Search

Automatic Ultrasonic Testing (AUT) systems for pipeline girth weld inspections are usually subjected to a qualification process. This process consists of assessment of performance capabilities including detection, sizing, temperature range and repeatability. One of the most demanding qualification programmes is described in DNV ST-F101 Appendix E [1]. With the introduction of the AUT module in the 2023 edition of CIVA simulation software, the incorporation of metamodeling allows users to predict detection reliability via probability of detection (POD) and sizing accuracy of the zonal discrimination method (ZDM) using amplitude apportioning. Part 1 of this project demonstrated the ability of CIVA to simulate the calibration block and strip chart output. In Part 2 we illustrate the techniques that can be used to predict POD and sizing accuracy as might be done in a system qualification. Results compare well to field data.

In this study we aim to test the impact of applying translation error taxonomies oriented towards European Languages in the annotation of Asian Languages. We aim to demonstrate how an error typology adapted for the latter languages can not only result in more linguistically accurate annotations, but also how this can be applied to automating and scaling translation quality evaluation. As such, we propose a Translation Errors Typology that aims to cover the shortcomings of the Multidimensional Quality Metrics (Lommel et al. 2014) framework (MQM) in what concerns the annotation of the East Asian Languages of Mandarin, Japanese and Korean. The effectiveness of the typology here proposed was tested by analysing the Inter-annotator agreement (IAA) scores obtained, in contrast with the typology proposed by Ye and Toral (2020) and the Unbabel Error Typology1. Finally, we propose a way of automating Translation Quality Workflows through a Quality Estimation (QE) technology that is able to predict the MQM scores of machine translation outputs at scale with a fair correlation with the human judgement produced by applying the East Asian Languages MQM module proposed in this study.

The main standards relating to AUT (Automated Ultrasonic Testing) using zonal discrimination have long had requirements to incorporate separate channels dedicated to detecting volumetric flaws. However, none of the standards specify how the beams are to be configured. The instructions are quite generic indicating that the channels are to ensure the complete volumetric examination of the weld through-thickness. Scattering flat bottom hole targets in a calibration block such that they evenly distribute in the volume is not a guarantee that the target placement provides the required complete volume coverage. This paper illustrates how the Coverage component of the CIVA AUT module helps to identify the best placement of volumetric targets in an AUT Zonal Discrimination procedure and prevents target redundancy.

Few debates in modern academia are as heated as the one among scholars who consider the arrival of bubonic plague in Constantinople in the spring of 542 as a demographic and social disaster and those who argue for less tumultuous outcomes. Whatever side one stands on in the current discussion, the pandemic’s immediate impact on the administration, economy, politics, society and religious culture within Constantinople and the wider empire seems clear. In this article I will suggest that increased competition amongst Constantinople’s elites for a shrunken pool of suitable brides and grooms for their sons and daughters was one hitherto underappreciated result of the pandemic. The sixth-century eastern Roman historian, Procopius of Caesarea, offers ample evidence not only about the devastation wrought by the bubonic plague but also its impact on the political alliances in Constantinople. His digressions in Secret History concerning marital politicking amongst Constantinople’s elites provide evidence of this impact. Capitalizing on advances in our knowledge about Procopius both as an author and historical figure, I will analyze his writings on three levels: as history, literature and propaganda. By pondering what motivated Procopius to focus on these marital alliances and, moreover, pondering links between them, the paper offers some revisionist takes on these digressions, both as literary devices and as actual events.

One of the many important lessons imparted by corpus linguistics is that the information supplied in dictionaries and grammars represents no more than the tip of an iceberg. In lexicography, the object of description is fundamentally the lemma. When more specific details are not supplied, the assumption on the part of the average dictionary user is in all probability that the various forms of any given lemma show not only similar frequency and lexical environment but also similar meaning. It would appear that inflectional forms are under-represented in dictionaries. In the literature, very little attention has been devoted to inflectional forms, and in particular to their raw frequency. The frequency rates of the forms of a single lemma can not only differ markedly from each other but can also prove to be far higher or lower than the average for single inflectional forms, something which has important implications for language learners and which could therefore claim more emphasis in language-learning materials. The main focus of this paper will be on the frequency of inflectional verb forms as represented in dictionaries, including a final case study of the frequency of such forms within some idiomatic expressions. The question lying at the heart of this work is whether the raw frequency of inflectional forms should occupy a more important position in language-learning materials. However this may be, the counting of inflectional forms can reveal new and surprising insights into the vast and mostly untamed wilderness of language.

Air pollution is a serious environmental problem in Latin American cities. Although the problem is widely studied, collaborative solutions from city planners and urban climatologists have been slow to evolve. In this article, we demonstrate the severity of the problem in the mountain city of Manizales, Colombia, and offer “urban climatic mapping” as an appropriate tool to ease communication between scientists and planners. We take a comprehensive approach involving topographic, demographic, and atmospheric datasets, which are assembled and analysed in a GIS environment. Our maps show that the mountain-valley wind patterns in Manizales are critically important for ventilating the city and improving air quality. We therefore give planning recommendations to protect and enhance the natural airsheds and airflow systems of Manizales through modification of the built form. Recommendations are also given to reduce pollutant loading in the narrow streets of the historical centre, and to expand the network of environmental monitoring stations across the city. The expansion is designed in accordance with international guidelines for siting meteorological instruments in urban areas, and is intended to serve new uses for the network data, to include community planning, environmental mapping, and urban climate education.

Osmia (Melanosmia) uncinata Gerstäcker is a Palaearctic megachilid bee distributed from temperate and northern Europe eastwards to the Russian Far East. The discovery of over 80 nests in Switzerland, southern Germany and Scotland enabled for the first time a closer investigation of its nesting biology and prompted the assessment of the species’ phenology, distribution and habitat. O. uncinata nested in self-excavated burrows inside the bark of both living trunks and dead stumps of Pinus sylvestris. The nests were excavated at a height of 10–220 cm above ground either on the underside of prominences of longitudinal bark ribs or inside beetle borings and extended more or less vertically upwards. They consisted of a single straight to slightly curved burrow with rarely one to three side burrows, had a total length of 1.2–12.0 cm and contained 1–6 brood cells. The brood cells, which faced downwards with the larval provisions being located in the upper cell half, were separated from each other by one-layered walls of chewed leaves (“leaf pulp”). The nests were sealed with a plug of 2–4 closely adjacent walls of leaf pulp. DNA metabarcoding of cell and plug walls revealed that Potentilla and Fragaria (Rosaceae) served as leaf pulp sources. Pre-imaginal mortality amounted to 77%, partly caused by brood parasites such as Sapyga similis (Sapygidae) and Cacoxenus indagator (Drosophilidae) or predators such as snakeflies (Raphidioptera). At low elevations, O. uncinata needs one year for its development and overwinters as imago inside the nest, whereas in the subalpine zone of the Alps it has a two-year cycle passing the first winter as prepupa and the second winter as imago. O. uncinata starts to emerge between the end of March at low elevations and the end of May at higher elevations qualifying as an early flying bee like the other European O. (Melanosmia) species. The distribution of O. uncinata in Central Europe and Scotland largely coincides with the occurrence of P. sylvestris. As in the pine, it extends over a wide altitudinal range from below 100 m up to 1900 m a.s.l. and encompasses dry and wet as well as warm and cold habitats including open pine forests, inner and outer forest edges dominated by pine and isolated pine groups. At a few locations in the subalpine zone of the Alps, O. uncinata occurs in the absence of P. sylvestris; here, the thick bark of Larix decidua serves as a substitute nesting substrate.

The labels ‘passive’ and ‘progressive,’ as well as ‘not passive’ and ‘not progressive,’ are those most commonly adopted in English monolingual learners’ dictionaries to indicate the grammatical category of verb headwords. However, it can happen that for specific verbs very different indications are provided from one dictionary to the next, a fact which would appear to derive primarily from diverging interpretations of corpus data on the part of lexicographers, and more specifically, from diverging interpretations of which corpus occurrences qualify as passive and progressive respectively for any given verb. This will lead to the discussion of a suggested conflict of form and function in corpus lexicography. Further, it is striking that the labels passive and progressive are prioritised at the expense of other verb labels such as imperative–used very sparingly in dictionaries–simple present, perfective and first person, which are not used at all. The corpus consulted is primarily the British Web 2007 (ukWac), but comparisons will be made with data from the British National Corpus.

1950 was a pivotal year in the production and release of British London-set films. Ealing studios released The Blue Lamp (Basil Dearden, 1950) in January 1950, while Ealing’s The Lavender Hill Mob (Charles Crichton, 1951) and Pool of London (Basil Dearden, 1951) went into production in the same year. Then, in June 1950, Twentieth-Century Fox released Anglo-American production Night and the City (Jules Dassin, 1950). For critics, The Blue Lamp sealed Ealing’s reputation to capture a recognisable London, rooted in specific districts with ‘ordinary’ inhabitants with a community ethos. The Blue Lamp set the barometer for London-set films to follow. Indeed, British critics derided Night and the City as an inauthentic depiction of London, one created by ‘outsider’ Jules Dassin, in comparison to Ealing’s ‘familiar’ London. This paper firstly examines of archival documents of the production of location shooting in The Blue Lamp, to demonstrate how the film sealed Ealing’s reputation to capture a recognisable London, rooted in specific districts with ‘ordinary’ inhabitants with a community ethos. It then examines and compares the critical reception of The Blue Lamp and Night and the City, to explore discourses around ‘home-grown’ versus ‘outsider’ perceptions of London in the immediate postwar period.

Siem Reap, Cambodia’s tourism growth has been remarkable. Since most tourists are native English speakers, tourist industry (TI) employees need high levels of English communication ability (ECA) to handle tasks effectively, but data in Cambodia has been difficult to find. To fill this gap, the author wanted to collect employees’ general and English education information during interviews in six TI related businesses, to assess their ECA, and to statistically examine interactions of English variables with income. The author created an English assessment test loosely based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). Statistical analysis found direct positive influence from English ability on income. Findings also showed that employees who have advanced levels of English ability earn USD200 per month, double the salary of garment workers. This type of research can be used profitably over the Internet in many research situations.

The Landscapes of Injustice project seeks to encode mid-twentieth-century documents by and about the Japanese-Canadian community so they are accessible to modern audiences. The fundamental problem is that some of the kanji used at that time have been replaced since then by different kanji, and others have been removed from lists of formally acceptable characters. This report documents our efforts with two technologies designed to address this situation. The first is the Standardized Variation Sequence (SVS) feature of Unicode. Our work revealed that this set of variation sequences does not completely cover the old and new glyph pairs identified by the Japanese authorities, and that the pairs formally identified by the Japanese authorities do not completely cover all the new glyph forms in general use. We turned to TEI’s , , and elements as a second technology to augment the support provided by Unicode. Lastly, we dealt with the issue of finding suitably qualified people to do the markup. The result is markup which retains the original glyphs and relates them to the modern glyphs, so that in our output products we will be able to support search and display using either form of the glyph.

The Association for Project Management (APM) is engaged in the process of raising the status and performance of Project Management (PM) in the UK. They have obtained a royal charter, regarded as the “locus of professionalisation”, but can the APM really assist PM to achieve “a world where all projects succeed”, when there is no provable link between professionalisation and performance of practitioners? This current claim alone (along with chartership) will not improve the profession’s market reputation, which also raises concerns regarding the APM tactics for growth by engaging practitioners and corporate partners. This article uses actor-network theory to re-frame a historical case of the major UK Cost Accounting Association (ICWA), identifying the tactics this association used to effectively represent the value of the occupation/profession and influence their markets. Parallels and recommendations are generated for the APM, research directions are proposed for PM professionalisation and associations’ tactics for building market value.

O presente trabalho objetiva promover uma análise de cunho jurídico-filosófico acerca da criminalização de condutas consideradas contrárias à moral. Ao longo dos últimos anos, as discussões sobre a criminalização de algumas condutas consideradas imorais, tais como a pornografia, o aborto e a eutanásia, têm dividido a opinião de diversos estudiosos e setores da sociedade civil. Partindo das posições favoráveis e contrárias à ingerência do direito no campo da moral, buscar-se-á refletir sobre a temática com base nos estudos de Ronald Dworkin. O presente estudo se desenvolveu através de revisão bibliográfica, sendo a pesquisa efetivada, quanto à abordagem, de forma qualitativa.

While the democratic paradigm of governance and its constituent political processes are well established in Australia, consistently negative media representations of people seeking asylum may be viewed as justification for institutional decisions allowing continued punitive treatment of people seeking asylum on Australian shores. Historically, notions of Australian sovereignty exist as a changing discourse with reference to land claims and the Australian Indigenous population (O’Dowd 2011; Due 2008). However, in terms of contemporary political claims about Australia’s need to enforce border protection policies, notions of sovereignty are consistently framed through the themes, images and language of military discourses. Media scholar, John Street suggests that although there is disagreement about whether specific political outcomes can be attributed to press influence, the role of television in politics has been more comprehensively established as shaping broader world views in regards to ideas, values and practices that are considered ‘common-sense’ (Street 2011; Craig 2013). This paper argues that the increasing role of the military in the treatment and processing of people seeking asylum may be justified, through repetitive negative media representations of asylum seekers which secures public support for such practices, thereby undermining the very principles of the democratic paradigm, and indeed the role of the media or ‘fourth estate’(Schultz 1998) in a functioning democracy.

Word Sketches are automatic, corpus-based summaries – one or two pages in length – of a word’s grammatical and collocational behaviour. Word Sketch is one of the many facilities offered by Sketch Engine and has been extensively adopted by lexicographers in view of its detailed and visually friendly features. However, dictionaries can provide only a limited amount of information and therefore may not necessarily report specific grammatical and/or semantic features – in particular semantic prosodies – of the word in question. This paper offers a critical analysis of examples of Bilingual Word Sketch searches across English and Italian, with particular reference to cognates of the two languages with apparently similar meanings, in an attempt to shed light on the advantages and disadvantages of Word Sketch to investigate cross-language near-synonym differentiation.

Glamorous and stylish, perfume is an evocative product that provokes a stimulus of the senses. The use of perfume is recognised as a significant part of daily grooming for many women. It is suggested that the basis for consumer choice for this product should be based on olfactory preference, however the process related decision-making has been shown to be more complex. The mature consumer purchase decision making in this product category is often associated with long standing, established, luxury fragrance brands. In addition, at the frontline of the perfume sales process are fragrance consultants. With direct contact to the consumer, these ‘brand ambassadors’ possess invaluable information on consumer involvement with perfume products and brands. Hence, this paper investigates CBR (consumer brand relationship) and the subsequent perfume purchase behaviour of mature female consumers (age +44) from a dual (industry and consumer) perspective. Results indicate that important perceptual differences related to brand relationships with perfume exist between fragrance consultants and experts on one hand and consumers on the other. This research promotes a deeper understanding of current consumer approach and issues surrounding female mature purchasing behaviour for this unique category of product, and, complements the growing body of literature related to luxury brands.

Independent retailers in the fashion sector make a substantial contribution to the UK economy at the time of significant change on the high street due to financial pressures and the growth of online trade. They provide an element of creativity and innovation to a homogenous retail landscape. The independent fashion retailer creates a destination and individual identity by presenting a unique offering and differentiated experience. Whilst independent retailers are important to the future of our high street, research is limited, particularly in the area of fashion independents. Therefore this research examines and identifies the unique characteristics of independent fashion retailers within Scotland. The research adopts a case study approach, qualitative methods of data collection in order to fulfil the aim and objectives of the study. Porter’s Generic Competitive Strategies and the marketing mix were utilised as a means of drawing out the individual aspects and unique characteristics of the independent fashion retailer.

Aquest article explora la recuperació de la tradició femenina de la novel·la policíaca clàssica en tres novel·les criminals de l'autora catalana Teresa Solana: Un crim imperfecte (2006), Drecera al paradís (2007) i L'hora zen. Un crim refinat (2011). En prendre com a punt de partida la reinterpretació de l'obra de Christie, Sayers i altres escriptores de la novel·la policíaca clàssica que les crítiques feministes han portat a terme els últims anys, l'article manté que Solana recupera i reivindica la tradició femenina per fer una crítica política i cultural de la societat barcelonina contemporània. A més a més, l'obra de Solana fa possible una nova lectura i una nova apreciació d’aquest subgènere tradicionalment menyspreat pels escriptors i crítics masculins.

En muchas de las encrucijadas de mi vida, ha sido un libro el que me ha enseñado el mejor camino; en algunas ocasiones varios libros han conspirado para ofrecerme un consejo imposible de rechazar.

Focusing on Roman Britain but using examples across the empire, this article examines the relevance of geography to the form and distribution of "provincialized" classical imagery in the Roman period. This must be explained with reference to the competence of the craftsmen, the expectations of provincial artists and viewers, and geological factors. In some cases geology rather than culture seems to have a surprisingly large role in determining the presence and absence of sculpture. Attention to the material complexities of the geography of provincial sculpture provides a useful foil to considering Roman imperial art as a pervasive visual culture.

Under Leandro v. State, the North Carolina Constitution guarantees a sound basic education for all students in public schools. North Carolina is failing to meet that demand with respect to the state's homeless students. Testing data from at least the last decade shows that there is a long-standing achievement gap between homeless students and their peers. This demonstrates that homeless students are not obtaining a sound basic education. Moreover, this failure is the result of both the state's action and inaction. There are, however, a number of solutions the state can implement to remedy its constitutional violation. This Comment explores the extent of North Carolina's failures to provide the constitutionally promised education to homeless students and offers solutions the state can use to ensure homeless students receive their sound basic education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]