The point of this exercise is to help you crystallize your critique of the book. Your essay must make at least one decisive argument about the book. In completing this exercise, you might want to consider how you would answer the following questions (these will form the basis of our discussions): What historical question is the author addressing? What is the author’s argument(s) about the historical question they are trying to answer? What types of sources did the author use to support her argument? Is his/her argument persuasive? Is the author entering into a historical debate with others and if so, who? Did the book change the way the history of this topic was written (look up sample book reviews using Journal of Negro History to answer) What would you say are the strengths of the book? The weaknesses?

GENERAL INFORMATION

This assignment involves you being a ‘mystery shopper’ at a store of your choice.  Please refrain from the old standbys such as Walmart, Starbucks, Kroger’s, Macy’s. Please choose organizations you know little about and can learn from.

The objective is to visit the store and evaluate the overall in-store marketing used by the retailer. You will appraise the store layout, design and visual merchandising techniques employed as itemized below.

Be sure you select a retailer that has a website and/or researchable information for Part B.

If a store employee begins to question you because of your suspicious note-taking, just explain that you are a university student at Post and if they have questions, they should contact your professor.

You will submit a four-page report (not including separate cover and reference pages) explaining and analyzing your research. Use 3-4 outside references in APA format.  You should incorporate specific consumer concepts and terminologies in your paper.  This paper is due at the end of Unit 3.

PART A

Location/Target Market

What is the retailer’s name, location, essential product lines, and four of their primary competitors?  Identify and describe the characteristics of their target market(s).

Appearance

• Is the store layout, design and visual merchandising effective in attracting their targeted customers, particularly considering their competition?
• Does the store need a face lift, update, remodel or renovation? What improvements would you suggest?  What about the customer service counter?

Image

Does the sales staff use suggestive selling? Is the image of the staff consistent with the image of the store?  Explain.

PART B

Research the Company you visited and comment on how the following contributes to its success:

• Company Headquarters
• Company History
• Demographics
• Marketing and/or Business Strategy
• Revenue and Financials
• Projected New Markets
• Industry Analysis – What is the present industry doing?
• Your Thoughts on the Organization and Where it is Heading.

Value Proposition

What do you perceive to be the retailer’s value proposition?  Do you think the store’s operations supports the company’s value initiatives?

Take Home– 20 points possible

1. Assume you are developing a direct mail campaign to sell a piece of fitness equipment geared toward young working adults who would prefer working out in the privacy of their own home as opposed to joining a fitness club or gym. What elements would be important to the success of your mailing?  Provide a brief description of each of the elements and how each might be used to directly sell this piece of equipment to men and women 25 – 54.

2. Sales promotions are widely used by manufacturers to reach and influence both members of the trade as well as end-users (i.e. consumers). Assume you work for a packaged goods company (Fast Moving Consumer Goods or FMCG) and the organization is introducing a new brand of tooth paste it believes is superior to both Crest and Colgate.  It has developed a promotion targeted to retailers such that they will stock the new brand in their stores but now must decide on what sales promotion tools it will employ in reaching retail buyers.  Describe which one(s) would be most beneficial to include in a Consumer Sales Promotion Plan and why.

3. The Sony Corporation has developed a new technology that makes finding recorded music in the cloud easier than ever and a listening experience that delivers audio fidelity far beyond what current technology offers. The user has only to say aloud the band or singing group’s name or simply mention the name of a tune or a few words that reflect lyrics from the tune and the Sony Imagine will find and play the music through either small ear pods or through larger home-size speakers.  Either way, both locating specific tunes and playing them with unequaled clarity make the Imagine something Sony believes will be an instant hit with younger consumers.  The company is planning an aggressive advertising campaign but has turned to your Public Relations agency to assist with the launch of this new product.  What would a successful PR campaign consist of?  Be specific in your recommendations.

4. Packaging is an important element of most every consumer product since the majority is purchased at a retail outlet and without the aid of store personnel. Assume you are directing the development of a package for a new brand of suntan lotion.  The lotion will be will a spray on and national distribution is expected but only in North America.  What provides the new product with its Unique Selling Proposition is its ability to let in just enough sunlight to provide a quick, easy, and even tan while preventing excess rays from reaching the skin once a certain amount of sunlight is detected.  You have been told the product will be high priced since no other competitor can promise what your company’s product can.  You will need to determine a name for the product and a suitable package design.  What characteristics should the package employ?  What size, shape, color, etc., should the package be?  Also make a recommendation on an off-shelf display (POP).  What size, shape, color, should the display be and what should be the construction material used?  Be specific in your recommendations and provide “reasons why” for each recommendation made.

5. Mountain Dew is a well-known brand that is consumed primarily by young, active, outdoor-oriented consumers and is the fourth highest-selling soft drink brand in the U.S.  On the market for more than 75 years, Mountain Dew is positioned as a brand that stands for fun, exhilaration, and energy—FEE for short.  Brand managers have been consistent over time and across communication media in maintaining the FEE theme that represents the brand’s core meaning and its positioning.   As the new Brand Manager for Mountain Dew, what marketing communication tools (e.g. advertising) would you recommend for carrying the brand forward? Provide a rationale for each of the tools you recommend.

the remaining 90 marks are from completion of the PMA.  For the PMA, 20 marks are awarded for ‘Effort and Presentation’ along the lines outlined in the MSc Marking Brief., and 70 marks are for ‘Comprehension and Analysis’. The work should be presented and formatted as a report with numbered headings and sub-headings and a Table of Contents

Word Limit: – There is a word limit of 3750 (+/- 250) words for this assessment. Penalties may be applied to assessments exceeding these tolerances.

You may elect to answer ONE of the following questions:

QUESTION 1:

(i) Research and analyse the conduct of ONE of the following high-profile projects/programmes:

1. The FiReControl Project (2004-2010)
2. The BBC Digital Media Initiative(DMI), (2008-2013)
3. UK Home Office e-Borders Programme (2007-2014)
4. The National Offender Management Information System Project (c-nomis)

Then:

(ii) Discuss what is meant by ‘successful’ and whether the project/ programme you have selected was OR was NOT considered successful, and (20 marks)

(iii) Analyse and discuss some of the factors or practices that contributed to this outcome (successful/not successful). To what extent are these a result of good/poor project/programme strategy? Illustrate your answer with examples from the case study and theory.                                                                (25 Marks)

(iv) Suggest how utilisation of programme or project ‘best practice or theory’ either contributed to the success or might have improved the situation/ avoided the problems.

(25 Marks)

QUESTION 2:

It is important to consider the context in planning a project or a programme. The context can influence and shape the Program Definition Document (PDD) or the Project Management Plan (PMP), which are important outputs of programme or project strategizing.

• Consider a Project Management Plan (PMP). What is the PMP and when should it be developed? (5 marks)
• Discuss, with reference to appropriate models, frameworks and examples, how ‘context’ is relevant when developing a Project Management Plan (PMP). (25 marks).
• Using references to projects or programmes in the public domain or discussed on the course (e.g. Bradley Fighting Vehicle, Ready Foods) discuss with examples, how omissions or lack of agreement on the PMP can lead to problems or errors.(20 marks)
• With reference to (iii) above, suggest ways in which these problems or errors could have been avoided and make appropriate recommendations.(20 marks)

PUBLIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

1. Describe the evolution of the public HR function from the late nineteenth century through modern day.

2. Explain three goals of HR Management.

3. Compare and contrast the role of the public HR manager and the private HR manager.

4. Identify and explain three (3) laws that impact the legal environment of the public HR process.

5. Discuss the role of ethics in public human resource decision-making.

6. What values do public HR managers bring into the workplace?

Planning for production and Productivity analysis

Question 1. – Discuss the importance of ‘method study’ in the modern construction production environment.

Production Management, Performance & Lean Thinking

Question 2: – Traditional production planning techniques used in construction have been criticized by the ‘lean production guru’s’ as failing to allow for ‘inflow variations’ and ‘internal & external uncertainties’ in production activity.

Evaluate the extent to which ‘inflow variation’ and ‘internal & external uncertainties’ affect construction production and assess the potential of the ‘last planner’ approach to produce enhanced construction production. (2 PAGES)

Human Resources & Sub Contracting Management.

1. Human Resources :-

Q3. Explain the Human Resource (Manpower Planning) cycle when planning for future construction activity and consider whether systematic human resource planning is a realistic proposition for construction organizations. (2 PAGES)

Q4. Explain the Human Resource Planning (Manpower Planning) cycle and appraise the difficulties that are faced by those planning for construction production when attempting to plan human resources effectively. (2 PAGES)

2. Sub-Contractor Management :-

Q5. Evaluate the conventional methods used to find and appoint sub-contractor for construction production & appraise the extent to which these methods are wasteful.

 (2 PAGES)

Q6. ‘Traditional Subcontracting is wasteful and is not conductive to the achievement of value for money’ Discuss whether statement paint an accurate picture. (2 PAGES)

Q7. The business of subcontracting for construction production has always been highly competitive.  Recent trends have witnessed some organizations return to more traditional subcontracting arrangements in favour of the framework and partnering arrangements that had become popular.

Evaluate the reasons why partnering and framework agreements may have fallen out of favour with some clients in a time of economic austerity and discuss whether or not the move away from these approaches is likely to be beneficial for clients and for industry in the long term. (2 PAGES)

The purposes of this assignment are to: (a) identify and articulate key concepts of your strategic plan in a clear, succinct, and scholarly manner and (b) provide empirical, scholarly evidence to support your proposed plan.

Requirements:

1. This paper will be graded on quality of information, use of citations, use of Standard English grammar, sentence structure, and organization based on the required components.
2. Create this assignment using Microsoft (MS) Word, which is the required format for all Chamberlain documents. You can tell that the document is saved as a MS Word document because it will end in “.docx.”
3. Submit by 11:59 p.m. MT on Sunday of the week due. Any questions about this paper may be discussed in the weekly Q & A Discussion topic.
4. The length of the paper is to be no greater than three pages, excluding title page and reference page. Extra pages WILL NOT be read by the instructor and WILL NOT count toward your grade.
5. APA format (6^th edition) is required in this assignment, including a title page and reference page. Use APA level 1 headings for the organizational structure of this assignment. Remember that the introduction does not carry a heading that labels it as a level heading in APA format. The first part of your paper is assumed to be the introduction. See APA manual for details. See Course Resources for: “Guidelines for Writing Professional Papers.” Use the suggested format and headings to organize your assignment.
   1. Include introduction (do not label as a heading in APA format)
   2. Key concepts of strategic plan
   3. Recommendations
   4. Supporting evidence
   5. Conclusion

Preparing the paper

You are the nurse executive of a healthcare organization. To ensure the organization’s success, you must develop a strategic plan scenario to address the nursing shortage in an area of your choice. Please ensure no identifying names are used in your scenario.

1. Clear introduction of your strategic plan in the introduction paragraph; including a sentence that states the purpose of your paper.
2. Clearly articulate key concepts of your strategic plan, which include

1. stating whom will be involved in the strategic-planning process and your rationale(s) for including each role; and
2. using a SWOT analysis approach, discuss strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats you must consider internal and external to the organization. A table is acceptable if you prefer to use this format for your SWOT analysis information.

1. State your top two priorities, based on your SWOT analysis, to address the nursing shortage for your organization from your strategic plan.
2. Include of a minimum of three sources of scholarly, empirical evidence that support your strategic plan.
3. Provide concluding statements for your overall assignment content.
4. The paper will be three pages maximum, excluding title and reference page(s).

Ray was moving along well in his career in sports administration, having graduated from college with a degree in sports and health administration five years ago. He spent the first two years after graduation working as a fitness instructor at one health and fitness club. Ray then found a position as an assistant manager at a chain of athletic clubs, Modern Fitness. The manager suddenly resigned to move to an athletic club in Las Vegas. Ray was then asked by the CEO of the chain to accept the position as manager of the local Modern Fitness. The CEO, Larry, said to Ray, “You’ve got the smarts and the charisma to do a great job as manager.” Ray was flattered, and he saw the management position as a splendid opportunity to make a contribution in his chosen field.

Five months into the job, all was going well with the Modern Fitness staff. The group appeared to be well motivated, customer complaints were at a minimum, and only one person had quit voluntarily. Yet the local Modern Fitness was facing a problem of declining club enrollment, rather than experiencing growth. New club memberships enrollments were not coming in fast enough to make up for existing members not renewing their enrollment.

Larry, who carefully reviewed enrollment data each month, scheduled a meeting at Ray’s club to discuss the enrollment picture. Larry told Ray that he was pleased with the operations of the club, but not with the enrollment figures. “I am empowering you to boost enrollment to a net gain,” said Larry, “do what you need to do.”

Ray replied, “Larry I am doing all I can. We send out flyers. We advertise on social media. We encourage word-of-mouth advertising. This town is saturated with athletic and fitness clubs. It’s tough for our Modern Fitness club to get a bigger market share. What advice can you give me to boost enrollment?”

Larry responded, “Ray you are empowered as the manager to boost enrollment working within your advertising budget. Boosting enrollment is your responsibility, not mine. We’ll talk about your enrollment figures again in thirty days.”

Questions:

1. How effective is Larry’s approach to empowering Ray to boost enrollment?
2. Which political tactic or tactics do you recommend Ray use to deal effectively with his empowering boss?
3. What might Larry do to help Ray boost enrollment, within the limits of empowerment?

Machine Translation in Saudi Arabia

Introduction

Technology has become an important part of human existence because technology is used in all spheres of life including translation. Globalization has created an increasing need for translation, and this has created a need for improving the technology and machines used for translation. Studies on translation machines have been going on from the 1950s, and translation machines have proved to be of great assistance to professional translators (Zbib, Malchiodi and Devlin 1-3). Studies on translation machines have yielded results that have led to the development of translation machines that have been used in several countries. Some of these translation machines have been developed for translating Arabic language in both Arabic countries like Saudi Arabia, and the West (Zbib, Malchiodi and Devlin 1-3).

Machine translation is a product of computer linguistics, which is a discipline developed by computer scientists and linguists. Computer technology has been employed in technical translation to enhance speed and make the process cost effective (Zbib, Malchiodi and Devlin 1-3). Scholars have observed that if researchers in machine translation come up with a perfect machines that can translate different languages, then people speaking different languages will be in a position to share information and ideas globally. The main objective of the translation process whether done by machines or humans is to preserve the meaning of the text (Zbib, Malchiodi and Devlin 1-3).

Studies on machine translation of the Arabic language have been prompted by the fact Arabic is language spoken by a considerable percentage of the human population in different countries (Zbib, Malchiodi and Devlin 1-3). This paper is going to explore different aspects of mechanical translation of the Arabic language. The first part of the paper will review descript machine translation of Arabic language in Saudi Arabia. The second part of the paper will review the advantages and disadvantages of machine translation with Arabic language. The third part of the paper will discuss the benefits of machine translation; giving example of some translation programs while comparing them. The last part of the paper while recommend that machine translation be included in the curriculum used to teach university students, and outline some of the benefits of this approach.

Descript Machine Translation of Arabic Language in Saudi Arabia

Most studies on machine translation that have been done in Saudi Arabia have mainly focused on the translation of the Arabic language to English and vice versa. The reason why most studies on mechanical translation in Saudi Arabia have focused on Arabic-English translation is to improve the communication between Saudi Arabia and English speaking countries (Bar, Choueka and Dershowitz 2-4). Most of the mechanical translation system used in Saudi Arabia are based on the transfer model. Some scholars have noted the challenges translators face when trying to translate English proverbs and idioms into Arabic. In the 1990s, Arabic scholars came up with English-Arabic mechanical transfer system, which was used to translate sentences obtained from political news originating from the Middle East (Bar, Choueka and Dershowitz 2-4).

Some scholars have examined the mechanical translation of nominal compounds in English into Arabic. These studies were influenced by the fact that nominal compound are used in reference and naming in all kinds of text. For instance, some Saudi scholars developed a mechanical translation system that specialized in transferring medical terms from English to Arabic (Bar, Choueka and Dershowitz 2-4). In addition, some Saudi scholars have discussed the importance of having a modular English-Arabic mechanical translation programs. Scholars have come up with mechanical English translation programs that translates subsets of knowledge, for instance, there are translation programs that uses artificial intelligence to translate the abstracts of research articles written in English into Arabic (K.Bar, Choueka and Dershowitz 2-4).

However, scholars have noted that little research has been done in creating Arabic-English mechanical translation systems. The few studies that have been done on Arabic-English mechanical translation have come up with methods for translating compound verbs (Bar, Choueka and Dershowitz 2-4). Other mechanical translation system that have been developed by Arabic scholars have focused on translating question statement from Arabic into English, while others have come up with translation engines that enable users to search the internet using the Arabic language. Some scholars in Saudi Arabia have come up chart parsers that are relatively efficient in translating Arabic sentences. Current studies on Arabic-English translation have focused on translating complex English nouns phrases into Arabic (Bar and Dershowitz 8-10).

Currently, scholars in Saudi are employing three basic techniques in coming up with programs they use to translate Arabic texts into English and vice versa. The mechanical translation systems used by these scholars differ in terms of sophistication and complexity. These techniques include the Interlingua approach, transfer-based approach, and direct transfer. However, most current studies on mechanical translation have adopted the transfer-based approach to mechanical translation (Bar and Dershowitz 8-10). There are several reasons that have made this approach attractive to researchers in mechanical translation. One of the reason is that most of the translation systems under the transfer-based approach are based on two languages, or used to translate limited concepts in a few languages (Bar and Dershowitz 8-10).

Second, scholars have favored the transfer-based approach because it is effective in situations where multilingual translations are required; under this approach it is possible to create a hub of languages where all translation can be executed (Bar

aqnd Dershowitz 8-10). The third reason scholars prefer this approach is that it enables the sharing of transfer modules, especially in scenarios where languages that are being translated are closely related.  For instance, mechanical translation program used to translate English and Portuguese may have several common transformation with programs used to translate English and Spanish (Bar and Dershowitz 8-10).

Mechanical translation programs used to translate Arabic and English have three main components, which include a generation component, a transfer component, and an analyzer. One of the most commonly used programs in Arabic-English translation is Prolog. Translators in Saudi Arabia and other parts of the world prefer using Prolog because it has an efficient unification, a backtracking regime, and it is declarative (Aminian, Ghoneim and Diab 106).

The traditional approach of mechanical translation entails segmentation of the text being into words; these words are then looked up in the dictionary; the function of each word is then identified based on the applicable grammatical rules governing the language that is being targeted (Farwell 519-521). The process of translation entails morphological analysis of the text being translated; syntactic analysis of the text being translated; and how sentences are being generated in the language being targeted. However, scholars have noted that the bilingual mechanical translation used in Arab-English translations have some weaknesses because in most cases the electronic dictionaries used in these translation provide incomplete information that partially translates the text (Farwell 519-521).

Concerning semantic analysis, the traditional approach fails to spot the context and the hidden structure of a sentence that result in ambiguity during translation.  To deal with ambiguities that result from using the traditional mechanical translation, translators are required to examine words based on the contextual meaning and establish the semantic connection in the words (Farwell 519-521). This is what researchers refers to as semantic analysis. Semantic analysis basically entails the following steps: knowing the predicate in a sentence which is crucial in establishing the meaning of a sentence; establishing the role and the internal connection between every argument; and lastly employing semantics to deal with the ambiguity (Farwell 519-521).

Some scholars have come up with rules that govern Arabic-English mechanical translation. Most mechanical Arabic-English translation programs follow specific rules from the time a sentence is fed into the program to the final output. For instance, some linguistic scholars in Saudi Arabia have developed mechanical translation programs that use tagger and parser based on some mechanical translation rules (Farwell 519-521). Some of these rules include: when the auxiliary is the same as will, then the future tense become indefinite. Second, when the auxiliary has the word “not”, then the sentence is in the negative form. Third when the tense of a sentence is in the future-indefinite and the sentence is in the negative active voice form, then the resulting Arabic sentence will start with verb subject instead of subject-verb (Farwell 519-521). The Benefits of Machine Translation

            The technological developments that have been experienced in information technology have created an urgent need to do away with language barriers that prevent people from communicating. This has consequently led to an increase in the demand of translation programs because of an exponential increase in the amount of information that need to be translated in various fields (Gelbukh 304-306). In Saudi Arabia and other Arabic countries there is an increased urgency by people and organization to access new information technologies and discoveries. This is an indication that there is lots of information that need to be translated, and human translators cannot cope with the demand. Mechanical translation plays a significant role in feeling this gap (Gelbukh 304-306).

Mechanical translation will addressed the increased demand to translate texts, especially when what is needed is to translate the text as opposed to capturing the meaning of a text accurately. For example, mechanical translation can be effective in translating information online and website because it can be used to generate rough translations (Gelbukh 304-306). This means that one of the benefits of mechanical translation is that it can save human translators time they could have spent trying to translate repetitive texts and simple texts. In addition, some scholars have observed that one of the benefits of mechanical translations is that it will enhance the effort of availing new technologies to Arabs (Gelbukh 304-306).

The benefits of using mechanical translation in Saudi Arabia and other Arabic countries varies, but scholars have identified some key benefits. However, the potential benefits of mechanical translation in the Arab world seem to exist more in theory than in practice (Meftouh, Harrat and Jamoussi 30). One of the benefits is that mechanical translation will assist in addressing the demand in translations. A second benefit of mechanical translation to Saudi Arabia is that it helps in updating information in the fields of finance, economics, science, and technologies. Another benefits of mechanical translation is that it will assist in transferring technology and knowledge to the Arab world (Meftouh, Harrat and Jamoussi 30).

Moreover, some scholars have observed that mechanical translation will play a significant role in modernizing the Arabic language by adding new terms and concepts through developing new words and urbanization (Meftouh, Harrat and Jamoussi 30). The benefit of mechanical translation to the Arab world is also realized through making the process of retrieving and translating information easy to Arab users, and enable Arab users to interact with people in countries with advanced technological capacity (Meftouh, Harrat and Jamoussi 30).

Scholars that have identified the potential benefits of mechanical translation have also spotted some of the challenges speakers of the Arabic language face when using mechanical translation programs. The Arabic language is very rich, and it is belong to the Semitic languages that somehow contrast with Indo-European languages, and this creates difficulties during the translation process (Collins 1). Some of the features in the Arabic language that makes it to contrast with English and other European languages include: the writing in Arabic is from left to right; in the Arabic language there is no capitalization, and this makes it challenging in recognizing names of people and places; and the Arabic language lack punctuation rules, and the speakers are not properly trained in the few rules that are available (AlMutawa 21).

Other features of the Arabic language that pose a challenge to mechanical translators include: the word order in Arabic is flexible; the letters in Arabic change in shape depending on the position they occupy in a word; some Arabic letters have the a similar shape and they are only distinguished by assigning them certain special marks like dots; and sometimes Arabic sentences take a nominal form (AlMutawa 21). These unique features of the Arabic language often lead to several vague translations when machines are used. This has created the need of developing mechanical translation programs that take these unique features of the Arabic language into account (AlMutawa 21).

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Machine Translation with Arabic Language

            Machine translation has several advantages, and one of these advantages in seen in productivity. In terms of productivity, machine translation enhances the productivity of human translators who normally tasked with the responsibility of undertaking pre-edit and post-edit translation or both (AlMutawa 27-28). The second advantage of machine translation is seen in terms of speed whereby mechanical translation programs are quicker than human translators. Cost is another advantage of mechanical translation because the only cost incurred in using mechanical translation is the initial cost of the program and its installation. The fourth advantage of machine translation is in confidentiality because people can use these programs to translate personal financial statements and emails (AlMutawa 27-28).

The advantage of mechanical translation is also seen in consistency, whereby translation program maintain the constituency of the text being translated, and this does away with the need to reexamine previous pages to determine how words were translated. Translation machines have also been preferred for their universality. In most cases, human translators normally specialize in certain types of domain (AlMutawa 27-28). On the contrary, mechanical translator have the capacity to translate texts into several domains if the users just turns on a corresponding setting. Another advantage of mechanical translation machines is in terms of availability because translation programs can be used around the clock (AlMutawa 27-28).

Another advantage of translation machines is brought by the fact that these machines enable the inclusion of the internal attributes of the texts being translated in various ways. For instance, most translation software have the capability to store language pairs, and other types of information referred to as attributes (AlMutawa 27-28). The attribute that is commonly stored by these programs include the date in which the document was created, the name of the individual who created the documents, the domain, identity of the project, and the client among others. Translators and other people using the program can benefit from the stored attributes by filtering the text for the attributes they find most significant (AlMutawa 27-28).

For instance, translators and other users of the program can look for texts that are similar to theirs by client and project. Another useful internal attribute of mechanical translation software is seen in the ability of these programs to store terminology databases (AlMutawa 27-28). Most of the mechanical translation software available in the market are equipped with a terminology database, which enable translators to fully benefit from all the features available in the mechanical translation software. The internal terminology databases found in these software enable translators to carryout fuzzy matching whereby a specific word or its use is suggested by the software (AlMutawa 27-28).

In the absence of a terminology database, translators using mechanical translation software will have to check for the meaning of new words in a separate electronic dictionary or use the traditional dictionary. Another advantage of mechanical translation software is seen in the ability of these software to carry out an analysis. For example, mechanical translation software have the ability to determine how long the translation process will take, which can be challenging task if translators do their job manually (AlMutawa 27-28). Moreover, mechanical translation software with good memory have the capacity to examine a document for repetitive texts and similar sentences. Mechanical translation software with good memory have the capacity to generate a raw word count ignoring features such as software code and HTML tags that could have an effect on the word count (AlMutawa 27-28).

Despite the advantages mentioned above, mechanical translation software have certain limitations or drawbacks. One of the disadvantages of mechanical translation software is that they lack in accuracy. In cases where an accurate translation of formal documents is required, then mechanical translation software cannot be utilized (AlMutawa 27-28). But in cases where the software is used, the translated text will require pre-editing and post-editing or both. The second disadvantage of translation software is that they generate mediocre translation quality of text with sentences and words that are vague. For a source language text to be accurately translated by a mechanical translator, the software used should be straightforward and vivid (AlMutawa 27-28).

Using translation software that includes vague words often leads to the generation of poor quality text. The third disadvantage of translation software is that these software are based on systematic and formal rules, and this lowers the capacity of these software to resolve the vagueness associated with these software by focusing on the context just like human translators (Mohamed 80-82). Another limitation of translation software is that these software cannot accurately translate certain types of words, for example, multiword terms that expresses ideas, proverbs, ellipses, opaque sentences, culture-specific words, colloquial phrases, vague words, and idiomatic phrases (Mohamed 80-82).

The disadvantage of translation software is also seen in their lack of the capacity to maintain certain features of the source culture text or include the culture of the targeted text. Translation software lack the capacity to retain a similar register as the source text, or develop translations for new developed technical terms. The disadvantage of mechanical translation software is also evident in the machine breakdown that the cost incurred in replacing these machines (Mohamed 80-82).

The disadvantage of mechanical translation programs is also seen in the tendency of these software to generate update at regular intervals.  When the translation process is going on, translation software are likely to generate updates that can create major challenges for the translators, especially when the text being translated is large and the translator has made changes in the entire document (Mohamed 80-82). Translation software are also disadvantageous because they constantly generate revisions from the same text. Revisions in translation refer to new projects that make modifications to the texts that had been translated previously, and they capture the changes that have been made in the previous source text (Mohamed 80-82).

In most cases, after using a translation software, the translator is asked by the client to revise the text based on the translation manual that has not been released in the market yet, or a translation manual that is to be released shortly.  The disadvantage of using mechanical translation software is also evident in the time a translator may spend in the translation process (Denkowski, Al-Haj and Lavie 68). Researchers have noted that despite the development mechanical translation software, the time translators spend in the translation process using these software may be the same as the time spent while using manual translation. On the contrary, some researchers have noted that in some cases, translators spend more time using translation software compared to manual translation (Farghaly 7-8).

Studies have shown that mechanical translation takes more time especially when translators are using new programs, which they have to master first. Some surveys have found that translators spend approximately one to two weeks before acquiring competency in using new programs (Farghaly 7-8). In addition, studies have shown that feeding new text to a mechanical translation program may require more time compared to manual translation process because the initial draft in mechanical translation is so important. Moreover, future mechanical translation normally depend on the initial information entered by a translator. Post-editing of a translated text is also determined by the quality of the initial draft (Farghaly 7-8).

Creating a terminology database is an exercise that is time consuming. Despite the advantages and disadvantages of mechanical translation mentioned above, evaluation of the effectiveness of different mechanical translation programs has remained a challenge. One of the challenges researchers in mechanical translation face is coming up with one good translation (Farghaly 7-8). On the contrary, there several perfect ways of translating any given text. These perfect translations may use different word, or word choices even if the exact same words are used in the translation. Nevertheless, human beings can vividly differentiate between a good and a bad translation (Farghaly 7-8).

Example of Some Translation Programs

            The first mechanical translation program developed by an Arabic company was created over 20 years ago, and it was called the Sakhr system. This system avails an Arabic-English mechanical translation system that is bidirectional, and this means that the system is uses both statistical and rule-based processes to come up with accurate and fast translation. The Shakhr software is only mechanical translation system built in the Arab world that translates Arabic into English and English into Arabic (AlMutawa 30-34). The rest of the mechanical translation software used in the Arab world were developed in the west. According to the manufacturer of this software, it can be tailored for certain domains because of the extensive research that has been conducted in the field of natural language processing over the years (AlMutawa 30-34).

Some of the features found in the Sakhr software include media monitoring, news, speech-to-speech translation, online translation, professional translation services, and mobile translation among others (AlMutawa 30-34). The Sakhr software also has the ability to perform comprehensive analysis on the semantic, syntactic, lexical, and morphological levels to enable an extensive understanding of the text that is fed into the software. This enables the resolution of all types of vagueness before a text is translated. The Sakhr system is designed to be used by organization and companies that require translation, in addition to assisting in the translation of websites and documents. Later, researchers included a dictionary of medical terms into the system (AlMutawa 30-34).

A second mechanical translation system commonly used in the Arab world is the Tarjim software, which is a mechanical translation system availed freely online, and has the capability of translating Arabic into English and vice-versa (AlMutawa 30-34). This software translates web pages and texts, and it also includes dictionaries in the French, Arabic and English languages, spelling checker, and six glossaries. Compared to the Sakhr system, the Tarjim software provide simple translation services with few features that makes the software unsuitable for translating complex texts (AlMutawa 30-34).

Another mechanical translation system commonly used in the Arab world is the ATA software system, which is hosted in London, and specializes in translating business software written in Arabic. Al Mutarjim Al Arabey is another mechanical system commonly used in the Arab world, and it provides a bidirectional translation in Arabic and English in different types of texts, and the software can also be used by professional translators (AlMutawa 30-34). The Al Mutarijim Al Arabey software can be customized in many different ways in order to enhance the quality of the text being translated. The Al Mutarjim Al Arabey mechanical translation software has 46 special dictionaries in the fields of medicine, biology, veterinary, mathematics, physics, chemistry, geology and engineering. In addition, the software contain dictionary abbreviations, and it has the ability to translate proper names (AlMutawa 30-34).

The Al Mutarajim software also allow translators to add their personal dictionaries, and the software has the capability of translating over 10,000 words per minutes. Compared to the mechanical translation software mentioned above, the Al Mutarajim is advanced and suitable for translators specializing in scientific texts.  Another mechanical translation software commonly used in the Arab world is the Al Wafi V. 4.0, which is an Arabic-English bidirectional software meant to be used by nonprofessional translators (AlMutawa 30-34). This translation software is easy to utilize, and suitable for people who require a quick translation of various texts. Al Wafi V. 4.0 has an English dictionary that contains over 200,000 words and an Arabic dictionary that has over 75,000 words. Moreover, the users of the software are able to customize their own dictionary (AlMutawa 30-34).

The Al Wafi mechanical translation software has the ability to translate proper nouns and a speed of translating up to a maximum of 1,000 words. The software contains and English spellchecker and a voice output that translators can use if they choose to do so. Golden Al Wafi V. 2.0 is another translation software commonly used in the Arabic world, and it is a bidirectional Arabic-English mechanical translation software (AlMutawa 30-34). The software is designed for professional users, and it contains a special dictionary that makes it effective for advanced translators. The dictionary that comes with the Golden Al Wafi V. 2.0 software has over 2 million entries in Arabic and English (AlMutawa 30-34).

In addition, the Golden Al Wafi translation software come with eight special dictionaries in sciences such as geology, engineering, chemistry, mathematics, physics, biology, veterinary science, and medicine. The software also allow users to create their own custom dictionaries. The Golden Al Wafi software has the capability of translating proper nouns and it has a translation speed of 1000 words per minute (AlMutawa 30-34). The software contains an English spellchecker and a voice output that translators can use if they so wish. The software has the ability to translate multiple documents, and display Arabic texts that have diacritics (AlMutawa 30-34).

MutarjimNet V. 1.0 is another mechanical translation software designed to be used in Arabic countries. This software is designed for companies and their employees. The inbuilt dictionary in this software has over 2.5 million words with more than 40 specialized dictionaries, which translators can only use to find the meaning of words (AlMutawa 30-34). The MutarjimNet V. 1.0 has the ability to translate PDF, email and word documents that are highlighted. The software has a translation speed of about 1,000 words every minute. Al Misbar is another English-Arabic mechanical translation software that is commonly used in the Arab world. It is unidirectional online mechanical translation software that provides translation for web pages and texts (AlMutawa 30-34).

Cimos systems is also a software that is used in translating international languages including Arabic, and the software is hosted in Paris. This software is mostly used by businesses, provides multilingual translation services that is effective in traditional translation. However, compared to the translation software discussed above, this software does not take into account special features in the Arabic language (AlMutawa 30-34). Most of the software discussed above consider special features in the Arabic language, but the difference is in the level of complexity which determines whether the mechanical translation software is suitable for professional translators, organizations, or lay translators (AlMutawa 30-34).

Al Nakel Al Arabi is a bidirectional Arabic-English mechanical translation system that has specialized dictionaries in areas such banking, computing, petroleum, gas, banking, medicine, aerospace, and finance among others. This system utilizes a knowledge database and a ruled-based approach (AlMutawa 30-34). Moreover, the software includes a parser that enable it to carry out a comprehensive syntactic analysis in addition to a limited semantic analysis to identify main idioms, phrasal verbs, and main verbs. The dictionary utilized by this program has 150,000 phrases and words, and has a speed of translating 60,000 words per hour. This is an internet-based product that is hosted in a server (AlMutawa 30-34).

Another web-based mechanical translation program is the multilingual translation system, and this product acts both as mechanism of assisting human translators, and as an automatic translation software that has the ability to provide rough translations. This software has the ability to translate approximately 100,000 words every hour (AlMutawa 30-34).

Another translation program commonly used in the Arab world is CAT tools or Computer-assisted translation. This translation program enable human translators to carry out the translation process using several translation software available in the market, and designed to assist in the translation process. Some of the translation tools available under CAT include translation memory tools, grammar checkers, terminology management tools, quality assurance tools, and spell checkers.  There are other several mechanical translation software design in Europe and America that are used in the Arab world (AlMutawa 30-34).

Machine Translation Be Included in the Curriculum Used to Teach University Students and Some of the Benefits of This Approach

            Literature on the question whether mechanical translation should be included in the curriculum used to teach university students has been growing, especially its inclusion in the general classroom. However, most studies have focused on how mechanical translation can be included in teaching computational linguistic, and what professional translator should be taught in regard to mechanical translation. In addition, some studies have investigated how mechanical translation can be used as a form of computer-aided language learning mechanism (Somers 1). In including machine translation in the curriculum, some universities have introduced Masters of Arts in Computer-Assisted Translation (Chan 240-241).

For example, the Chinese University of Hong Kong has a post-graduate program that focuses on both machine translation and computer-aided translation. In this university, computer translation is an elective introductory course that concentrates on knowledge transmission. Some scholars have identified four approaches of including computer translation in the curriculum (Chan 240-241). These approaches include teaching students about translation and computers, teaching trainee translators about translation software, teaching translation language, and teaching students about the use of translation software and machine. Scholars have recommended that the approach and curriculum used to teach university students about mechanical translation should be based on the first and fourth perspectives (Chan 240-241).

Experts have recommended that the mechanical translation courses taught to university students should include practical skills and theoretical concepts. Experts in mechanical translation have observed that computer-assisted translation is different from machine translation (Chan 240-241). In computer-assisted translation, the entire translation process is handled by computer, and the outcome of the translation process is determined by how machines systems are tailored and implemented. Hence, fundamental concept on the translation mechanism used by computers has to be taught to university students (Chan 240-241).

Students also need to be taught the mechanisms used to analyze the source language, and the process used to produce the output in the target language. Mechanical translation systems use different mechanisms and computer algorithms to generate translations, and university students should be taught how mechanical translations using these approaches (Chan 240-241). The mechanisms used in translation play an important role in determining the accuracy and quality of translation, and when students understand the different approaches used in translation they can identify the shortcoming and strengths of different translation approaches. Consequently, students can know the exact software they need to use to translate different types of texts, for example, scientific, non-academic and organizational texts (Chan 240-241).

Another benefit of teaching university students mechanical translation is that it enable students to carry out an evaluation of various mechanical translation systems based on their speed, the type of algorithms they use, and accuracy. In addition, based on the different developmental strategies employed by these systems, and the type of clients these systems target, the strength of these systems maybe sometimes be determined by the text being translated (Chan 240-241). The benefit of teaching university students mechanical translation is also seen in the fact that it enable students to understand crucial concepts in computer translation and the difference between computer translation and computer-assisted translation (Chan 240-241).

Some of the different mechanisms used in computer translation include: rule-based, corpus-based, example-based, memory-based, knowledge-based, statistical-approaches, pattern-based, and natural language text processing. Another benefit of teaching university student mechanical translation is that it provides them with a practical experience in using mechanical translation software, and this plays a significant role in expanding their knowledge based (Chan 240-241). In universities that teach students translation like the Chinese University of Hong Kong, students are allowed to work with advanced mechanical translation systems during class, and this has expanded the knowledge of these students in mechanical translation (Chan 240-241).

The importance of teaching mechanical translation to university students is also seen in the recent increasing in the demand of translators caused by an ever expanding globalization and internationalization of markets. It has also been noted that the increase in the demand for translators internationally has outgrown the number of human translators, and this confirms the importance of introducing mechanical translation causes at the university level (Dollerup 308).

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After watching a movie about a young woman who quit a successful corporate career to start her own baby food company, Julia Day decided that she wanted to do the same.  In the movie, the baby food company was very successful.  Julia knew, however, that it is much easier to make a movie about a successful woman starting her own company than to actually do it.  The product had to be of the highest quality, and Julia had to get the best people involved to launch the new company.  Julia resigned from her job and launched her new company—Starting Right.

Julia decided to target the upper end of the baby food market by producing baby food that contained no preservatives but had a great taste.  Although the price would be slightly higher than for existing baby food, Julia believed that parents would be willing to pay more for a high-quality baby food.  Instead of putting baby food in jars, which would require preservatives to stabilize the food, Julia decided to try a new approach.  The baby food would be frozen.  This would allow for natural ingredients, no preservatives, and outstanding nutrition.

Getting good people to work for the new company was also important.  Julia decided to find people with experience in finance, marketing, and production to get involved with Starting Right.  With her enthusiasm and charisma, Julia was able to find such a group.  Their first step was to develop prototypes of the new frozen baby food and to perform a small pilot test of the new product.  The pilot test received rave reviews.

The final key to getting the young company off to a good start was to raise funds.  Three options were considered:  corporate bonds, preferred stock, and common stock.  Julia decided that each investment should be in blocks of $30,000.  Furthermore, each investor should have an annual income of at least $60,000 and a net worth of $200,000 to be eligible to invest in Starting Right.  Corporate bonds would return 11% per year for the next 5 years.  Julia furthermore guaranteed that investors in the corporate bonds would get at least $20,000 back at the end of 5 years.  Investors in preferred stock should see their initial investment increase by a factor of 5 with a good market or see the investment worth only half the initial investment with an unfavorable market.  The common stock had the greatest potential. The initial investment was expected to increase by a factor of 8 with a good market, but investors would lose everything if the market was unfavorable.  During the next 5 years, it was expected that inflation would increase by a factor of 3.5% each year.

Discussion Questions

1. Sue Pansky, a retired elementary school teacher, is considering investing in Starting Right. She is very conservative and is a risk avoider.  What do you recommend?
2. Ray Cahn, who is currently a commodities broker, is also considering an investment, although he believes that there is only a 15% chance of success. What do you recommend?
3. Lila Battle has decided to invest in Starting Right. While she believes that Julia has a good chance of being successful, Lila is a risk avoider and very conservative.  What is your advice to Lila?
4. George Yates believes that there is an equally likely chance for success. What is your recommendation?
5. Peter Metarko is extremely optimistic about the market for the new baby food. What is your advice for Pete?
6. Julia Day has been told that developing the legal documents for each fundraising alternative is expensive. Julia would like to offer alternatives for both risk-averse and risk-seeking investors.  Can Julia delete one of the financial alternatives and still offer investment choices for risk seekers and risk avoiders?