantly associated with positive self-presentation on Facebook; however, culture showed a statistically significant association with positive self-presentation on Facebook, with the U.S. participants engaging in positive self-presentation on Facebook to a greater extent than the South Korean participants. More interestingly, culture significantly moderated the relationship between public self-consciousness and positive self-presentation as well as the relationship between actual-to-total Friends ratio and positive self-presentation. Specifically, positive self-presentation showed a significant positive association with public self-consciousness and a significant negative association with actual-to-total Friends ratio only among the South Korean participants and not among the U.S. participants. Theoretical and practical implications for understanding cross-cultural differences in self-presentation behaviors on social network sites were discussed.     

Estimating actual distances by norm functions: a comparison between the lk,p,θ-norm and the lb1,b2,θ-norm and a study about the selection of the data set

The aim of this paper is two-fold. First, the weighted l_p-norm, which has proved to be an accurate distance predicting function and has been proposed by several authors as the most suitable predictor of distances, is compared through an empirical study with the l_2b-norm, a function with the same number of parameters as the first one. The results show that neither distance function dominates the other. On the contrary, depending on the region considered either norm may be significantly better than the other. The second aim is to investigate how the selection of the data set representing the network of the region affects the ability of the distance predicting function for predicting distances, and to try to deduce how to obtain a suitable data set which adequately represents a given geographical region. Through another empirical study it is shown that the selection of the data set dramatically affects the accuracy of the predictions. To obtain a suitable data set it is important to choose a good sample size, and more importantly, the cities should be chosen so that they are distributed all over the region and represent the density of the cities in the region.     

Enhancing the learning effect of virtual reality 3D modeling: a new model of learner’s design collaboration and a comparison of its field system usability

Universal Access in the Information Society - Knowledge of 3D modeling design is crucial for industrial designers. Therefore, 3D modeling learning is a crucial subject in industrial design...     

Law, privacy and information technology: a sleepwalk through the surveillance society?

The Surveillance Studies Network report of 2006 on the 'surveillance society', highlighting the omnipresence of information technology in British society, once again brought into sharp focus concerns about the types and levels of technological surveillance to which the public are subjected. This article seeks to explore the opportunities for surveillance presented by recent developments, and suggests a number of privacy and civil liberties concerns.     

What is rational about killing a patient with an overdose?: enlightenment, continental philosophy and the role of the human subject in system failure

This paper raises the issue of ergonomics' role in giving primacy to fully rational individual human actors in the creation of system failure, despite its commitment to see action as constrained by design and operational features of work. Reflecting on recent contributions to the journal, ergonomics' dilemma is considered against Enlightenment assumptions about individual human reason as the route to truth and goodness and its critics in continental philosophy. There is a pervasive, unstated pact here. What ergonomics chooses to call certain things (violations, errors, non-compliance, situation awareness) not only simultaneously affirms and denies full rationality on part of the people it studies, it also coincides with what the West sees as scientific, true and instrumental. Thus, ergonomics research legitimates its findings in terms it is expected to explain itself in. But by doing so, it reproduces the very social order it set out to repudiate. Statement of Relevance: Ergonomics' choice of words (violations, errors, non-compliance) at once affirms and denies full rationality on part of the people it studies, reproducing the very social order it is meant to question and change.     

Generic screen representations for future-proof systems,is it possible?: There is more to a GUI than meets the eye

BackgroundFuture-proof EHR systems must be capable of interpreting information structures for medical concepts that were not available at the build-time of the system. The two-model approach of CEN 13606/openEHR using archetypes achieves this by separating generic clinical knowledge from domain-related knowledge. The presentation of this information can either itself be generic, or require design time awareness of the domain knowledge being employed.ObjectiveTo develop a Graphical User Interface (GUI) that would be capable of displaying previously unencountered clinical data structures in a meaningful way.MethodsThrough “reasoning by analogy” we defined an approach for the representation and implementation of “presentational knowledge”. A proof-of-concept implementation was built to validate its implementability and to test for unanticipated issues.ResultsA two-model approach to specifying and generating a screen representation for archetype-based information, inspired by the two-model approach of archetypes, was developed. There is a separation between software-related display knowledge and domain-related display knowledge and the toolkit is designed with the reuse of components in mind.ConclusionsThe approach leads to a flexible GUI that can adapt not only to information structures that had not been predefined within the receiving system, but also to novel ways of displaying the information. We also found that, ideally, the openEHR Archetype Definition Language should receive minor adjustments to allow for generic binding.