Individual Concepts Research Articles

Investigasi Penentu Kinerja Karyawan

Many factors can affect employee performance, such as Work Environment, Leadership, Training and Work Discipline. The purpose of the study was to analyze the effect of the work environment, leadership, training and work discipline on employee performance in the sales department of PT. Toyota Nasmoco Karangjati. This study uses a survey method to employees of the marketing department at PT. Toyota Nasmoco Karangjati has 33 employees as respondents. The sampling technique in this study is the saturated sample. The analytical tools used in this study are: validity test, reliability test, classical assumption test, heteroscedasticity test, ui coefficient of determination and multiple regression analysis. The results of this study indicate that the work environment has a positive and significant effect, giving the understanding that if the work environment is supportive, it will lead to morale. Leadership has a positive and significant effect, giving the understanding that a leader must have a strong individual concept and ability to achieve his goals in the company. Job training has a positive and significant effect, providing an understanding that training is necessary to improve the skills and performance of the company's work. Work Discipline has a positive and significant effect. Provide an understanding that the more disciplined an employee will be, the more the performance of the given employee will increase.

TERMINOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE PROVISIONS OF THE LAW OF UKRAINE «ON ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURE»

The article is devoted to the analysis of terminology used in the Law of Ukraine «On Administrative Procedure». It was emphasized that the terminology used in regulations allows, firstly, to delve into the peculiarities of the national consciousness of the people of Ukraine or the peculiarities of their thinking, and secondly, to understand the general trends in legislation in certain areas of public relations. -third, to establish contradictions between the interests of «elites» and «ordinary citizens», if society has a distorted view of justice, fourth, to identify «foreign» elements of legal regulation, which are «imposed» externally and do not «take root» in the legal system of the state, fourthly, to determine the level of scientific support of legislative activity in the country, fifthly, to give an impression of the level of knowledge and professionalism of the subjects who prepared the bill and passed the law. It is noted that modern national legislation defines the concept of «administrative procedure» and establishes the main features of this legal phenomenon. This makes it possible to: 1) compare to what extent the scientific ideas of previous years about the administrative procedure coincided with the current state of its legal regulation; 2) pay attention to the peculiarities of the materialization of theoretical concepts in the law-making and law-enforcement dimensions. It is established that the definition of administrative procedure in the Law «On Administrative Procedure» is imperfect and has many shortcomings: 1) it does not focus on those features of administrative procedure that distinguish it from other similar legal phenomena; 2) it is devoid of scientific justification and formulated without adherence to scientific and methodological principles. Based on the analysis of the terminology of the Law «On Administrative Procedure» it was concluded that the development of this legal act did not take into account, first, differences between different concepts of administrative procedure, which created many contradictions of substantive nature between individual concepts (eg, «administrative procedure» and «administrative proceedings»), secondly, general scientific requirements for the formation of definitions in legislation. The lack of a unified policy on the formation of terminology in the field of administrative procedural legislation of Ukraine has contributed to the imbalance of the system of categories of administrative legislation and the science of administrative law.

Development and Analysis of an Integrated Mild/Partial Gasification Combined Cycle

Abstract Around 50% of the world’s electrical power supply comes from the Rankine cycle, and the majority of existing Rankine cycle plants are driven by coal. Given how unattractive coal is as an energy resource in spite of its high energy content, it becomes necessary to find a way to utilize coal in a cleaner and more efficient manner. Designed as a potential retrofit option for existing Rankine cycle plants, the integrated mild/partial gasification combined (IMPGC) cycle is an attractive concept in cycle design that can greatly increase the efficiency of coal-based power plants, particularly for retrofitting an old Rankine cycle plant. Compared with the integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC), IMPGC uses mild gasification to purposefully leave most of the volatile matters within the feedstock intact (hence, yielding more chemical energy) compared with full gasification and uses partial gasification to leave some of the remaining char un-gasified compared with complete gasification. The larger hydrocarbons leftover from the mild gasification process grant the resulting syngas a higher volumetric heating value, leading to a more efficient overall cycle performance. This is made possible due to the invention of a warm-gas cleanup process invented by the Research Triangle Institute (RTI), called the high-temperature desulfurization process (HTDP), which was recently commercialized. The leftover char can then be burned in a conventional boiler to boost the steam output of the bottom cycle, further increasing the efficiency of the plant up to 47.9% (based on lower heating value, or LHV). This paper will first analyze the individual concepts used to create the baseline IMPGC model, including the mild and partial gasification processes themselves, the warm-gas cleanup system, and the integration of the boiler with the heat recovery steam generator (HRSG). This baseline will then be compared with four other common types of power plants, including subcritical and ultra-supercritical (USC) Rankine cycles, IGCC, and natural gas. The results show that IMPGC consistently outperforms all other forms of coal-based power. IMPGC is more efficient than the standard subcritical Rankine cycle by nine percentage points, more than a USC Rankine cycle by nearly four points, and more than IGCC by seven points.

Learner development through serial concept mapping

In this study, individual serial concept mapping was employed as a learning approach to demonstrate learner development over time. Participants (n = 22) individually completed serial concept maps consisting of five iterations. A highly structured peer feedback process was employed to support interaction within learners’ zone of proximal development. Learners’ perceptions regarding the development of personal knowledge, process knowledge, and content knowledge were discussed, indicating positive growth in all types of knowledge. Concept mapping with a highly structured feedback loop promoted higher-order thinking skills such as analyzing, evaluation, reflection, and creative thinking. The highly structured peer reviewed process was noted by the learners as influencing learners’ conceptual understanding and development of their serial concept map.

Clinical decision support models for oropharyngeal cancer treatment: design and evaluation of a multi-stage knowledge abstraction and formalization process

PurposeTreatment decisions in oncology are demanding and affect survival, general health, and quality of life. Expert systems can handle the complexity of the oncological field. We propose the application of a hybrid modeling approach for decision support models consisting of expert-based implementation of a decision model structure and machine-learning (ML) based parameter generation. We demonstrate our approach for the treatment of oropharyngeal cancer.MethodsWe created a clinical decision model based on Bayesian Networks and iteratively optimized its characteristics using structured knowledge engineering approaches. We combined manual adaptation of individual concepts with automatic learning of parameters and causalities. Using data from 94 patient records, we targeted the needed objectivity and clinical significance.ResultsIn three iteration steps, we assessed the model with cross-validations. The initial aggregated accuracy of 0.529 could be increased to 0.883 in the final version. The predictive rates of the target nodes range from 0.557 to 0.960.ConclusionCombining different methodological approaches requires balancing the complexity of the clinical subject matter with the amount of information available in the dataset for ML application. Our method showed promising results because flaws of one approach can be overcome by the other approach. However, technical integrability as well as clinical acceptance must always be ensured.

Effect of Destination Brand on Destination Competitiveness in Southwest Region of Nigeria

The image and competitiveness are essential aspects to its promotion and continuous existence in the marketplace. Both destination competitiveness and its brand image are individual concepts with significant influence on the destination. Hence this study is focused on how destination brand image can influence the competitiveness of a destination. To carry out this study, six destinations of the South-West region of Nigeria were the study area, and with the aid of a structured questionnaire, the data was collected. A total of 1530 questionnaires were distributed in the various attractions of the destinations, 1008 was recovered. From the analysis of the data through Structural equation Modelling, Path analysis, it was discovered that destination brand image does have a significant effect on the destination's competitiveness. Therefore, it is concluded that management organizations should give adequate attention to the brand image as it plays a significant role in the competitiveness of a destination.

The Numerals Dva, Tri, Četyre in the Novgorod Birch Bark Letters: A Diachronic Perspective

Abstract: This article investigates the emergence of the cardinal numerals dva 'two', tri 'three', and četyre 'four' in nominal phrases in the Novgorod dialect during the 11th–15th centuries. An innovative approach presented here brings together three productive lines of inquiry—corpus analysis, historical linguistics, and diachronic generative syntax. A corpus analysis was conducted to identify 301 tokens of numeral-containing NPs and to trace the patterns of their diachronic development. The cardinal numerals 2, 3, 4 are shown to evolve from the adjectival "number" words through the process of grammaticalization, more specifically, numeralization. After the loss of dual number, the lower adjectival "number" words for 2, 3, and 4 turned into the cardinal numerals, as their lexically encoded numerosity became functionally encoded countability. The diachrony of the cardinal numerals in the Old Novgorod dialect has shown that the cognitive concepts of cardinality, individuality, and countability are inextricably connected. These concepts are grammatically encoded and subject to diachronic change. This study has demonstrated that a change in grammatical number (loss of the dual) led to the restructuring of countability and the rise of cardinal numerals.

Geometric interpretation and visualization of particular geometric concepts at metric spaces study

The paper considers the issues of studying method of geometric properties of metric spaces. These questions arise when students learn the basic concepts of the metric spaces theory. Difficulty in the concepts understanding arises due to the lack of the geometric interpretation or appropriate visualization. To build a geometric interpretation of rectilinear and flat placement of points of metric space, it is proposed to build the appropriate analogues in two-dimensional and three-dimensional arithmetic Euclidean spaces. To visualize these concepts, it is proposed to use a dynamic geometric environment GeoGebra 3D. This approach allows to demonstrate both the similarity of individual geometric concepts of metric space with the corresponding concepts of Euclidean geometry, and cases of the “non-Euclidean”. The study is useful for teachers and students of higher education institutions majoring in physics and mathematics. Some examples can be used in the study of basic geometric concepts by students of secondary education, in-depth study of mathematics and in various types of informal education.

Cowboy Presidents: The Frontier Myth and U.S. Politics since 1990

The intersection of myth, identity, and politics is at the heart of David A. Smith's Cowboy Presidents. He examines four twentieth-century presidents—Theodore Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush—and how they incorporated Turnerian concepts of individualism, self-reliance, liberty, and democracy during their time in office. He breaks them into two camps, one forward looking and the other more nostalgic, and uses this division to detail how the myth of the frontier changed in response to the social and political atmosphere of each era. Roosevelt and Johnson used the frontier myth to project a liberal/progressive agenda that focused on expanding democracy's reach both in the United States and abroad. Roosevelt set the tone, as Smith details how his experiences out west in the late nineteenth century and continued visitation to the region influenced and, in a way, determined, his actions while in the White House. Sending the...

Intracavitary brachytherapy with additional Heyman capsules in the treatment of cervical cancer

PurposeBrachytherapy is a mandatory component of primary radiochemotherapy in cervical cancer. The dose can be applied with a traditional intracavitary approach (IC alone) or with multiple catheter brachytherapy to optimize dose distribution in an individual concept. We therefore evaluated whether the utilization of a tandem–ring applicator plus additional intracavitary applicators (add IC) provides an advantage over the traditional IC alone approach, as this method is less time consuming and less invasive compared to a combined intracavitary/interstitial brachytherapy.MethodsTwenty three procedures of intracavitary brachytherapy for cervical cancer with additional intracavitary applicators performed in seven patients treated between 2016 and 2018 in our institution were included in this study. Plans were optimized for D90 HR-CTV with and without the utilization of the additional applicators and compared by statistical analysis.ResultsD90 for HR-CTV was 5.71 Gy (±1.17 Gy) for fractions optimized with add IC approach and 5.29 Gy (±1.24 Gy) for fractions without additional applicators (p < 0.01). This translates to a calculated mean EQD2 HR-CTV D90 of 80.72 Gy (±8.34 Gy) compared to 77.84 Gy (±8.49 Gy) after external beam therapy and four fractions of brachytherapy for add IC and IC alone, respectively (p < 0.01). The predictive value of improved coverage of HR-CTV in the first fraction was high.ConclusionIn a subgroup of cases, the addition of intracavitary Heyman capsules can be an alternative to interstitial brachytherapy to improve the plan quality compared to standard IC alone brachytherapy. The benefit from the addition of applicators in the first fraction is predictive for the following fractions.

Quality of care as an individual concept: Proposition of a three-level concept for clinical practice

BackgroundQuality in health care is a complex framework with many components. The word “quality” is used in different official settings and different contexts (public health, certification, patient safety). On individual and team levels, the perception of quality is heterogenous, and the term is often used beyond the theoretical framework. Therefore, it remains a challenge to describe the perceived quality of care in the clinical setting. The aim of this paper is to present a simple concept that can be used to visually define the perceived quality of care for the individual health care professional. Methods/conceptAn experience-based concept that uses different levels of “quality of care” individually to guide the supervision of health care professionals (residents) and quality goal setting in teams is presented, with the assumption that the ambition of any health care professional is to provide excellence in care. Three perceived levels of quality of care are defined, described, and visualized, namely, a) security, b) comfort, and c) perfection. The “comfort level” defines a sustainable level of care where the optimal balance between good patient care and resource use is achieved. Excellence of care is located between the comfort and the perfection level. The practical application of this proposed concept is described in three settings, namely, 1) the threshold for asking advice from the supervisor (resident physicians), 2) in supervision/coaching discussions between residents and supervisors, and 3) in the analysis of perceived quality of care and goals setting within the team. ConclusionA simplified, purpose-built but well-defined concept to visually depict the perception of quality of care by clinicians can be useful in clinical practice, for the supervision of residents and for team dynamics.

Practice, enactivism, and ecological psychology

The Course-of-Experience Framework (CEF) represents a promising path forward for embodied and enactive approaches to cognitive science. It aims to provide a comprehensive explanation of representation-hungry activities by grounding cognition in practice. Practice is not merely something that we do as a means to an end, but is constitutive of cognition. Puzzlingly, however, the CEF begins to develop a distributed approach to cognition by viewing individuals through their cultural-cognitive ecology or milieu, before shifting focus to an internalist interpretation of enactive agency. CEF states that the agent enacts their world and discovers themselves through practice, but provides no clear account of organism-environment mutuality. This is problematic because CEF’s notion of practice depends on organism-environment mutuality in its first core assumption. The tendency to downplay the importance of the environment is likely due to a holdover of early enactivist ideas that have sparked tensions between ecological psychology and enactivism in the past. We attempt to re-align the CEF with the enactive project, which we think is gradually shifting away from individualistic concepts like autopoiesis and sense-making toward social and ecological concepts like participatory sense-making and affordances.

The impact of death and dying on the personhood of senior nurses at the National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS): a qualitative study

BackgroundA nurse’s role in caring for the dying is fraught with ethical, professional, and psychosocial challenges that impact how they perceive their roles as professionals. When unsupported, nurses caring for the dying experience burnout, career dissatisfaction and leave the profession. Better understanding of how caring for the dying affects the professional identity formation (PIF) of nurses will guide efforts to better support nurses.MethodsGuided by new data on the subject, we adopt the theoretical lens of the Ring Theory of Personhood (RToP) to evaluate how caring for the dying impacts the values, beliefs, principles, professional identities and personhood of nurses. We employ Krishna’s Systematic Evidence-Based Approach (SEBA) to guide the design and piloting of the semi-structured interview tool.ResultsAnalysis of interviews with eight senior nurses in Supportive, Palliative and Oncology care revealed three domains: Identity 1) Formation; 2) Conflict and 3) Refinement. Identity Formation occurs early in a nurse’s career, upon entering a new specialist field, and at the start of Supportive, Palliative and Oncology care. Identity Formation reveals significant changes to how self-concepts of professional identities are tied to individual concepts of personhood. Caring for the dying, however, resulted in Conflicts between values, beliefs, and principles within regnant concepts of personhood and their professional duties. These conflicts are captured as conflicts within (‘disharmony’) and/or between (‘dyssynchrony’) the rings of the RToP. These conflicts can result in changes to self-concepts of personhood and professional identities. Identity Refinement sees experience and timely support helping nurses attenuate the impact of difficult experiences. This reduces the risk of burnout and mitigates changes to their professional identities. Identity Refinement helps them develop a ‘rooted identity’ which remains relatively consistent in the face of adversity.ConclusionsOngoing Identity Construction amongst nurses, particularly in caring for the dying, underscore the host organisation’s role in ensuring structured, longitudinal, accessible, and personalised assessments and support of nurses, especially when they are prone to dyssynchrony and disharmony whilst caring for the terminally ill. Further study into assessment methods and the role of the environment is critical.

Relational autonomy and the clinical relationship in dementia care.

The clinical relationship (or doctor-patient relationship) has been underexplored in dementia care. This is in part due to the way that the clinical relationship has been articulated and understood in bioethics. Robert Veatch's social contract model is representative of a standard view of the clinical relationship in bioethics. But dementia presents formidable challenges to the standard clinical relationship, including ambiguity about when the clinical relationship begins, how it weathers changes in narrative identity of patients with dementia, and how the intimate involvement of family fits alongside a paradigmatically dyadic relationship. Drawing on work in recent feminist theory, a critique is offered of the standard clinical relationship in bioethics as underwritten by an individualistic conception of autonomy. An alternative view of the clinical relationship in dementia, one that embraces a relational account of autonomy, is put forward.

Nutrient Intake and Nutrition Status in Vegetarians and Vegans in Comparison to Omnivores - the Nutritional Evaluation (NuEva) Study.

IntroductionIn recent years, vegetarian and vegan diets became increasingly important as they are associated with beneficial health outcomes. Therefore, the NuEva study compares the impact of flexitarian, vegetarian, or vegan diets with omnivorous nutritional habits on nutrient intake and risk factors for non-communicable diseases.MethodsA dietary protocol was kept over five days and blood and 24h urine samples were collected to examine the impact of dietary habits [omnivores, n = 65 (Median/Interquartile range: 33/17 yrs.), flexitarians, n = 70 (30/17 yrs.), ovo-lacto vegetarians, n = 65 (28/14 yrs.), vegans, n = 58 (25/10 yrs.)] on nutrient intake, nutrient concentrations in plasma, serum or 24h urine, body composition, and blood lipids.ResultsThe increased exclusion of animal based foods in the diet (omnivores < flexitarians < vegetarians < vegans) is associated with a decreased intake of energy, saturated fat, cholesterol, disaccharides, and total sugar as well an increased intake of dietary fibers, beta carotene, vitamin E and K. The combined index of the B12 status (4cB12 score) in vegetarians (0.02/0.75) was lower compared to omnivores (0.34/0.58; p ≤ 0.05) and flexitarians (0.24/0.52; p ≤ 0.05). In omnivores vitamin A, vitamin E, ferritin, and the urinary excretion of selenium, iodine, and zinc were higher than in vegans (p ≤ 0.05). In contrast, vegans had the highest concentrations of biotin, folate, and vitamin C. Flexitarians, vegetarians, and vegans had a lower body weight, BMI, and body fat percentage in comparison to omnivores (p ≤ 0.05). In omnivores the concentrations on total cholesterol, total cholesterol/HDL cholesterol ratio, LDL cholesterol, LDL cholesterol/HDL cholesterol ratio, apolipoprotein B, and apolipoprotein B/ apolipoprotein A1 ratio were higher than in vegetarians and vegans (p ≤ 0.05).ConclusionThe NuEva study confirms the position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that adequately planned vegetarian diets are healthy, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of non-communicable diseases. Nevertheless, critical nutrients were identified for all groups studied. This highlights the need to develop individual nutritional concepts to ensure an adequate nutrient intake.

Missing Mechanisms of Manipulation in the EU AI Act

The European Union Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act proposes to ban AI systems that ”manipulate persons through subliminal techniques or exploit the fragility of vulnerable individuals, and could potentially harm the manipulated individual or third person”. This article takes the perspective of cognitive psychology to analyze and understand what algorithmic manipulation consists of, who vulnerable individuals may be, and what is considered as harm. Subliminal techniques are expanded with concepts from behavioral science and the study of preference change. Individual psychometric differences which can be exploited are used to expand the concept of vulnerable individuals. The concept of harm is explored beyond physical and psychological harm to consider harm to one's time and right to an un-manipulated opinion. The paper offers policy recommendations that extend from the paper's analyses.

The Relation between the Characteristics of Individual and Collaborative Concept Generation

AbstractThe purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the concept generation process on metacognition, and the relation between individual concept generation characteristics and the nature of collaboration. The results of the experiment revealed that the attitude affects individual concept generation characteristics, the meta-cognition developed and the quality of the concepts generated. In paired concept generation, the awareness and the attitude toward the partner and individual concept generation characteristics affect the nature of both the collaborative process and generated concepts.

Philip Roth

Philip Roth

Assessment of Mastectomy Skin Flaps for Immediate Reconstruction with Implants via Thermal Imaging-A Suitable, Personalized Approach?

Background: Impaired perfusion of the remaining skin flap after subcutaneous mastectomy can cause wound-healing disorders and consecutive necrosis. Personalized intraoperative imaging, possibly performed via the FLIR ONE thermal-imaging device, may assist in flap assessment and detect areas at risk for postoperative complications. Methods: Fifteen female patients undergoing elective subcutaneous mastectomy and immediate breast reconstruction with implants were enrolled. Pre-, intra- and postoperative thermal imaging was performed via FLIR ONE. Potential patient-, surgery- and environment-related risk factors were acquired and correlated with the occurrence of postoperative complications. Results: Wound-healing disorders and mastectomy-skin-flap necrosis occurred in 26.7%, whereby areas expressing intraoperative temperatures less than 26 °C were mainly affected. These complications were associated with a statistically significantly higher BMI, longer surgery duration, lower body and room temperature and a trend towards larger implant sizes. Conclusion: Impaired skin-flap perfusion may be multifactorially conditioned. Preoperative screening for risk factors and intraoperative skin-perfusion assessment via FLIR ONE thermal-imaging device is recommendable to reduce postoperative complications. Intraoperative detectable areas with a temperature of lower than 26 °C are highly likely to develop mastectomy-skin-flap necrosis and early detection allows individual treatment concept adaption, ultimately improving the patient’s outcome.

Художественный концепт «прошедшее» в зарубежной прозе И.А. Бунина

The article is devoted to the consideration of the peculiarities of the verbalization of the artistic concept “Old days” in the works of I.A. Bunin of the 1920s–40s. A concept is a verbalized mental formation universal for a given language, realized by a language personality as an invariant value of an associative-semantic field. The artistic concept in the work can be considered both as the embodiment of the foundations of the author's worldview, and as the starting point of the dynamic formation of the text, and as the semantic center of this text. This aesthetic mental construct performs 4 main functions: text-forming, plot-forming, meaning-forming and actually figurative. An example of such a phenomenon is the artistic concept “past” in the prose of I. Bunin of the foreign period of his work. The artistic concept of the “past”, unequal to the concept of the “past”, is demonstrated as an example of a typical individual author's concept in the artistic picture of the writer’s world. It is argued that the artistic concept and the universal concept are two varieties of the concept that have specific features. The content of the “past” is often associated with meanings not only temporal, but also ideological, local, and valuable, and the concept can be represented not only by individual lexemes and word combinations, but also by expanded explicants-sentences and microcontexts, which is characteristic of the artistic concept. The conclusions made by the author demonstrate the significance of the analysis of the artistic concept “Old days” not only for understanding the artistic picture of the world of the late I. Bunin, but also for artistic conceptology in general. The results of the study can be applied to the analysis of the representation of artistic concepts in a literary text.