Exploring Diversity in Back Translation for Low-Resource Machine Translation

Back translation is one of the most widely used methods for improving the performance of neural machine translation systems. Recent research has sought to enhance the effectiveness of this method by increasing the 'diversity' of the generated translations. We argue that the definitions and metrics used to quantify 'diversity' in previous work have been insufficient. This work puts forward a more nuanced framework for understanding diversity in training data, splitting it into lexical diversity and syntactic diversity. We present novel metrics for measuring these different aspects of diversity and carry out empirical analysis into the effect of these types of diversity on final neural machine translation model performance for low-resource English$\leftrightarrow$Turkish and mid-resource English$\leftrightarrow$Icelandic. Our findings show that generating back translation using nucleus sampling results in higher final model performance, and that this method of generation has high levels of both lexical and syntactic diversity. We also find evidence that lexical diversity is more important than syntactic for back translation performance

An Open Dataset and Model for Language Identification

Language identification (LID) is a fundamental step in many natural language processing pipelines. However, current LID systems are far from perfect, particularly on lower-resource languages. We present a LID model which achieves a macro-average F1 score of 0.93 and a false positive rate of 0.033 across 201 languages, outperforming previous work. We achieve this by training on a curated dataset of monolingual data, the reliability of which we ensure by auditing a sample from each source and each language manually. We make both the model and the dataset available to the research community. Finally, we carry out detailed analysis into our model's performance, both in comparison to existing open models and by language class.Comment: To be published in ACL 202

Efficacy and safety of a self-applied carrageenan-based gel to prevent human papillomavirus infection in sexually active young women (CATCH study): an exploratory phase IIB randomised, placebo-controlled trialResearch in context

Summary: Background: Carrageenan demonstrated potent anti-HPV (human papillomavirus) activity in vitro and in animal models. The Carrageenan-gel Against Transmission of Cervical Human papillomavirus trial’s interim analysis (n = 277) demonstrated a 36% protective effect of carrageenan against incident HPV infections. Herein, we report the trial’s final results. Methods: In this exploratory phase IIB randomised, placebo-controlled trial, we recruited healthy women aged ≥18 years primarily from health service clinics at two Canadian Universities in Montreal. Participants were randomised (1:1) by the study coordinator (using computer-assisted block randomisation with randomly variable block sizes up to a block size of eight) to a carrageenan-based or placebo gel to be self-applied every other day for the first month and before/after intercourse. Participants, study nurses, and laboratory technicians (HPV testing and genotyping) were blinded to group assignment. At each visit (months 0, 0.5, 1, 3, 6, 9, 12), participants provided questionnaire data and a self-collected vaginal sample (tested for 36 HPV types, Linear Array). The primary outcome was type-specific HPV incidence (occurring at any follow-up visit). Intention-to-treat analyses for incidence were conducted using Cox proportional hazards regression models, including participants with ≥2 visits. Safety analyses included all participants randomised. This trial is registered with the ISRCTN registry, ISRCTN96104919. Findings: Between Jan 16, 2013 and Sept 30, 2020, 461 participants (enrolled) were randomly assigned to the carrageenan (n = 227) or placebo (n = 234) groups. Incidence and safety analyses included 429 and 461 participants, respectively. We found 51.9% (108/208) of participants in carrageenan and 66.5% (147/221) in placebo arm acquired ≥1 HPV type (hazard ratio 0.63 [95% CI: 0.49–0.81], p = 0.0003). Adverse events were reported by 34.8% (79/227) and 39.7% (93/234) of participants in carrageenan and placebo arm (p = 0.27), respectively. Interpretation: Consistent with the interim analysis, use of a carrageenan-based gel compared to placebo resulted in a 37% reduction in risk of incident genital HPV infections in women with no increase in adverse events. A carrageenan-based gel may complement HPV vaccination. Funding: Canadian Institutes of Health Research, CarraShield Labs Inc

Gender, risk and micro-financial subjectivities

This article analyses the gendered contradictions of microfinance's celebrated “double bottom line” of social and financial impact. The example of microfinance is used to illustrate the gendered and colonial constructions of “risk” and “responsibility” that underpin neoliberalism and its gendered paradoxes. After revisiting the discursive critique of these terms, I draw on how indigenous women participating in a microfinance institution in Bolivia describe their experience to suggest how gendered ideas of risk and responsibility are framing their negotiation of and resistance to the market. While the gendered and colonial construction of risk creates dynamics that perpetuate indigenous women's exclusion from the market, the terms of the resistance and use of the intervention also challenge feminist critiques of neoliberal governmentality developed mostly with reference to advanced modernity and welfare regimes