Identifying the machine translation error types with the greatest impact on post-editing effort

Translation Environment Tools make translators' work easier by providing them with term lists, translation memories and machine translation output. Ideally, such tools automatically predict whether it is more effortful to post-edit than to translate from scratch, and determine whether or not to provide translators with machine translation output. Current machine translation quality estimation systems heavily rely on automatic metrics, even though they do not accurately capture actual post-editing effort. In addition, these systems do not take translator experience into account, even though novices' translation processes are different from those of professional translators. In this paper, we report on the impact of machine translation errors on various types of post-editing effort indicators, for professional translators as well as student translators. We compare the impact of MT quality on a product effort indicator (HTER) with that on various process effort indicators. The translation and post-editing process of student translators and professional translators was logged with a combination of keystroke logging and eye-tracking, and the MT output was analyzed with a fine-grained translation quality assessment approach. We find that most post-editing effort indicators (product as well as process) are influenced by machine translation quality, but that different error types affect different post-editing effort indicators, confirming that a more fine-grained MT quality analysis is needed to correctly estimate actual post-editing effort. Coherence, meaning shifts, and structural issues are shown to be good indicators of post-editing effort. The additional impact of experience on these interactions between MT quality and post-editing effort is smaller than expected

Impacto da OCPC 07 no enxugamento das notas explicativas das companhias brasileiras

This article aims to assess the impact of the New Guideline of the Brazilian Accounting Pronouncements Committee (Comitê de Pronunciamentos Contábeis – OCPC 07) on improving formal features (size, readability, and specificity) of Brazilian companies’ Notes. OCPC 07 is one of the world’s first guidelines issued in response to the current demand for the downsizing of companies’ Notes, which according to standard setters and market agents have become too extensive, thus characterizing a disclosure overload. This is a unique study on the subject. The results suggest the effectiveness, although limited, of the new standard in promoting a departure from the habits of secrecy and formalism rooted in centuries of legalaccounting civil law tradition, and indicate that there is still room for complementary improvement initiatives in the form of incentives for firms and increased enforcement. Three complementary methodological approaches are used: (1) an analysis of both the evolution of note size after OCPC 07 and the factors explaining that size and its variation; (2) an examination of indicators of readability, conciseness, and specificity of the note on accounting policies; and (3) a size comparison of the Notes of Brazilian and British companies, a benchmark of the common law tradition. An average reduction of 10% in Note size was found two years after the introduction of Guideline (Orientação) 07 by the (OCPC 07). This downsizing was not generalized, but instead identified only among firms in the Novo Mercado and among those audited by two of the Big Four. Even in firms that reduced their notes by at least 20%, no significant improvements in readability levels could be perceived, nor in habits of copy-pasting the auditors’ templates, which could signal a focus on firms’ real practices in the note on accounting policies. Brazilian Notes remain far from the benchmark and are still 40% longer than British ones, despite an equivalent number of pages being expected.Este artigo teve por objetivo avaliar o impacto da Orientação do Comitê de Pronunciamentos Contábeis 07 (OCPC 07) em melhorias de forma (tamanho, readability e especificidade) das notas explicativas (NEs) brasileiras. A OCPC 07 constitui um dos primeiros normativos emitidos no mundo em resposta à demanda atual por enxugamento das NEs, que teriam, segundo reguladores e agentes do mercado global, tornado-se exageradamente extensas pelo acúmulo de informações irrelevantes, caracterizando um disclosure overload. Trata-se de estudo inédito sobre o tema. Os resultados sugerem a eficácia, embora limitada, da introdução de um novo normativo na promoção do afastamento de hábitos de sigilo e formalismo arraigados em séculos de tradição contábil-legal de civil law; tal aponta a oportunidade de ações complementares sob a forma de incentivos às empresas e incremento do enforcement. São utilizadas três abordagens complementares: (i) analisa a evolução do tamanho das NEs com a OCPC 07 e os fatores explicativos do tamanho e de sua variação; (ii) examina indicadores de readability, concisão e especificidade da nota de políticas contábeis; e (iii) compara, exemplificativamente, o tamanho das NEs de empresas brasileiras e britânicas, benchmark de transparência da tradição common law. Verificou-se a redução média de 10% no tamanho das NEs após dois anos de vigência da OCPC 07. Contudo, esse enxugamento não foi generalizado, mas identificado apenas em empresas do Novo Mercado e em auditadas por duas das Big Four. Mesmo considerando apenas empresas que reduziram suas NEs em pelo menos 20%, não foram percebidas melhorias significativas nos níveis de readability, nem no hábito de copy-paste dos modelos do auditor que sinalizassem um foco nas práticas reais da empresa na nota de políticas contábeis. As NEs brasileiras permanecem distantes do benchmark, estando 40% maiores que as britânicas, contra a expectativa de tamanho equivalente

An Evaluation of the Utility of Reading Curriculum-Based Measurement as Progress Monitoring Tools and Predictors of Comprehension

Many American students struggle with reading, particularly in the area of comprehension. As such, early identification of reading difficulties, use of evidenced-based interventions, and monitoring of student reading progress over time is essential. Curriculum-based measurement (CBM) is a technically adequate, efficient tool whose features and design make it a good candidate for early identification and progress monitoring purposes, especially within a response to intervention framework. However, there is still some uncertainty regarding the utility of reading CBM as progress monitoring tools. Specifically, the literature has suggested that variability in the difficulty of CBM materials may influence how well these tools measure student growth over time. The present study aimed to reduce CBM variability by using field-testing and rank-ordering of performance means to create two equivalent second-grade reading CBM passage sets. These sets were derived from larger pools of extant, commercially-available passage sets. One passage set included oral reading fluency and story recall tasks. The second passage set was comprised of Maze tasks. These passage sets were then used to monitor progress in second-grade students who were at-risk for reading problems. Scores from each type of task were also used to determine which was the best predictor of student performance in reading comprehension. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to analyze student growth on CBM measures, as well as predict reading comprehension. Results indicated that only Maze tasks were sensitive to individual student growth over the study, and were the strongest predictors of reading comprehension in this sample compared to oral reading fluency and recall. Implications, limitations, and future directions are also discussed

Standardizing the Measures of Assessment in Legal Translation Profession

Practicing legal translations may lead to shortcomings that need to be assessed and addressed. Therefore, to respond to such shortcomings and specificities emerging during the legal translation process, the paper proposes a comprehensive model to evaluate translation quality. The proposed model is built on a functionalist perspective that links legal, contextual, macro-textual, and microtextual criteria to outline an appropriate translation strategy that drives endeavors to overcome issues throughout the translation process. The same criteria persistently appear from the translation brief through to the final translation product crossing intermediate stages – reception, revision, delivery assessment. In identifying predictable evaluation criteria and competence needs for translators and quality controllers, they serve as the standard. The approach presents implications for both quality assessment and management practices, including those in training contexts. By reducing subjectivity and enhancing predictability based on specific legal translation methodologies, the model ultimately demonstrates the potential benefits. Legal Translation Studies can greatly enhance professional standards, underscored by the importance of having legal translation experts evaluate quality. This demonstrates the fundamental role of legal translation expertise

Three essays on banking and central banking

Thesis(Doctoral) -- KDI School: Ph.D in Public Policy, 2022This dissertation studies banking and central banking from different perspectives, such as credit risk and monetary policy. Chapter 1 examines bank-specific factors such as related party lending, large exposure concentrations, and capitalization that determine nonperforming loans (NPLs) in Ukraine. It is demonstrated that banks’ NPL stock increases with related party lending, and this association depends on the banks’ ownership type and size in the case of the Ukraine banking system. For the study, we built a quarterly panel of 207 bank financial indicators and utilized dynamic panel fixed effects and panel VAR models. Chapter 2 examines the effect of monetary policy statements’ readability and complexity on financial markets in developing countries. We built a unique dataset for 21 countries over an 11-year horizon and applied text analysis and a panel fixed effects estimator to find that poorly readable and complex monetary policy statements are associated with higher foreign exchange rate volatility. Chapter 3 studies the impact of monetary policy transparency on inflation for 34 developing countries from 1998 to 2019, taking into account their monetary policy independence and stance. A median quantile regression with fixed effects analysis revealed that higher MPT is associated with lower inflation in the following period for countries with either tight monetary policy or independent monetary policy controlling for its tight regime.- Chapter 1: Nonperforming Loans, Related Lending, and Bank Capitalization: Evidence from Ukraine (co-authored by Wook Sohn) - Chapter 2: Monetary Policy Communication on Key Financial Variables in Developing Countries (co-authored by Wytone Yohane Jombo) - Chapter 3: Monetary Policy Transparency, Independence and Inflation in Developing CountriesdoctoralpublishedIegor VYSHNEVSKY

A Comparison of Curriculum Based Measures of Oral Reading Fluency

Curriculum Based Measurements (CBM) are a widely-used tool for Response to Intervention (RTI) progress monitoring. In addition, they can be used in the determination of learning disabilities and special education qualification. The most widely used type of CBM is a measure of oral reading fluency (ORF). This type involves having a student read out loud for 1 minute while the examiner records any errors. Also known as reading curriculum-based measures (RCBM), various published forms of RCBM have been documented to be reliable and valid measures of all aspects of reading skills. Nonetheless, not all RCBM forms are the same, and the differences in features across published versions could affect student scores. This study examined the textual composition of three different published versions of RCBM probes to determine passage similarity and difficulty. The study also examined the consistency in student reading levels across the RCBM passage sets. A total of 202 students completed three passages from each of the selected probe sets for a total of nine passages each. Results indicated that all RCBM passages were correlated with each other and with a statewide assessment of reading. Mixed results were obtained when analyzing correlations between RCBM and a computer administered universal screening measure in reading. Significant differences were found in the overall number of words read correctly, dependent on the passage set. Significant differences were also noted in the number of students identified as at-risk of reading difficulties or in need of reading intervention based on each of the RCBM passage sets as compared to other standardized tests of reading. Regarding the textual composition of the three versions, passage sets appeared similar when similar length passages were compared, however, descriptive statistics suggested that passage level difficulty may vary depending on the passage within the set

¿Implican contextos similares de producción características textuales similares? Comparación basada en corpus de las características relacionadas con la simplificación en la traducción y la redacción académica.

This paper explores the relationship between the context of production of texts and their specific features. With this aim, the study compares the features related to syntactic and stylistic simplification between two textual practices: translation and Academic Writing. Actually, both practices are produced in common contexts with similar purposes. Further, the exam of simplification-related features in different sets of texts translated into English from different languages also allow for further verifying the translation universals hypothesis of simplification. For the analysis, an archive of four comparable corpora of English texts is compiled, representing original and translated versions of academic and non-academic texts, respectively. Once determined concrete indicators of simplification (lexical variety, lexical density, mean sentence length, presence of subordination and of non-finite sentences), a corpus-based methodology is used to identify each one of them in each set of texts, according to the hypothesis that both practices present the same simplification-related features at the same extent. The comparison of the results refutes both hypotheses, showing that each practice presents different simplification-related features and,in all the analyzed corpora, originals result to be simpler than translations. Moreover, the distribution of the examined indicators across the four corpora seems to follow a regular pattern suggesting an interesting point of departure for further studies.Este artículo pretende explorar la existencia de alguna relación entre el contexto de producción de los textos y sus rasgos específicos. En concreto, se comparan los rasgos relacionados con la simplificación sintáctica y estilística entre dos prácticas textuales: la traducción y el discurso académico. Efectivamente, ambas prácticas presentan contextos de producción y propósitos comunes. Además, examinar rasgos relacionados con la simplificación en distintos conjuntos de textos traducidos al inglés desde distintos idiomas permite verificar ulteriormente la hipótesis de la simplificación como universal de traducción. Para el análisis, se compiló un archivo compuesto por cuatro corpus comparables de textos ingleses que reúnen versiones originales y traducidas de textos académicos y no académicos, respectivamente. Tras determinar índices de simplificación concretos (variedad léxica, densidad léxica, extensión promedio de las oraciones, presencia de oraciones subordinadas y de oraciones no finitas), se empleó una metodología de corpus para identificar cada índice en cada conjunto de textos en examen, de acuerdo con la hipótesis que ambas prácticas presentan los mismos índices de simplificación en la misma proporción. La comparación de los resultados refuta ambas hipótesis demostrando que cada práctica presenta índices de simplificación distintos y que, en todos los conjuntos analizados, los originales resultan ser más simples de las traducciones. Asimismo, la distribución de los rasgos examinados entre los distintos corpus parece seguir un patrón regular que representa un interesante punto de partida para estudios futuros

Road to Microservices

This document intends to elucidate the complexity of microservices decomposition and this its inherent process of implementation. Developments in technology and design, achieving higher performance, reliability, or lowering costs are valid reasons to consider controlling the product’s quality by guaranteeing its conformance with established characteristics and standards. Control is made possible by adding quality control, inspection routines, and trend analysis to a manufacturing process. These techniques are established in the Quality field academically and business-wise. Repeat Part Management (RPM) is software that allows users to apply these techniques efficiently and has brought value to the company. However, RPM has been growing, and issues have emerged due to customer needs - accumulated technical debt. These ever-growing modifications are common through different business areas, and architectures’ research evolution has accompanied them. This demand for highly modifiable, rapid development, and independent systems has resulted in the adoption of microservices. There is a concern for existing systems for decomposition due to the characteristics of microservices, which encourages approach/technique research. This architecture promotes legacy system analysis to map current functionalities and dependencies between components. Furthermore, critical concepts in a microservices architecture are researched and implemented in a new system that encompasses Repeat Part Management’s functionalities. This thesis explores the microservices’ architecture evolution with an already defined mature domain in quality assessment.Este documento pretende especificar a complexidade do processo de decomposição em microsserviços e do seu processo de implementação. Avanços na tecnologia e design, alcançar melhor performance, ou a confiabilidade do produto, ou diminuir custos são justificações válidas para considerar controlar a qualidade do produto e, inerentemente, garantir a sua conformidade com as características previamente definidas e com padrões da indústria. É possível garantir controlo sob os produtos ao acrescentar, ao processo produtivo, métodos de controlo de qualidade, rotinas de inspeção e análise de tendências (de desvio). Estas técnicas estão bem estabelecidas academicamente e, de um ponto de vista do mercado, na área da Qualidade e garantia da qualidade. O Repeat Part Management (RPM) é um software que permite aos seus utilizadores a utilização eficiente destas técnicas de qualidade, o que resulta numa adição de valor para a empresa. Porém, devido às crescentes necessidades dos clientes, alguns problemas têm sido identificados - relacionados com o conceito de acumulação de technical debt. Esta crescente necessidade de alteração é comum em diversas áreas de negócio, e a investigação de soluções arquiteturais tem acompanhado esta pesquisa. Esta solução arquitetura pode ser caracterizada pela facilidade de sistemas facilmente modificáveis, pelo rápido desenvolvimento e implementação, e pela independência dos serviços decompostos. Aquando de uma migração para microsserviços num sistema maturo, existe uma maior preocupação na decomposição da aplicação e definição dos serviços dada a característica dos microsserviços, o que incentiva a uma pesquisa detalhada sobre as técnicas de decomposição. Pela mesma razão, esta arquitetura incentiva ao mapeamento e documentação das dependências entre serviços e componentes e o estudo da aplicação legacy. Para além disto, estes conceitos, e a sua implementação devem ser planeados, justificados e documentados, o que explica a complexidade do processo de migração e implementação, que deve ter em consideração as funcionalidades existentes no Repeat Part Management. Dessa forma, esta tese explora a implementação desta arquitetura numa aplicação matura na área de Garantia de Qualidade

Development and Validation of a Booklet in Educational Research: A Supplementary Material for Filipino Teacher Education Students

With the recent revitalization of the teacher education programs in the Philippines, along with the implementation of outcomes-based education, the teaching of research among pre-service teachers has been a challenge for teacher educators to achieve expected outcomes and competencies. Through this research and development study, a booklet for undergraduate teacher education research was developed and subjected to validation by experts and intended users from a state-run university in Central Luzon, Philippines. Its paramount aim is to further intensify and deliver a more efficient and effective teaching and learning method for undergraduate research subjects through this supplementary learning material. The developmental process was guided by the analysis-design-development-implementation-evaluation (ADDIE) model. Results indicated that in general, instructional materials in undergraduate research are slightly available and slightly adequate as perceived by the respondents. There is also a need to develop a booklet specifically on topics under research methodology. The 4E x 2 model was adopted as an instructional design. Expert validators confirmed that the booklet was very much acceptable in terms of adequacy, coherence, appropriateness, and usefulness. The pre-service teachers evaluated the material, its modules, and lessons with much acceptability. Considering these, the validated material as an output of the study could serve as a potential supplementary material to facilitate learning critical content in educational research among intended users. Further review may be initiated, and mass testing of the material is recommended