Designing systems for new users

This paper discusses the relationship between a system and ‘noncaptive’ users and the qualities which make a good system. Various methods for designing systems are considered and the author's development of meeting design (shared experience events) is presented.     

Towards predicting post-editing productivity

Machine translation (MT) quality is generally measured via automatic metrics, producing scores that have no meaning for translators who are required to post-edit MT output or for project managers who have to plan and budget for translation projects. This paper investigates correlations between two such automatic metrics (general text matcher and translation edit rate) and post-editing productivity. For the purposes of this paper, productivity is measured via processing speed and cognitive measures of effort using eye tracking as a tool. Processing speed, average fixation time and count are found to correlate well with the scores for groups of segments. Segments with high GTM and TER scores require substantially less time and cognitive effort than medium or low-scoring segments. Future research involving score thresholds and confidence estimation is suggested.     

Parent and peer relationships and relational spirituality in adolescents and young adults.

Research showing the protective qualities of Relational Spirituality, the experience of an ongoing dynamic personal relationship with G-d, against psychopathology in adolescents prompted the current investigation of its developmental correlates. Relational Spirituality in adolescence has been shown to have an unfolding heritable contribution and to be intertwined with a process of spiritual individuation, to which the current study adds the contribution of parents and peers to the developmental process. Participants were 615 adolescents and young adults representing a diverse range of ethnicities and religious affiliations. To measure parenting and friend variables, the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI), Parental Spiritual Support Scale, and Friends Spiritual Support Scale were utilized. Relational Spirituality was measured using items from several subscales of the Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness/Spirituality to obtain a composite score. Findings of multivariate regression analyses indicated that Maternal Spiritual Support, Paternal Care, and Friends Spiritual Support were significantly positively associated with Relational Spirituality, with Maternal Spiritual Support influencing the selection of peers who offer Friends Spiritual Support. These results underscore the importance of parents and peers in facilitating the development of Relational Spirituality, particularly through maternal openness to discussion about spirituality/religiosity and through paternal affection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Modeling the radiation of anisotropically scattering media by coupling Mie theory with finite volume method

A new mathematical model and code for radiative heat transfer of particulate media with anisotropic scattering for 2-D rectangular enclosure is developed. The model is based on the coupling of (i) finite volume method for the solution of radiative transfer equation with (ii) Mie equations for the evaluation of scattering phase function. It has not been done before to the authors’ best knowledge. The predictions were compared against the only found results, published 15 years ago. For those results the S-N discrete ordinates method for the solution of radiative transfer equation and the Legendre polynomials expansions for the evaluation of scattering phase function were used. The agreement between the results is very good. The advantages of new model and code are in their straight forward application to any given particles parameters without the need for previously designed analytical expression for scattering phase function. In addition, that analytical expression, with generated expansion coefficients, is restricted and can be used only for that particular case of particle parameters. The new model was applied to the solid particles of several various coals and of an ash and the series of 2-D predictions are performed. The effects of particle size parameter and of scattering albedo on radiative heat flux and on incident radiation were analyzed. It was found that the model developed is reliable and very accurate and thus suitable for extension towards: (i) 3-D geometries, (ii) mixtures of non-gray gases with particles as well as for (iii) incorporation in computational fluid dynamics codes.     

A case study of the carbon footprint of milk from high-performing confinement and grass-based dairy farms

Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is the preferred methodology to assess carbon footprint per unit of milk. The objective of this case study was to apply an LCA method to compare carbon footprints of high-performance confinement and grass-based dairy farms. Physical performance data from research herds were used to quantify carbon footprints of a high-performance Irish grass-based dairy system and a top-performing United Kingdom (UK) confinement dairy system. For the US confinement dairy system, data from the top 5% of herds of a national database were used. Life-cycle assessment was applied using the same dairy farm greenhouse gas (GHG) model for all dairy systems. The model estimated all on- and off-farm GHG sources associated with dairy production until milk is sold from the farm in kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO₂-eq) and allocated emissions between milk and meat. The carbon footprint of milk was calculated by expressing GHG emissions attributed to milk per tonne of energy-corrected milk (ECM). The comparison showed that when GHG emissions were only attributed to milk, the carbon footprint of milk from the Irish grass-based system (837 kg of CO₂-eq/t of ECM) was 5% lower than the UK confinement system (884 kg of CO₂-eq/t of ECM) and 7% lower than the US confinement system (898 kg of CO₂-eq/t of ECM). However, without grassland carbon sequestration, the grass-based and confinement dairy systems had similar carbon footprints per tonne of ECM. Emission algorithms and allocation of GHG emissions between milk and meat also affected the relative difference and order of dairy system carbon footprints. For instance, depending on the method chosen to allocate emissions between milk and meat, the relative difference between the carbon footprints of grass-based and confinement dairy systems varied by 3 to 22%. This indicates that further harmonization of several aspects of the LCA methodology is required to compare carbon footprints of contrasting dairy systems. In comparison to recent reports that assess the carbon footprint of milk from average Irish, UK, and US dairy systems, this case study indicates that top-performing herds of the respective nations have carbon footprints 27 to 32% lower than average dairy systems. Although differences between studies are partly explained by methodological inconsistency, the comparison suggests that potential exists to reduce the carbon footprint of milk in each of the nations by implementing practices that improve productivity.