at a decreasing rate

20:03 Dec 4, 2012 

Deborah,
I would agree, in part, and disagree, in part, with your take on this sentence. The original may seem poorly written only to us, the laymen, who are not well versed in these theories -

http://www.persianholdings.com/UsersFiles/admin/files/articl...
I have pretty much the same understanding of the sentence as you do but I would rephrase it a little bit differently "Aggregate sales mediate (сглаживают, ослабляют, нивелируют) the impact of several factors on operational performance, and this mediating effect has a decreasing rate"

12:58 Dec 4, 2012 

cause I was obviously wrong.

Deborah, +1:
"Aggregate sales volume mediates the effects a, b, and c have on operational performance, and the effect is at a decreasing rate, presumably over time."

23:12 Dec 2, 2012 

Right, the original is not really straightforward. But maybe Veronica could know better with the context she has.

23:06 Dec 2, 2012 

This my take (and the original is poorly written, or there would not need to be so much discussion) Aggregate sales volume mediates the effects a, b, and c have on operational performance, and the effect is at a decreasing rate, presumably over time. I didn't get out of it that c was less affected than b which is less affected than a.

22:53 Dec 2, 2012 

Влияние каждого последующего из факторов а, b и c на оп. эф-ть зависит от совокупного объема продаж в меньшей степени, чем влияние предыдущего.
Потому что не влияние факторов снижается, а влияние продаж на влияние факторов.

21:50 Dec 2, 2012 

я не вижу здесь представленного вами варианта перевода. Тем менее мне понятен тон и конструкция "Ну и как бы...?"

19:57 Dec 2, 2012 

В зависимости от конструкции предложения можно использовать как вариант Игоря, так и Кати.

19:56 Dec 2, 2012 

the effects of (a), (b) and (c) on operational performance at a decreasing rate

Последовательное снижение влияния факторов a, b, c, на операционную эффективность (каждый последующий фактор влияет на операционную эффективность в меньшей степени).

11:24 Dec 2, 2012 

2 Katerina O.
Ну и как бы Вы перевели все предложение с Вашим вариантом?

06:55 Dec 2, 2012 

Oh, 'at a decreasing rate' seems like an adverbial modifier to me. It refers to some sort of an action (a verb). 'volume at a decreasing rate' or 'effects at a decreasing rate' is not quite correct grammatically, is it?

05:35 Dec 2, 2012 

I'm not sure how that solves the issue but ok. At any rate, if you understand what this sentence means and can explain it then your English is better than mine.

03:31 Dec 2, 2012 

I'm pretty sure it refers to mediating, as it's the only verb in the sentence.

03:05 Dec 2, 2012 

I've been reading this sentence for about 10 minutes now and I don't even know what it means. Is the operational performance decreasing? the effects? the mediating?