scholarly journals A large-scale object database based on representative sampling of the English language

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (10) ◽  
pp. 392
Author(s):  
Adam Dickter ◽  
Martin Hebart ◽  
Alexis Kidder ◽  
Wan Kwok ◽  
Chris Baker
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
English Language ◽  
Representative Sampling ◽  
Object Database

scholarly journals Precision Agriculture for Resource Use Efficiency in Smallholder Farming Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Systematic Review

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1158
Author(s):  
Cecilia M. Onyango ◽  
Justine M. Nyaga ◽  
Johanna Wetterlind ◽  
Mats Söderström ◽  
Kristin Piikki
Keyword(s):  
Resource Use ◽  
Precision Agriculture ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
English Language ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Smallholder Farmers ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Smallholder Farming ◽  
Sub Saharan

Opportunities exist for adoption of precision agriculture technologies in all parts of the world. The form of precision agriculture may vary from region to region depending on technologies available, knowledge levels and mindsets. The current review examined research articles in the English language on precision agriculture practices for increased productivity among smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. A total of 7715 articles were retrieved and after screening 128 were reviewed. The results indicate that a number of precision agriculture technologies have been tested under SSA conditions and show promising results. The most promising precision agriculture technologies identified were the use of soil and plant sensors for nutrient and water management, as well as use of satellite imagery, GIS and crop-soil simulation models for site-specific management. These technologies have been shown to be crucial in attainment of appropriate management strategies in terms of efficiency and effectiveness of resource use in SSA. These technologies are important in supporting sustainable agricultural development. Most of these technologies are, however, at the experimental stage, with only South Africa having applied them mainly in large-scale commercial farms. It is concluded that increased precision in input and management practices among SSA smallholder farmers can significantly improve productivity even without extra use of inputs.

Role of N-Acetylcysteine in the Prevention of Radiocontrast-Induced Nephropathy

2002 ◽  
Vol 36 (9) ◽  
pp. 1466-1470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald F Brophy
Keyword(s):  
Renal Failure ◽  
Acute Renal Failure ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
English Language ◽  
Small Animal ◽  
Human Studies ◽  
Animal Trials ◽  
Study Selection ◽  
Risk Patients

OBJECTIVE: To examine the role of N-acetylcysteine (NAC) in the prevention of radiocontrast—induced nephropathy (RIN). DATA SOURCES: A literature search of MEDLINE (1966–December 2001) was performed using the following search terms: N-acetylcysteine, nephropathy, acute renal failure, and radiocontrast. STUDY SELECTION: Pertinent English-language animal and human studies were reviewed. DATA SYNTHESIS: Few small animal trials have demonstrated that NAC significantly prevents the development or reduces the severity of acute renal failure. Two human studies demonstrated NAC significantly reduces the occurrence of RIN. CONCLUSIONS: NAC may reduce the occurrence of RIN in high-risk patients. Further large-scale studies are needed to corroborate findings from earlier trials.

scholarly journals U-Vectors: Generating Clusterable Speaker Embedding from Unlabeled Data

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (21) ◽  
pp. 10079
Author(s):  
Muhammad Firoz Mridha ◽  
Abu Quwsar Ohi ◽  
Muhammad Mostafa Monowar ◽  
Md. Abdul Hamid ◽  
Md. Rashedul Islam ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Speaker Recognition ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
English Language ◽  
Domain Adaptation ◽  
Recognition System ◽  
Extraction Process ◽  
Unlabeled Data ◽  
Training Strategy ◽  
Speech Segment ◽  
Recognition Systems

Speaker recognition deals with recognizing speakers by their speech. Most speaker recognition systems are built upon two stages, the first stage extracts low dimensional correlation embeddings from speech, and the second performs the classification task. The robustness of a speaker recognition system mainly depends on the extraction process of speech embeddings, which are primarily pre-trained on a large-scale dataset. As the embedding systems are pre-trained, the performance of speaker recognition models greatly depends on domain adaptation policy, which may reduce if trained using inadequate data. This paper introduces a speaker recognition strategy dealing with unlabeled data, which generates clusterable embedding vectors from small fixed-size speech frames. The unsupervised training strategy involves an assumption that a small speech segment should include a single speaker. Depending on such a belief, a pairwise constraint is constructed with noise augmentation policies, used to train AutoEmbedder architecture that generates speaker embeddings. Without relying on domain adaption policy, the process unsupervisely produces clusterable speaker embeddings, termed unsupervised vectors (u-vectors). The evaluation is concluded in two popular speaker recognition datasets for English language, TIMIT, and LibriSpeech. Also, a Bengali dataset is included to illustrate the diversity of the domain shifts for speaker recognition systems. Finally, we conclude that the proposed approach achieves satisfactory performance using pairwise architectures.

scholarly journals From šećerna tabla to čoCROlada

Jezikoslovlje ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-146
Author(s):  
Emilija Mustapić
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
English Language ◽  
Geographical Location ◽  
Dual Function ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Linguistic Landscape ◽  
Food Labels ◽  
Quantitative Examination ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Language Content

The study of linguistic landscape (LL) encompasses the language of public signs, commercial billboards, and other forms of written texts displayed in public (mostly urban) spaces of a particular geographical location. Its dual function, informational and symbolic, provides fertile ground for research into multilingualism, a phenomenon prevalent in today’s society. LL is made up of both large-scale entities such as billboards, and smaller everyday items such as leaflets, posters, and food labels. The aim of this paper is to explore the multilingual discourse on Croatian food labels with a special focus on the advent of words and expressions from the English language. Our quantitative examination of chocolate labels from the 1960s until 2010, presented in the first part of the paper, suggests that the Croatian LL has indeed embraced English (and other languages to some extent) and shifted from primarily monolingual to multilingual practice. Our qualitative analysis of contemporary Croatian chocolate labels in terms of language content relationship and visual arrangement, presented in the second part, indicates a strong English influence on shaping the Croatian LL in the realm of food labelling. It, therefore, confirms the widely held idea that English has become a key component of product marketing.

scholarly journals Test-takers’ perspectives on a global test of English: questions of fairness, justice and validity

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Obaidul Hamid ◽  
Ian Hardy ◽  
Vicente Reyes
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
English Language ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Language Testing ◽  
Global Test ◽  
Test Taking ◽  
Global Tests ◽  
Test Taking Strategies

Abstract Although language test-takers have been the focus of much theoretical and empirical work in recent years, this work has been mainly concerned with their attitudes to test preparation and test-taking strategies, giving insufficient attention to their views on broader socio-political and ethical issues. This article examines test-takers’ perceptions and evaluations of the fairness, justice and validity of global tests of English, with a particular focus upon the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). Based on relevant literature and theorizing into such tests, and on self-reported test experience data gathered from test-takers (N = 430) from 49 countries, we demonstrate how test-takers experienced fairness and justice in complex ways that problematized the purported technical excellence and validity of IELTS. Even as there was some evidence of support for the test as a fair measure of students’ English capacity, the extent to which it actually reflected their language capabilities was open to question. At the same time, the participants expressed concerns about whether IELTS was a vehicle for raising revenue and for justifying immigration policies, thus raising questions about the justness of the test. The research foregrounds the importance of focusing attention upon the socio-political and ethical circumstances that currently attend large-scale, standardized English language testing.

Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon's Histoire naturelle in English, 1775–1815

2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 214-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeff Loveland
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
English Language ◽  
Histoire Naturelle ◽  
English Translations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Anglophone World

Published in French to considerable acclaim between 1749 and 1767, the 15-volume opening sub-series of Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon's Histoire naturelle was first translated into English in near entirety in 1775–1776. Over the next 40 years, two further comprehensive English-language translations were prepared and published in four editions each. This paper describes the three major English translations of Buffon's Histoire naturelle and compares their coverage, order, style, accuracy and footnotes. Supplemented with information from reviews, advertisements and partial translations and adaptations, the history of the large-scale English-language translations of Histoire naturelle provides clues about Buffon's reception in the Anglophone world.

Standards-based classroom assessments of English proficiency: A review of issues, current developments, and future directions for research

2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorena Llosa
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
English Language ◽  
Classroom Assessment ◽  
English Proficiency ◽  
The United States ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Classroom Assessments ◽  
Key Issues

With the United States’ adoption of a standards-based approach to education, most attention has focused on the large-scale, high-stakes assessments intended to measure students’ mastery of standards for accountability purposes. Less attention has been paid to the role of standards-based assessments in the classroom. The purpose of this paper is to discuss key issues and challenges related to the use of standards-based classroom assessments to assess English language learners’ English proficiency. First, the paper describes a study of a standards-based classroom assessment of English proficiency in a large urban school district in California. Second, using this study as an example and drawing from the literature in language testing on classroom assessment, this paper highlights the major issues and challenges involved in using English proficiency standards as the basis for classroom assessment. Finally, the article outlines a research agenda for the field given current developments in the areas of English proficiency standards and classroom assessment.

The positioning of English-medium of instruction

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-27
Author(s):  
John Trent
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
English Language ◽  
Positioning Theory ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Medium Of Instruction ◽  
English Medium Instruction ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Medium Of Instruction ◽  
The University

Abstract The proliferation of English-medium instruction (EMI) in higher education institutions (HEIs) across non-English-speaking Europe has been recently documented in several large-scale surveys. The opportunities and challenges of designing and implementing EMI policies are also widely recognized. However, our understanding of the use of EMI in Russian HEIs is limited. This study responds to this research need by exploring the experiences and perspectives of instructors teaching business-related subjects using the English language in two different Russian HEIs. A contribution of the study is to investigate these perspectives and experiences using the analytic lens of positioning theory. Results reveal the ways in which instructors are positioned by the university, as well how they position themselves, within an EMI environment. Acknowledging the potential antagonism that might result between different EMI stakeholders because of this positioning and repositioning, suggestions are then made as how this outcome could be avoided. Implications for future research are also considered.

scholarly journals Scope and costs of autorefraction and photoscreening for childhood amblyopia—a systematic narrative review in relation to the EUSCREEN project data

Eye ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna M. Horwood ◽  
◽  
Helen J. Griffiths ◽  
Jill Carlton ◽  
Paolo Mazzone ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cost Effectiveness ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
English Language ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Community Services ◽  
Narrative Review ◽  
Effective Option ◽  
Automated Screening ◽  
Project Data

Abstract Background Amblyopia screening can target reduced visual acuity (VA), its refractive risk factors, or both. VA testing is imprecise under 4 years of age, so automated risk-factor photoscreening appears an attractive option. This review considers photoscreening used in community services, focusing on costs, cost-effectiveness and scope of use, compared with EUSCREEN project Country Reports describing how photo- and automated screening is used internationally. Methods A systematic narrative review was carried out of all English language photoscreening literature to September 10th 2018, using publicly available search terms. Where costs were considered, a CASP economic evaluation checklist was used to assess data quality. Results Of 370 abstracts reviewed, 55 reported large-scale community photoscreening projects. Five addressed cost-effectiveness specifically, without original data. Photoscreening was a stand-alone, single, test event in 71% of projects. In contrast, 25 of 45 EUSCREEN Country Reports showed that if adopted, photoscreening often supplements other tests in established programmes and is rarely used as a stand-alone test. Reported costs varied widely and evidence of cost-effectiveness was sparse in the literature, or in international practice. Only eight (13%) papers compared the diagnostic accuracy or cost-effectiveness of photoscreening and VA testing, and when they did, cost-effectiveness of photoscreening compared unfavourably. Discussion Evidence that photoscreening reduces amblyopia or strabismus prevalence or improves overall outcomes is weak, as is evidence of cost-effectiveness, compared to later VA screening. Currently, the most cost-effective option seems to be a later, expert VA screening with the opportunity for a re-test before referral.

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