2,443 research outputs found

    Researching animal research: What the humanities and social sciences can contribute to laboratory animal science and welfare

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    Every year around 80 million scientific procedures are carried out on animals globally. These experiments have the potential to generate new understandings of biology and clinical treatments. They also give rise to ongoing societal debate.This book demonstrates how the humanities and social sciences can contribute to understanding what is created through animal procedures - including constitutional forms of research governance, different institutional cultures of care, the professional careers of scientists and veterinarians, collaborations with patients and publics, and research animals, specially bred for experiments or surplus to requirements.Developing the idea of the animal research nexus, this book explores how connections and disconnections are made between these different elements, how these have reshaped each other historically, and how they configure the current practice and policy of UK animal research

    How does migration impact on mental health and emotional wellbeing of migrants? A case study of 25 Filipino migrants in the United Kingdom

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    This thesis presents findings from a qualitative case study to explore the experiences and perceptions of 25 Filipino migrants in the United Kingdom (UK) on how migration has impacted their mental health and emotional well-being. Through semi-structured interviews and participant observation, this study determined the factors Filipino migrants associated with their mental health and emotional well-being, and what coping strategies they have used to deal with the impacts of migration. Although migration is a well-researched phenomenon, little is known about how Filipino migrants conceptualise mental health, nor is there a great deal of qualitative research on how their mental health is impacted by the experience of migration. The main thesis of this study was the significance of culture in the migrants’ understanding of mental health and in making sense of their migration experiences.Guided by Bhugra’s framework (2004), this study found sociological and economic factors that were associated with mental health including loss of social support, loss of identity, discrimination and racism, and financial obligation to the family. This study showed that for economic migrants, the voluntary nature of their migration and their motivation to migrate factored in coping with the impact of migration. Culturally appropriate coping strategies that correspond to Filipino values and norms include faith, religion, social support, or togetherness, and fulfilling the obligation of providing economic support to the family. This study offers another way of understanding the role of the family of the migrants and challenges some concepts of the migrant behaviour model where sending remittances is seen as an intertemporal contractual arrangement. Instead, the study highlights the deeply rooted sense of obligation by the migrants to fulfil their provider role.Finally, this study showed how qualitative research using a case study design could investigate a sensitive topic such as mental health and provide a voice to research participants. Using participant observation proved effective in understanding the dynamics of relationships within social groups and how culture manifests in social interactions.<br/

    Explainable text-based features in predictive models of crowdfunding campaigns

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    Reward-Based Crowdfunding offers an opportunity for innovative ventures that would not be supported through traditional financing. A key problem for those seeking funding is understanding which features of a crowdfunding campaign will sway the decisions of a sufficient number of funders. Predictive models of fund-raising campaigns used in combination with Explainable AI methods promise to provide such insights. However, previous work on Explainable AI has largely focused on quantitative structured data. In this study, our aim is to construct explainable models of human decisions based on analysis of natural language text, thus contributing to a fast-growing body of research on the use of Explainable AI for text analytics. We propose a novel method to construct predictions based on text via semantic clustering of sentences, which, compared with traditional methods using individual words and phrases, allows complex meaning contained in the text to be operationalised. Using experimental evaluation, we compare our proposed method to keyword extraction and topic modelling, which have traditionally been used in similar applications. Our results demonstrate that the sentence clustering method produces features with significant predictive power, compared to keyword-based methods and topic models, but which are much easier to interpret for human raters. We furthermore conduct a SHAP analysis of the models incorporating sentence clusters, demonstrating concrete insights into the types of natural language content that influence the outcome of crowdfunding campaigns

    Patterns and Variation in English Language Discourse

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    The publication is reviewed post-conference proceedings from the international 9th Brno Conference on Linguistics Studies in English, held on 16–17 September 2021 and organised by the Faculty of Education, Masaryk University in Brno. The papers revolve around the themes of patterns and variation in specialised discourses (namely the media, academic, business, tourism, educational and learner discourses), effective interaction between the addressor and addressees and the current trends and development in specialised discourses. The principal methodological perspectives are the comparative approach involving discourses in English and another language, critical and corpus analysis, as well as identification of pragmatic strategies and appropriate rhetorical means. The authors of papers are researchers from the Czech Republic, Italy, Luxembourg, Serbia and Georgia

    Searching for Dead Sea Scribes:a study on using Artificial Intelligence and palaeography for writer identification in correlation with spelling and scribal practices, codicology, handwriting quality, and literary classification systems for Dead Sea Scrolls

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    My study explores the Dead Sea Scrolls through the lens of individual scribes. Specifically, the practices of individual scribes responsible for penningtwo or more of the Oumran manuscripts. It utilises innovative digital palaeographic methods alongside traditional palaeographic approaches for scribalidentification. It gathers previously un-gathered data on the handwriting, spelling practices, codicological features and literary content of individual scribes. The study explores how this data on scribes both supports and challenges various aspects of theories in the field of Dead Sea Scroll studies, which accept a a sectarian origin for the Qumran manuscripts

    Exploring Agency in the Construction of a Translated Character Narrative: A Multiple-Case Study on Early Sibelius-Related Translations into Finnish

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    This dissertation explores the application of the sociological narrative theory in Translation Studies, with a focus on the Finnish translations of texts related to Finland’s national composer, Jean Sibelius. Drawing on Mona Baker and the scholars upon whom she bases her theory, the study first critically examines the premise of the approach and then aims to throw light upon how the theory can be used in the analysis of narratives focussing on an individual. For this purpose, particular attention is paid to translators’ agency and translatorship. In the dissertation, I conduct a multiple-case study on 12 Sibelius-related texts published in Finland and translated into Finnish from Swedish, English and German between 1916 and 1965. A three-part contextual framework is introduced to elucidate some of the relational settings from which the literary materials examined emerged and to provide an understanding of the overall literary genre of non-fiction texts. The texts are then studied with the help of various paratextual sources to uncover different narrative strands and the agencies involved in creating and promoting the nationally significant Sibelius narrative. The results of the study suggest that combining the sociological narrative theory in Translation Studies with agential considerations can provide valuable insights into the mechanisms of narrative construction and help to examine translators’ role in social developments that may have a considerable lifespan. At the same time, it acknowledges that further research into the underlying principles and history of the theory is needed to truly solidify the narrative approach as an academically viable option within Translation Studies. The findings of the study also suggest that questions concerning narrative construction extend beyond the technicalities and structural aspects of the building process. Based on the multiple-case study conducted, I argue that narrative construction needs to be considered more broadly if the aim is to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the narrative examined. KEYWORDS: translation, narrative theory, agency, translatorshipVäitöskirja tarkastelee käännöstieteessä sovellettua sosiologista narratiiviteoriaa ja keskittyy erityisesti Suomen kansallissäveltäjään, Jean Sibeliukseen, liittyviin suomeksi käännettyihin teksteihin. Tutkimus pohjautuu Mona Bakerin ja tämän hyödyntämien tutkijoiden teoreettisiin havaintoihin. Tutkimuksessa Bakerin lähestymistavan perusteita tarkastellaan ensin kriittisesti, minkä jälkeen tapaustutkimusten avulla selvitetään, miten teoriaa voidaan hyödyntää analysoitaessa yksilöön keskittyviä narratiiveja. Erityistä huomiota kiinnitetään kääntäjien toimijuuteen ja kääntäjyyteen. Väitöskirja sisältää tapaustutkimusten sarjan, jossa keskitytään tarkastelemaan 12:ta Sibeliukseen liittyvää vuosien 1916 ja 1965 välillä julkaistua ja suomeksi ruotsista, englannista ja saksasta käännettyä tekstiä. Tapauksia tarkastellaan suhteessa kolmiosaiseen kontekstuaaliseen kehykseen, joka valaisee niitä relationaalisia puitteita, joissa kirjalliset materiaalit syntyivät. Tämän jälkeen tekstejä tarkastellaan paratekstuaalisten lähteiden avulla pyrkimyksenä tunnistaa erilaisia narratiivijuonteita sekä kansallisesti merkittävän Sibelius-narratiivin luomiseen ja ylläpitämiseen vaikuttaneita toimijuuksia. Tutkimuksen tulosten perusteella esitän, että käännöstieteessä hyödynnetyn sosiologisen narratiiviteorian ja toimijuuden tarkastelun yhdistäminen voi tarjota arvokasta tietoa narratiivien rakentumisesta ja auttaa tutkimaan kääntäjien roolia pitkän aikavälin yhteiskunnallisissa kehityskuluissa. Tutkimus paljastaa myös, että narratiiviteorian taustaperiaatteet ja historia vaativat lisätutkimusta ja selvennystä, jos sen halutaan pysyvän elinvoimaisena osana käännöstiedettä. Tutkimuksen löydökset osoittavat, että narratiivien rakentumista koskevat kysymykset eivät rajoitu vain narratiivien synnyn mekaniikkaan ja teknisiin kysymyksiin. Tehtyjen tapaustutkimusten perusteella esitän, että narratiivien rakentumista on tarkasteltava laajemmalla perspektiivillä, jos tavoitteena on syvällinen ymmärrys tarkasteltavasta narratiivista. ASIASANAT: kääntäminen, narratiiviteoria, toimijuus, kääntäjyy

    Transition 2.0: Re-establishing Constitutional Democracy in EU Member States

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    The central question of Transition 2.0 is this: what (and how) may a new government do to re-establish constitutional democracy, as well as repair membership within the European Union, without breaching the European rule of law? This volume demonstrates that EU law and international commitments impose constraints but also offer tools and assistance for facilitating the way back after rule of law and democratic backsliding. The various contributions explore the constitutional, legal, and social framework of 'Transition 2.0'.Dieser Band zeigt, dass das EU-Recht und die internationalen Verpflichtungen zwar Zwänge auferlegen, aber auch Instrumente und Hilfestellungen bieten, um den Weg zurück in die Europäische Union nach Rechtsstaatlichkeitsdefiziten und demokratischen Rückschritten zu erleichtern. Die verschiedenen Beiträge untersuchen den verfassungsrechtlichen, rechtlichen und sozialen Rahmen des "Übergangs 2.0"

    Workshop Proceedings of the 12th edition of the KONVENS conference

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    The 2014 issue of KONVENS is even more a forum for exchange: its main topic is the interaction between Computational Linguistics and Information Science, and the synergies such interaction, cooperation and integrated views can produce. This topic at the crossroads of different research traditions which deal with natural language as a container of knowledge, and with methods to extract and manage knowledge that is linguistically represented is close to the heart of many researchers at the Institut für Informationswissenschaft und Sprachtechnologie of Universität Hildesheim: it has long been one of the institute’s research topics, and it has received even more attention over the last few years
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