The challenges of translating English compounds into Arabic: For better or for worse

This paper examines the main challenges of translating English compounds into Arabic. Compounding is linguistically a common process across many languages where compounds are frequently formed. In English compounding is highly creative and innovative, and often used as a means of introducing new phrases or coining new words into the lexicon. In contrast, Arabic is less resourceful. Arabic does not possess similar multiword expressions as an integral linguistic mechanism that merges language items to form a unit of language that can be broken down into single words and display idiosyncratic features. (Sag et al. 2002). As the English text-writer and the Arabic translator use their respective languages from different mental pictures and from disparate thought processes, each operates from a different worldview, so transferring English compounds often leads to loss of meaning. Understanding and

Sorting Insiders From Co-Workers: Remote Synchronous Computer-Mediated Triage for Investigating Insider Attacks

Objective Develop and investigate the potential of a remote, computer-mediated and synchronous text-based triage, which we refer to as InSort, for quickly highlighting persons of interest after an insider attack. Background Insiders maliciously exploit legitimate access to impair the confidentiality and integrity of organizations. The globalisation of organisations and advancement of information technology means employees are often dispersed across national and international sites, working around the clock, often remotely. Hence, investigating insider attacks is challenging. However, the cognitive demands associated with masking insider activity offer opportunities. Drawing on cognitive approaches to deception and understanding of deception-conveying features in textual responses, we developed InSort, a remote computer-mediated triage. Method During a 6-hour immersive simulation, participants worked in teams, examining password protected, security sensitive databases and exchanging information during an organized crime investigation. Twenty-five percent were covertly incentivized to act as an ‘insider’ by providing information to a provocateur. Results Responses to InSort questioning revealed insiders took longer to answer investigation relevant questions, provided impoverished responses, and their answers were less consistent with known evidence about their behaviours than co-workers. Conclusion Findings demonstrate InSort has potential to expedite information gathering and investigative processes following an insider attack. Application InSort is appropriate for application by non-specialist investigators and can be quickly altered as a function of both environment and event. InSort offers a clearly defined, well specified, approach for use across insider incidents, and highlights the potential of technology for supporting complex time critical investigations

Demographics of dogs, cats, and rabbits attending veterinary practices in Great Britain as recorded in their electronic health records

Abstract Background Understanding the distribution and determinants of disease in animal populations must be underpinned by knowledge of animal demographics. For companion animals, these data have been difficult to collect because of the distributed nature of the companion animal veterinary industry. Here we describe key demographic features of a large veterinary-visiting pet population in Great Britain as recorded in electronic health records, and explore the association between a range of animal’s characteristics and socioeconomic factors. Results Electronic health records were captured by the Small Animal Veterinary Surveillance Network (SAVSNET), from 143 practices (329 sites) in Great Britain. Mixed logistic regression models were used to assess the association between socioeconomic factors and species and breed ownership, and preventative health care interventions. Dogs made up 64.8% of the veterinary-visiting population, with cats, rabbits and other species making up 30.3, 2.0 and 1.6% respectively. Compared to cats, dogs and rabbits were more likely to be purebred and younger. Neutering was more common in cats (77.0%) compared to dogs (57.1%) and rabbits (45.8%). The insurance and microchipping relative frequency was highest in dogs (27.9 and 53.1%, respectively). Dogs in the veterinary-visiting population belonging to owners living in least-deprived areas of Great Britain were more likely to be purebred, neutered, insured and microchipped. The same association was found for cats in England and for certain parameters in Wales and Scotland. Conclusions The differences we observed within these populations are likely to impact on the clinical diseases observed within individual veterinary practices that care for them. Based on this descriptive study, there is an indication that the population structures of companion animals co-vary with human and environmental factors such as the predicted socioeconomic level linked to the owner’s address. This ‘co-demographic’ information suggests that further studies of the relationship between human demographics and pet ownership are warranted

Translating Arabic Into English: Basic Considerations in Word Order

This paper attempts to discuss the potential difficulties in translating Arabic into English with regard to word order. Arabic has a richer morphology than English and this enables morphological discrimination of surface grammatical relations in a way that is usually impossible in English. As a result, Arabic word order is freer than English with Arabic in general allowing any permutation of the major constituents without loss of grammatically or change in the basic cognitive meaning of the sentence. This paper looks at whether this flexibility in Arabic word order constitutes a translating problem.On discute des difficultés relatives à l'ordre des mots lors de la traduction de l'arabe vers l'anglais. L'auteur démontre que la richesse de la morphologie de l'arabe donne une plus grande flexibilité dans l'ordre des mots que ne le permet l'anglais et se demande dans quelle mesure cela peut engendrer des problèmes de traduction

The challenges of Translating English Compounds into Arabic - For Better or for Worse

This paper examines the main challenges of translating English compounds into Arabic. Compounding is linguistically a common process across many languages where compounds are frequently formed. In English, compounding is highly creative and innovative, and often used as a means of introducing new phrases or coining new words into the lexicon. In contrast, Arabic is less resourceful. Arabic does not possess similar multiword expressions as an integral linguistic mechanism that merges language items to form a unit of language that can be broken down into single words and display idiosyncratic features. (Sag et al. 2002). As the English text-writer and the Arabic translator use their respective languages from different mental pictures and from disparate thought processes, each operates from a different worldview, so transferring English compounds often leads to loss of meaning. Understanding and interpreting compounds has been a long-standing area of interest in Indo-European language research but remains under-researched in Arabic. This paper contributes to the debate on how to deal with English compounds in Arabic

Data from: Culture moderates changes in linguistic self-presentation and detail provision when deceiving others

Change in our language when deceiving is attributable to differences in the affective and cognitive experience of lying compared to truth telling, yet these experiences are also subject to substantial individual differences. On the basis of previous evidence of cultural differences in self-construal and remembering, we predicted and found evidence for cultural differences in the extent to which truths and lies contained self (versus other) references and perceptual (versus social) details. Participants (N = 320) of Black African, South Asian, White European and White British ethnicity completed a catch-the-liar task in which they provided genuine and fabricated statements about either their past experiences or an opinion and counter-opinion. Across the four groups we observed a trend for using more/fewer first-person pronouns and fewer/more third-person pronouns when lying, and a trend for including more/fewer perceptual details and fewer/more social details when lying. Contrary to predicted cultural differences in emotion expression, all participants showed more positive affect and less negative affect when lying. Our findings show that liars deceive in ways that are congruent with their cultural values and norms, and that this may result in opposing changes in behaviour

Detecting insider threats to organizations through language change

The act of conducting an insider attack carries with it cognitive and social challenges that may affect an offender’s day-to-day work behavior. We test this hypothesis by examining the language used in e-mails that were sent as part of a 6-hr workplace simulation. The simulation involved participants (N = 54) examining databases and exchanging information as part of a four-stage organized crime investigation. After the first stage, 25% of the participants were covertly incentivized to act as an “insider” by providing information to a provocateur. Analysis of the language used in participants’ e-mails found that insiders became more self-focused, showed greater negative affect, and showed more cognitive processing compared to their coworkers. At the interpersonal level, insiders showed significantly more deterioration in the degree to which their language mimicked other team members over time. Our findings demonstrate how language may provide an indirect way of identifying employees who are undertaking an insider attack