How to Improve the Quality of Living in Smart Cities: Recommendations for a Citizen-centric Strategic Approach for Msheireb?

Various countries across the globe have implemented smart city initiatives to enhance the quality of living (QoL) for their citizens and other frequent users by offering smart services and innovative solutions. However, in many cases, end-users are often neglected during the planning, designing, and implementation phases of smart cities, which can impact the success of locally-based initiatives because their needs are not always fully taken into consideration. This research aims at exploring the approach of citizen-centricity in smart cities, define their key components, investigate the gap and challenges as perceived by citizens, users, and developers, and propose strategic recommendations for ways to enhance the QoL in Msheireb Smart City (MSC). The primary research was conducted to investigate citizens’ satisfaction, experience, usage of services, and to collect their feedback on areas of improvements in MSC. The results show that MSC’s users had low level of awareness about the smart services offered in the city, which resulted in less frequent use of the services. Based on this research, the strategic recommendations advise that smart city decision-makers should recognize citizens’ needs and preferences by implementing a customer relationship management strategy, promote citizens’ inclusion and engagement by establishing a citizen-centric inclusion strategy, and improve their awareness and usage of services by implementing a marketing campaign strategy.

Factors that contribute to the internationalization of the Qatari Small and Medium Enterprises

This study aims to identify the factors that the Qatari government can contribute to Qatar’s internationalization of Small-Medium Enterprises (SME). In addition, it highlights the current role played with a variation of the future proposed programs. The obstacles faced by entrepreneurs also have been identified, and was accompanied by counterparts’ views from the country’s officials. This study involved an online survey shared with 100 business owners and people working in the private sectors targeted through different mediums with help from Qatar Development Bank and their subsidiaries. The overall conclusion from the data analyzed is that there are still missing factors that the country lacks regulations, facilities, and education. However, there is evidence that the Qatari regulator moves in the right direction with the different initiatives and programs. Therefore, even though there are existing facilities, the programs offered do not fit the entrepreneurs’ needs. The entrepreneurs lack the managerial and marketing skills and the power in bargaining and negotiation with external stakeholders. The main recommendation is to set national private sector/SME advancement techniques within the broader national advancement translated in a centralized portal based on the overall conclusion. Different recommendations have been proposed to provide proper training programs’ implementation plan. The proposals include the capacity of the Qatari government to actualize sound macroeconomic arrangements. The training programs to involve the teachers’ development expand the learner’s ranks, content sharing facility, and instructional methods redesigning. In addition, accessibility to loans and advanced finance equity, mainly to medium and long-term opportunities to grow SMEs’ exchange and venture capacity align with the Qatari National Vision 2030, whereas keeping up sound government accounts will offer assistance to the accessibility of finance for improvement purposes.

A Call for implementing minimum age condition to protect young athletes‘ human rights

Sport is considered a favorable activity for children. Through participating in sport, children can acquire several skills and develop character traits like cooperation, teamwork, resilience, and focus. Nevertheless, it has been argued that children’s rights might be violated in sport at an elite level, primarily due to the intensive training given at an early age. More specifically, it was reported that approximately 20 percent of children involved in competitive sports may be at risk of abuse, violence, or exploitation, while 10 percent may be at risk of extreme abuse. This paper focusses on the lack of international law provisions to protect children who participate in elite sports and hence argue for a more effective protection. This gives rise to the need for an enforcement mechanism in the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) specifically for elite-level sports. Thus, the international law could have a positive impact on domestic laws regarding young athletes in competitive sports. As a possible way through, this paper will examine the idea of imposing minimum age limit, including legal examples, as a potential solution to help protect children’s rights in sport.

Framing the societal value of community interpreting

After presenting the concept of communicative autonomy and how it can help professionals with ethical decision-making (micro), I draw on two different visual examples to analyze framing strategies for the profession by society at large (macro). One strategy relies on experiences of identity and belonging, while the other moves away from considerations of identity. I discuss what their respective advantages and disadvantages might be. I connect these strategies to the concept of “identity politics” and its counterpart “identity override”. For the final step of this article, I resort to some examples of groups that have made progress in the political agenda with their civil rights claims. It helps me make the case for a bi-faceted strategy for the advancement of community interpreting that both leverages identity group dynamics and is simultaneously able to appeal to the overarching concept of communicative autonomy.

Captioning the occupation: The role of textual elements in the process of building national narratives in historical museums

Background: After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, in the ideology vacuum it left behind, the question of national identity became one of great importance. Adopting the Benedict Anderson constructivist idea that nations are imagined – or socially constructed communities that have to be continuously reproduced in order to exist, we aim to analyse whether and in what ways historical and archaeological museums can serve as tools in the process of building or reshaping national identity in the post-Soviet landscape in order to achieve the state ambitions of the nation. Museums are a powerful tool for policymakers; they not only present neutral objects but also usually enter into dialogue with visitors and create a certain vision of history. The stories told in museums can incorporate selected episodes into a national narrative. Aim, Method, and Discussion: The author aims to verify whether there is a disconnection between two or three parallel texts, between the texts and the visual image, and finally between the texts in question and the master narrative, as imposed by the policymakers. The materials for the analysis are captions, labels, audio guides, and texts from the websites, from the Museum of Soviet Occupation, Tbilisi, Georgia; the Museum of Occupation and Fights for Freedom in Vilnius, Lithuania; and the National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide in Kiev, Ukraine. The research demonstrated that the analysed texts in the museums in question are a key element of building the museums’ narratives. In addition, the choice of language version is a significant factor that strengthens the museum’s discourse. Captions and labels are an integral part of the narrative styles. Conclusion: The caption is a key element in relation to what a spectator thinks they are seeing: if the contextualising text is changed, the meaning of the artefacts and of the exhibits changes to a large degree.

Beyond localization: Making learning spaces accessible to all

When addressing localization within Translation Studies, we think of translating web content for a new linguistic and cultural reality. At times, localization is seen as making a text “adequate” to the new readership taking into account local sensitivities and requirements. When the addressees of a given web-based product have a disability, localization alone will not be sufficient to guarantee true access, for the needs and requirements will entail and also go beyond language and culture. This paper is highlighting the issues that need to be addressed to make online learning spaces accessible to all. The take on transadaptation, in the context of accessibility to educational environments, is holistic in nature, given that online learning platforms are required to be set up in line with WCAG directives from inception and that all uploaded content is made available in a variety of formats, among which are alternative texts, captions, audio description, sign language, just to name a few. Only in so doing with the service providers be guaranteeing that users with (sensory, cognitive or physical) impairment will benefit from such educational offers. To convey clearer understanding of the specificities of inclusive online education, two institutions from Portugal are presented in this paper showing the problems they faced and their efforts to make online learning spaces and MOOC accessible: the Polytechnic Institute of Leiria and the Open University. Examples are given from ongoing exercises, and reflections are shared on the cycles of improvement that are necessary to ensure the highest possible standards of inclusion. Included is a comparative analysis of the needs and challenges expressed by students with either hearing or visual disabilities to ensure access to all types of online contents, including spontaneous content (e.g. messages in forums, collaborative online tools).

The visual aspect in the transfer – translation of the cultural code

This article presents the adaptation of the visual elements and how the illustrations have been adapted to fit new cultural and social context. The Swedish original of Astrid Lindgren’s book and the Polish translation will serve as the research material. In the current analysis of the graphic aspect of Astrid Lindgren’s books published in Poland, Edwin Panofsky’s iconological approach to the image is combined with Roland Barthes’ semiotic approach. The application of these two methods enables an explanation to be formulated as to why the visual representation of certain elements of the Swedish cultural code disappeared in translation. The represented world in the original differs from the represented world in the translation, especially in the recreation of the Swedish village. In the Polish illustrations, the Swedish village setting has been placed higher up the social ladder than in the original illustrations, thereby avoiding a direct portrayal of village life, traditionally regarded as inferior in Polish culture. Polonization also happens in the purifying strategies adopted by the illustrators. Because of the reduction of illustrations representing children and adults engaged in agricultural work, as well as children in direct contact with nature or animals, the book’s character has considerably altered through its adjustment to the Polish cultural code, mainly in the protagonists’ outward appearance as inhabitants of the town. In the Polish illustrations, a folklorization also appears, through the introduction of folkoric elements from the region of southern Poland symbolizing the superior status of this culture over the peasant culture of other regions. In addition, the illustrations that accompany the translations are anachronistic in relation to the time setting of the plot as related in the text.

The challenge of quality management in crowdsourced translation: the case of the NGO Translators Without Borders

The rise of machine translation and translation memories along with the technologies of the Web 2.0 have brought about new flavours and workflows, setting new challenging research pathways for translation studies. Emerging crowdsourcing-based models have been presented as de facto mainstream approaches in the translation industry. Therefore, exploring the newborn approaches and processes is a priority for translation studies for better insights and further understanding of relevant impacts that may reach the stage of deprofessionalizing the discipline and marginalizing the profession. To pursue this question, the present paper explores a unique and interesting model of translation that is both crowdsourced and collaborative, the non-profit organization Translators Without Borders or TWB. TWB does not only resort to crowdsourcing to provide humanitarian translation services on pro-bono basis but also maintains a global network of volunteers and deploys a fully fledged environment for translation management as well as quality assurance and control. This paper demonstrates the array of processes adopted by TWB to manage quality and the myriad of challenges it presents. Through TWB model study, this paper investigates the way various theoretical concepts are confronting the industry realities and implications and examines the extent of dynamicity and tolerance thresholds in the application of such concepts.

Editorial for the Tenth International Translation Conference: Translation Beyond the Margins-Doha, 26–27 March 2019

It is my pleasure and honor to present the proceedings of the 10th International Translation Conference, which are the result of a careful selection by peer reviewers. This special issue in QScience Connect Journals is dedicated to the papers submitted to the 10th International Translation Conference “Translation Beyond the Margins.” The Call for Papers for this conference invited contributions that fit in the following thematic area: “Translation, by nature, deals with margins. Translators and interpreters still hold a marginal position in society, as they often work in the shadow, and go unseen, even though global economy and politics hinge on their work. Translation Studies (TS) holds a similar position in the Humanities and the Social Sciences. This has multifold consequences on professional recognition, leads to further marginalization of vulnerable minorities or invisible end-users, publics and audiences, and has an impact on the advancement of knowledge in and beyond translation. As a discipline, Translation Studies challenges and transcends disciplinary frontiers, as it converges with and diverges from sister disciplines of the Humanities and Social Sciences, while mapping new territories in dialogue with other domains. Translation Studies not only crosses over in terms of the subject matters of the materials (verbal, auditory, visual, or otherwise) it works with, but also imports, appropriates and expands on knowledge and methods from other disciplines. In so doing, Translation Studies contributes to advancing new knowledge in interrelated domains of enquiry. One of the remits of higher education, and of science in general, is to expand the borders of knowledge and that can only be achieved if researchers, teachers, students, professionals and all those involved in reflective practices look beyond the margins of what is presently known. Looking beyond the margins may mean to tackle topics that have never been addressed, or to address mainstream topics from a new angle. It may also mean taking the viewpoint of other disciplines or simply running the risk when applying innovative or crosscutting approaches to practices and/or research.” [https://tii.qa/en/tenth-annual-international-translation-conference] The 10th International Translation Conference Program was an excellent occasion to start enriching the conference experience by inviting the speakers for a Call for Papers in a peer-reviewed venue so that their conference presentations be anchored in an academic journal, which could at the same time been seen as a Festschrift celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Translation Conferences organized by the Translation and Interpreting Institute (TII), part of Hamad bin Khalifa University’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences. As a result of the Call, we received five outstanding papers and we are proud of bundling these in a first special issue of QScience Connect, the academic open access publication of HBKU.