Translation practice in the workplace: contextual analysis and implications for machine translation

This paper reports the results of a qualitative study which investigated localisation activities performed by translators working in two Language Service Providers. It argues that maintaining the appropriate quality level in this setting is a collaborative task which involves several translators. This perspective entails taking a broader view of the translation process than usually found in the Machine Translation (MT) literature and detailing the various knowledge sources which are deployed in this collaborative effort. The impact of collaboration on trust is examined, and a comparison is made between the relatively seamless flow of work between translators and the more strained relationships with remote contributors. In support of this view, the paper contrasts the flexibility of the analysed work practices with the rigid ways which tend to be followed when introducing MT into this setting. We identify the need to support collaboration and communication more actively as a broader issue in translation settings. While current strategies for introducing MT tend to further isolate translators from remote contributors, we propose that MT can serve as the catalyst for establishing a more dynamic and collaborative relationship between them.     

Environmental assessment of natural radionuclides and heavy metals in waters discharged from a lignite-fired power plant

Gross alpha, gross beta and ²²⁶Ra activities as well as the concentration of trace metals (V, Cr, Mn, Ni, Cu, Zn, Mo and Pb) in the discharge waters of the major lignite-fired power plant in Greece were measured during the period October 2004 to May 2006. Gross alpha activity of particulate matter in the discharge waters was 0.75 ± 0.40 Bq g⁻¹ (0.3-1.2 Bq g⁻¹) while the beta activity was 1.54 ± 0.50 Bq g⁻¹ (1.2-1.7 Bq g⁻¹). The ranges of water gross alpha, beta and ²²⁶Ra activities were 0.062-0.268 Bq L⁻¹, 0.064-0.268 Bq L⁻¹ and 0.021-0.062 Bq L⁻¹, respectively. The mean concentration of ²²⁶Ra in the discharge waters was at least one order of magnitude higher than in natural water bodies. Soil samples were collected from fields irrigated with discharge waters and 29.2 ± 2.2 Bq kg⁻¹ of ²³⁸U, 1.2 ± 0.2 Bq kg⁻¹ of ²³⁵U, 26.8 ± 0.8 Bq kg⁻¹ of ²²⁶Ra, 36.8 ± 1.5 Bq kg⁻¹ of ²³²Th and 492.6 ± 25.8 Bq kg⁻¹ of ⁴⁰K were determined. The concentration values of dissolved metals in the discharge waters were higher than those usually observed in water streams near coal-fired power plants or rivers due to metal leaching from lignite or/and by-products. However, the leaching at high pH’s as those observed in the discharged waters does not raise the concentration of the studied metals to values higher than the criteria maximum concentrations and criterion continuous concentration (CCC) values of the US EPA water quality criteria. Statistical analysis was further applied to reveal the correlations between the different water components. Hierarchical cluster analysis revealed four different clusters: the first cluster was primarily composed of radioactivity and physicochemical parameters; the second cluster consisted of Cu, Ni and Zn, the third of Mn, Fe, Mo and Pb and the fourth of V and Cr. This clustering agrees with the associations suggested for elements in most coals or with the Goldschmidt classification.     

Persistent free radicals, heavy metals and PAHs generated in particulate soot emissions and residue ash from controlled combustion of common types of plastic

The production and use of polymeric materials worldwide has reached levels of 150 million tonnes per year, and the majority of plastic materials are discarded in waste landfills where are burned generating toxic emissions. In the present study we conducted laboratory experiments for batch combustion/burning of commercial polymeric materials, simulating conditions of open fire combustion, with the purpose to analyze their emissions for chemical characteristics of toxicological importance. We used common types of plastic materials: poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC), low and high density poly(ethylene) (LDPE, HDPE), poly(styrene) (PS), poly(propylene) (PP) and poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET). Samples of particulate smoke (soot) collected on filters and residue solid ash produced by controlled burning conditions at 600-750 degrees C are used for analysis. Emissions of particulate matter, persistent free radicals embedded in the carbonaceous polymeric matrix, heavy metals, other elements and PAHs were determined in both types of samples. Results showed that all plastics burned easily generating charred residue solid ash and black airborne particulate smoke. Persistent carbon- and oxygen-centered radicals, known for their toxic effects in inhalable airborne particles, were detected in both particulate smoke emissions and residue solid ash. Concentrations of heavy metals and other elements (determined by Inductively Coupled Plasma Emission Spectrometry, ICP, method) were measured in the airborne soot and residue ash. Toxic heavy metals, such as Pb, Zn, Cr, Ni, and Cd were relatively at were found at low concentrations. High concentrations were found for some lithophilic elements, such as Na, Ca, Mg, Si and Al in particulate soot and residue solid ash. Measurements of PAHs showed that low molecular weight PAHs were at higher concentrations in the airborne particulate soot than in the residue solid ash for all types of plastic. Higher-ringed PAHs were detected at higher concentrations in the residue solid ash of PVC as compared to those from the other types of plastic. The open-air burning of plastic material and their toxic emissions is of growing concern in areas of municipal solid waste where open-fires occur intentionally or accidentally. Another problem is building fires in which victims may suffer severe smoke inhalation from burning plastic materials in homes and in working places.     

Supplementing Entity Coherence with Local Rhetorical Relations for Information Ordering

This paper investigates whether the model of local rhetorical coherence suggested in Knott et al. (2001) can boost the performance of the Centering-based metrics of entity coherence employed by Karamanis et al. (2004) for the task of information ordering. Rhetorical coherence is integrated into the way Centering’s basic data structures are derived from the annotated features of the GNOME corpus. The results indicate that (a) the simplest metric continues to perform better than its competitors even when local rhetorical coherence is taken into account, and (b) this extra coherence constraint decreases its performance.     

HOXB9 Overexpression Promotes Colorectal Cancer Progression and Is Associated with Worse Survival in Liver Resection Patients for Colorectal Liver Metastases

As is known, HOXB9 is an important factor affecting disease progression and overall survival (OS) in cancer. However, its role in colorectal cancer (CRC) remains unclear. We aimed to explore the role of HOXB9 in CRC progression and its association with OS in colorectal liver metastases (CRLM). We analysed differential HOXB9 expression in CRC using the Tissue Cancer Genome Atlas database (TCGA). We modulated HOXB9 expression in vitro to assess its impact on cell proliferation and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Lastly, we explored the association of HOXB9 protein expression with OS, using an institutional patient cohort (n = 110) who underwent liver resection for CRLM. Furthermore, HOXB9 was upregulated in TCGA-CRC (n = 644) vs. normal tissue (n = 51) and its expression levels were elevated in KRAS mutations (p < 0.0001). In vitro, HOXB9 overexpression increased cell proliferation (p < 0.001) and upregulated the mRNA expression of EMT markers (VIM, CDH2, ZEB1, ZEB2, SNAI1 and SNAI2) while downregulated CDH1, (p < 0.05 for all comparisons). Conversely, HOXB9 silencing disrupted cell growth (p < 0.0001). High HOXB9 expression (HR = 3.82, 95% CI: 1.59–9.2, p = 0.003) was independently associated with worse OS in CRLM-HOXB9-expressing patients after liver resection. In conclusion, HOXB9 may be associated with worse OS in CRLM and may promote CRC progression, whereas HOXB9 silencing may inhibit CRC growth.     

Efficiency of aluminum-pillared montmorillonite on the removal of cesium and copper from aqueous solutions

Aluminum-pillared-layered montmorillonites (PILMs) were tested for their potential application in the removal of copper or cesium from aqueous solutions. By varying the initial conditions, several PILMs were prepared and characterized by means of X-ray fluorescence (XRF), proton induced gamma-ray emission (PIGE), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and sorption isotherms. Uptake of metals was studied by means of XRF spectrometry for copper sorption or gamma-ray spectrometry for cesium, using 137Cs as radiotracer. The sorption kinetics and capacity of PILMs were determined in relation to the effects of factors such as the initial metal concentration, initial pH of the solution and the presence of competitive cations. Kinetic studies showed that an equilibrium time of few minutes was needed for the adsorption of metal ions on PILMs. A pseudo-first-order equation was used to describe the sorption process for either copper or cesium. The most effective pH range for the removal of copper and cesium was found to be 4.0-6.0 and 3.0-8.0, respectively. Cesium sorption isotherms were best represented by a two-site Langmuir model while copper isotherms followed the Freundlich or the two-site Langmuir model. Cesium sorption experiments with inorganic or organic competitive cations as blocking agents revealed that the high selective sites of PILMs for cesium sorption (1-2% of total) are surface and edge sites in addition to interlayer exchange sites. In copper sorption, the two sites were determined as interlayer sites of PILMs after restoring their cation exchange capacity and sites associated with the pillar oxides.     

Assessment of tritium levels in rivers and precipitation in north-western Greece before the ITER operation

The project ITER aims to demonstrate that fusion is the energy source of the future. The prototype Tokamak machine is intended to start operation at about 2019 and tritium is one of the major contaminants that can be accidentally released in the environment. Nowadays environmental tritium levels are of natural origin except in the vicinity of nuclear facilities. The evaluation of background tritium levels is essential in the context of a future possibility of accidental tritium releases. For this purpose and also because of the lack of relevant information, an extended programme of river and rain water sampling was implemented in north-western Greece. Water samples from six major rivers in this area and rain water samples were analysed for tritium content. The rivers under investigation were Aliakmonas River, Pinios River, Arachthos River, Kalamas River, Aoos River and Louros River, which originate from the central Greek mountain range Pindos, and flow to Aegean and Ionian Sea.The tritium concentrations were determined by the Liquid Scintillator Analyser Tri-Carb 3170TR/SL. The statistical analysis of data revealed that there is a seasonal variation of tritium concentration in rain samples and a less pronounced seasonal variation in river samples. The weighted mean tritium concentration for rain samples was determined equal to 0.90 ± 0.08 Bq L^?1 (7.6 ± 0.7 TU) and the respective mean value for river samples was 0.94 ± 0.04 Bq L^?1 (7.9 ± 0.3 TU). Further analysis has demonstrated that river waters tend to show lower tritium concentrations than the concurrently measured tritium concentrations in rain samples, during spring and summer (at 47% and 71% of the sampling stations, respectively), while this observation is reversed during autumn and winter (at 44% and 35% of the sampling stations, respectively). This may be attributed to rain water remaining underground for a long period allowing tritium to decay and when it reappears as river water, the tritium concentration values are lower when compared to the rain water concentrations. Rough estimates of the residence time of underground waters in the study area provided values, which ranged from 0.5 to 11.7 years, with a mean value of 5.2 ± 0.9 years.     

Evaluation of a simulation-based surrogate safety metric

The development of surrogate safety measures is essential due to the problems of availability and quality of historical crash data. The Aggregate Conflict Propensity Metric (ACPM) is a surrogate metric recently proposed and it is based on conflict studies and traffic simulations. ACPM is expected to be capable of assessing the relative safety levels of traffic facilities and/or treatments in order to help traffic engineers to select appropriate treatments based on traffic safety estimates. This paper presents three experimental tests conducted to evaluate the reliability of ACPM. In each test, ACPM is compared to a traditional conflict indicator in terms of identifying and ranking safety of traffic conditions under various traffic volumes based on traffic simulations. ACPM shows its strength and reliability in all three tests, as it provides results highly consistent with the Highway Safety Manual. The experimental tests indicate that ACPM is a promising surrogate safety measure that can appropriately identify relative safety among traffic treatments and/or facilities and provide traffic engineers with useful information on potential safety impact.     

Solar cooling with aluminium pillared clays

Aluminium modified clays were prepared, characterised and tested for their potential application as solar coolers of roof surfaces. The water adsorption isotherm of the samples with restored cation exchange capacity was of hydrophilic type II, indicating multilayer adsorption with large heat of adsorption and pore condensation of water vapour at the pressures of the proposed application. In addition, high moisture adsorption capacity (more than 0.1 g of moisture per g of material at 60-70% of relative humidity) and fast kinetics for night sorption (comparable to silica gel) were determined for the freeze-dried pillared sample. In cyclic experiments with low irradiation during the day and night relative humidity of 55%, the maximum temperature inside the pillared montmorillonite was 6.5 °C lower than the corresponding temperature inside a typical soil sample. The primary mechanism for the reduced temperature elevation at aluminium modified clays was evaporative cooling and desorption with minor influence of solar reflection. These results indicate the suitability of aluminium pillared clays for lowering the roof surface temperatures.     

Wind energy resources in the Ionian Sea

The wind speed and direction as well as the availability, the duration and the diurnal variation of two offshore sites, Zakinthos and Pylos (BZK and BPY) in the Ionian Sea were assessed. For an analysis period of two years, the mean wind speed at 10 m was determined as 5.7 ± 0.1 m s^?1 and 5.8 ± 0.1 m s^?1 for the BZK and BPY sites, respectively. The wind speed variations over the hours of the day were quite small. The monthly variation in the average wind speeds was between 4.3 (May) and 7.5 m s^?1 (December) for the BZK site and 4.4 (August) and 7.3 m s^?1 (December) for the BPY site. Moreover, QuikSCAT satellite mean values for the grids of the two buoy regions were systematically overestimated in comparison to the buoy data with differences in the range from 8 to 13%. Statistical analysis revealed the high QuikSCAT data uncertainty for wind speeds less than 5 m s^?1 as the major factor of the observed mean value differences. The mean wind power densities were calculated with the buoy wind speed measurements and were found more than 250 W m^?2 at 10 m, suggesting the suitability of the sites for offshore wind energy applications. Capacity factors of up to 48% for energy production were calculated with the existing offshore turbines technology at a hub height of 100 m. Furthermore, the energy yield for different wind turbines and a service life of 20 years were determined from 6.5 to 8.7 and the energy pay-back periods from 2.8 to 2.1 years, respectively. The maximum avoided greenhouse emissions were 140 kt CO₂-e for an offshore turbine generator of 5 MW and a period of 20 years.