The magnificent seven : A proposal for modest revision of the Van der Voo (1990) quality index

Thirty years ago, Rob Van der Voo proposed an elegant and simple system for evaluating the quality of paleomagnetic data. As a second-year Ph.D. student, the lead author remembers Rob waxing philosophical about the need to have an appropriate, but not overly rigid evaluation system. The end result was a 7-point system that assigned a (1) or (0) for any paleomagnetic result based on objective criteria. The goal was never to reject or blindly accept any particular result, but merely to indicate the degree of quality for any paleomagnetic pole. At the time, the global paleomagnetic database was burgeoning and it was deemed useful to rank older paleo magnetic results with the newer data being developed in modern laboratories. Van der Voo's, 1990 paper launched a silent revolution in paleomagnetism. Researchers began to evaluate their data against those seven criteria with the anticipation that reviewers would be similarly critical. Today, paleomagnetism is a mature science. Our methods, analyses, and results are more sophisticated than they were 30 years ago. Therefore, we feel it is appropriate to revisit the Van der Voo (1990) criteria in light of those developments. We hope to honor the intention of the original paper by keeping the criteria simple and easy to evaluate while also acknowledging the advances in science. This paper aims to update the criteria and modernize the process. We base our changes on advances in paleomagnetism and geochronology with a faithful adherence to the simplicity of the original publication. We offer the "Reliability" or "R" index as the next generation of the Van der Voo "Quality" or "Q" index. The new R-criteria evaluate seven different information items for each paleomagnetic pole including age, statistical requirements, identification of magnetic carriers, field tests, structural integrity, presence of reversals and an evaluation for possible remagnetization.Peer reviewe

The production and reproduction of inequality in the UK in times of austerity

Inequality appears to be back on the intellectual and political agenda. This paper provides a commentary on this renewed interest, drawing on an empirical discussion of inequality in the UK. The paper argues that inequality should be seen as produced in the inherently unequal social relations of production, drawing attention to the role of social struggle in shaping dynamics of inequality. However, inequality is not just produced in dynamic class struggle in the formal economy, but also through the social reproduction of labour power on a day-to-day and inter-generational basis. As such, inequalities of household resources at any point in time may be reproductive of greater future inequality. It is argued that inequality has risen in the UK over recent decades because of changes in the social relations of production in the formal economy and social reproduction in the domestic sector, both of which have witnessed significant state interventions that have increased structural inequalities. It is argued that, absent of significant change, the underpinning structural dynamics in the UK will lead to further increases in inequality over the short and longer-term. Given this, we might expect to see an already emergent ‘New Politics of Inequality’ intensifying in the coming decades.n/

Interactive translation prediction versus conventional post-editing in practice: a study with the CasMaCat workbench

[EN] We conducted a field trial in computer-assisted professional translation to compare interactive translation prediction (ITP) against conventional post-editing (PE) of machine translation (MT) output. In contrast to the conventional PE set-up, where an MT system first produces a static translation hypothesis that is then edited by a professional (hence "post-editing"), ITP constantly updates the translation hypothesis in real time in response to user edits. Our study involved nine professional translators and four reviewers working with the web-based CasMaCat workbench. Various new interactive features aiming to assist the post-editor/translator were also tested in this trial. Our results show that even with little training, ITP can be as productive as conventional PE in terms of the total time required to produce the final translation. Moreover, translation editors working with ITP require fewer key strokes to arrive at the final version of their translation.This work was supported by the European Union’s 7th Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under grant agreement No 287576 (CasMaCat ).Sanchis Trilles, G.; Alabau, V.; Buck, C.; Carl, M.; Casacuberta Nolla, F.; Garcia Martinez, MM.; Germann, U.... (2014). Interactive translation prediction versus conventional post-editing in practice: a study with the CasMaCat workbench. Machine Translation. 28(3-4):217-235. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10590-014-9157-9S217235283-4Alabau V, Leiva LA, Ortiz-Martínez D, Casacuberta F (2012) User evaluation of interactive machine translation systems. In: Proceedings of the 16th Annual Conference of the European Association for Machine Translation, pp 20–23Alabau V, Buck C, Carl M, Casacuberta F, García-Martínez M, Germann U, González-Rubio J, Hill R, Koehn P, Leiva L, Mesa-Lao B, Ortiz-Martínez D, Saint-Amand H, Sanchis-Trilles G, Tsoukala C (2014) Casmacat: A computer-assisted translation workbench. In: Proceedings of the 14th Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics, pp 25–28Alves F, Vale D (2009) Probing the unit of translation in time: aspects of the design and development of a web application for storing, annotating, and querying translation process data. Across Lang Cultures 10(2):251–273Bach N, Huang F, Al-Onaizan Y (2011) Goodness: A method for measuring machine translation confidence. In: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, pp 211–219Barrachina S, Bender O, Casacuberta F, Civera J, Cubel E, Khadivi S, Lagarda AL, Ney H, Tomás J, Vidal E, Vilar JM (2009) Statistical approaches to computer-assisted translation. Comput Linguist 35(1):3–28Brown PF, Della Pietra SA, Della Pietra VJ (1993) The mathematics of statistical machine translation: parameter estimation. Comput Linguist 19(2):263–311Callison-Burch C, Koehn P, Monz C, Post M, Soricut R, Specia L (2012) Findings of the 2012 workshop on statistical machine translation. In: Proceedings of the Seventh Workshop on Statistical Machine Translation, pp 10–51Carl M (2012a) The CRITT TPR-DB 1.0: A database for empirical human translation process research. In: Proceedings of the AMTA 2012 Workshop on Post-Editing Technology and Practice, pp 1–10Carl M (2012b) Translog-II: a program for recording user activity data for empirical reading and writing research. In: Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation, pp 4108–4112Carl M (2014) Produkt- und Prozesseinheiten in der CRITT Translation Process Research Database. In: Ahrens B (ed) Translationswissenschaftliches Kolloquium III: Beiträge zur Übersetzungs- und Dolmetschwissenschaft (Köln/Germersheim). Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main, pp 247–266Carl M, Kay M (2011) Gazing and typing activities during translation : a comparative study of translation units of professional and student translators. Meta 56(4):952–975Doherty S, O’Brien S, Carl M (2010) Eye tracking as an MT evaluation technique. Mach Transl 24(1):1–13Elming J, Carl M, Balling LW (2014) Investigating user behaviour in post-editing and translation using the Casmacat workbench. In: O’Brien S, Winther Balling L, Carl M, Simard M, Specia L (eds) Post-editing of machine translation: processes and applications. Cambridge Scholar Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, pp 147–169Federico M, Cattelan A, Trombetti M (2012) Measuring user productivity in machine translation enhanced computer assisted translation. In: Proceedings of the Tenth Biennial Conference of the Association for Machine Translation in the AmericasFlournoy R, Duran C (2009) Machine translation and document localization at adobe: From pilot to production. In: Proceedings of MT Summit XIIGreen S, Heer J, Manning CD (2013) The efficacy of human post-editing for language translation. In: Proceedings of SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp 439–448Guerberof A (2009) Productivity and quality in mt post-editing. In: Proceedings of MT Summit XII-Workshop: Beyond Translation Memories: New Tools for Translators MTGuerberof A (2012) Productivity and quality in the post-editing of outputs from translation memories and machine translation. Ph.D. ThesisJust MA, Carpenter PA (1980) A theory of reading: from eye fixations to comprehension. Psychol Rev 87(4):329Koehn P (2009a) A process study of computer-aided translation. Mach Transl 23(4):241–263Koehn P (2009b) A web-based interactive computer aided translation tool. In: Proceedings of ACL-IJCNLP 2009 Software Demonstrations, pp 17–20Krings HP (2001) Repairing texts: empirical investigations of machine translation post-editing processes, vol 5. Kent State University Press, KentLacruz I, Shreve GM, Angelone E (2012) Average pause ratio as an indicator of cognitive effort in post-editing: a case study. In: Proceedings of the AMTA 2012 Workshop on Post-Editing Technology and Practice, pp 21–30Langlais P, Foster G, Lapalme G (2000) Transtype: A computer-aided translation typing system. In: Proceedings of the 2000 NAACL-ANLP Workshop on Embedded Machine Translation Systems, pp 46–51Leiva LA, Alabau V, Vidal E (2013) Error-proof, high-performance, and context-aware gestures for interactive text edition. In: Proceedings of the 2013 annual conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems, pp 1227–1232Montgomery D (2004) Introduction to statistical quality control. Wiley, HobokenO’Brien S (2009) Eye tracking in translation process research: methodological challenges and solutions, Copenhagen Studies in Language, vol 38. Samfundslitteratur, Copenhagen, pp 251–266Ortiz-Martínez D, Casacuberta F (2014) The new Thot toolkit for fully automatic and interactive statistical machine translation. In: Proceedings of the 14th Annual Meeting of the European Association for Computational Linguistics: System Demonstrations, pp 45–48Plitt M, Masselot F (2010) A productivity test of statistical machine translation post-editing in a typical localisation context. 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Does the aldosterone: renin ratio predict the efficacy of spironolactone over bendroflumethiazide in hypertension? A clinical trial protocol for RENALDO (RENin-ALDOsterone) study

<p>Background: High blood pressure is an important determinant of cardiovascular disease risk. Treated hypertensives do not attain a risk level equivalent to normotensives. This may be a consequence of suboptimal blood pressure control to which indiscriminate use of antihypertensive drugs may contribute. Indeed the recent ALLHAT[1]study suggests that thiazides should be given first to virtually all hypertensives. Whether this is correct or whether different antihypertensive therapies should be targeted towards different patients is a major unresolved issue, which we address in this study.</p> <p>The measurement of the ratio of aldosterone: renin is used to identify hypertensive subjects who may respond well to treatment with the aldosterone antagonist spironolactone. It is not known if subjects with a high ratio have aldosteronism or aldosterone-sensitive hypertension is debated but it is important to know whether spironolactone is superior to other diuretics such as bendroflumethiazide in this setting.</p> <p>Methods/design: The study is a double-blind, randomised, crossover, controlled trial that will randomise 120 hypertensive subjects to 12 weeks treatment with spironolactone 50 mg once daily and 12 weeks treatment with bendroflumethiazide 2.5 mg once daily. The 2 treatment periods are separated by a 2-week washout period. Randomisation is stratified by aldosterone: renin ratio to include equal numbers of subjects with high and low aldosterone: renin ratios.</p> <p>Primary Objective – To test the hypothesis that the aldosterone: renin ratio predicts the antihypertensive response to spironolactone, specifically that the effect of spironolactone 50 mg is greater than that of bendroflumethiazide 2.5 mg in hypertensive subjects with high aldosterone: renin ratios.</p> <p>Secondary Objectives – To determine whether bendroflumethiazide induces adverse metabolic abnormalities, especially in subjects with high aldosterone: renin ratios and if baseline renin measurement predicts the antihypertensive response to spironolactone and/or bendrofluazide.</p> <p>Discussion: The numerous deleterious effects of hypertension dictate the need for a systematic approach for its treatment. In spite of various therapies, resistant hypertension is widely prevalent. Among various factors, primary aldosteronism is an important cause of resistant hypertension and is now more commonly recognised. More significantly, hypertensives with primary aldosteronism are also exposed to various other deleterious effects of excess aldosterone. Hence treating hypertension with specific aldosterone antagonists may be a better approach in this group of patients. It may lead on to better blood pressures with fewer medications.</p&gt

QT dispersion in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus: the impact of disease activity

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) have increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Although autopsy studies have documented that the heart is affected in most SLE patients, clinical manifestations occur in less than 10%. QT dispersion is a new parameter that can be used to assess homogeneity of cardiac repolarization and autonomic function. We compared the increase in QT dispersion in SLE patients with high disease activity and mild or moderate disease activity.</p> <p>Methods and Results</p> <p>One hundred twenty-four patients with SLE were enrolled in the study. Complete history and physical exam, ECG, echocardiography, exercise test and SLE disease activity index (SLEDAI) were recorded. Twenty patients were excluded on the basis of our exclusion criteria. The patients were divided to two groups based on SLEDAI: 54 in the high-score group (SLEDAI > 10) and 50 in the low-score group (SLEDAI < 10).</p> <p>QT dispersion was significantly higher in high-score group (58.31 ± 18.66 vs. 47.90 ± 17.41 respectively; <it>P </it>< 0.004). QT dispersion was not significantly higher in patients who had received hydroxychloroquine (54.17 ± 19.36 vs. 50.82 ± 15.96, <it>P </it>= 0.45) or corticosteroids (53.58 ± 19.16 vs. 50.40 + 11.59, <it>P </it>= 0.47). There was a statistically significant correlation between abnormal echocardiographic findings (abnormalities of pericardial effusion, pericarditis, pulmonary hypertension and Libman-Sacks endocarditis) and SLEADI (<it>P </it>< 0.004).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>QT dispersion can be a useful, simple noninvasive method for the early detection of cardiac involvement in SLE patients with active disease. Concerning high chance of cardiac involvement, cardiovascular evaluation for every SLE patient with a SLEDAI higher than 10 may be recommended.</p> <p>Trial registration</p> <p>Clinicaltrial.gov registration <a href="http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01031797">NCT01031797</a></p

Neoproterozoic to early Paleozoic extensional and compressional history of East Laurentian margin sequences: The Moine Supergroup, Scottish Caledonides

Neoproterozoic siliciclastic-dominated sequences are widespread along the eastern margin of Laurentia and are related to rifting associated with the breakout of Laurentia from the supercontinent Rodinia. Detrital zircons from the Moine Supergroup, NW Scotland, yield Archean to early Neoproterozoic U-Pb ages, consistent with derivation from the Grenville-Sveconorwegian orogen and environs and accumulation post–1000 Ma. U-Pb zircon ages for felsic and associated mafic intrusions confirm a widespread pulse of extension-related magmatism at around 870 Ma. Pegmatites yielding U-Pb zircon ages between 830 Ma and 745 Ma constrain a series of deformation and metamorphic pulses related to Knoydartian orogenesis of the host Moinerocks. Additional U-Pb zircon and monazite data, and 40Ar/39Ar ages for pegmatites and host gneisses indicate high-grade metamorphic events at ca. 458–446 Ma and ca. 426 Maduring the Caledonian orogenic cycle.The presence of early Neoproterozoic silici clastic sedimentation and deformation in the Moine and equivalent successions around the North Atlantic and their absence along strike in eastern North America reflect contrasting Laurentian paleogeography during the breakup of Rodinia. The North Atlantic realm occupied an external location on the margin of Laurentia, and this region acted as a locus for accumulation of detritus (Moine Supergroup and equivalents) derived from the Grenville-Sveconorwegian orogenic welt, which developed as a consequence of collisional assembly of Rodinia. Neoproterozoic orogenic activity corresponds with theinferred development of convergent platemargin activity along the periphery of the supercontinent. In contrast in eastern North America, which lay within the internal parts of Rodinia, sedimentation did not commence until the mid-Neoproterozoic (ca. 760 Ma) during initial stages of supercontinent fragmentation. In the North Atlantic region, this time frame corresponds to a second pulse of extension represented by units such as the Dalradian Supergroup, which unconformably overlies the predeformed Moine succession

New palaeoproterozoic palaeomagnetic data from Central and Northern Finland indicate a long-lived stable position for Fennoscandia

The Svecofennian gabbro intrusions coincide temporally with the global 2100-1800 Ma orogens related to the amalgamation of the Mesoproterozoic supercontinent Nuna. We provide a new reliable 1891-1875 Ma palaeomagnetic pole for Fennoscandia based on rock magnetic and palaeomagnetic studies on the Svecofennian intrusions in central Finland to fill gaps in the Palaeoproterozoic palaeomagnetic record. By using the new pole together with other global high-quality data, we propose a new palaeogeographic reconstruction at 1885 Ma. This, together with previous data, supports a long-lived relatively stable position of Fennoscandia at low to moderate latitudes at 1890-1790 Ma. Similar stable pole positions have also been obtained for Kalahari at 1880-1830 Ma, Siberia at 1880-1850 Ma, and possibly India at 1980-1775 Ma. A new reconstruction at the beginning of this period indicates the convergence of several cratons at 1885 Ma in the initial stages of the amalgamation of the Nuna supercontinent at low to moderate latitudes. The close proximity of cratons at low to moderate latitudes is further supported by global and regional palaeoclimatic indicators. Stable position of several cratons could indicate a global period of minimal apparent drift at ca. 1880-1830 Ma. Before this period, the global palaeomagnetic record indicates large back-and-forth swings, most prominently seen in the high-resolution 2020-1870 Ma Coronation loops of the Slave craton. These large back-and-forth movements have been explained as resulting from an unstable geomagnetic field or basin- or local-scale vertical-axis rotations. However, the most likely explanation is inertial interchange true polar wander (IITPW) events, which is in line with the suggestion of large amplitude true polar wander events during the formation of the supercontinent.Validerad;2023;Nivå 2;2023-10-11 (joosat);CC BY 4.0 LicenseFunder: University of Helsinki; Academy of Finland (#288277); Petter and Margit Forsström Foundation</p