Effects of Innovative Motivational Strategies and New Staffing Model on Interviewer Attrition: A Data Collection Year in Review

Due to high staff attrition and its negative effects on data collection and project cost, a large national study implemented motivational strategies and a new staffing model for the current data collection year. Motivational strategies included retention bonuses, organization gear, and other personalized recognitions. The new staffing model included both a change in weekly hour requirements as well as the number of interviewers staffed in each area. New staff, committed to 20 hours per week, were added to approximately half of the sampling areas with already existing 30 hour per week staff. Two Interviewers were now working a single area, as opposed to one interviewer per area. If one Interviewer were to become inactive, there would be one remaining Interviewer. The initial effects of these motivational strategies and new staffing model on key production indicators as well as project budget, interviewer attrition, performance, morale, have been positive. One initial effect has been a slower rate of attrition. The overall impact of these motivational innovations and new staffing model on key data collection indicators will continue to be monitored and evaluated, and will be discussed

Irritating CAT tool features that matter to translators

CAT tools have become a fixture of professional translation over the last two decades yet are still treated with suspicion or disinterest by many freelancers. Acknowledged to contribute to consistency and speed, they can constrain and otherwise negatively affect the translation process in various ways. Surveys of professional translators and observations at the workplace suggest that there is a degree of frustration associated with the use of CAT tools and room for improvement in their usability. A recent large-scale survey of professional translators included specific items for CAT tool users about whether any features of their tools were irritating or missing. Many reported that there were and also availed themselves of the opportunity to provide detailed comments about them. More than half of the CAT tool users said that they found some features irritating, and a quantitative and qualitative analysis of their comments revealed that the most common issues concerned the complexity of the user interface and segmentation. There were some differences in the responses between freelance, institutional and commercial translators but almost none across age groups. The comments about missing features also tended to be about making the tools easier to use. The focus in the survey reported here was on identifying negative aspects of tools with a view to mitigating them and tailoring the tools more to translators’ needs. However, there is also room for research exploring the positive aspects of tools in the interests of optimising their usability and reducing cognitive friction

Inotuzumab ozogamicin in B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia: efficacy, toxicity, and practical considerations

Inotuzumab ozogamicin (InO) is an antibody drug conjugate composed of a humanized monoclonal antibody targeting the cell surface receptor CD22 coupled to a cytotoxic calicheamicin payload via an acid labile linker. InO has shown significant activity in relapsed and refractory B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (BCP-ALL) in both single agent and combination chemotherapy regimens in adult and pediatric trials. Its use in newly diagnosed elderly patients has also been established while clinical trials investigating its use in newly diagnosed pediatric patients and fit adults are ongoing. Notable toxicities include sinusoidal obstruction syndrome (SOS), particularly in patients who undergo hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) after InO as well as myelosuppression and B-cell aplasia which confer increased infection risk, particularly in combination with cytotoxic chemotherapy. In the relapsed/refractory (R/R) setting, the planned subsequent curative therapy modality must be considered when using InO to mitigate SOS risk if proceeding to HSCT and account for potential B-cell aplasia if proceeding to chimeric antigen receptor CAR-T therapy. Studies exploring mechanisms of resistance or failure of InO are ongoing but modulation or loss CD22 expression, alternative CD22 splicing, and high Bcl-2 expression have been implicated. In this review, we will summarize the currently available data on InO, with an emphasis on pediatric trials, and explore future directions including combinatorial therapy

MT Literacy : a cognitive view

This article is under copyright and the publisher should be contacted for permission to re-use or reprint the material in any form.MT literacy means knowing how MT works, how the technology can be useful in a particular context, and what the implications are of using it for various purposes. As MT usage grows, the necessity for MT literacy also grows. This knowledge forms part of the greater need for digital literacies. In this contribution, we relate MT literacy to the concept of cognitive load in professional translation production and in translator training scenarios. We then move beyond the sphere of translation studies to examine other use-case settings—crisis communication, academic writing and patent publishing—to consider how MT can offer solutions and how MT literacy can impact cognitively in those settings. We discuss how training in MT literacy can empower language professionals and present two proposals for course content designed for MT users in other sectors

Symptom Assessment in Relapsed Small Cell Lung Cancer: Cross-Validation of the Patient Symptom Assessment in Lung Cancer Instrument

IntroductionLung cancer symptoms can be burdensome for patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC). Patient Symptom Assessment in Lung Cancer (PSALC), a self-report scale for assessing SCLC symptom burden, was developed and validated previously using intravenous topotecan clinical trial data. This study cross-validates the PSALC using oral topotecan (OT) trial data.MethodsData were analyzed from a randomized, open-label, multicenter trial including 71 patients with relapsed SCLC receiving OT with best supportive care and 70 patients receiving best supportive care alone. PSALC and EQ-5D were administered at baseline and at 3-week intervals. Internal consistency, reliability, construct validity, and responsiveness were evaluated.ResultsOnly one factor was indicated in factor analysis, hence PSALC total score (PSALC-TS) was used for psychometric analysis. Internal consistency was supported by Cronbach's alpha of 0.78. Construct validity was supported by significant associations of higher PSALC-TS (higher symptom burden) with worse Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status and by correlations of PSALC-TS with EQ-5D utility index and visual analog scale score (all p < 0.001). Reliability was supported by intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.68 (using PSALC-TS before clinical status change) and concordance correlation coefficient of 0.69 (using PSALC-TS at baseline and before first visit). PSALC-TS was responsive to clinical status change from baseline to tumor response (responsiveness statistic = −0.99) and to tumor progression (responsiveness statistic = 0.94).ConclusionsConsistent with prior psychometric results, this cross-validation study using OT trial data showed acceptable validity, reliability, and responsiveness of the PSALC scale, further supporting its use to measure symptom burden in previously treated SCLC

A communal catalogue reveals Earth's multiscale microbial diversity

Our growing awareness of the microbial world's importance and diversity contrasts starkly with our limited understanding of its fundamental structure. Despite recent advances in DNA sequencing, a lack of standardized protocols and common analytical frameworks impedes comparisons among studies, hindering the development of global inferences about microbial life on Earth. Here we present a meta-analysis of microbial community samples collected by hundreds of researchers for the Earth Microbiome Project. Coordinated protocols and new analytical methods, particularly the use of exact sequences instead of clustered operational taxonomic units, enable bacterial and archaeal ribosomal RNA gene sequences to be followed across multiple studies and allow us to explore patterns of diversity at an unprecedented scale. The result is both a reference database giving global context to DNA sequence data and a framework for incorporating data from future studies, fostering increasingly complete characterization of Earth's microbial diversity.Peer reviewe