A Material Lens on Coloniality in NLP

Coloniality, the continuation of colonial harms beyond "official" colonization, has pervasive effects across society and scientific fields. Natural Language Processing (NLP) is no exception to this broad phenomenon. In this work, we argue that coloniality is implicitly embedded in and amplified by NLP data, algorithms, and software. We formalize this analysis using Actor-Network Theory (ANT): an approach to understanding social phenomena through the network of relationships between human stakeholders and technology. We use our Actor-Network to guide a quantitative survey of the geography of different phases of NLP research, providing evidence that inequality along colonial boundaries increases as NLP builds on itself. Based on this, we argue that combating coloniality in NLP requires not only changing current values but also active work to remove the accumulation of colonial ideals in our foundational data and algorithms

B!SON: A Tool for Open Access Journal Recommendation

Finding a suitable open access journal to publish scientific work is a complex task: Researchers have to navigate a constantly growing number of journals, institutional agreements with publishers, funders’ conditions and the risk of Predatory Publishers. To help with these challenges, we introduce a web-based journal recommendation system called B!SON. It is developed based on a systematic requirements analysis, built on open data, gives publisher-independent recommendations and works across domains. It suggests open access journals based on title, abstract and references provided by the user. The recommendation quality has been evaluated using a large test set of 10,000 articles. Development by two German scientific libraries ensures the longevity of the project

Poszukiwanie informacji w procesie post-edycji i tłumaczenia

Wydział AnglistykiRozprawa miała na celu zbadanie, jak osoby studiujące tłumaczenie i filologię angielską korzystają z tłumaczenia maszynowego i źródeł internetowych podczas tłumaczenia oraz post-edycji dwóch typów tekstu. Rozdział 1 wprowadza pojęcia tłumaczenia maszynowego, post-edycji i stosunku tłumaczy do nich. Rozdział 2 dotyczy poszukiwania informacji oraz modeli kompetencji tłumaczy. Rozdział 3 przedstawia wysiłek w procesie tłumaczenia i post-edycji, skupiając się na metodologii w okulografii i badaniach wykorzystujących keylogging. Rozdział 4 opisuje eksperymentalne badanie efektów oraz korelacji między aspektami nauczania tłumaczenia oraz poszukiwania informacji w tłumaczeniu i post-edycji. Zbadano siedem hipotez dotyczących efektu typu tekstu oraz grupy na wskaźniki wysiłku, zakres wykorzystanych źródeł oraz poprawność tłumaczenia. Analizy korelacyjne dotyczyły poprawności i procentu sprawdzonych wybranych słów/fraz, jak również procentowo oszacowanego czasu w źródłach i stosunku do tłumaczenia maszynowego oraz postrzeganego wysiłku, który to również skorelowano z zakresem źródeł. Niektóre z hipotez częściowo potwierdzono, ale relacje między wysiłkiem, poprawnością i stosunkiem do tłumaczenia maszynowego w poszukiwaniu informacji w tłumaczeniu i post-edycji są bardzo złożone. Opisane zależności mogą być szczególnie przydatne w nauczaniu tłumaczenia i badaniach nad procesem przekładu.This dissertation investigated translation trainees and EFL students interacting with machine translation and online resources (OR) in translation and post-editing tasks for two text types. Chapter 1 introduces the concepts of machine translation, post-editing, and translators’ attitudes towards them. Chapter 2 details information behaviour and translator competence models. Chapter 3 presents effort in both translation and post-editing process, with the focus on methodology in eye-tracking and keylogging studies. Chapter 4 is a detailed report on the experimental study on the effects and correlations between aspects of translation training and information behaviour in translation and post-editing. The experimental study tested seven hypotheses about effects of task type and group membership on effort indicators, range of consulted OR, and translation accuracy. Correlational analyses were also made between accuracy and percentage of researched rich points, as well as percentage of time spent in OR with attitude and perceived effort which was also correlated with the range of consulted OR. Some of the hypotheses were partially confirmed, but the relationship between effort, accuracy, and attitude in information searching during translation and post-editing is intensely nuanced. The findings may be particularly valuable for translation trainers and translation process researchers

Variable Format: Media Poetics and the Little Database

This dissertation explores the situation of twentieth-century art and literature becoming digital. Focusing on relatively small online collections, I argue for materially invested readings of works of print, sound, and cinema from within a new media context. With bibliographic attention to the avant-garde legacy of media specificity and the little magazine, I argue that the “films,” “readings,” “magazines,” and “books” indexed on a series of influential websites are marked by meaningful transformations that continue to shape the present through a dramatic reconfiguration of the past. I maintain that the significance of an online version of a work is not only transformed in each instance of use, but that these versions fundamentally change our understanding of each historical work in turn. Here, I offer the analogical coding of these platforms as “little databases” after the little magazines that served as the vehicle of modernism and the historical avant-garde. Like the study of the full run of a magazine, these databases require a bridge between close and distant reading. Rather than contradict each other as is often argued, in this instance a combined macro- and microscopic mode of analysis yields valuable information not readily available by either method in isolation. In both directions, the social networks and technical protocols of database culture inscribe the limits of potential readings. Bridging the material orientation of bibliographic study with the format theory of recent media scholarship, this work constructs a media poetics for reading analog works situated within the windows, consoles, and networks of the twenty-first century

Cultural Heritage on line

The 2nd International Conference "Cultural Heritage online – Empowering users: an active role for user communities" was held in Florence on 15-16 December 2009. It was organised by the Fondazione Rinascimento Digitale, the Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities and the Library of Congress, through the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program - NDIIP partners. The conference topics were related to digital libraries, digital preservation and the changing paradigms, focussing on user needs and expectations, analysing how to involve users and the cultural heritage community in creating and sharing digital resources. The sessions investigated also new organisational issues and roles, and cultural and economic limits from an international perspective