Customization in Designing a Course for Interpreter Training

This article deals with the notion of customization for the purpose of conference interpreter training. Two years ago a new MA level programme in Interpreting and Translation was created at the School of Languages and International Studies, University of Central Lancashire in Preston, UK. At the beginning of the third year of teaching on the programme, the author attempts to analyse the course design to find out if the course can be tailored to meet an individual student‟s needs while at the same time ensuring that the students are taught all the key modules. All the modules that are directly relevant to practising interpreting skills are presented and carefully analysed. The author is also interested in the process of intercultural communication between students from the respective language streams on the course (so far, in alphabetical order, Arabic, Chinese, French, German and Polish) and the influence it could have on the students‟ co-operation within the course. Another important background question is related to the impact customisation in the course design could potentially have on the alumni‟s employability and in what way the programme actually prepares students for their future professional lives. Conclusions and evaluation form the last part of the article

The information gathering framework - a cognitive model of regressive eye movements during reading

In this article we present a new eye movement control framework that describes the interaction between fixation durations and regressive saccades during reading: The Information Gathering Framework (IGF). Based on the FC model proposed by Bicknell and Levy (2010), the basic idea of the IGF is that a confidence level for each word is computed while being monitored by three independent thresholds. These thresholds shape eye movement behavior by increasing fixation duration, triggering a regression, or guiding regression target selection. In this way, the IGF does not only account for regressive eye movements but also provides a framework able to model eye movement control during reading across different scenarios. Importantly, within the IGF it is assumed that two different types of regressive eye movements exist which differ with regard to their releases (integrations difficulties vs. missing evidence) but also with regard to their time course. We tested the predictions of the IGF by re-analyzing an experiment of Weiss et al. (2018) and found, inter alia, clear evidence for shorter fixation durations before regressive saccades relative to progressive saccades, with the exception of the last region. This clearly supports the assumptions of the IGF. In addition, we found evidence that there exists a window of about 15–20 characters to the left of the current fixation that plays an important role in target selection, probably indicating the perceptual span during a regressive saccade

Growing With Your Toddler: A Relationship-Based Approach to Healthy Child Development

As an intern at the Chances for Children Institute, I have spent two years coleading a parent-child playgroup known as “Growing with Your Toddler.” This playgroup is a relationship-based intervention that strives to strengthen the attachment bond between caregivers and their children, increase affect attunement and regulation between each dyad, and generally help children move towards healthy development. This thesis focuses on the conceptual underpinnings of the Growing with Your Toddler playgroup, including attachment theory and child-parent psychotherapy, as well as the history and evolution of these theories. Using the KIPS analysis, which is conducted by Chances for Children each year, I evaluate the ways in which the 2014-2015 group intervention affected 12 key parenting behaviors in caregiver members, as well as discuss the theoretical implications of the results

Controlling viral outbreaks: Quantitative strategies

Preparing for and responding to outbreaks of serious livestock infectious diseases are critical measures to safeguard animal health, public health, and food supply. Almost all of the current control strategies are empirical, and mass culling or “stamping out” is frequently the principal strategy for controlling epidemics. However, there are ethical, ecological, and economic reasons to consider less drastic control strategies. Here we use modeling to quantitatively study the efficacy of different control measures for viral outbreaks, where the infectiousness, transmissibility and death rate of animals commonly depends on their viral load. We develop a broad theoretical framework for exploring and understanding this heterogeneity. The model includes both direct transmission from infectious animals and indirect transmission from an environmental reservoir. We then incorporate a large variety of control measures, including vaccination, antivirals, isolation, environmental disinfection, and several forms of culling, which may result in fewer culled animals. We provide explicit formulae for the basic reproduction number, R0, for each intervention and for combinations. We evaluate the control methods for a realistic simulated outbreak of low pathogenic avian influenza on a mid-sized turkey farm. In this simulated outbreak, culling results in more total dead birds and dramatically more when culling all of the infected birds

Interstate conflict can reduce support for incumbents: evidence from the Israeli electorate and the Yom Kippur War

Does war affect support for incumbent leaders and parties? The literature is divided with studies reporting negative, positive, or null-effects. Many studies analyze the consequences of foreign intervention, and less is known about the political costs of wars fought close to home. Building on theories of retrospective voting, we theorize that wars inform voters about leader’s competence, and in turn affect mass attitudes and behaviors. Leveraging the unexpected onset of the 1973 Yom Kippur war which interrupted an ongoing Israeli public opinion poll, and voting records from four national elections linked with Israeli military fatality data, we demonstrate that despite the ultimate military victory, the war and its casualties reduced support for incumbent parties and leaders, and increased support for the opposition. By moving beyond foreign interventions, we provide strong evidence that wars over a country’s core territory can be politically costly for incumbent leaders and parties

Get the News Out Loudly and Quickly: Modeling the Influence of the Media on Limiting Infectious Disease

During outbreaks of infectious diseases with high morbidity and mortality, individuals closely follow media reports of the outbreak. Many will attempt to minimize contacts with other individuals in order to protect themselves from infection and possibly death. This process is called social distancing. Social distancing strategies include restricting socializing and travel, and using barrier protections. We use modeling to show that for short-term outbreaks, social distancing can have a large influence on reducing outbreak morbidity and mortality. In particular, public health agencies working together with the media can significantly reduce the severity of an outbreak by providing timely accounts of new infections and deaths. Our models show that the most effective strategy to reduce infections is to provide this information as early as possible, though providing it well into the course of the outbreak can still have a significant effect. However, our models for long-term outbreaks indicate that reporting historic infection data can result in more infections than with no reporting at all. We examine three types of media influence and we illustrate the media influence with a simulated outbreak of a generic emerging infectious disease in a small city. Social distancing can never be complete; however, for a spectrum of outbreaks, we show that leaving isolation (stopping applying social distancing measures) for up to 4 hours each day has modest effect on the overall morbidity and mortality

Real-time monitoring of calcium carbonate and cationic peptide deposition on carboxylate-SAM using a microfluidic SAW biosensor

A microfluidic biosensor with surface acoustic wave technology was used in this study to monitor the interaction of calcium carbonate with standard carboxylate self-assembled monolayer sensor chips. Different fluids, with and without biomolecular components, were investigated. The pH-dependent surface interactions of two bio-inspired cationic peptides, AS8 and ES9, which are similar to an extracellular domain of the chitin synthase involved in mollusc shell formation, were also investigated in a biological buffer system. A range of experimental conditions are described that are suitable to study non-covalent molecular interactions in the presence of ionic substances, such as, mineral precursors below the solubility equilibrium. The peptide ES9, equal to the mollusc chitin synthase epitope, is less sensitive to changes in pH than its counterpart AS8 with a penta-lysine core, which lacks the flanking acidic residues. This study demonstrates the extraordinary potential of microfluidic surface acoustic wave biosensors to significantly expand our experimental capabilities for studying the principles underlying biomineralization in vitro

War-time military service can affect partisan preferences

Does war-time military service affect partisan preferences? We argue that military service increases the salience and potential costs of war. Therefore, soldiers who serve during mismanaged wars will associate the ruling party with incompetence and be less likely to support the ruling party in the future. To test our argument, we analyze almost 50 years of Israel National Election Studies. Employing a regression discontinuity design, we show that compared with respondents who were too young to serve in the Yom Kippur war, respondents just old enough to serve report lower support for the Labor party well after the war ended. This effect is likely driven by soldiers’ unwillingness to support a party they associate with security incompetence. We further show that the negative effect of military service does not materialize in well-managed wars, contributing to the literature on the political consequences of war and attitude formation

Real-time monitoring of calcium carbonate and cationic peptide deposition on carboxylate-SAM using a microfluidic SAW biosensor

A microfluidic biosensor with surface acoustic wave technology was used in this study to monitor the interaction of calcium carbonate with standard carboxylate self-assembled monolayer sensor chips. Different fluids, with and without biomolecular components, were investigated. The pH-dependent surface interactions of two bio-inspired cationic peptides, AS8 and ES9, which are similar to an extracellular domain of the chitin synthase involved in mollusc shell formation, were also investigated in a biological buffer system. A range of experimental conditions are described that are suitable to study non-covalent molecular interactions in the presence of ionic substances, such as, mineral precursors below the solubility equilibrium. The peptide ES9, equal to the mollusc chitin synthase epitope, is less sensitive to changes in pH than its counterpart AS8 with a penta-lysine core, which lacks the flanking acidic residues. This study demonstrates the extraordinary potential of microfluidic surface acoustic wave biosensors to significantly expand our experimental capabilities for studying the principles underlying biomineralization in vitro