Construction Of Concept Research Articles

Kelly Criterion for Optimal Credit Allocation

The purpose of this study is to address the critical issue of optimal credit allocation. Predicting a borrower’s probability of default is a key requirement of any credit allocation system but turning it into labeled classes leads to problems in performance measurement. In this paper the connection between the probability of default and optimal credit allocation is established through a conceptual construct called the Kelly criterion. Conflicting performance measures in dichotomous classification are replaced with coherent criteria for judging the performance of credit allocation decisions. Extensive testing on peer-to-peer lending data shows that the Kelly strategy enables consistent outperformance and efficiency in processing information relative to alternative credit allocation approaches.

Verbunden, nicht vermischt. Zum Verhältnis physiologischer und transzendentalphilosophischer Erklärungen bei Kant

Abstract In his appendix to Soemmerring’s On the organ of the soul, Kant famously rejects the idea of a local presence or seat of the soul in the brain as fundamentally misguided. „By contrast, a virtual presence“ of the soul, considered as a conceptual construct, is said to make it possible to treat „the question regarding the sensorium commune as a merely physiological task“. Where Kant’s German original reads „möglich“, Arnulf Zweig in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant translates surprisingly as „impossible“. This cardinal error shall be communicated to readers who do not habitually consult the German original. Against this background, I illuminate the Kantian position (1) with in-depth material from Kant’s respective drafts and (2) in contrast to the syncretistic–materialistic approach of Johann Jacob Wilhelm Heinse.

The Strange Journey of the Tributary System

Scholars of international relations have embraced the tributary system as the dominant lens to studying historical orders of East Asia. Hendrik Spruyt’s The World Imagined, a rare gem in the study of comparative international orders, argues that the tributary system articulated the ontology of the historical East Asia international society. This article cautions against two common pitfalls. First, the tributary system is a modern conceptual construct that can blind researchers to other types of political orders existing throughout East Asia’s diverse landscape and history, thus contributing to a Sinocentric bias. Both the Mongols and the Tibetans adopted a distinctive set of rules of inter-polity conduct that have little to do with the Chinese tributary system. Second, the tributary system perpetuates the myth that East Asia has been historically peaceful, while glossing over the numerous interpolity warfare that took place in the region as well as internal conflicts within the same cultural sphere of a state. I argue that our understanding of international orders can be substantially enriched when we take material power seriously and study its interplay with ideational factors.

THEORETICAL FUNDAMENTALS OF EDUCATION IN GERMANY IN 1933-1945.

It was found that the National Socialists paid considerable attention to education and upbringing, setting before these areas specific tasks: the dissemination and support of a new worldview. Within a few years, the face of German education was radically changed: it began to serve a single purpose - to educate fanatics who are not able to critically perceive the reality around them. The conceptual constructions of education and upbringing in the Third Flight did not differ either in the originality of thinking, which gave way to freedom due to ideology, or in the honesty of the pedagogical mind.It was established that education in the Third Reich, according to A. Hitler, should not be reduced to classes in suffocating classrooms: it had to be, according to certain age groups, supplemented by Spartan, political and military training.An analysis of the process of centralization of the education system of the Third Reich. In 1933, government decrees were passed to begin the nationalization of the entire educational system of the country from primary school to universities. The first practical steps in the implementation of this course were the decrees adopted in May 1934 on the establishment of the Imperial Ministry of Science, Education and Public Education, headed by Bernhard Rust, and the replacement of the decentralized system of educational management with a centralized one.It has been established that school textbooks have been reworked in a racist and anti-Semitic spirit. In accordance with ideological requirements, the nature of teaching certain subjects, including geography, has changed. Thus, school curricula ranged from geographical to “geopolitical” in order to suggest to young people that state borders should be constantly changing, depending on the development of Germany’s need for “living space”. There were also new items needed to prepare young people for the Nazi plans. In addition to military affairs from the 1934-1935 academic year, the discipline of “orienteering” was introduced. The network of out-of-school Nazi children’s and youth organizations is characterized: “Pimpfe”, “Jungfolk”, “Hitler Youth”, “Jungmedhen”, “Bund Deutscher Medhen”.It has been proven that during the 12 years of the Third Reich’s existence, the entire education system collapsed catastrophically when it began to be adjusted to the standards of the Nazi dictatorship. The “reforms” carried out by the Nazi leadership in the German education system had catastrophic consequences. In particular, there was a sharp decline in the level of intellectual and professional training of students; the system, which had previously enjoyed universal respect for the quality and scope of knowledge, dignity and validity, became an appendage to the Nazi Ministry of Propaganda; year after year, the level of preparation of students fell sharply at all stages - from primary school to universities.

SUBSTANTIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF FORMATION OF CULTURAL COMPETENCE OF SCHOOLCHILDREN IN LABOR EDUCATION BY MEANS OF THEATER PEDAGOGY

The article considers the semantic characteristics of one of the key cultural competencies for school education, which is determined by the awareness and self-expression of students in the field of culture. The relevance of the study is determined by the use for the formation of cultural competence of students in the lessons of labor training means of acting (facial expressions, gestures, plastics, speech) as analogues of pedagogical influences on the individual. The aim of the article was to substantiate the essence, content and structure of the conceptual construct of forming the cultural competence of students by means of theatrical pedagogy. The application of theoretical research methods (analysis, classification, generalization) helped to clarify the content of its components. The concept of formation is considered as a socio-phenomenological process and the result of irreversible, directed, natural changes in personal neoplasms of students, which are guided by the influence of educational space and personal activity, determine its consciousness, education, culture, independence in acquiring knowledge. The traditional for domestic personology cultural-historical approach is defined as leading in the description of the person, his motivational and cognitive spheres, which determine the active, active participation in social interaction throughout his life. It is proved that the readiness for successful life is ensured by the formation of social, labor, psychological and psychophysiological qualities as components of cultural competence. The basis of personal development in educational activities is its cultural experience, synthesis of value orientations, which is formed in interpersonal interaction, including the means of acting techniques of emotional and psychological influence (expressiveness, flexibility, intonation, reflection of internal states, transmission of ideas, suggestion ). As a result of analysis of psychological and pedagogical theories and views on the content of key research concepts, the formation of cultural competence of students by means of theatrical pedagogy in the process of labor education is defined as a process and result of quantitative and qualitative changes in the student’s personality. and the formation of skills of emotional and psychological influence by means of acting, which are manifested in creative activity and stimulated by positive figurative feelings.

Deep-freeze graph training for latent learning

Scientific and engineering advances are primarily driven by multi-tier conceptual constructs and conditional theoretical frameworks. The theories allow predictions of hypothetical system responses, given a set of approximate conditions (ranges of applicability) imposed on latent parameters that cannot be measured directly. Learning to estimate the latent variables (Latent Learning) helps to pinpoint the anticipated range-edge anomalies and improves the confidence in interpretation, interpolation and extrapolation of limited experimental data. Due to high dimensionality and extreme non-linearity of the materials science problems, very large datasets are typically required for conventional data-driven model development. The vital experimental data collection, particularly on microstructural phases, is very challenging, which makes it difficult to compile a high-quality database. Incorporation of the domain knowledge into the computational graph structure, initialization and optimization processes presents a viable mechanism for developing accurate models, with limited datasets. This study successfully utilized the approach to build the Deep Freeze Graph (DeepFreG) by mapping known causality relationships and by digitizing empirical domain knowledge for Latent Learning (LL), with specific applications in materials science.

Learning to Adapt in a Global Pandemic of COVID-19: Insights to Support Vocational Education and Training (VET) in Southern Africa

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted all education sectors significantly during the full global lockdown between March and June 2020, including the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector. During this period, the authors jointly led nine researchers who were postgraduate students in six Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries (Botswana, Eswatini, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe). Due to the restrictions during the lockdown, these nine researchers conducted a literature review and thirty interviews in local communities in these six SADC countries. This included both VET colleges as well as individuals in informal, small-scale and entrepreneurial activities. The authors refer to the qualitative data gathered by the interviews with these interviewees as ‘stories of adaptation’. In this paper we used these ‘stories of adaptation’ to explore the links between learning to adapt and expertise, and to consider how together these constructs offer insights into how VET can be strengthened to better support local communities.Two research questions were asked: (1) how do the notions of adaptive capacity and expertise as conceptual constructs help to understand vocational learning in a global pandemic? and (2) what insights can be drawn from the ‘stories of adaptation’ to strengthen the role of VET in local communities? Through a thematic analysis of the ‘stories of adaptation’, three key findings emerged: (1) capacity to adapt is a multi-level and multi-pronged construct; (2) use of digital platforms as well as local networks were key enabling mechanisms for adaptation; and, (3) learning and expertise are embedded in the capacity to adapt. Thus, we argue that building a responsive VET system for the SADC region is achievable by strengthening the nexus between learning, expertise and adaptive capacity. Keywords: adaptive capacity; expertise; global pandemic; vocational education

Ensuring economic security of the territory in the conditions of aging of the population: theoretical-methodological aspect

This article is dedicated to the theoretical-methodological aspects of studying economic security of the territory in the conditions of aging of the population. The author traces the evolution of interpretation of the concept of “economic security”. Analysis is conducted on the conceptual construct of studying economic security of the territory that has established in scientific literature. The polemical character of determination of the object of economic security of the territory is indicated. The author considers the nuances of using the concepts of “national interests” and “state interests”; examines the traditional triad “interests – threats – protection” of studying economic security in the conditions of aging of the population. The theory of economic security is augmented with the provisions of the neoclassical theory of human capital and theoretical models of generational economics that take into account the age structure of the population of the territory. In the conditions of aging of the population, the state interests in the economic sphere and the interests of the senior citizens are considered as the object of economic security. The model for the formation of the effective instrument of protecting state interests in the economic sphere and interests of the senior citizens from the threats caused by socioeconomic consequences of population aging is built from the perspective of the theory of economic security, theory of human capital, and theoretical models of generational economy. The author clarifies the concept of economic security of the territory in the conditions of aging of the population, which implies protection of the objects (state interests in the economic sphere and interests of the senior citizens) from threats caused by socioeconomic consequences of population aging.

MEASURING INSTRUCTOR'S READINESS ON ACCEPTING THE USE OF E-LEARNING SYSTEM DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN HIGHER EDUCATION OF KUWAIT

ABSTRACT E-learning has arisen as a need to face the obstacles raised by Covid-19's current circumstance and IT growth and the capacity for greater access to information. The decision to close all educational institutions, including public and private universities, is among the difficulties faced by the State of Kuwait during the Corona pandemic. There were appeals and claims to carry out the e-learning process separately. However, several obstacles affect the implementation of e-learning in higher education. Whether various stakeholders in higher education institutions prefer to accept or oppose e-learning for their work needs to be understood. This study explores the readiness of instructors in Kuwait's higher education institutions to carry out the process of e-learning. The key purpose of this report is to evaluate Kuwait's universities instructors' readiness. To realize this research target, the e-learning literature was studied, and an exploratory analysis was performed in Kuwait. Then a conceptual model was proposed based on TAM's technological preparation model and amended with the findings of e-learning literature analysis to measure the e-learning acceptance. The initial conceptual model was developed to research e-learning readiness in Kuwait. Quantitative analysis approach was used to analyze and test the conceptual construct. Conducted a questionnaire web-based. This report ends by highlighting research's key results. Keywords E-learning, Readiness, Technology Readiness, Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)

Improving Cleft Outcomes: A Retrosynthetic Analysis Approach

Initially described by Nobel-prize winning chemist E.J. Corey, retrosynthetic analysis is a technique used to solve problems in organic chemistry in which the synthesis of a target molecule is approached by starting with the end-product and working backward, 1 step at a time, until commercially available precursors are reached.1 This conceptual construct can be applied to unsolved problems in medicine, when the outcome is dependent on predictable, sequenced precursor events.

MULTIPLE MEANING OF THE CONCEPT «CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT» IN THE REGULATORY CONTEXT AND EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITY PRACTICE

The concept of «continuing professional development» does not have an unambiguous scientific and normative definition and it complicates its use in the practice of educational activities and in the texts of draft regulations governing adult education. The purpose of the article is to clarify the content of the concept « continuing professional development «and determine the advisability of its use to characterize educational activities and their results in the field of in-service education. Based on the comparative analysis of the content of the concept «continuing professional development «from various normative and scientific sources, the author’s interpretation of the content of the analyzed conceptual construct is formulated. It is concluded that teachers` continuing professional development is a type of educational activity within adult education, which is carried out in accordance with established procedural requirements and the result of which are professional competencies which defined by the educational program or contract, developed in non-formal or in formal education and approved by professional standards and areas of professional development. From a regulatory point of view, not every educational or self-educational activity is a professional development. This activity is admitted only when it is confirmed by the final document of the legitimate provider on the basis of the developed educational program and under the conditions of observance of the standardized procedure. The issues mentioned in the article have prospects for further research in terms of dividing the competence potential of professional standards of teachers into invariant and variable components, clarification of the invariant component of professionalism as a desired result of teacher training in the implementation of the New Ukrainian School.

Reframing sociotechnical imaginaries: The case of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

In recent years, a Fourth Industrial Revolution emerged in public discourse as a narrative of exceptional societal disruption. At the core of this conceptual construct, led by the World Economic Forum, rests a sociotechnical imaginary of future essentialism, based on the revolutionary potential of digital, biological and physical innovations. This article addresses the lack of studies assessing the dynamics between the institutionalisation and the public performance of the Fourth Industrial Revolution concept through news media. We present the results of a quantitative content analysis of how the topic has been covered (frames, sources, tone) by the Portuguese national circulation press (2013-2020). This exploratory case study informs a proposal for an epistemic and methodological articulation between the theoretical frameworks of sociotechnical imaginaries and of media framing.

Types and taxonomic structures in conceptual modeling: A novel ontological theory and engineering support

Types are fundamental for conceptual modeling and knowledge representation, being an essential construct in all major modeling languages in these fields. Despite that, from an ontological and cognitive point of view, there has been a lack of theoretical support for precisely defining a consensual view on types. As a consequence, there has been a lack of precise methodological support for users when choosing the best way to model general terms representing types that appear in a domain, and for building sound taxonomic structures involving them. For over a decade now, a community of researchers has contributed to the development of the Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO) - aimed at providing foundations for all major conceptual modeling constructs. At the core of this enterprise, there has been a theory of types specially designed to address these issues. This theory is ontologically well-founded, psychologically informed, and formally characterized. These results have led to the development of a Conceptual Modelling language dubbed OntoUML, reflecting the ontological micro-theories comprising UFO. Over the years, UFO and OntoUML have been successfully employed on conceptual model design in a variety of domains including academic, industrial, and governmental settings. These experiences exposed improvement opportunities for both the OntoUML language and its underlying theory, UFO. In this paper, we revise the theory of types in UFO in response to empirical evidence. The new version of this theory shows that many of OntoUML’s meta-types (e.g. kind, role, phase, mixin) should be considered not as restricted to substantial types but instead should be applied to model endurant types in general, including relator types, quality types, and mode types. We also contribute with a formal characterization of this fragment of the theory, which is then used to advance a new metamodel for OntoUML (termed OntoUML 2). To demonstrate that the benefits of this approach are extended beyond OntoUML, the proposed formal theory is then employed to support the definition of UFO-based lightweight Semantic Web ontologies with ontological constraint checking in OWL. Additionally, we report on empirical evidence from the literature, mainly from cognitive psychology but also from linguistics, supporting some of the key claims made by this theory. Finally, we propose a computational support for this updated metamodel.

Related methodological categories in the conceptual construct of intercultural didactics

A new educational paradigm associated with an intercultural approach allows a new look at the traditional models of the process of teaching a foreign language in a pedagogical university, to determine the state of development of modern linguodidactics as a science, to determine the prospects for the development of this scientific field. The transition from the educational paradigm of an industrial society to a post-industrial one is marked by the emergence in scientific circles of increased interest in issues of culture and intercultural communication. The principle of cultural conformity of education (Friedrich Adolph Wilhelm Diesterweg) currently reactivates in teaching methods. In general pedagogic meaning, this principle implies the importance of familiarising a person with various layers of society, culture and the whole world. The principle of cultural conformity serves the ideas of harmonising the surrounding space and education in general, the determinism of the educational and upbringing process by the sociocultural environment, considering the educational sphere as a factor in the development and stabilisation of this environment. Thanks to the current process, closely related concepts appear in Russian and foreign methodological science – cultural competence, intercultural competence, universal cultural competence, socio-cultural competence and others, each of which occupies its own gap in the scientific and methodological space.

Motivating information system engineers’ acceptance of Privacy by Design in China: An extended UTAUT model

Given the serious issues caused by privacy leakage, Privacy by Design (PbD) is gaining the attention of professionals as a new privacy protection paradigm with enormous potential. This study proposes a UTAUT-based integrated model from the perspective of information system (IS) engineers, and explores the determinants of PbD implementation. The implementation of PbD and privacy protection measures relay heavily on IS engineers. However, there is a paucity of research exploring IS engineers’ acceptance of PbD, particularly research that considers engineers’ individualized factors and personal attitudes. Empirical data collected from 261 IS engineers in China demonstrate the rationality of proposed model and the importance of integrating conceptual constructs. The findings suggest that IS engineers’ attitude towards PbD implementation significantly impacts both their behavioral intention and their implementing behavior. IS engineers’ awareness of PbD is a predictor of their effort and performance expectancies, and intention to implement; IS engineers’ effort and performance expectancies concerning PbD usage have significantly impact on their attitude towards PbD. This study reveals the factors that motivate IS engineers to implement PbD into their workflow and proposes for the first time that IS engineers’ attitude towards PbD usage is the key factor for PbD implementation.

Imperfect Facsimiles: The Library and the Museum1

What can the institutional practices of libraries and museums tell us about the ways in which our culture conceives of knowledge and aesthetics? How might their architectures, and our navigation of them, map upon the distinctions we make in our minds, dividing real from fake, legitimate from illegitimate, art from fact? This article lays out the conceptual and spatial constructs that are the Library and the Museum, detailing how even trivial norms within them uphold crucial philosophical distinctions, for example, surrounding authorship and authenticity. It then examines two recent cases of forgery in order to reveal how and why thinking across the thresholds of these distinctions, tenuous as they are, can provoke moral and legal consequences.

Stakeholder Engagement in Adoption, Implementation, and Sustainment of an Evidence-Based Intervention to Increase Mammography Adherence Among Low-Income Women

Multi-level organizational stakeholder engagement plays an important role across the research process in a clinical setting. Stakeholders provide organizational specific adaptions in evidence-based interventions to ensure effective adoption, implementation, and sustainability. Stakeholder engagement strategies involve building mutual trust, providing clear communication, and seeking feedback. Using constructs from the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research and The International Association for Public Participation spectrum, a conceptual framework was created to guide stakeholder engagement in an evidence-based intervention to increase mammography appointment adherence in underserved and low-income women. A document review was used to explore the alignment of the conceptual framework with intervention activities and stakeholder engagement strategies. The results indicate an alignment with the conceptual framework constructs and a real-world application of stakeholder engagement in a mammography evidence-based intervention. The conceptual framework and stakeholder engagement strategies can be applied across a range of community-based cancer programs and interventions, organizations, and clinical settings.

Customers' risk perception and dine-out motivation during a pandemic: Insight for the restaurant industry.

The restaurant industry is one of the most affected businesses during the outbreak of COVID-19. The customer choice regarding whether or not to dine in a restaurant have changed due to this unprecedented global pandemic. Integrated with the affective decision-making framework, meta-theoretic model of motivation (3M), and optimistic bias theory, this conceptual paper proposes a theoretical scheme for understanding constructs that affect consumer motivation while considering the significance of consumers' risk perceptions of the novel coronavirus disease. This research aims to delineate the role of loyalty, trust, and transparency on resuming in-restaurant dining during and after the pandemic. By identifying the link between each construct and addressing the unparalleled food-/health related risks, this study suggests that restaurants who accumulated more customer trust by fostering transparency are likely to have more business and quickly recover from the shock.

An Exploratory Analysis of Expert and Nonexpert-Based Land-Scape Aesthetics Evaluations: A Case Study from Wales

The debate over the conceptual constructs of landscape aesthetics, specifically whether landscape quality is inherently related to landscape physical characteristics or is subjectively “in the eye of the beholder,” has continued for years. Solutions accommodating both the biophysical and perceptual aspects of landscapes are thus desirable for landscape planners and policymakers. In response to policy shifts that emphasise both expert and public landscape perspectives, this study investigates the relationships between formal and informal landscape evaluations. It analyses crowdsourced data describing landscape aesthetic quality (Scenic-Or-Not) and authoritative landscape quality assessments (the Landscape Assessment Decision Making Process (LANDMAP) of Wales). Some agreement was found regarding landforms most likely to be perceived as scenic or unattractive by experts and non-experts, which aligns with previous landscape perception studies. However, contested landscape typologies are identified formal and informal landscape aesthetic evaluations are compared. Several limitations and implications for current formal landscape assessment paradigms (GIS based and vertical) are discussed and several approaches for capturing on-the-ground perceptions are suggested including recent extensions to GIS derived viewsheds (e.g., vertical voxel viewsheds).

Motivating Collaborative Consumption in Fashion: Consumer Benefits, Perceived Risks, Service Trust, and Usage Intention of Online Fashion Rental Services

This study explored the conceptual constructs of consumer benefits and perceived risks of online fashion rental services (Online FRS) and their impacts on usage intention towards Online FRS. The mediating roles of perceived risks and service trust were examined in this research. A survey was performed on female shoppers between the ages of 20–30 residing in a metropolitan area. Results of this research were as follows: (1) The results analyzing the sub-dimension of benefits (Reasonable cost, Wearing at right time, place and occasion (TPO), Space Saving, Entertaining, Product Variety, Style Conformity) and perceived risks (Financial, Performance, Social) clearly presented factorial structures. (2) Reasonable cost, Style Conformity, and Product Variety showed significantly positive influences on usage intentions towards online fashion rental services; in addition, Financial, Performance, and Social risks of rental services had a negative effect on usage intentions. (3) Service trust and consumer perceptions of Financial and Performance risks had important mediating roles in the relationship between consumer benefits and usage intentions towards Online FRS. This study highlighted that consumer benefits, perceived risks, and service trust should be registered among consumers to boost usage intentions towards Online FRS.