A Corpus-Based Approach of the Translation of Swearwords in English-Chinese Subtitling: A Case Study of The Big Bang Theory and YYeTs

Fansubbing, the combination of fan and subtitling, is one of the main branches of Audiovisual Translation (AVT), having kindled more and more interest of researchers into AVT field in recent decades. In particular, the quality of so-called non-professional translation seems questionable due to the non-transparent qualification of subtitlers in a huge community network. This paper attempts to figure out how YYeTs aka “ZiMuZu”, the largest fansubbing group in China, translates swearwords from English to Chinese for its fans of the prevalent American sitcom The Big Bang Theory, taking cultural, social and political elements into account in the context of China. A bilingual corpus containing both the source and target texts are built, ready for both error and functional analysis based on Pederson (2017)’s FAR model of TQA from the perspective of pragmatic functions, in order to give a full picture of the translation quality of swearwords and provide some practical guide for the practitioners in their career of subtitling

A Corpus-based and Eye-Tracking Study on the Audience Reception and Processing of English-Chinese Swearwords Produced by Amateur (Fansubbing) and Professional (Prosubbing) Subtitling

Technological advances continue to enable the creation of more and more audiovisual (AV) products, i.e., films, TV shows, podcasts, etc., which are widely disseminated online and accessible to millions of diverse users across the globe. The translation of these AV products remains a significant challenge, resulting in increasing numbers of individuals and groups becoming online volunteers to translate foreign audiovisual products into their domestic markets, i.e., fansubbing – a contraction of ‘fan’ and ‘subtitling’. However, when translating culturally-sensitive information, particularly swearwords, there is reported convergence and divergence between fan-produced subtitles and professional/official subtitles produced by government-owned companies. This dissertation aims to explore the nature and impact of these similarities and differences. To do so, initially a corpus-based translation approach was employed to identify translation patterns of swearwords by these two groups. A corpus of 549,349 words in original English subtitle scripts was collated and aligned with 528,889 professionally and 543,522 non-professionally translated Chinese words from a diverse sample of 57 recent English films. The results showed mostly convergent practices, but fansubbing appeared to adopt a more vulgarising approach when rendering swearwords (55%) than prosubbing (46%). Informed by this corpus information, the study then employed an eye-tracking approach to investigate how audiences receive and cognitively process translated swearwords in films. An eye-tracking experiment collected data from 150 participants who were allocated into one of the five subtitling groups to watch four representative film clips: four different groups for translation strategies of swearwords ranging from low to high profanity, and one control group which saw only the original English same-language subtitles. Established measures of Total Fixation Count, Total Fixation Duration, Mean Fixation Duration and Time to First Fixation were analysed using a series of one-way ANOVAs. In general, these eye-tracking results showed no significant differences between the swearword translation strategies in terms of processing and reception. Pre- and post-task questionnaires were also employed to collect demographic information and qualitative feedback, in addition to the receptive measurement of immersion, satisfaction, enjoyment, comprehension and offensiveness. Generally, there were no significant differences among these measurements across all clips. Further, participants reported functional awareness of swearwords, which helped them to understand the observed characters’ emotions and feelings. As a result, they reported an expectation for a more authentic translation of swearwords that closely reflected the real-life usage of the target audience. The dissertation concludes with a presentation of the empirical and methodological contributions of the research, followed by a critical reflection on its limitations and the identification of future avenues of study

Sudowoodo: a Chinese Lyric Imitation System with Source Lyrics

Lyrics generation is a well-known application in natural language generation research, with several previous studies focusing on generating accurate lyrics using precise control such as keywords, rhymes, etc. However, lyrics imitation, which involves writing new lyrics by imitating the style and content of the source lyrics, remains a challenging task due to the lack of a parallel corpus. In this paper, we introduce \textbf{\textit{Sudowoodo}}, a Chinese lyrics imitation system that can generate new lyrics based on the text of source lyrics. To address the issue of lacking a parallel training corpus for lyrics imitation, we propose a novel framework to construct a parallel corpus based on a keyword-based lyrics model from source lyrics. Then the pairs \textit{(new lyrics, source lyrics)} are used to train the lyrics imitation model. During the inference process, we utilize a post-processing module to filter and rank the generated lyrics, selecting the highest-quality ones. We incorporated audio information and aligned the lyrics with the audio to form the songs as a bonus. The human evaluation results show that our framework can perform better lyric imitation. Meanwhile, the \textit{Sudowoodo} system and demo video of the system is available at \href{https://Sudowoodo.apps-hp.danlu.netease.com/}{Sudowoodo} and \href{https://youtu.be/u5BBT_j1L5M}{https://youtu.be/u5BBT\_j1L5M}.Comment: 7 pages,3 figures, submit to emnlp 2023 demo trac

The impact of market and non-market-based environmental policy instruments on firms’ sustainable technological innovation: evidence from Chinese firms

A firm’s sustainable technological innovation (STI) is an important strategy to cope with the global challenges of the climate emergency and resource constraints. To encourage firms to pursue sustainable innovation, the government put its efforts into designing a proper environmental policy (EP). According to Porter’s hypothesis, a well-designed and flexible EP will advance the pace of a firm’s innovation. This paper argues that a flexible EP portfolio combining market and non-market-based EP instruments may affect a firm’s STI. Market-based EP instruments are cost-effective and consistent from a long-term view, whereas non-market-based EP instruments are more forceful and effective in the short term. Hence, these two kinds of EP instruments could complement each other. Furthermore, technical executives in top management teams will moderate the relationships between EP instruments and firms’ STI. Data analysis results of 618 Chinese public firms, who constantly participated in R&D activities during 2015–2019, supported these hypotheses. Contributions to EP and firm innovation theory, as well as suggestions for policymakers and firms’ top management teams, are discussed

Effects of thermal stratification and mixing on the vertical distribution of dissolved oxygen in aquaculture ponds

Thermal stratification and mixing in aquaculture ponds can seriously affect the vertical distribution of dissolved oxygen (DO) and result in a lack of DO in ponds. Therefore, revealing the vertical distribution of DO in aquaculture ponds influenced by thermal stratification and mixing can provide a theoretical basis for aquaculture water management. Here, we explore the impacts of thermal stratification and mixing on the vertical distribution of DO in two aquaculture ponds under different weather conditions. The results showed that thermal stratification mainly occurs during the daytime, and mixing occurs at nighttime. Water thermal stratification appears 4 h after sunrise, while mixing occurs 1 h after nightfall. When the Richardson index is less than 0.25, the mixing direction is unstable. In the daytime, the vertical distribution of DO, chlorophyll a (Chl-a), and phytoplankton abundance varied with thermal stratification and mixing. The concentration of DO gradually dropped with increasing water depth during the nighttime. The concentration of DO was lowest in the early morning and peaked in the afternoon. Multiple regression analysis demonstrated that water temperature (WT), Chl-a, and phytoplankton abundance provided the best model for the vertical distribution of DO. Based on our results, DO regulation can provide important insights for aquaculture pond management

Design of IPR evaluation system based on linear regression model

This paper first defines the conceptual scope of intellectual property, and the intellectual property evaluation system analyzes the special characteristics of enterprise intellectual property evaluation and compares the differences between several intellectual property management models. Secondly, an open adaptive enterprise IPR evaluation system is constructed based on a linear regression model, and the system structure and the relationship between subsystems are analyzed in depth. Finally, based on the theory of adaptive evaluation management, the adaptive IPR evaluation system is constructed. The adaptive enterprise IPR evaluation model based on linear regression was constructed mainly from three dimensions, and the method to determine the development coordination index and early warning degree of the three dimensions was deduced. The results show that the average efficiency of the typical enterprise IPR evaluation system calculated based on the linear regression model is 0.86, which is 21.3% more efficient than the traditional model. Four of the decision units’ DEA is effective, 63% of the inputs are effective, and 37% of the input resources are wasted, which aligns with the actual enterprise. The adaptive IPR evaluation system based on the linear regression model proposed in this paper has theoretical innovation value and practical significance for enterprises to realize the transformation of IPR achievements

Feasible Coefficient Region Analysis and Dual-Loop Adaptive Feedback Control for Transient Stability of VSG Under Severe Grid Voltage Sag

Aiming at the transient instability and overcurrent issues of the virtual synchronous generator (VSG) under severe grid voltage sag, the accurate and simultaneous control for the phase angle and current of VSG is hard to be achieved without using the fault information. And the requirement of the grid code for the reactive current should be also considered. To address the issues, this paper proposes a non-fault information based dual-loop adaptive feedback control to take transient angle stability, current limitation and the demand of the reactive current of VSG into account. First the large-signal model of VSG with a dual-loop control is built. To design the feedback coefficients, the feasible coefficient region under different fault degrees and cases is analyzed subsequently. It provides reference for the curve fitting, which is further applied in the self-adaptive regulation of the feedback coefficients. Thereby, a dual-loop adaptive feedback control is realized based on an additional reactive power feedback loop. With the proposed control scheme, all of the three control objectives can be achieved without the fault information, since the feedback coefficients are within the feasible coefficient region by the self-adaptive regulation. Finally, the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed control scheme for both VSG and a paralleled system of VSG and grid-following (GFL) converter are validated by the simulation results and the experimental results

Distinct EH domains of the endocytic TPLATE complex confer lipid and protein binding

Clathrin-mediated endocytosis (CME) is the gatekeeper of the plasma membrane. In contrast to animals and yeasts, CME in plants depends on the TPLATE complex (TPC), an evolutionary ancient adaptor complex. However, the mechanistic contribution of the individual TPC subunits to plant CME remains elusive. In this study, we used a multidisciplinary approach to elucidate the structural and functional roles of the evolutionary conserved N-terminal Eps15 homology (EH) domains of the TPC subunit AtEH1/Pan1. By integrating high-resolution structural information obtained by X-ray crystallography and NMR spectroscopy with all-atom molecular dynamics simulations, we provide structural insight into the function of both EH domains. Both domains bind phosphatidic acid with a different strength, and only the second domain binds phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate. Unbiased peptidome profiling by mass-spectrometry revealed that the first EH domain preferentially interacts with the double N-terminal NPF motif of a previously unidentified TPC interactor, the integral membrane protein Secretory Carrier Membrane Protein 5 (SCAMP5). Furthermore, we show that AtEH/Pan1 proteins control the internalization of SCAMP5 via this double NPF peptide interaction motif. Collectively, our structural and functional studies reveal distinct but complementary roles of the EH domains of AtEH/Pan1 in plant CME and connect the internalization of SCAMP5 to the TPLATE complex. AtEH/Pan1 proteins contain two N-terminal Eps15 homology (EH) domains and are subunits of the endocytic TPLATE complex present in plants. Here, the authors combine X-ray crystallography, NMR and MD simulations with biochemical and in planta analysis to characterize the two AtEH1/Pan1 EH domains and reveal their structural differences and complementary functional roles