O romance gráfico Persépolis (2000), da autora e artista gráfica iraniana Marjane Satrapi, foi publicado originalmente na França e, em pouco tempo, devido ao seu sucesso, traduzido para diversas línguas. Apesar de ser uma obra que retrata uma cultura periférica (iraniana), o fato de ter sido publicada em francês e em um local onde a cultura dos quadrinhos é bastante valorizada levoua ao centro do que Even-Zohar (1990) denomina “polissistema literário”. Do mesmo modo, suas traduções também ocupam o centro do polissistema de literaturas traduzidas, visto que os quadrinhos franceses são respeitados e consideravelmente consumidos no sistema literário anglófono. No Brasil, além das razões anteriores, um romance autobiográfico em quadrinhos contribui com a representatividade desse gênero no polissistema literário local. Por se tratar de uma narrativa autobiográfica que se passa, na maior parte da obra, no Irã, retratando a cultura do país, porém, escrita originalmente em francês, o texto carrega marcas culturais dessas duas culturas de modo bastante peculiar. Dessa forma, as traduções da obra precisam adequar uma série de termos da(s) cultura(s) de partida para as culturas de chegada, sobretudo, no que diz respeito ao contexto iraniano, devido à distância cultural existente entre países orientais e ocidentais. No que tange ao fazer tradutório, o pesquisador Javier Franco Aixelá (1996) propõe denominar como culturespecific items (CSIs) as expressões linguísticas que podem causar problemas para a tradução devido a divergências na compreensão cultural, como nomes próprios, marcas e instituições, por exemplo, que têm ocorrência expressiva no texto de Satrapi. No presente trabalho, os itens culturaisespecíficos são localizados no texto de partida e as soluções empregadas nas traduções para o português brasileiro e para o inglês são categorizadas de acordo com a proposta de Aixelá e, por fim, cotejadas. O cotejo entre as soluções tradutórias para os ICEs utilizadas nas duas línguas mostrou que as traduções tiveram um número similar de ocorrências de uso das estratégias, apenas com algumas variações de manipulação. / The graphic novel Persepolis (2000), written and illustrated by the Iranian artist and writer Marjane Satrapi, was first published in France, and then, due to its success, it was soon translated to several languages. Although it portraits a peripheral culture (Iranian), the fact that is was published in French and in a country where the comics culture is quite appreciated brought the work to the center of what Even-Zohar (1990) coined “literary polysystem”. On the same direction, its translations also occupy the center of the translated literature polysystem, since French comics are respected and consumed in the anglophone literary system. In Brazil, in addition to the aforementioned reasons, an autobiographical graphic novel fills the gap of such kind of production in the local literary repertoire. Considering it is an autobiographical narrative which takes place mostly in Iran, portraying the country's culture, yet originally written in French, the text presents cultural marks from these two cultures in a very peculiar way. Therefore, the translations need to adequate a series of terms from the source culture(s) to the target cultures; mostly, with regard to the Iranian context, due to the cultural distance between Western and Eastern countries. Concerning the translation activity, the researcher Javier Franco Aixelá (1996) designates as “culture-specific items” (CSIs) the linguistic expressions that may cause problems to translators due to divergences in cultural understanding, such as proper names, brands and institutions, for instance, items which are constantly present in Satrapi’s text; he categorizes those items according to the possible manipulation they may receive. In the present work, the culture-specific items are found in the source text, and the solutions used in the translations to Brazilian Portuguese and to English are categorized according to Aixelá’s proposition and, finally, compared. Thus, it is possible to observe if the difficulties in transposing the cultural items to both target languages are similar to each other, as well as if the strategies used by the translators of the two languages are the same or differ from each other.

This work focuses on the problems of monetary aggregates in the Czech Republic within compilation of balance sheet items statistics of monetary financial institutions. The content of this paper comprises the methodological basis for the compilation of monetary aggregates and the overall balance sheet statistics with focus on detailed description of the procedure of compiling of this statistics in the Czech National Bank. The goal is to provide an overview of the methodology of balance sheet statistics, practical aspects of its composition and compiling of monetary aggregates.

Incorporating off-grade items within an on-grade item pool is often seen in K-12 testing programs. Incorporating off-grade items may provide improvements in measurement precision, test length, and content blueprint fulfillment, especially for high- and low-performing examinees, but it may also identify some concerns when using too many off-grade items on tests that are primarily designed to measure grade-level standards. This dissertation investigates how practical constraints such as the number of on-grade items, the proportion, and range of off-grade items, and the stopping rules affect item pool characteristics and item pool performance in adaptive testing. This study includes simulation conditions with four study factors: (1) three on-grade pool sizes (150, 300, and 500 items), (2) three proportions of off-grade items in the item pool (small, moderate, and large), (3) two ranges of off-grade items (one grade level and two grade levels), and (4) two stopping rules (variable- and fixed-length stopping rule) with two SE threshold levels. All the results are averaged across 200 replications for each simulation condition. The item pool characteristics are summarized using descriptive statistics and histograms of item difficulty (the b-parameters), descriptive statistics and plots of test information functions (TIFs), and the standard errors of the ability estimate (SEEs). The item pool performance is evaluated based on the descriptive statistics of measurement precision, test length and exposure properties, content blueprint fulfillment, and mean proportion of off-grade items for each test. The results show that there are some situations in which incorporating off-grade items would be beneficial. For example, a testing organization with a small item pool attempting to improve item pool performance for high- and low-performing examinees. The results also show that practical constraints of incorporating off-grade items, organized here from most impact to least impact in item pool characteristics and item pool performance, are: 1) incorporating off-grade items into small baseline pool or large baseline pool; 2) broadening the range of off-grade items from one grade level to two grade levels; 3) increasing the proportion of off-grade items in the item pool; and 4) applying variable- or fixed-length CAT. The results indicated that broadening the range of off-grade items yields improvements in measurement precision and content blueprint fulfillment when compared to increasing the proportion of off-grade items. This study could serve as guidance for test organizations when considering the benefits and limitations of incorporating off-grade items into on-grade item pools.

As part of test score validity, differential item functioning (DIF) is a quantitative characteristic used to evaluate potential item bias. In applications where a small number of examinees take a test, statistical power of DIF detection methods may be affected. Researchers have proposed modifications to DIF detection methods to account for small focal group examinee sizes for the case when items are dichotomously scored. These methods, however, have not been applied to polytomously scored items. Simulated polytomous item response strings were used to study the Type I error rates and statistical power of three popular DIF detection methods (Mantel test/Cox's β, Liu-Agresti statistic, HW3) and three modifications proposed for contingency tables (empirical Bayesian, randomization, log-linear smoothing). The simulation considered two small sample size conditions, the case with 40 reference group and 40 focal group examinees and the case with 400 reference group and 40 focal group examinees. In order to compare statistical power rates, it was necessary to calculate the Type I error rates for the DIF detection methods and their modifications. Under most simulation conditions, the unmodified, randomization-based, and log-linear smoothing-based Mantel and Liu-Agresti tests yielded Type I error rates around 5%. The HW3 statistic was found to yield higher Type I error rates than expected for the 40 reference group examinees case, rendering power calculations for these cases meaningless. Results from the simulation suggested that the unmodified Mantel and Liu-Agresti tests yielded the highest statistical power rates for the pervasive-constant and pervasive-convergent patterns of DIF, as compared to other DIF method alternatives. Power rates improved by several percentage points if log-linear smoothing methods were applied to the contingency tables prior to using the Mantel or Liu-Agresti tests. Power rates did not improve if Bayesian methods or randomization tests were applied to the contingency tables prior to using the Mantel or Liu-Agresti tests. ANOVA tests showed that statistical power was higher when 400 reference examinees were used versus 40 reference examinees, when impact was present among examinees versus when impact was not present, and when the studied item was excluded from the anchor test versus when the studied item was included in the anchor test. Statistical power rates were generally too low to merit practical use of these methods in isolation, at least under the conditions of this study.

One of the implicit assumptions made in research related to inventory control is to keep products indefinitely in inventory to meet future demand. However, such an assumption is not true for a large wide of products characterized by a limited lifetime. The economic impact of managing such products led to substantial work in perishable inventory control literature. Investigations developed so far underline the complexity of modeling perishable inventory. Moreover, the dependency of the lifetime to temperature conditions in which products are handled adds more complexity since the lifetime of products stemming from the same order may vary from product to another. In this context, the ability of Time Temperature Integrators to capture the effects of temperature variations on products' lifetime, offers an opportunity to reduce spoilage and therefore ensure product's freshness and safety. The general aim of this thesis is to model perishable inventory systems. Particularly, three different problem areas are considered. The first one concerns perishable inventory with fixed lifetime, often referred as Fixed Life Perishability Problem, where an approximate (r;Q) inventory policy is developed. This model relaxes some assumptions made in previous related works. The second problem considered is a (T; S) perishable inventory system with random lifetime. Results of this model contribute to the development of a theoretical background for perishable inventory systems which are based on Markov renewal process approach. The third area incorporates the impact of temperature variations on products' lifetime throughout inventory systems that use TTIs technology. More general settings regarding the demand and the lifetime distributions are considered throughout simulation analysis. The economic relevance stemming from the deployment of this technology is therefore quantified.

Differential item functioning (DIF) and differential distractor functioning (DDF) are methods used to screen for item bias (Camilli && Shepard, 1994; Penfield, 2008). Using an applied empirical example, this mixed-methods study examined the congruency and relationship of DIF and DDF methods in screening multiple-choice items. Data for Study I were drawn from item responses of 271 female and 236 male low-income children on a preschool science assessment. Item analyses employed a common statistical approach of the Mantel-Haenszel log-odds ratio (MH-LOR) to detect DIF in dichotomously scored items (Holland & Thayer, 1988), and extended the approach to identify DDF (Penfield, 2008). Findings demonstrated that the using MH-LOR to detect DIF and DDF supported the theoretical relationship that the magnitude and form of DIF and are dependent on the DDF effects, and demonstrated the advantages of studying DIF and DDF in multiple-choice items. A total of 4 items with DIF and DDF and 5 items with only DDF were detected. Study II incorporated an item content review, an important but often overlooked and under-published step of DIF and DDF studies (Camilli & Shepard). Interviews with 25 female and 22 male low-income preschool children and an expert review helped to interpret the DIF and DDF results and their comparison, and determined that a content review process of studied items can reveal reasons for potential item bias that are often congruent with the statistical results. Patterns emerged and are discussed in detail. The quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted in an applied framework of examining the validity of the preschool science assessment scores for evaluating science programs serving low-income children, however, the techniques can be generalized for use with measures across various disciplines of research.

Development of competence-oriented curricula is still an important theme in informatics education. Unfortunately informatics curricula, which include the domain of logic programming, are still input-orientated or lack detailed competence descriptions. Therefore, the development of competence model and of learning outcomes' descriptions is essential for the learning process in this domain. A prior research developed both. The next research step is to formulate test items to measure the described learning outcomes. This article describes this procedure and exemplifies test items. It also relates a test in school to the items and shows which misconceptions and typical errors are important to discuss in class. The test result can also confirm or disprove the competence model. Therefore, this school test is important for theoretical research as well as for the concrete planning of lessons. Quantitative analysis in school is important for evaluation and improvement of informatics education.

Thesis (M. Pharm. (Pharmacy Practice)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

Recently concern about aviation security has focused on the work of airport security screeners who detect threat items in passengers' luggage. An effective method of training and screening is required for improving screeners' detection abilities and performance to cope with the unreliable human performance of screening. The overall aim of this thesis is to understand and define the potential visual and cognitive factors in the task of inspecting airport passengers' X-ray luggage images, examine usability of perceptual feedback in this demanding task and develop a new method of salient regions which assist screeners to detect targets. The result of this work would obtain knowledge and skills of X-ray luggage images examination, provide insight into the design of training system and develop a method to significantly enhance screeners' detection ability. A questionnaire was developed for screeners to extract the expertise of the screening task and investigate the effect of image features on visual attention. A series of experiments were designed to understand the screening task and explore how knowledge and skills are developed with practice. Results indicated that training under time stressed conditions is recommended for ensuring adequate high detection ability in real life situation as screeners have to balance accuracy and speed in time pressure. The advantages of screeners are better detection ability and search skills which were gained by experience of the search task. Hit rate of naive people was improved with the perceptual exposure of images of threat items. However, scanning did not become efficient. It has demonstrated that detection performance and search skills are improved by the practice of frequency exposure targets in the search task and such ability partly transfer to novel targets. Learning in visual search of threat items is stimuli specific such that familiarity with stimulus and task is the source of performance enhancement. Threat items should be updated constantly and massive amount of X-ray threat objects should be employed for airport security screeners training so as to enlarge object knowledge and enhance recognition ability. Perceptual feedback of circling areas with dwell duration longer than 1000ms does not Significantly improve observers' detection ability in the airport screening task. Features of bags and threat items influence initial attention and attention allocation in the search process. Salient regions, based on the pure stimulus properties, not only contain most of targets in X-ray images but also improve observers' detection performance of high hit rate by forcing observers to scrutinize these areas carefully.

In this thesis, I focus on scalar implicatures, presuppositions and their connections. In chapter 2, I propose a scalar implicature-based account of neg-raising inferences, standardly analyzed as a presuppositional phenomenon (Gajewski 2005, 2007). I show that an approach based on scalar implicatures can straightforwardly account for the differences and similarities between neg-raising predicates and presuppositional triggers. In chapters 3 and 4, I extend this account to “soft” presuppositions, a class of presuppositions that are easily suspendable (Abusch 2002, 2010). I show how such account can explain the differences and similarities between this class of presuppositions and other presuppositions on the one hand, and scalar implicatures on the other. Furthermore, I discuss various consequences that it has with respect to the behavior of soft presuppositions in quantificational sentences, their interactions with scalar implicatures, and their effects on the licensing of negative polarity items. In chapter 5, I show that by looking at the interaction between presuppositions and scalar implicatures we can solve a notorious problem which arises with conditional sentences like (1) (Soames 1982, Karttunen and Peters 1979). The main issue with (1) is that it is intuitively not presuppositional and this is not predicted by any major theory of presupposition projection. (1) I’ll go, if you go too. Finally, I explore in more detail the question of which alternatives should we consider in the computation of scalar implicatures (chapter 6). Traditionally, the answer has been to consider the subset of logically stronger alternatives than the assertion. Recently, however, arguments have been put forward in the literature for including also logically independent alternatives. I support this move by presenting some novel arguments in its favor and I show that while allowing new alternatives makes the right predictions in various cases, it also causes an under- and an over-generation problem. I propose a solution to each problem, based on a novel recursive algorithm for checking which alternatives are to be considered in the computation of scalar implicatures and the role of focus (Rooth 1992, Fox and Katzir 2011). / Linguistics