From corpus-based collocation frequencies to readability measure

This paper provides a broad overview of three separate but related areas of research. Firstly, corpus linguistics is a growing discipline that applies analytical results from large language corpora to a wide variety of problems in linguistics and related disciplines. Secondly, readability research, as the name suggests, seeks to understand what makes texts more or less comprehensible to readers, and aims to apply this understanding to issues such as text rating and matching of texts to readers. Thirdly, collocation is a language feature that occurs when particular words are used frequently together for other than purely grammatical reasons. The intersection of these three aspects provides the basis for on-going research within the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at the University of Strathclyde and is the motivation for this overview. Specifically, we aim through analysis of collocation frequencies in major corpora, to afford valuable insight on the content of texts, which we believe will, in turn, provide a novel basis for estimating text readability

'I think you understand me' : studying the associations between actual, assumed, and perceived understanding within couples

The current study examined the associations between actual, assumed, and perceived understanding and partners' levels of dyadic adjustment. One hundred fifty-two couples provided questionnaire data (assumed and perceived understanding), participated in a videotaped conflict interaction, and in a video-review task to assess actual understanding (empathic accuracy). The data were analyzed by means of the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model. The results suggest that (a) some aspects of how well someone assumes that (s)he has understood the partner during a preceding conflict interaction were positively associated with his/her own objective level of understanding (actor effect), (b) that someone's perception of how understood (s)he feels was not associated with the partner's objective level of understanding (partner effect), and (c) perceived understanding, but not actual understanding, was positively associated with dyadic adjustment

How to Ask for Technical Help? Evidence-based Guidelines for Writing Questions on Stack Overflow

Context: The success of Stack Overflow and other community-based question-and-answer (Q&A) sites depends mainly on the will of their members to answer others' questions. In fact, when formulating requests on Q&A sites, we are not simply seeking for information. Instead, we are also asking for other people's help and feedback. Understanding the dynamics of the participation in Q&A communities is essential to improve the value of crowdsourced knowledge. Objective: In this paper, we investigate how information seekers can increase the chance of eliciting a successful answer to their questions on Stack Overflow by focusing on the following actionable factors: affect, presentation quality, and time. Method: We develop a conceptual framework of factors potentially influencing the success of questions in Stack Overflow. We quantitatively analyze a set of over 87K questions from the official Stack Overflow dump to assess the impact of actionable factors on the success of technical requests. The information seeker reputation is included as a control factor. Furthermore, to understand the role played by affective states in the success of questions, we qualitatively analyze questions containing positive and negative emotions. Finally, a survey is conducted to understand how Stack Overflow users perceive the guideline suggestions for writing questions. Results: We found that regardless of user reputation, successful questions are short, contain code snippets, and do not abuse with uppercase characters. As regards affect, successful questions adopt a neutral emotional style. Conclusion: We provide evidence-based guidelines for writing effective questions on Stack Overflow that software engineers can follow to increase the chance of getting technical help. As for the role of affect, we empirically confirmed community guidelines that suggest avoiding rudeness in question writing.Comment: Preprint, to appear in Information and Software Technolog

Eco-innovation practices’ adoption in the automotive industry

Eco-innovation is a construct that is gaining increasing interest from academics and researchers since it is commonly considered in the literature as one of the strategies that allow manufacturing companies not only to significantly reduce the negative impacts on the environment but also the generation of pollutants. However, little is known about the adoption of eco-innovation practices in manufacturing companies, particularly in the automotive industry. Therefore, this research has as main objective to fill this gap in the literature and explore the interdependence between eco-innovation of products, processes and management. The study is conducted through a research framework consisting of 3 measurement scales, 14 items and 3 hypotheses and an extensive review of the literature. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to a sample of 460 companies in the automotive and auto parts industry in Mexico. Data were analyzed through Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Descriptive Statistics and Structural Equation Modelling. The results obtained show that product eco-innovation, process eco-innovation and management eco-innovation are good indicators for the adoption of eco-innovation practices for companies in the automotive and auto parts industry. The paper addresses a research gap in the academic literature in the eco-innovation field by providing evidence on the interdependence between eco-innovation of products, processes and management and the implementation of their practices in the automotive industry.N/

Varying Approaches to Readability Measurement

L’article présente et analyse trois mesures de la lisibilité qui ont été développées depuis le début du vingtième siècle jusqu’à aujourd’hui : les mesures classiques, les mesures à teneur cognitive et les mesures qualitatives basées sur le jugement humain.Les mesures dites classiques sont celles qui sont les plus largement utilisées. Elles tiennent compte de certaines particularités du texte pour mesurer la lisibilité comme la difficulté des mots et la complexité des phrases. Les mesures à teneur cognitive considèrent la structure du texte et ses aspects sémantiques. Les mesures qualitatives basées sur le jugement humain ont une approche plus heuristique qui considèrent l’ensemble des difficultés d’un texte selon une évaluation plus subjective.La présentation de chacune de ces mesures souligne le cadre théorique sous-jacent, les particularités du texte et les aspects mesurés, sa fiabilité et sa validité ainsi que les domaines d’application où elle est utilisée.The article discusses the three approaches to readability measurement that have been developed from the early 1900s to the présent—classic readability, cognitive-structural readability, and judgment-qualitative approaches. The classic approaches to readability are the most widely used. They use similar text features to predict readability—some aspects of word difficulty and some measure of sentence complexity. The cognitive-structural approaches are concerned more with the structure of a text and its meaning. The judment-qualitative approaches do not rely on specific features but on a qualitative judgement of overall difficulty.Each of these approaches is further treated in terms of its underlying theories, the text features and characteristics mesured, its reliability and validity and its practical uses

Identifying and classifying the readability levels of Turkish texts

This study aimed to identify and classify the readability levels of Turkish texts. The sample in the Correlation Survey model included 32 Turkish instructional texts. The texts included in the sample of the study were administered to groups of 30 students, extending from the fifth class to the twelfth class. The cloze readability procedure was used in this research. Obtained data were analyzed in the SPSS program. In this research the relationship between the readability of texts and variables such as average word length, average sentence length, number of polysyllabic words, and the rate of repeated words was determined by the Pearson productmoment correlation analysis. As a result of this analysis, “the rate of repeated words” and the rate of polysyllabic words, which express the similar meanings with average word length and -.677 with the readability index, as measured by the cloze scores, were not included in the multiple regression analysis. As a result of multiple regression analysis, regression equation is: CS= 118,823 – 25, 987 x AWL - .971 x ASL According to this, one unit of change in average word length causes -25.987 unit change in readability score, and one unit of change in average sentence length causes -.971 in readability score. On the other hand, the coefficient determination of the equation was .739. Later, the averages of exact score for every class were analyzed by ANOVA test. As a result of this ANOVA test, resulting education level and cloze test scores are higher. Moreover, in order to determine the significant differences among the classes, multiple comparisons were made. According to this, there were not any significant differences among the classes 5-6-7 between the classes 8-9 and among the classes 10-11-12. Finally, as a result of the regression analysis and ANOVA tests, the conversion table was compose

Electronic word of mouth in social media: The common characteristics of retweeted and favourited marketer-generated content posted on Twitter

Marketers desire to utilise electronic word of mouth (eWOM) marketing on social media sites. However, not all online content generated by marketers has the same effect on consumers; some of them are effective while others are not. This paper aims to examine different characteristics of marketer-generated content (MGC) that of which one lead users to eWOM. Twitter was chosen as one of the leading social media sites and a content analysis approach was employed to identify the common characteristics of retweeted and favourited tweets. 2,780 tweets from six companies (Booking, Hostelworld, Hotels, Lastminute, Laterooms and Priceline) operating in the tourism sector are analysed. Results indicate that the posts which contain pictures, hyperlinks, product or service information, direct answers to customers and brand centrality are more likely to be retweeted and favourited by users. The findings present the main eWOM drivers for MGC in social media.Abdulaziz Elwalda and Mohammed Alsagga

Readability, Contracts of Recurring Use, nd the Problem of Ex Post Judicial Governance of Health Insurance Policies

While the rhetoric surrounding the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act focused on core issues such as cost, quality, and access to care, the dialog rarely acknowledged a key problem-the fact that most Americans do not understand their health insurance. Simply put, consumers do not fully grasp their health insurance coverage because the jargon found in many health insurance contracts is impenetrable to most Americans. This is disconcerting because consumer-oriented information is central to our increasingly consumer-directed health care system. Consumers are expected to make cost-effective choices among the array of health insurance plans that may be available to them, utilize health care services in a cost-effective manner, navigate provider networks, minimize their out-of-pocket expenses, and effectively appeal denials of coverage. Furthermore, unlike other types of insurance agreements, health insurance policies are contracts of recurring use. That is, health insurance policies are routinely and repeatedly invoked by consumers to finance their health care. Yet, such contracts are written at a level that is beyond the reading skills of most Americans. As such, insureds not only have difficultly understanding the details of their coverage, they do not fully comprehend the benefits and rights afforded by the policy. Consequently, the traditional approach of ex post judicial governance of insurance agreements (as adhesion contracts) by interpreting ambiguities in favor of insureds provides inadequate protection for health insurance consumers. If consumers do not understand their coverage rights and benefits, they cannot reasonably be expected to know when those benefits have been wrongly denied. The better, ex ante solution is to make health insurance contracts readable in the first instance by requiring that health insurance contracts meet an eighth grade readability standard as a condition of state approval