Instrumental Functions Research Articles

Silent voices: Transition experiences of family members caring for relatives with dementia.

Worldwide 46.8 million persons are living with dementia and many are requiring assistance with performing daily living or instrumental functions. It is often the task of family members to provide care for their relatives with dementia. However, they are often the silent, unseen and unacknowledged figures in the lives of people living with dementia. In 2015, we used a phenomenological design utilising visual participatory methods in the form of collages and interviews to explore and describe the transition experiences of eight family members (seven females and one male) living in a South African city regarding how they became caregivers of their relatives with dementia. They often entered their caregiving roles unexpectedly, often not having much choice regarding whether or not to take on the caregiving role. Family members caring for relatives with dementia have unique support needs as they transition into the caregiving role.

SEMANTIC SPACE OF THE RESEARCH PAPER ABSTRACT

The article explores semantic structure of the abstract of geological research papers (GRPA) and proposes a model of its semantic space. Consideration is given to the functional level. Its semantics is concluded to be built by two segments of content – referential and textual ones.
 GRPA is defined to be a super-segmental sign of secondary denotation and co-reference, which reflects a complex system of semiotic, semiological, and textual relations between two lingual signs – the research paper and the abstract. GRPA referential semantics is studied via the GRPA semiotic relations and establishes coding, patterning, and indexing functions to frame GRPA semiotic semantics, while also recognizing instrumental, indicatory, identifying, substitution, and compensatory functions to be complementary to the GRPA semiotic nature.
 GRPA semiological relations establish reportive, referential, and reflective functions to be fundamental to GRPA textual semantics, which is supplemented by informative, visualizing, and educative functions. Informativeness, evidentiality, and credibility are determined to constitute core attributes of the GPRA functional semantics. The descriptors of informative semantics of the texts of academic genres and the GRPA, in particular, are concluded to be the predicates of existence, state, identification, movement, physical and intellectual action, location, and characterization.

Axially Symmetric Energy Analyzer Based on the Electrostatic Decapole-Cylindrical Field

A new electron-optical scheme of an axially symmetric mirror energy analyzer based on the electrostatic decapole-cylindrical field is presented. A trajectory analysis of electron motion is performed. Design features of the proposed energy analyzer scheme are described. Second-order focusing regimes for two configurations are numerically calculated: (1) a ring source and its image located in the region of the inner cylinder and (2) a point source located at a great distance from the energy analyzer on the symmetry axis. It is shown that on the basis of the decapole-cylindrical field, a long-focal-length mirror energy analyzer with “axis–ring” type focusing can be built. Instrumental functions for two regimes of the energy analyzer are given; energy resolution and luminosity of the device are estimated.

The structure of professional attorney’s consciousness

The problem of studying consciousness has been quite relevant and significant throughout the lifetime of psychology, since it is the consciousness that builds the inner picture of the world and forms a semantic representation of reality, performing the reflective, regulatory and instrumental functions of the human psyche. Consciousness arises and forms in the process of regulation of social activity and allows a person to set himself a certain goal, to isolate himself from the outside world, to determine his attitude to the objects and phenomena of the outside world. The objective necessity of successful socio-economic development of the Ukrainian society, the task of formation of the state of law, implementation of a complex of measures related to the implementation of legal reform lead to an increase in the role of professional attorney, their responsibility for the results of their activities.
 The professional consciousness of attorney is a special phenomenon of modern reality, the study of which is possible only with a thorough analysis of it as a theoretical and legal construction. Proceeding from the approaches developed in psychological science, in some cases, this kind of consciousness can be regarded as a set of views, ideas, theories, representations and feelings of a group of people with a certain status of a attorney, with respect to the law, current and desirable. In others - as a "reflection of legal reality" by attorney in the process of carrying out their professional activities. Features of the content of professional consciousness of attorney should be analyzed, based on the following elements: professional knowledge, attitude to the profession, skills of professional behavior

Merging Dugger’s Concepts with O’Hara’s Principles to Advance Social and Institutional Economics

The purpose of this paper is to situate, reconstruct, summarise and provide some research guidelines for advancing the scientific study of William M. Dugger’s concepts of social and institutional economics. We start by examining the nature of Dugger’s concepts and how we can dissect Dugger’s concepts with the aid of Phillip O’Hara’s principles. Then in the bulk of the paper we, firstly, contextualise these Duggerian concepts that have a direct bearing on the rule or principle of (A) Historical Specificity and the temporal dimensions of socioeconomic processes: including the concepts of realism; historical time; evolution; blind drift; plus the community’s joint stock of knowledge. Secondly, we scrutinise those concepts that link directly to the principle of (B) Circular and Cumulative Causation: concepts of interdependency, amplified dynamics, and virtuous and vicious cycles and uneven developments. Thirdly, we examine those Duggerian concepts that are associated with the principle of (C) Heterogeneous Groups and Agents: equality, gender, ethnicity, class, nationality and enabling myths. This is followed, fourthly, by a discussion of those concepts that link to the principle of (D) Contradictory Processes in the social and political economy: Dugger’s concepts of power; hegemony; vested interests versus the common good; instrumental and ceremonial functions of institutions; emulation and conspicuous consumption; plus vesting, entrenching and faking. Fifthly, the principle of (E) Ethics and Policy is correlated with the Duggerian concepts of social provisioning; participatory democracy; democratic planning; and abundance. A conclusion follows with some ideas for future research on these principles and concepts of social and institutional economics.

Employer Branding in the Indian Armed Forces Context: A Comparative Study of Potential Defence Applicants and Defence Employees

Indian Armed Forces are one of the largest organizations around the globe. Joining the forces is based on the voluntary service. Hence, it is important and critical for the armed forces to attract skilled talent and also to retain the current employees. This research is based on the study of instrumental and symbolic attributes related to Indian Armed Forces as an employer brand. The attractiveness of the Indian Armed Forces as an employer for potential candidates and the current employees of the armed forces is also studied. A sample of 200 people was used (150 potential candidates and 50 current employees) for studying the perceptions of potential and current employees. Results showed that there is significant difference between the perceptions of potential candidates and current employees for the instrumental functions related to Indian Armed Forces. Potential candidates were more favourable towards the instrumental function. The perceptions regarding ‘symbolic functions’ and ‘the Indian Armed Forces attractiveness as an employer’ were explained in similar proportion between the potential candidates and the current employees.

Ayah Tangguh, Keluarga Utuh : Pola Asuh Ayah pada Keluarga Buruh Migran Perempuan di Kabupaten Banyumas

Banyumas as one of the bases of Indonesian Migrant Workers (BMI), annually dispatches about 2.000 Women Migrant Workers (BMP). Parenting is then replaced by the father's role. This study aimed to identify the role of father in child care. The study used a constructivist paradigm becaouse of the consideration that is the paradigm has the ability to reveal details of a particular community culture by understanding its natural cultural arrangement by research subject’s point of view. The method used is qualitative, requiring the skill of the researcher to reveal the thick description about the daily life of the child left behind in Banyumas Regency among 10 informants as participants of this research. The research result showed that when the mother left the children to go abroad as migrant worker, the father’s role to nurture the child became important. When the early childhood, fathers had significant roles for instrumental and expressive functions. Meanwhile, while the children were teenagers and had more complex problems, the father was needed to be more communicative, assertive, and able to reflective listen to the children’s problems and feeling. Therefore, for the women migrant’s family; the tougher the father, the stronger the family. It means that the father should have the strong will, willing to harder work, and also willing to more learn about how to practice authoritative parenting.

Effects of Interstellar Dust Scattering on the X-ray Eclipses of the LMXB AX J1745.6-2901 in the Galactic Center

AX J1745.6-2901 is an eclipsing low-mass X-ray binary in the Galactic Centre (GC). It shows significant X-ray excess emission during the eclipse phase, and its eclipse light curve shows an asymmetric shape. We use archival XMM–Newton and Chandra observations to study the origin of these peculiar X-ray eclipsing phenomena. We find that the shape of the observed X-ray eclipse light curves depends on both photon energy and the shape of the source extraction region, and also shows differences between the two instruments. By performing detailed simulations for the time-dependent X-ray dust-scattering halo, as well as directly modelling the observed eclipse and non-eclipse halo profiles of AX J1745.6-2901, we obtained solid evidence that its peculiar eclipse phenomena are indeed caused by the X-ray dust scattering in multiple foreground dust layers along the line of sight (LOS). The apparent dependence on the instruments is caused by different instrumental point spread functions. Our results can be used to assess the influence of dust-scattering in other eclipsing X-ray sources, and raise the importance of considering the timing effects of dust-scattering halo when studying the variability of other X-ray sources in the GC, such as Sgr A⋆. Moreover, our study of halo eclipse reinforces the existence of a dust layer local to AX J1745.6-2901 as reported by Jin et al. (2017), as well as identifying another dust layer within a few hundred parsecs to the Earth, containing up to several tens of percent LOS dust, which is likely to be associated with the molecular clouds in the Solar neighbourhood. The remaining LOS dust is likely to be associated with the molecular clouds located in the Galactic disc in-between.

Amyloid PET Positivity in Different Primary Progressive Aphasia Phenotypes.

Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a neurological syndrome in which language functions become progressively impaired with relative sparing of memory and other instrumental functions. The pathologic causes of PPA are heterogeneous, but studies suggest that logopenic PPA (LPA) is underpinned by Alzheimer disease (AD) pathology in a high proportion of cases. The purposes of this descriptive and retrospective study were to characterize F-florbetapir PET imaging in a group of patients with a clinical syndrome of PPA, to determine the value of clinical characterization based on language phenotype in predicting the underlying pathology of PPA with F-florbetapir, and to quantify amyloid load in PPA subjects classified as "positive" F-florbetapir scans. Then, we compare the quantification and distribution of F-florbetapir uptake with those of typical, predominantly amnestic AD patients. We conducted a PET study with F-florbetapir in a cohort of 12 right-handed patients diagnosed with PPA: 3 patients with semantic-variant PPA, 5 with nonfluent PPA, 1 with LPA, and 3 unclassifiable patients. We evaluated amyloid deposition between APP groups and 11 patients with typical amnestic AD. Among the 12 patients with PPA syndrome, 8 (66.7%) were considered as amyloid positive. One of the 3 patients with semantic-variant PPA was F-florbetapir positive. In contrast, 4 of the 5 nonfluent-variant PPA, 2 of the 3 unclassifiable cases and the single patient with LPA were F-florbetapir positive. A significantly higher F-florbetapir uptake was observed in PPA F-florbetapir-positive patients compared with typical AD patients. This difference was observed in all regions of interest, except in posterior cingulate and temporal cortex. These results suggest that F-florbetapir PET may be useful in a routine clinical procedure to improve the reliability of identifying AD pathology in patients with PPA syndrome, with different clinical subtypes of the PPA syndrome.

Bridging bonds: Latvian migrants’ interpersonal ties on social networking sites

Conflicting accounts exist regarding the influence of online-based communication platforms on the development of cross-border migrants’ networks. It has been reported that such platforms can either promote migrants’ participation in the host society or support secluded ethnic networks at the expense of developing ties with the local population. This article examines this issue through the analysis of the accumulation of online-based social capital among first-generation Latvian migrants. The study is based on interviews with 20 Latvians living in other countries who are frequent users of social networking sites and a survey of Latvian migrants ( N = 14,068). Migrants use social networking sites to maintain ties with friends and relatives in Latvia and also to broaden their networks and enable access to relevant information and contacts. Rather than interpreting social networking site-mediated communication among migrants as the accumulation of either bridging or bonding social capital, this article highlights the limitations of construing this pair of concepts as a binary opposition. In their online connections, Latvian migrants develop ‘dispersed ties’ – a bonding connection with fellow Latvians as a group and simultaneously bridging connections with individual members of the group, which increase heterogeneity of their networks and serve instrumental functions.

University monitoring research: experience and results

The article presents the research of the monitoring that has recently been intensified, as well as radical changes in the organization of Ukrainian universities. Thus, we can observe that researches are gradually changing the goals, and as a result their functional features. Initially, the conduction of monitoring research is related to the definition of the degree of subjective perception of the quality of lecturers’ activity, as well as administrative and organizational changes, but afterwards it performs the functions of control and evaluation. Today the monitoring research is becoming an integral part of inner audit of the quality of educational activity. The problems, which arise, concern both, the quality of monitoring tools and the purpose of monitoring; its results are also connected with the results of efficient activity of subjects in educational process, including the university. It should be noted that, except for the purely internal instrumental functions, in the future, monitoring will become the means of the diagnosis of transparent activity in higher educational institutions. One of such steps is the demonstration of the content and the results of monitoring research, which was conducted at Stepan Gzhytskyi National University of Veterinary Medicine and Biotechnologies Lviv during 2008–2016, especially the results since 2010, as they enable us to compare. The authors give emphasis to the monitoring stages, analyzing the objectives, content and results. The data analysis of the research is the basis for the new approaches formation, concerning the university as a subject. This study stimulates the development of similar practices at other universities. First of all, it will encourage the transparency in their activities; secondly, the exchange of experience in the formation of internal system of quality, and finally, this work is essential in the creation of common space for international relations and significant inter-university research.

The study of a new family of phase masks for three-dimensional fluorescence nanoscopy

The question of the axial coordinate determination accuracy is quite sophisticated in far field 3D fluorescence nanoscopy. The accuracy of a point emitter axial coordinate reconstruction depends among other things on the conversion efficiency of the phase mask and the microscope objective instrumental function. It was found that the instrumental functions of different microscope objectives differ significantly from each other, most have a strongly non-uniform spatial distribution of the radiation intensity in a parallel beam created by an objective focused on a point emitter. It was shown that taking into account the actual microscope objective instrumental function when calculating the phase masks allows to increase significantly the axial coordinate reconstruction accuracy.

Interdisciplinary transforming of the functions of pedagogical comparativistics

The article presents a classification of interdisciplinary transformations of the functions of comparative pedagogy in the information age. The problem of transforming comparative pedagogy into pedagogical comparativistics was studied. The key functions of pedagogical comparativistics are revealed. Classification is considered in the evolutionary key. In the classification of the transformation of key functions, four types of evolutionary transformations were defined: 1) divergent, 2) parallel, 3) co-evolutionary, 4) convergent. Thus, the authors pointed to hybrid transformations under the influence of other sciences: cognitive neuroscience, mathematics, psychology, statistics, evaluation of results in social sciences, informatics and others. The main function was recognized as a comparative function that combines together analytical, representative, instrumental, evaluation and prognostic functions into a single whole.

The Instrumental Functions of Cultural Studies and Policies in Contemporary Nigerian Society

The Instrumental Functions of Cultural Studies and Policies in Contemporary Nigerian Society

USING VALUE ASSESSMENT AS A TOOL FOR SAFEGUARDING BUILT HERITAGE “THE CASE STUDY OF EMPRESS MARKET IN KARACHI”

Understanding and documenting the value of a heritage property is of utmost importance. The value of built heritage is basically referred to as an intangible aspect that characterizes its importance, worth, usefulness or the benefits in various dimensions. Heritage is valued not as an intellectual enterprise but it also plays instrumental, symbolic, and other functions in society (Tidwell, 2002). This research paper focuses on analyzing the historical and architectural value of Empress Market building in Karachi which in 1995 was declared protected heritage of Pakistan having an enlistment number 1995-047 under the Antiquities Act, 1975 and the Sindh Cultural Heritage (Preservation) Act 1994 by the Government of Pakistan. To understand the worth of the building and authenticity of that worth, a value based analysis is carried out with the help of applying Nara Grid to its various aspects. Nara grid is an evaluation scheme that helps measure authenticity of a building. A historical timeline of the building phases has been developed to understand the complexity of the structure. Also to gain a better understanding of the building, the architectural value assessment is carried out on the basis of research, architectural works, construction techniques and the structural systems. It also includes an inventory of the significant architectural attributes. Keywords: Value Assessment, Built Heritage, Empress Market, Karachi

A sociolinguistic profile of English in Lebanon

ABSTRACTThis article provides an overview of the historical presence of foreign languages in Lebanon, focusing on language contact from the eighteenth century to date. Through sociolinguistic profiling, the paper describes the users and uses of English, as well as Lebanese attitudes towards English. The article begins by offering a general overview of the country, its languages and cultures, and its ethnic and religious groups. It presents a description of users of English along with a characterization of how the interpersonal, instrumental, regulative, and innovative functions of the language are manifested, while the final section of the article discusses attitudes to English in Lebanese society.

Separation of continuous lines mutually overlapping and smoothed by the instrumental function

Direct and inverse spectroscopy problems concerning superposition of overlapping continuous spectral lines, as well as smoothing of the total spectrum by the instrumental function, are considered. The direct problem is formulated in two stages: initially, the total spectrum is formed by lines with a given intensity distribution, and, then, a smoothed by the spectrometer instrumental function and noisy spectrum is obtained. The inverse problem is also formulated in two stages: initially, the Fredholm integral equation of the first kind is solved by the Tikhonov regularization method (an ill-posed problem), and, then, the problem of reconstruction of separate line-component shapes from the total spectrum is solved, which is the problem of line separation (division). The individual line components are modeled by Gaussians and Lorentzians. Numerical illustrations are shown. Gaussian and dispersion (Lorentz) instrumental functions are considered.

Instrumental semantic map in Western Iranian languages

AbstractThis paper aims to study instrumental related functions in some Western Iranian languages. The data were collected from descriptive grammars, and interviews in some cases. Narrog’s instrumental semantic map is the basis for analyzing polysemy patterns in these languages. The data show that two main polysemy patterns are attested: (1) Instrumental and companion functions are coded alike. (2) They are coded differently. These two patterns are distributed areally. Furthermore, some languages are shifting/have shifted between these two types mainly as a result of contact-induced matters. In languages in which two or more functions are not directly connected, one marker generally has both instrumental and dative functions.

Cognitive dysfunction associated with aluminum hydroxide-induced macrophagic myofasciitis: A reappraisal of neuropsychological profile

Patients with macrophagic myofasciitis (MMF) present with diffuse arthromyalgias, chronic fatigue, and cognitive disorder. Representative features of MMF-associated cognitive dysfunction include attentional dysfunction, dysexecutive syndrome, visual memory deficit and left ear extinction. Our study aims to reevaluate the neuropsychological profile of MMF. 105 unselected consecutive MMF patients were subjected to a neuropsychological battery of screen short term and long-term memory, executive functions, attentional abilities, instrumental functions and dichotic listening. From these results, patients were classified in four different groups: Subsymptomatic patients (n=41) with performance above pathological threshold (−1.65 SD) in all tests; Fronto-subcortical patients (n=31) who showed pathological results at executive functions and selective attention tests; Papezian patients (n=24) who showed pathological results in storage, recognition and consolidation functions for episodic verbal memory, in addition to fronto-subcortical dysfunction; and Extinction patients (n=9) who had a left ear extinction at dichotic listening test in association to fronto-subcortical and papezian dysfunction. In addition, inter-test analysis showed that patients with apparently normal cognitive functions (Subsymptomatic group) performed significantly worse to attention tests compared to others. In conclusion, our study shows that (i) most patients have specific cognitive deficits; (ii) all patients with cognitive deficit have impairment of executive functions and selective attention; (iii) patients without measurable cognitive deficits display significant weakness in attention; (iv) episodic memory impairment affects verbal, but not visual, memory; (v) none of the patients show an instrumental dysfunction.

Calculation of instrumental functions as a method for analyzing the alignment of the IR channel of a scanning Fourier-transform IR spectroradiometer

A specific feature of scanning Fourier-transform IR spectroradiometers (FTIR SRs) is the use of a multiarea photodetector. The optical scheme of these SRs is calculated so as to provide the most efficient transfer of the IR radiation from each sector of the IR channel to the corresponding element of the multiarea photodetector. An indirect method is proposed, which makes it possible to estimate the alignment quality of the IR channel of a scanning FTIR SR based on the calculation of its characteristic instrumental functions, which should eventually provide the best sensitivity for the entire multiarea photodetector of scanning FTIR SR.