Integral Task Research Articles

ESTABLISHMENT OF ART SCHOOLS IN UKRAINE (END OF XX – BEGINNING OF XXI CENTURY)

The article examines the socio-historical and pedagogical prerequisites for the development of art schools in Ukraine, the peculiarities of their development at the end of the 20th ‒ beginning of the 21st century. It is emphasized that the art school contains levers for the development of those qualities and properties of a person that determine the way of his existence in the world. The general culture of the individual, moral education, ethical orientations a powerful impetus for development in the process of learning art. The formation of the child’s cognitive interests, his knowledge of the universe, and not only the intellectual coverage of events, but also, most importantly, the ability to penetrate into their emotional subtext, also subject to art education, constitute its integral task. Due to the axiological nature of artistic images, art education acquires great importance in the formation of worldview positions of students. Art education especially vividly contributes to the development of a child’s creative abilities, encourages him to heuristic activity. The need for systematic hard work in the process of art education instills work capacity and a respectful attitude to work in students. Art education with its own concept of activity in the best way contributes to the formation of “intercultural competence”, which is interpreted as a positive attitude to the diversity of cultures. It is in its functioning that the multidimensionality of cultural and educational activities, the brilliant combination of the rational and the sensual, the scientific and the artistic, are observed. to the level of cultural development of Ukrainian society, ensuring functional and meaningful artistic and creative connections of the center and regions. The article emphasizes that art schools, combining different artistic directions, create a multifaceted spectrum of additional opportunities for the development of the giftedness of each student.

The control unit of the combined photovoltaic/thermal system

During the last years the design and implementation of energy-saving solutions remains a relevant and integral task for implementation the route of decreasing carbon emissions and reduce the negative impact on the environment. Using combined photovoltaic/thermal systems is limited by their high price connected mainly with the complexity of their control systems, even taking into account availability of government programs for financial support for the use of alternative energy. The novelty of the proposed work consists in the development of a mathematical model and the analytical study of the control system of combined photovoltaic/thermal system for research the operation of control and logic elements and their response to transient and emergency modes during such systems operation. Aim of the work - operational analysis, analytical and optimization studies of the control system of the combined photovoltaic/thermal system to ensure reliable operation in transient and emergency modes and significantly simplify the design of such a system. In this article was implemented mathematical modeling methods and using specialized software. As a result of the work the mathematical model of the control system of combined photovoltaic/thermal system which operates with variable set of control and logic elements was developed. A structural solution of the control system is proposed for further implementation and field testing. The response criteria of the control system to transient and emergency operation modes of the combined photovoltaic/thermal system have been developed. Practical value. It was established the permissible and critical values of a number of parameters characterizing the operation of combined photovoltaic/thermal system in normal mode and deviations from which indicate the presence of an emergency situation are determined. The proposed algorithms of the control system will make it possible to increase the reliability of combined photovoltaic/thermal system and reduce the risk of emergency situations during field tests and further operation.

Digital Catalogue of Encolpion Crosses from the Collection of V. V. Tarnovskyi

Today, preserving Ukraine’s cultural heritage is an integral task for museum organisations and research institutions. Digitising museum collections has become an important and timely task for museum’s employees. The creation of 3D-models of one of the collections of crosses-encolpions of the 10th—13th centuries which is stored in the repository of the Chernihiv Historical Museum named after V. V. Tarnovskyi was no exception. It took place in 2023 with the support of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (DAI). The aim of the project was to create a publicly available digital catalogue of the collection, which is posted on the website of the mentioned Museum named after V. V. Tanrnovskyi and on the sketchfaom/horm (fig.1). 53 encolpion crosses were in the archaeological part of the collection of V. V. Tarnovskyi at the end of the 19th century. Today only 21 encolpions from this collection are preserved in the Museum. Almost all reliquary crosses from the collection are dated to the period of Kyivan Rus, and only one item was an import from the Byzantine provinces. Various types of encolpions are represented: crosses with relief images (the most numerous), with blackened images and relief-blackened encolpion crosses. A rare type of reliquary crosses includes an encolpion back leaf with a relief image of John the Baptist with an accompanying inscription. Three-dimensional modeling and corresponding photogrammetric recording is quite widely used to digitise the smallest moving artefacts. Models are used for advanced recording and digital preservation of data, visualisation of research results, additional metrological studies, computer reconstructions, etc. Method of photogrammetric surveying was used during the creation of a digital catalogue of 3D-models of encolpion crosses. The result of the project is the creation of a multimedia visualised digital catalogue of the collection of encolpion crosses in free access on the global network, which presents a moving 3D-model of each arteifact and the main descriptive information. This will ensure the preservation of arteifacts in the digital dimension, their use in the Museum’s inteactive exhibitions, the creation of an accurate material copy of the arteifact, and allow remote analysis of materials by scientists for consultations, familiariszation wit artefacts, scintific analysis and writing of scientific articles.

Метабиотики и комплексный подход в профилактике дисбиотических нарушений

Aim. To conduct a systematic analysis of modern data on the role of metabiotics in the correction of functional disorders of organs and systems that arise as a result of dysbiotic disorders of the intestinal microflora. Key points. With the development of research on the human microbiome, more and more scientific evidence supports the key role of the gut microbiota in the pathogenesis of various diseases. Maintaining normal functional activity of the microbiome is an integral physiological task of any living organism. Dysbiotic disorders of the intestinal flora are associated with the phenomenon of bacterial translocation - the process of movement of microorganisms that colonize the mucous membrane of the gastrointestinal tract to other parts of the body, including the pelvic organs. Metabiotics are new generation drugs that can have a positive regulatory effect on the relationship between the host and its microflora, without entering into an antagonistic relationship with it. It is assumed that they inhibit the growth of pathogenic and opportunistic microflora. Offering the same health benefit profile as probiotics, metabiotics are free of the risks and uncertain reactions associated with introducing live bacteria into the body. Conclusion. Since the relationship between dysbiotic disorders of the intestinal flora and the development of a number of inflammatory diseases of the female reproductive system cannot be excluded, the use of metabiotics as a preventive or concomitant therapy can help improve the effectiveness of treatment. Key words: probiotics, metabiotics, dysbiosis, bacterial vaginosis, microbiota.

Organization of Forensic Activity: Issues of Theory and Practice

The article describes scientific approaches to the concept of «forensic activity», focuses on the expediency of analysis of forensic activity in technical, tactical and strategic aspects including the appropriate differentiation of the objectives of these activities, it is argued that a clear definition of the integral task of forensic activities is the basis of its effective algorithmization, programming, information and technological support. The author’s view on the structure and content of forensic activities is provided. Attention to the fact that the organization of forensic activities is an important component of its effective implementation is drawn. The concept of organization of criminal activity, its essence is given, levels are characterized.

Reduction of a fan vibration activity in a life support system of oil and gas stations

Relevance. Electromechanical fans are widely used in life support systems of oil and gas stations, operate in conditions of vibration, high rotational speeds and loads. Design, technological and operational reasons influence vibration activity of an electromechanical device. The greatest "contribution" to the existing vibrations, according to the frequency spectrum, is made by the imperfection of the design elements of the ball bearing. They are: separator movement, variable stiffness under the action of radial load, interaction of micro-dimensions of working surfaces, facet and waviness of working surfaces of rings and balls. In addition, the resulting vibrations negatively affect both the reliability and durability of the fan. Since it is technically impossible to completely eliminate the vibration activity of an electromechanical device, it is advisable to reduce it with the help of a technical solution by introducing a damping element into a kinematic circuit of the vibration source. In this regard, the development of a damping device is an integral technical task that helps to reduce the vibration activity of technical life support systems of oil and gas stations, as well as to improve the quality of environmental conditions of human life. To reduce vibration activity, a damper design is proposed that takes into account various types of energy dissipation. However, given the dense spectrum of vibration frequencies from ball bearings, a viscous friction element is introduced into the damper design. To determine the effectiveness of reducing vibration activity, a model of the damper in question was made based on the developed 3D model. For tests in determining the effectiveness of applying a viscous friction element, two variants of the damper design were used. In the first version of the damper design, there was no viscous friction element, and in the second version there was one. According to the test results of the damper layouts, it can be seen that the developed technical solution to reduce the vibration activity of the electromechanical device has practical confirmation. The studies underlying the developed design of the damper with a viscous friction element allows for reduction in the vibration amplitude. Object. Electromechanical device in operating mode. Aim. To describe the vibration activity in the operating mode of an electromechanical device in the entire spectrum of disturbing effects acting along the axes, taking into account the imperfect geometry of ball bearing parts; to develop a damper for reducing the vibration activity level in the electromechanical device. Methods. Vibration diagnostics, computational mathematics, measuring instruments, software "Vibration recorder-F", "Vibration Recorder-M2", "Logger"-recorder and "Bearing". Results. The paper demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed technical solution to reduce the vibration amplitude in the operating frequency range of the electromechanical device rotor up to 4 times compared with the corresponding maximum amplitude value without its use.

Pharmacy Department management and organization

The WHO declared the SARS- CoV-2 outbreak a pandemic in March 11, 2020. Spain has been the third country with the highest number of reported cases of COVID-19. In the face of the pandemic, the authorities of the Autonomous Community of Madrid led an unprecedented transformation of hospital services by increasing the number of beds available, setting up temporary field hospitals in fairgrounds, and transforming hotels into support centers for patients with mild symptoms of COVID-19.In the light that this crisis will continue to be a real threat for the years to come, our hospital pharmacies need to be better prepared for similar outbreaks in the future.During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Hospital Pharmacy of Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Maranon has faced four challenges: an exponential increase in the demand for resources, constant changes to therapeutic protocols and approaches, regulatory changes, and a dramatic impact on hospital staff (strain on human resources and psychological impact).This article is aimed at describing the main organizational changes implemented to the Department of Hospital Pharmacy of Hospital GU Gregorio Maranon and its relationship with other hospital pharmacies of the Community of Madrid. An account is provided of the strategies to be adopted for reorganizing a Department of Hospital Pharmacy and achieve a safe and effective use of medications. Strategies range from the creation of integral hospital task groups (COVID-crisis task group, protocolization task group, research task group) to the adaptation of the internal organization of the Department of Hospital Pharmacy, which encompasses aspects related to management and leadership; a communication plan (internal and external); staff management, and the reorganization and adaptation of processes.People, patients and professionals are at the core of these strategies. This paper is a reflection on key factors of “humanization in COVID times”

THE FORMATION OF MARKETING MECHANISMS FOR MANAGING BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT BASED ON PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES. Improving the operation of a commercial enterprise is an integral task of a growing business. In modern conditions of rapid global technological growth, systems of analysis and statistics come out on top in terms of efficiency. The introduction of a business management system through marketing and predictive analysis will allow you to stand out in a competitive environment and make the company more sustainable and competitive. The solutions currently available cannot solve the emerging business problems. These software solutions are often complex, require large amounts of raw data, and end up producing questionable statistics that cannot be further applied. Therefore, the whole business is faced with the task of finding and implementing simple but really working methods of analyzing activities and managing the development of an enterprise.
 METHODS. It is proposed to use a business management system through marketing and analytics. Changes in the hierarchy of the enterprise will allow to unite all structural divisions with a single link, which will help to coordinate and direct the entire business as a whole. The next qualitative change should be called the introduction of a predictive analytics system, which will allow making decisions accurately and on time. Particular importance should be attached to predictive analysis using the SALSA method. The simplicity and adaptability of this method of analysis will allow it to be implemented not only in large, but also in medium and small enterprises.
 FINDINGS. It is proposed to present the results of predictive analysis in a simple and understandable form to ensure clarity, comparability and the ability to quickly make the right strategic decisions. To improve the competitiveness of companies, it is proposed to change the structure of the business hierarchy and manage departments using statistical and analytical data obtained by the marketing department.
 CONCLUSION. Accurate data and strong interconnection of all departments in the company will be able to ensure stable operation, reduce costs, increase margins and competitiveness of the company. The introduction of a management system based on predictive analysis will help to avoid critical points in the work of the enterprise and respond in time to changes in the internal and external environment. High efficiency of work will help to enter new markets not only in Ukraine but also abroad.
 KEYWORDS: marketing; predictive analytics; business management; business efficiency.

Identity construction among deaf adolescents and young adults: A literature review.

Identity construction is an integral developmental task for adolescents and young adults (AYA). The intersection of deaf identity and disabling hearing loss (DHL) adds a layer to the complex process of identity construction. This literature review highlights the self-ascribed deaf identities of AYA and seeks to understand how AYA with DHL forge these identities. Knowledge areas for prospective research and practice are uncovered. A traditional literature review of qualitative empirical evidence on AYA's accounts of their deaf identity construction was conducted on seminal literature and peer-reviewed journals in psychology, disability studies and deaf studies. The emerging self-ascribed deaf identities of AYA are diverse. The identities include Deaf, hearing, hard-of-hearing (HOH), bicultural HOH, identities that detach from disability, bicultural DeaF, unresolved and fluid identities. Complex trade-offs exist where the construction of certain identities forgoes certain reasonable accommodations, interventions or relations that are critical for personal development and wellbeing. Current literature orients deaf identity formation around hearing status and Deaf-hearing communal dynamics. In-depth research comprising facets of AYA's personal, enacted and relational identities is required to conscientise rehabilitation professionals about the nuances of deaf identity issues and how to develop interventions that are supportive and responsive to the clinical and psychosocial challenges of AYA with DHL. This paper deviates from the d/Deaf identity dichotomy, revealing a spectrum of deaf identities that AYA forge. The rationales of AYA's deaf identities, underlying processes and possible vulnerable identities are unpacked. Recommendations for prospective research pertaining to identity construction among deaf AYA are made.

Plotting Impossible? Surveying Visualization Methods for Continuous Multi-Objective Benchmark Problems

Traditionally, visualizing benchmark problems is an integral task in the domain of evolutionary algorithms development. Researchers get inspired for new search heuristics by challenges observed in functional landscapes. Moreover, landscape characteristics, features, and even terminology to describe them are derived from visualizations. And most importantly, benchmark designers need visualizations for identifying diverse problems that potentially challenge different aspects of optimization algorithms. As easy as it is to visualize single-objective problems, until recently there were hardly any approaches for gaining similar insights for multi-objective problems. Also, there have been no seamlessly accessible tools to support such visualizations. This article presents a comprehensive overview of the available visualization techniques from literature, including two interactive techniques to visualize 3-D problems, as well as two novel techniques which are suitable to scale some visualization properties to even higher-dimensional spaces. All presented techniques are integrated into a single tool, the moPLOT-dashboard, which enables users to perform landscape analyses in an interactive manner. Finally, the value of the tool and the visualizations is demonstrated in a series of usage scenarios on well-known benchmark problems.

Security Requirements Prioritization Techniques: A Survey and Classification Framework

Security requirements Engineering (SRE) is an activity conducted during the early stage of the SDLC. SRE involves eliciting, analyzing, and documenting security requirements. Thorough SRE can help software engineers incorporate countermeasures against malicious attacks into the software’s source code itself. Even though all security requirements are considered relevant, implementing all security mechanisms that protect against every possible threat is not feasible. Security requirements must compete not only with time and budget, but also with the constraints they inflect on a software’s availability, features, and functionalities. Thus, the process of security requirements prioritization becomes an integral task in the discipline of risk-analysis and trade-off-analysis. A sound prioritization technique provides guidance for software engineers to make educated decisions on which security requirements are of topmost importance. Even though previous research has proposed various security requirement prioritization techniques, none of the existing research efforts have provided a detailed survey and comparative analysis of existing techniques. This paper uses a literature survey approach to first define security requirements engineering. Next, we identify the state-of-the-art techniques that can be adopted to impose a well-established prioritization criterion for security requirements. Our survey identified, summarized, and compared seven (7) security requirements prioritization approaches proposed in the literature.

ЦИФРОВАЯ ТРАНСФОРМАЦИЯ ПРОЦЕССОВ УПРАВЛЕНИЯ ЗНАНИЯМИ В СЕВЕРО-ЗАПАДНОМ РЕГИОНЕ

An analysis of existing approaches to building a knowledge management system in an organization allows us to identify the following basic knowledge management technologies: research of organizational data and texts; document management systems; tools for organizing collaboration; corporate knowledge portal; means supporting managerial decisionmaking. A feature of the modern corporate knowledge management system is the focus on solving an integral task – achieving efficiency, creating and stimulating innovations. The importance of this article lies in the fact that in the digital economy there are a number of transformations that have led to an increase in interest in the problems and prospects of knowledge management, as a set of effective tools, methods and procedures that contribute to the high-quality automation of systems, the main value of which is information. The article discusses the goals and objectives of knowledge management. The digital transformation of knowledge management processes is considered on the example of the North-West region of the Russian Federation and the results obtained are analyzed.

An international study on activated partial thromboplastin time prolongation. Part 2: Interpretative commenting

BackgroundProviding evidence-based interpretative comments (IC) is an integral task of clinical laboratory professionals. It may be of special relevance for coagulation testing, where pathological first-line tests could trigger more specialized tests. Our aim was to evaluate the quality of ICs provided to the physician in two samples with activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) prolongation. Material and methodsTwo lyophilized plasma samples and their respective fictional clinical cases (case 1: heparin contamination and case 2: factor VIII deficiency) were sent to European laboratories for APTT and APTT mixing test measurement, and elaboration of ICs based on their results.The quality of ICs was evaluated in terms of analytical classification, laboratory interpretation, advice to physician, clarity, length and whether the clinical question was answered. ResultsA total of 214 laboratories were included. Classification of the analytical result was stated in 57 % of comments. Laboratory interpretation was found in 91 % of comments for case 1 and 83.3 % for case 2, among which 9.3 % and 6.5 % were considered wrong, respectively. Advice for the requesting physician was provided in 65.8 % of comments for case 1 and 61.2 % for case 2, among which 36 % and 4.7 % were considered wrong, respectively. More than 70 % of comments for both cases were evaluated as clear and of an adequate length. ConclusionA significant number of laboratories provide clear interpretations and helpful advice for the management of altered coagulation results. Nevertheless, the finding of several confusing and misleading comments highlights the need for recommendations on elaboration of interpretative comments.

Muscle function during single leg landing

Landing manoeuvres are an integral task for humans, especially in the context of sporting activities. Such tasks often involve landing on one leg which requires the coordination of multiple muscles in order to effectively dissipate kinetic energy. However, no prior studies have provided a detailed description of the strategy used by the major lower limb muscles to perform single-leg landing. The purpose of the present study was to understand how humans coordinate their lower limb muscles during a single-leg landing task. Marker trajectories, ground reaction forces (GRFs), and surface electromyography (EMG) data were collected from healthy male participants performing a single-leg landing from a height of 0.31 m. An EMG-informed neuromusculoskeletal modelling approach was used to generate neuromechanical simulations of the single-leg landing task. The muscular strategy was determined by computing the magnitude and temporal characteristics of musculotendon forces and energetics. Muscle function was determined by computing muscle contributions to lower limb net joint moments, GRFs and lower limb joint contact forces. It was found that the vasti, soleus, gluteus maximus and gluteus medius produced the greatest muscle forces and negative (eccentric) mechanical work. Downward momentum of the centre-of-mass was resisted primarily by the soleus, vasti, gastrocnemius, rectus femoris, and gluteus maximus, whilst forward momentum was primarily resisted by the quadriceps (vasti and rectus femoris). Flexion of the lower limb joints was primarily resisted by the uni-articular gluteus maximus (hip), vasti (knee) and soleus (ankle). Overall, our findings provide a unique insight into the muscular strategy used by humans during a landing manoeuvre and have implications for the design of athletic training programs.

UPLIFT

Data science pipelines are typically exploratory. An integral task of such pipelines are feature transformations, which transform raw data into numerical matrices or tensors for training or scoring. There exist a wide variety of transformations for different data modalities. These feature transformations incur large computational overhead due to expensive string processing and dictionary creation. Existing ML systems address this overhead by static parallelization schemes and interleaving transformations with model training. These approaches show good performance improvements for simple transformations, but struggle to handle different data characteristics (many features/distinct items) and multi-pass transformations. A key observation is that good parallelization strategies for feature transformations depend on data characteristics. In this paper, we introduce UPLIFT, a framework for P aralle LI zing F eature T ransformations. UPLIFT constructs a fine-grained task graph for a set of transformations, optimizes the plan according to data characteristics, and executes this plan in a cache-conscious manner. We show that the resulting framework is applicable to a wide range of transformations. Furthermore, we propose the FTBench benchmark with transformations and datasets from various domains. On this benchmark, UPLIFT yields speedups of up to 31.6x (9.27x on average) compared to state-of-the-art ML systems.

Biological therapy of psoriasis in the era of COVID-19: discussing the risks and benefits

BACKGROUND: The new coronavirus infection COVID-19 in 2020 has spread widely around the world, including the Russian Federation. Risk factors for adverse outcomes of COVID-19, such as obesity, diabetes, chronic heart and kidney diseases, non-alcoholic fatty liver hepatosis, often accompany psoriasis, especially severe. Assessment and reduction of these risks have become an integral task of psoriasis therapy. An important issue was the use of immunosuppressive therapy in patients during the pandemic.
 AIMS: In this article, we tried to analyze the international experience of colleagues with a focus on psoriasis and correlate it with our own experience. To assess the impact of psoriasis, concomitant syndromes and applied biological and non-biological systemic therapy on the risk of infection and the nature of the course of COVID-19.
 MATERIALS AND METHODS: The analysis of available scientific publications on the effect of psoriasis, concomitant comorbidities and the therapy used on the incidence, nature of the course and outcomes of the new coronavirus infection COVID-19 was carried out. Data collection (questionnaire and analysis of available medical documentation on transferred COVID-19 cases and detection of antibodies) and a retrospective analysis of the history of COVID-19 disease in psoriasis patients in the Republic of Crimea who are on dispensary registration and receiving systemic (biological and targeted) therapy (n=146) were performed. The search for articles on the topic was carried out in the PubMed database in English and Russian, published in the period from 2019 to 2021.
 RESULTS: According to available literature data, systemic biological drugs from the group of interleukin inhibitors for the treatment of psoriasis did not worsen the course of COVID-19.
 Established a proactive anti-inflammatory effect for drugs from the group of IL-17 inhibitors.
 According to the latest version 14 of the recommendations for the treatment of COVID from 27.12.2021, the IL-17A inhibitor netakimab is included in the group of drugs of proactive anti-inflammatory therapy. Out of 146 patients with psoriasis receiving biological and targeted therapy, 8 patients underwent acute respiratory infections in 18 months, confirmed COVID-19 was established in 26 cases, antibodies were detected in 54 patients. Out of the patients with pneumonia and COVID-19, hospitalization for biological therapy was not required and only one case of hospitalization for therapy with apremilast (CT 1) was recorded. It should be noted that in the families of patients undergoing biological therapy, there were cases of COVID-19 (CT 23) and even a fatal outcome, however, no clinical manifestations of the disease were observed in our patients, and antibodies were detected during laboratory examination.
 CONCLUSIONS: To date, there is no convincing evidence that drugs for systemic therapy of psoriasis can worsen the course of COVID-19. A proactive anti-inflammatory effect was noted for drugs from the group of IL-17 inhibitors. The existing international and Russian recommendations on the management of patients on biological therapy in the COVID-19 pandemic reflect the current experience and views of the expert community, it is necessary to further accumulate new data and exchange clinical experience along with the evolution of the pandemic. Available vaccines against COVID-19 that are not live may be used with caution during immunosuppressive therapy.

Challenges in Breast Cancer Control in Malaysia

: High proportion of late presentation and poor survival of women with breast cancer in Malaysia does not reflect the country’s status as the third richest country in South East Asia. Herein, we examined, and collated research articles related to breast cancer trajectory i.e., primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention in Malaysia to understand, appreciate and recognize the achievements but also gaps which undermine Malaysia’s response in handling the disease. In summary, the integral task for Malaysia is to strategically align research to improve local data (research) on the extent of the country’s breast cancer problem, so that effective, comprehensive, and evidence- based cancer control programs founded on resource level can be generated.

Государственно-церковные отношения в обеспечении нетарифного регулирования трансграничного перемещения культурных ценностей

The development of customs control of cultural values that make up the historical and spiritual memory of Russia is an integral task of the relationship between the Federal Customs Service of Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church. The paper considers the key elements of modern interaction between two dominant institutional structures of modern Russia – the federal executive authority in the field of customs affairs, ensuring the performance of fiscal and law enforcement functions in ensuring the economic security of the state and the Russian Orthodox Church - the spiritual and moral center for ensuring the integrity of the Russian state throughout its more than 1000-year history.

Meaning making through collective argumentation: The role of students’ argumentative discourse in their exploration of the graphic relationship between a function and its anti-derivative

Abstract This study aims at exploring the role of argumentation in the process of shared meaning making that occurs between students as they use digital tools to explore the concept of the indefinite integral. The study followed 11 pairs of 17-year-old students as they worked together to solve the Indefinite Integral Task with the aid of a digital tool. The study was guided by the phenomenology perspective, which considers meaning making in mathematics as a progressive disclosure of the mathematical objects at stake. The data analysis tracked and categorized the components of students’ argumentation as they progress in the meaning-making process of the indefinite integral. Our research findings revealed that the digital tool allows the students to produce evidence with which to substantiate and justify their arguments, and we also found that their frequent use of statements that built upon one another’s arguments fostered the transition between one layer of disclosure and the next one.

A Convolutional-Attentional Neural Framework for Structure-Aware Performance-Score Synchronization

Performance-score synchronization is an integral task in signal processing, which entails generating an accurate mapping between an audio recording of a performance and the corresponding musical score. Traditional synchronization methods compute alignment using knowledge-driven and stochastic approaches, and are typically unable to generalize well to different domains and modalities. We present a novel data-driven method for structure-aware performance-score synchronization. We propose a convolutional-attentional architecture trained with a custom loss based on time-series divergence. We conduct experiments for the audio-to-MIDI and audio-to-image alignment tasks pertained to different score modalities. We validate the effectiveness of our method via ablation studies and comparisons with state-of-the-art alignment approaches. We demonstrate that our approach outperforms previous synchronization methods for a variety of test settings across score modalities and acoustic conditions. Our method is also robust to structural differences between the performance and score sequences, which is a common limitation of standard alignment approaches.