Mono- and cross-lingual paraphrased text reuse and extrinsic plagiarism detection

Text reuse is the act of borrowing text (either verbatim or paraphrased) from an earlier written text. It could occur within the same language (mono-lingual) or across languages (cross-lingual) where the reused text is in a different language than the original text. Text reuse and its related problem, plagiarism (the unacknowledged reuse of text), are becoming serious issues in many fields and research shows that paraphrased and especially the cross-lingual cases of reuse are much harder to detect. Moreover, the recent rise in readily available multi-lingual content on the Web and social media has increased the problem to an unprecedented scale. To develop, compare, and evaluate automatic methods for mono- and crosslingual text reuse and extrinsic (finding portion(s) of text that is reused from the original text) plagiarism detection, standard evaluation resources are of utmost importance. However, previous efforts on developing such resources have mostly focused on English and some other languages. On the other hand, the Urdu language, which is widely spoken and has a large digital footprint, lacks resources in terms of core language processing tools and corpora. With this consideration in mind, this PhD research focuses on developing standard evaluation corpora, methods, and supporting resources to automatically detect mono-lingual (Urdu) and cross-lingual (English-Urdu) cases of text reuse and extrinsic plagiarism This thesis contributes a mono-lingual (Urdu) text reuse corpus (COUNTER Corpus) that contains real cases of Urdu text reuse at document-level. Another contribution is the development of a mono-lingual (Urdu) extrinsic plagiarism corpus (UPPC Corpus) that contains simulated cases of Urdu paraphrase plagiarism. Evaluation results, by applying a wide range of state-of-the-art mono-lingual methods on both corpora, shows that it is easier to detect verbatim cases than paraphrased ones. Moreover, the performance of these methods decreases considerably on real cases of reuse. A couple of supporting resources are also created to assist methods used in the cross-lingual (English-Urdu) text reuse detection. A large-scale multi-domain English-Urdu parallel corpus (EUPC-20) that contains parallel sentences is mined from the Web and several bi-lingual (English-Urdu) dictionaries are compiled using multiple approaches from different sources. Another major contribution of this study is the development of a large benchmark cross-lingual (English-Urdu) text reuse corpus (TREU Corpus). It contains English to Urdu real cases of text reuse at the document-level. A diversified range of methods are applied on the TREU Corpus to evaluate its usefulness and to show how it can be utilised in the development of automatic methods for measuring cross-lingual (English-Urdu) text reuse. A new cross-lingual method is also proposed that uses bilingual word embeddings to estimate the degree of overlap amongst text documents by computing the maximum weighted cosine similarity between word pairs. The overall low evaluation results indicate that it is a challenging task to detect crosslingual real cases of text reuse, especially when the language pairs have unrelated scripts, i.e., English-Urdu. However, an improvement in the result is observed using a combination of methods used in the experiments. The research work undertaken in this PhD thesis contributes corpora, methods, and supporting resources for the mono- and cross-lingual text reuse and extrinsic plagiarism for a significantly under-resourced Urdu and English-Urdu language pair. It highlights that paraphrased and cross-lingual cross-script real cases of text reuse are harder to detect and are still an open issue. Moreover, it emphasises the need to develop standard evaluation and supporting resources for under-resourced languages to facilitate research in these languages. The resources that have been developed and methods proposed could serve as a framework for future research in other languages and language pairs

UPPC - Urdu Paraphrase Plagiarism Corpus

Paraphrase plagiarism is a significant and widespread problem and research shows that it is hard to detect. Several methods and automatic systems have been proposed to deal with it. However, evaluation and comparison of such solutions is not possible because of the unavailability of benchmark corpora with manual examples of paraphrase plagiarism. To deal with this issue, we present the novel development of a paraphrase plagiarism corpus containing simulated (manually created) examples in the Urdu language - a language widely spoken around the world. This resource is the first of its kind developed for the Urdu language and we believe that it will be a valuable contribution to the evaluation of paraphrase plagiarism detection systems

WORK-FAMILY CONFLICT AND CAREER ORIENTATION AMONGST EMPLOYED WOMEN IN BANKS AND HOSPITALS

The changing environment of banking and health carebusiness is altering the demands of organizations regarding femaleemployees’ performance and expectations. Consequently, this has ledinto believing that female employees need to be as apt and productiveas their male counterparts. Questing for productivity, banking andhospital organizations expect from these female employees their full-time availability through organizational commitment. They oftenoverlook the truth that female employees have a family to cater to andhave simultaneous roles to play. This initiates the most commonlyobserved problem of Work-family conflict (WFC) amongst female fulltime banking and hospital employees in Pakistan. The study employedthe survey methodology comprising 131 randomly selected full-timefemale banking and hospital workers through self-administeredquestionnaire. The study finds that there is no significant differencein the opinions of the employed female hospital and banking officialspertaining to their experienced level of work-life conflict

Guillian-Barre syndrome after COVID-19 infection: a case report

Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) is an auto-immune disorder characterized by ascending motor weakness with hypo-reflexia or areflexia. In GBS molecular mimicry leads to the targeting of peripheral nerves. The treatment of GBS is mainly supportive, however, the definitive management of GBS includes IVIGs (intravenous immunoglobulins) and plasma exchange (plasmapheresis). We reported a case of 42 year old man who presented with weakness of both lower limbs associated with pain and numbness after recovering from COVID-19 infection. Clinical examination, radiological findings and lab results confirmed the diagnosis of GBS. He was admitted in the hospital and treated with intravenous immunoglobulins along with periodic cardiac, respiratory and neurological assessment. The patient showed a substantial response to intravenous immunoglobulins and resulted in a remarkable recovery with no residual motor or sensory deficit

Consumer Perception towards Brand Slogans:An investigative study towards Consumer Perception in the Malaysian Automobile Industry

This dissertation focuses on the concerned attribute of brand which would be the primary investigative entity of this dissertation; brand expression/ brand message/ brand tagline/brand slogan. Brand slogans are exploited as a marketing tool to facilitate message diffusion among the consumer market, as well as a powerful tool for targeted segment’s brand positioning (Cheng et al, 2006). In our every day lives, we come across hundreds of brands with several brand slogans targeting at different level of positioning towards the consumer mind. Having this in mind, this dissertation is motivated by a series of inquiries; have we ever critically analyzed these brand slogans? Are they just complimentary to a powerful brand? Do they enable the company to communicate with the consumer? Is it a viable form of marketing communications? All these questions lead to our discussion of what do these brand slogans mean to a consumer and how consumers perceive them. In this research, the previewed agenda’s will be incorporated from the perspective of the automobile industry in Malaysia. Brand slogan awareness, brand personality and consumer perceived value were tested for the brand Proton and Honda. Results achieve show significant discrepancies for the brand Proton, where as favorable and fulfilling perception towards Honda. The second phase of this dissertation tested the three constructs for the significant relationship to general consumer perception. The results state perceived social value statistically significant in impacting consumer’s perception towards brand slogan

‘Violating my home boundaries makes me dislike my job’: a multiple mediation model

The purpose of this study is to understand negative outcomes of boundary violation events or interruptions at home in which the work life crosses the home boundaries. In the line of boundary theory and affective events theory, the aim of this study is to analyze the effect of daily events of boundary violations at home on work interference with family (WIF). Moreover, incorporating the ego depletion theory, we study the impact of WIF on an individual’s emotional state (i.e., emotional exhaustion), and the impact of emotional exhaustion on job satisfaction. The data were collected through questionnaires (daily diary method for boundary violations and at one point in time for other variables) from the manufacturing (textile) sector of Pakistan. The results indicate a direct negative effect of average boundary violations at home on job satisfaction and an indirect negative impact through the sequential mediation of WIF and emotional exhaustion. Theoretical and managerial implications are also discussed

An Investigation of the Relationship between Thematic Thinking and Innovative Work Behavior among Managers: The Mediating Role of Open-mindedness

There exists empirical evidence that thematic thinking through the mediation of innovativeness impacts employee performance. We, in an explorative manner, went further to understand the underlying mechanism which promotes innovative work-related behavior. We collected data from individuals at R&D assignments of various organizations where new ideas and products are developed. A total of 295 survey forms were collected, and the analysis was done using the PROCESS Macro for SPSS in order to test the mediation model. The results revealed that thematic thinking was positively linked to open-mindedness and innovative work behavior; also open-mindedness mediated the relationship between thematic thinking and innovative work behavior. This study has explored, tested, and empirically proved a novel relation in the local context of R&D related individuals (managers) working in diverse fields. The current research extends thematic thinking in the domain of cognition, innovation, and workplace behavior. It concludes that managerial decision making is elemental in performing innovatively. Practical and managerial implications, limitations, and future research directions are discussed to enrich the domain of thematic similarity further

Kartarpur Corridor: A Gate Way to Peace in South Asia (Evolution, Development, Prospects & Implications)

The opening of kartarpur corridor project between India and Pakistan on Nov 9,2019 provides a rational and peace-loving response from the either side despite a complicated situation of trust deficit, antagonism and unsolved conflicts exist in the region. It becomes a passage of greater social and economic connectivity between the South Asian arch rival Nuclear States. It teaches the lesson for promulgation of secular ideas and tolerance towards minorities with in the religious democracy like Pakistan. How political and economic empowerment of the people in South Asia can be materialized without any religious discrimination by a courageous leadership? The kartarpur corridor has provided visa free access to the Sikh pilgrims from India and across theWorld to worship at their holiest shrine. The practical working of the corridor since its construction with certain modalities has proved as a remarkable foot in the context of people to people and bilateral relations between India and Pakistan. The qualitative, descriptive and comparative approaches have applied to examine, that the project can produce further opportunity to get forward for more peace in the region. There are other options of dialogue diplomacy, conflict resolution and bilateral trade to combat the evils of poverty, hunger and ignorance in South Asia