The translation of humor in video games: a case study

Over the last thirty years, the practice of game localization has become more and more widespread and has started to attract a growing academic interest. However, the translation of humor in games has received little scholarly attention, despite the fact that humor is a fundamental component of games and can be a difficult area to translate. In this view, the thesis is aimed at identifying and classifying the main types of humor in games and the way in which their translation from English into Italian has been tackled, highlighting how the interactive nature of games may affect translation. As the audiovisual features of games are incredibly varied and cannot always be assimilated to the established categories of audiovisual translation, the thesis also discusses how the various audiovisual modalities of games can have an impact on localization. Then, it examines three popular games that are particularly suitable for this analysis, as they feature plenty of humorous dialogues and situations: The Secret of Monkey Island (1990), Day of the Tentacle (1993) and Discworld (1995). The thesis pays particular attention to instances of humor based on cultural elements, as they are especially likely to cause disruptions in a translated text. The research looks at how often humor is intrinsically based on culture-specific references and analyses how translators deal with them. This issue appears particularly relevant in the case of games, as unfamiliar references can most easily damage the user’s experience. The final part of the thesis discusses the retranslation of games. By comparing the old and new translations of two games in the corpus, the thesis aims at seeing if and how translation choices have changed across time. As one of the retranslations was made by fans of the game, the thesis also aims at giving insight into the phenomenon of fan translation

Comparison of Handaxes from Bose Basin (China) and the Western Acheulean Indicates Convergence of Form, Not Cognitive Differences

Alleged differences between Palaeolithic assemblages from eastern Asia and the west have been the focus of controversial discussion for over half a century, most famously in terms of the so-called ‘Movius Line’. Recent discussion has centered on issues of comparability between handaxes from eastern Asian and ‘Acheulean’ examples from western portions of the Old World. Here, we present a multivariate morphometric analysis in order to more fully document how Mid-Pleistocene (i.e. ∼803 Kyr) handaxes from Bose Basin, China compare to examples from the west, as well as with additional (Mode 1) cores from across the Old World. Results show that handaxes from both the western Old World and Bose are significantly different from the Mode 1 cores, suggesting a gross comparability with regard to functionally-related form. Results also demonstrate overlap between the ranges of shape variation in Acheulean handaxes and those from Bose, demonstrating that neither raw material nor cognitive factors were an absolute impediment to Bose hominins in making comparable handaxe forms to their hominin kin west of the Movius Line. However, the shapes of western handaxes are different from the Bose examples to a statistically significant degree. Moreover, the handaxe assemblages from the western Old World are all more similar to each other than any individual assemblage is to the Bose handaxes. Variation in handaxe form is also comparatively high for the Bose material, consistent with suggestions that they represent an emergent, convergent instance of handaxe technology authored by Pleistocene hominins with cognitive capacities directly comparable to those of ‘Acheulean’ hominins

Small molecules, big targets: drug discovery faces the protein-protein interaction challenge.

Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) are of pivotal importance in the regulation of biological systems and are consequently implicated in the development of disease states. Recent work has begun to show that, with the right tools, certain classes of PPI can yield to the efforts of medicinal chemists to develop inhibitors, and the first PPI inhibitors have reached clinical development. In this Review, we describe the research leading to these breakthroughs and highlight the existence of groups of structurally related PPIs within the PPI target class. For each of these groups, we use examples of successful discovery efforts to illustrate the research strategies that have proved most useful.JS, DES and ARB thank the Wellcome Trust for funding.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Nature Publishing Group via http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nrd.2016.2

Zooarchaeological reconstruction of newly excavated Middle Pleistocene deposits from Elandsfontein, South Africa

The current study provides the first zooarchaeological account of systematically excavated faunal material from Elandsfontein, South Africa (ca. 1.0 – 0.6 Ma). Archaeological assemblages of this age typically lack well-preserved faunal remains recovered in primary association with artifacts, and thus studies have primarily focused on lithic technology. The sizeable faunal sample from Elandsfontein, South Africa is a rare exception and has dramatically influenced the way that we interpret early hominin foraging behavior during this time. Surface collections, starting in the 1950s, recovered ~13,000 mammalian fossils and more than 160 Acheulean artifacts. The Elandsfontein faunal assemblage was interpreted as having accumulated through natural mortality and subsequent scavenging by carnivores and hominins, with hominins playing a very minimal role in carcass modification. Low frequencies of stone tool cutmarks were taken as evidence that Acheulean hominins had limited ability to obtain large carcasses. However, this interpretation contrasts with a growing body of evidence suggesting that many Acheulean hominins across sub-Saharan Africa not only had access to large mammal carcasses but were often the primary agents of accumulation and modification. The majority of the original Elandsfontein faunal material was collected from deflation surfaces and lacks sufficient contextual information. We conducted a detailed zooarchaeological analysis of faunal remains from four recent excavations within the Elandsfontein dune field. Our results differ from those based on surface collections and suggest multiple agents of bone accumulation with varying degrees of hominin and carnivore activity across the paleolandscape. Frequencies of hominininduced butchery are higher (up to 3.6% NISP) than reported for previously collected samples (<1% of limb surfaces) and demonstrate butchery of megafauna on at least two occasions. Our findings indicate that earlier zooarchaeological studies at Elandsfontein underestimate the degree of hominin contribution to the fossil assemblage and do not take into account the complicated taphonomic history across the paleolandscape. The results of this analysis are congruent with recent studies suggesting that Acheulean hominins and their Oldowan producing predecessors had regular access to large carcasses and that megafauna were an essential component of the diet for early Homo

Laser-carbonization : peering into the formation of micro-thermally produced (N-doped)carbons

Even after centuries-old experience in carbonizing materials we can still learn new lessons and find new applications for carbonized materials. In the past decades, laser-assisted syntheses of materials have emerged as versatile tools for the fabrication of micro- and nanostructured functional devices. In this regard, laser-carbonization is of particular interest, as it provides a method for patterning eco-friendly and potentially biodegradable electronic materials for future applications in comparison to the state-of-the-art in flexible electronics. However, using molecular precursors for laser-carbonization has been a challenge for many years. We identified a set of three different precursors and conducted an in-depth morphological and compositional study to understand how molecular precursors must be prepared for the high-speed carbonization reactions used in laser-patterning. The resulting laser-patterned carbons (LP-C) or N-doped carbons (LP-NC) are different from their conventionally pyrolyzed reference products mostly in terms of morphology. A generally porous structure and a carbonization gradient induced by the top-to-bottom energy input are the most remarkable features. Additionally, the microstructure, the elemental composition and the resulting electronic properties are different as demonstrated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) analysis

Non-professional interpreting and translation in the media

Non-professional Interpreting and Translation (NPIT) is a recent discipline. Books and volumes on this subject that combine all the different fields are extremely uncommon and authoritative reference material is scarce and mostly scattered through disparate specialized journals. There are many areas and aspects of NPIT in the media that to date have been under researched or utterly neglected. The aim of this volume is therefore to fill an important gap in the academic market and to provide an overview of diverse aspects of non-professional interpreting and translation in the media. The volume consists of a collection of essays by eminent international scholars and researchers from the field of Translation and Interpreting Studies

Education and State Formation in Italy

2) In un quadro di analisi comparativa, l’evoluzione del sistema scolastico italiano a partire dall’unificazione del paese può per molti versi essere studiata secondo linee interpretative analoghe a quelle prevalentemente adottate nell’analisi del rapporto fra educazione e formazione dello Stato in diversi Paesi europei. Per una reale e più approfondita comprensione di tale processo, tuttavia, è necessario prendere in adeguata considerazione i caratteri distintivi della situazione politica e sociale italiana lungo il corso della sua storia unitaria. Questo saggio si muove dunque lungo una doppia traiettoria: da un lato analizza l’evoluzione, le strutture e i diversi aspetti del sistema educativo italiano secondo una linea interpretativa simile a quella applicata alla maggior parte degli altri Stati nazionali europei; dall’altro, mette costantemente a fuoco le peculiarità della situazione italiana come chiave interpretativa dell’analisi stessa