Simplifying, reading, and machine translating health content: an empirical investigation of usability

Text simplification, through plain language (PL) or controlled language (CL), is adopted to increase readability, comprehension and machine translatability of (health) content. Cochrane is a non-profit organisation where volunteer authors summarise and simplify health-related English texts on the impact of treatments and interventions into plain language summaries (PLS), which are then disseminated online to the lay audience and translated. Cochrane’s simplification approach is non-automated, and involves the manual checking and implementation of different sets of PL guidelines, which can be an unsatisfactory, challenging and time-consuming task. This thesis examined if using the Acrolinx CL checker to automatically and consistently check PLS for readability and translatability issues would increase the usability of Cochrane’s simplification approach and, more precisely: (i) authors’ satisfaction; and (ii) authors’ effectiveness in terms of readability, comprehensibility, and machine translatability into Spanish. Data on satisfaction were collected from twelve Cochrane authors by means of the System Usability Scale and follow-up preference questions. Readability was analysed through the computational tool Coh-Metrix. Evidence on comprehensibility was gathered through ratings and recall protocols produced by lay readers, both native and non-native speakers of English. Machine translatability was assessed in terms of adequacy and fluency with forty-one Cochrane contributors, all native speakers of Spanish. Authors seemed to welcome the introduction of Acrolinx, and the adoption of this CL checker reduced word length, sentence length, and syntactic complexity. No significant impact on comprehensibility and machine translatability was identified. We observed that reading skills and characteristics other than simplified language (e.g. formatting) might influence comprehension. Machine translation quality was relatively high, with mainly style issues. This thesis presented an environment that could boost volunteer authors’ satisfaction and foster their adoption of simple language. We also discussed strategies to increase the accessibility of online health content among lay readers with different skills and language backgrounds

Baltijas Psiholoģijas žurnāls

Sandra Sebre, Ģirts Dimdiņš. Letter from the Incoming Editors-in-Chief ; Solveiga Miezīte, Malgožata Raščevska. Final Greetings from the Outgoing Editors-in-Chief ; Klaus Boehnke. On Comparing Apples and Oranges: Towards a Quantitative Emic Cross-Cultural Psychology. A Pamphlet ; Fons J. R. Van de Vijver. Should We Develop a Quantitative Emic Cross-Cultural Psychology? ; Shulamith Kreitler. The Meaning of Social Signals: The Psychosemantic Approach ; Anna Słysz, Emilia Soroko. “A Scientific Journey”. On Experiencing Qualitative Research ; Per Eisele. Improving Performance in Groups: Effects of Two Different Goal-Setting Strategies and Feedback on Brainstorming Performance ; Dana Frolova, Girts Dimdins. The Influence of Safe Driving Public Service Announcements on Young Adults’ Risk Evaluation Depending on their Sensation Seeking Level ; Viesturs Reņģe, Ivars Austers, Inese Muzikante. Combining Social Axioms with Basic Individual Values and Self‑Reported Driving Behavior in Predicting Traffic Accidents ; Liena Ivanova, Malgozata Rascevska. Wise Female Students’ Characteristics Evaluated by Themselves and Peers ; Jeļena Ļevina, Natalija Ivanova. The Self-Concept of Adolescents with Different Social Status in Peer Clique

Don’t forget to save! User experience principles for video game narrative authoring tools.

Interactive Digital Narratives (IDNs) are a natural evolution of traditional storytelling melded with technological improvements brought about by the rapidly increasing digital revolution. This has and continues to enhance the complexities and functionality of the stories that we can tell. Video game narratives, both old and new, are considered close relatives of IDN, and due to their enhanced interactivity and presentational methods, further complicate the creation process. Authoring tool software aims to alleviate the complexities of this by abstracting underlying data models into accessible user interfaces that creatives, even those with limited technical experience, can use to author their stories. Unfortunately, despite the vast array of authoring tools in this space, user experience is often overlooked even though it is arguably one of the most vital components. This has resulted in a focus on the audience within IDN research rather than the authors, and consequently our knowledge and understanding of the impacts of user experience design decisions in authoring tools are limited. This thesis tackles the modeling of complex video game narrative structures and investigates how user experience design decisions within IDN authoring tools may impact the authoring process. I first introduce my concept of Discoverable Narrative which establishes a vocabulary for the analysis, categorization, and comparison of aspects of video game narrative that are discovered, observed, or experienced by players — something that existing models struggle to detail. I also develop and present my Novella Narrative Model which provides support for video game narrative elements and makes several novel innovations that set it apart from existing narrative models. This thesis then builds upon these models by presenting two bespoke user studies that examine the user experience of the state-of-the-art in IDN authoring tool design, together building a listing of seven general Themes and five principles (Metaphor Testing, Fast Track Testing, Structure, Experimentation, Branching) that highlight evidenced behavioral trends of authors based on different user experience design factors within IDN authoring tools. This represents some of the first work in this space that investigates the relationships between the user experience design of IDN authoring tools and the impacts that they can have on authors. Additionally, a generalized multi-stage pipeline for the design and development of IDN authoring tools is introduced, informed by professional industry- standard design techniques, in an effort to both ensure quality user experience within my own work and to raise awareness of the importance of following proper design processes when creating authoring tools, also serving as a template for doing so

Communication, digital media and future: new scenarios and future changes

Proceedings of the MEDCOM 2020+1 International Conferenc

Communication, digital media and future: new scenarios and future changes

Digital media, technology, new theoretical perspectives have revolutionized the ways of interacting among individuals, acquiring information and knowledge, teaching, behaving in multicultural society and so on and so forth. The impact of new ways of communicating, social media, political platforms on daily lives is evident. Multifaced and different aspects of these topics have been discussed in the VI World conference on Media and Communication (MEDCOM), which was supposed to be held in Cagliari, in May 2020, and it has been postponed to June 2021, online. During that year, communicating revealed even more relevant for citizen live. We assisted to the great importance of best practices in crisis communication, and the critical situations generated by fake news and information overload. Many different topics and fields were included in the conference and, in this volume, we collected 22 papers representative of the discussion, open to scholars from all over the world. The volume is organized in 8 sessions, each one exploring one specific topic: 1. Social Media: Impact, Future, Issues; 2. Public Sector Communication; 3. Politics, Ethics and Communication; Section: 4 Multiculturalism, Cultural Studies, Youth, and Gender Communication; 5 Media Education; 6 Media and Corporate; 7 Screen Cultures; 8 Communication and Covid-19 Pandemic. The last session has been added to the conference after the first postponement to favor analysis of the future development of communication and its complexity after the pandemic experience

Arts-Based Interventions and Social Change in Europe

This book presents 23 successful arts-based efforts to respond to social problems experienced by disadvantaged communities. The arts are a powerful means of fighting discrimination, marginalisation, neglect and even poverty. The educational programmes described in these chapters help stakeholders find solutions which are research-based, adaptable, repeatable and sustainable. Social problems that are addressed in this book include children living with physical challenges; suffering from financial and educational poverty; elderly women suffering from solitude; migrants facing a strange and not always welcoming cultural context; Roma youth fighting negative stereotypes and many more. Revealing the interconnectedness between social, economic and cultural exclusion, contributors planned interventions to develop skills, strengthen identities and build communities. This book will be of interest to scholars working in the visual arts, art education, design education, drama and theatre education and museum pedagogy

Digital Media and Textuality: From Creation to Archiving

Due to computers' ability to combine different semiotic modes, texts are no longer exclusively comprised of static images and mute words. How have digital media changed the way we write and read? What methods of textual and data analysis have emerged? How do we rescue digital artifacts from obsolescence? And how can digital media be used or taught inside classrooms? These and other questions are addressed in this volume that assembles contributions by artists, writers, scholars and editors. They offer a multiperspectival view on the way digital media have changed our notion of textuality