Interrelated Activities Research Articles

A Rural Perspective on the Practice and Challenges of Community Participation in Post-Apartheid South Africa Insights from Rural Beaufort-west Municipality

Post-apartheid South African (SA) government devised legalized platforms for citizen participation to channel their voice towards public policy formulation, implementation, outcome, and its impact. Instead of using these platforms, dissatisfied communities with service delivery resort to social protests and unrest. Indeed, citizens’ voice and participation in government decision-making through social protests, is among the critical elements to democracy and good governance. The study sought to investigate the practice and challenges there are, with regards to community participation at the local level within selected rural communities, in South Africa. The study relied on qualitative research methodology to gather primary data. Extant literature was consulted to collect secondary data so that the phenomenon is greatly understood. The results showed that community participation is practiced as a once-off event instead of being viewed as a process that is comprised of interrelated activities. The study concludes that effective community participation requires continual engagement across the entire policy planning, decision making, and implementation stages. Furthermore, as each public policy phase has its challenges, flexible strategies are required to facilitate community engagement and participation. This, for instance, will increase the degree of decision-making consensus, while by default reduce the level of community dissatisfaction with service delivery, which currently South Africa experiences, through social unrest. Keywords: Community participation, Service delivery, social unrest, Public engagement, Participation, local government, rural communities. DOI: 10.7176/PPAR/11-3-06 Publication date: April 30 th 2021

Methods Of Teaching Russian As A Non-Native Language

The teaching method is one of the basic categories of teaching methods. In the general didactic sense, the concept of a method includes the methods of interrelated activities of the teacher and students, aimed at achieving the goals of education, upbringing and development of students. In this understanding, the methods can be universal, applicable to teaching different disciplines, although they have their specific embodiment in each discipline. For a language teacher, methods are important as sources of knowledge, skills and abilities formation. These methods include: working with a text, a book, a teacher's story, conversation, excursion, exercises, the use of visualization in teaching. Depending on the independence of educational actions performed by students, active and passive methods are distinguished; by the nature of the work of students - oral and written, individual and collective, classroom (classroom) and home.

Affordance, Role, and Script as Complementary Concepts of Artefact-User Interaction, Illustrated by the Example of an Egg Separator

This article suggests employing the affordance concept, the role concept, and the script concept in a complementary manner as analytical tools for investigating artefact-user interaction at three different levels of stability, abstraction, and interrelatedness. It argues that the affordance concept is best suited to describing general possibilities for action constituted by common technical features in combination with common taken-for-granted knowledge of how to use them. The script concept, in contrast, is best suited to analysing the most concrete situations of interaction between artefacts and users: those situations in which the interaction is defined by one particular course of action. In between, there is a middle level characterised by artefacts and users being involved in several interrelated activities for which the role concept provides the tools for analysis.

HUBUNGAN BAHASA DAN PIKIRAN DALAM JUAL-BELI DI GRUP FACEBOOK BUSAM TINJAUAN PSIKOLINGUISTIK

This study links language, mind and Facebook social media. Currently, buying an selling using social media is a common thing to do by the community, but it should be noted that: 1) Language and thought relations in every sale and purchase transaction on the BUSAM Facebook group. This study uses the theory of Sapir-whrof, Jaen Piaget, and also Vygotsky, using psycholinguistic studies. This research use descriptive qualitative approach. Data is obtained by using a screen capture (screenshot) status in the BUSAM Facebook group. In addition, users also use the Facebook account interview technique. Then, examine and record the data obtained for analysis in accordance with predetermined theories. The results of this study state that, language and thought used by the community are generally an interrelated activity. So that the two cannot be separated. Language can influence the mind using sentences expressed through oral and written. The mind can influence language with ideas that arise in the mind and language as an intermediary for its expression. Language and mind, of course, cannot be separated because the two are interconnected and have an important role for society.

Scheduling interrelated activities in complex projects under high-order rework: A DSM-based approach

Complex projects, such as product development projects, usually involve myriads of interrelated activities. Identifying an appropriate sequence of these activities is a challenge to project managers because of the existence of rework iterations. Researchers have developed a series of methods to find a schedule that minimizes the first-order rework of interrelated activities using the design structure matrix (DSM). By contrast, this study presents a more accurate approach for determining a sequence that minimizes the high-order rework. First, a new objective function is proposed to describe the first-order and second-order rework time (FSRT) of complex projects. Second, a parallel branch-and-prune algorithm and two local search heuristics are proposed, which can be conveniently used to reduce the FSRT. Experimental results show that we can reduce more rework of complex projects through minimizing FSRT than using other objective functions. Finally, the efficiency of the proposed methods is validated using random experiments.

The role of automation in improving the quality of enterprise business processes

The enterprise has to determine and manage numerous and interrelated activities for successful work and to maximize profits. According to the international standard ISO 9001-2011, the activity using resources and managed in order to transform inputs to outputs can be considered as a business process. Using a process system in an organization along with their identification and interaction, as well as process management aimed at obtaining the desired result, can be defined as a “process approach”. The object of this study is a business process that is one of the key concepts of the international standard ISO 9001-2011. This standard establishes the requirements for quality management systems and describes the principles of applying the process approach, the essence of which is continuous process management. The article deals with the individual business processes in the enterprise and their subsequent task automation with using information technology. An automated application was proposed within the study that provides automatic search for part sizes that do not correspond to the tolerance field, automatic construction of control charts of average values and ranges, as well as calculation of process reproducibility indices.

Applications of ion level nanosensors for neuroscience research.

Ion activities are tightly associated with brain physiology, such as intracranial cell membrane potential, neural activity and neuropathology. Thus, monitoring the ion levels in the brain is of great significance in neuroscience research. Recently, nanosensors have emerged as powerful tools for monitoring brain ion levels and dynamics. With controllable structures and functions, nanosensors have been intensively used for monitoring neural activity and cell function and can be used in disease diagnosis. Here, we summarize the recent advances in the design and application of ion level nanosensors at different physiological levels, aiming to draw a connection of the interrelated intracranial ion activities. Furthermore, perspectives on the rationally designed ion level nanosensors in understandingthe brain functions are highlighted.

MUSICAL PROCESSES IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOL CLASSROOM

Music is a strand of the Creative Art curriculum content for Ghanaian primary schools. Composition, performance and listening forms part of the methods or strategies that are supposed to be used to teach this art form in the classroom. Elsewhere, it is argued that these three musical processes constitute the starting point of music activities in the classroom. Having some knowledge and practical insight of each of these processes is therefore very significant for the teacher’s professional practice in the music classroom. This article attempts to describe these processes and highlights some activities that can serve as a guide for the teacher to engage pupils in music activities under each of these three interrelated activities for effective musical learning and experiences. Article visualizations:

Business Process Simulation Game as a Business Process Learning Tool for Retail Companies

Game-based Learning has become one of the most developed learning methods in this 21st century. Game-based Learning is a good learning method because it can create a virtual world where players can simulate real-world problem-solving. A business process is a series of interrelated activities to achieve certain business goals, executed sequentially or parallel, both inside and outside the company. The complexity of business processes causes the learning process to be less than optimal, if only in the form of theoretical exposure. Practices are needed to hone students’ business process management skills, which will be too risky to be done in the real world. Therefore, this research develops a business process simulation game to facilitate students in practicing their business process management skills. The author analyzed the existing business process simulation games, determined the game system design, developed the game, tested the game, and distributed questionnaires to users. Based on the results of testing and implementing the system that has been done, the game developed in this research has a positive impact on users. The features in the game are running well and as expected. The game provides benefits to both teachers and students, so this game is suitable for being used as retail companies' business process learning tool

Modeling as a tool for strategic management of effective economic recovery of a modern enterprise

The article investigates the development trends of a machine-tool enterprise by example an Open joint-stock company OFRDM, and builds a generalized economic and mathematical model for choosing a set of measures for economic recovery of an enterprise with a transition to process-oriented management of activities in order to ensure its competitiveness. The relationship of factor influence with respect to the transformation of the main business processes of the enterprise in the form of interrelated activities, which together create additional value for product consumers, have been determined. Existing approaches to understanding of an enterprise development in strategic management have been clarified. The content of the strategic management process is analyzed to ensure the achievement of its desired effective level. A model for managing dynamic capabilities is proposed, which includes the principles, skills, boundaries of dynamic capabilities in accordance with the structural transformations of the enterprise. The processes of providing services using the methodology of functional modeling by constructing an economic and mathematical model for choosing a set of measures for enterprise economic recovery are generalized. The sequence of enterprise main business processes is clearly presented, the effective implementation of which affects increasing in product value for the consumer. Recommendations for the successful implementation of an effective strategy for Open joint-stock company OFRDM, aimed at the enterprise economic recovery, based on the qualified personnel and IT-technologies using, are proposed.

Strategies and tactics for developing the human resources potential of young scientists: results of applied research

The study, whose results are presented in this article was performed with financial support RFBR and ANO AISI in the framework of scientific project No. 19-011-31346 "State policy of reproduction of human potential of science". The study showed that young scientists demonstrate a low level of confidence in their ability to manage research teams, a low level of trust in the official mechanisms of state regulation of the development of science in the absence of effective communication channels between researchers, society and the state. In the course of in-depth semi-structured interviews and online questionnaires, key groups of barriers to successful career growth in science for young scientists are identified and justified: financial, organizational, and moral and ethical. In this regard, there is currently an urgent need to support the part of young scientists who can potentially appear as leaders of research teams in the implementation of state tasks and grants from scientific funds. The study was developed structural-functional model of pedagogical and scientific-methodical support of professional development of young scientists through a specially organized system of interrelated actions, activities, and pedagogical and psychological events focused on reflection of professional experience, personal transformation, self-actualization, contributing to the achievement of professional success as the young scientist and research team as a whole.

MODELING OF THE INFORMATION SYSTEM OF INFORMATION SECURITY INDEPENDENT AUDIT

This article examines the condition of our country in the global information space in terms of protection against critical infrastructure cyberattacks. Accordingly, there is a need to develop and operate such an information system that would support the audit of information systems with all its components - subsystems. The proposed information system should be integrated, have a hierarchical structure. Such an information system makes it possible to allow the integration of both external and internal information, horizontal and vertical integration between systems with a different hierarchical structure. The process of modeling an information system takes place using ERwin's Case technology, which makes it possible to describe all the necessary processes with high accuracy, as a result of which the modeled system is defined as a set of interrelated functions and activities. Accordingly, the system is decomposed, which makes it possible to determine the model of this information system in the form of a hierarchical set of a number of subsystems, at each level of which some procedures are performed to solve local problems. Conceptual models of such subsystems provide visual modeling of all participants in the information system and existing information flows (both input and output, both internal and external influences). IDEF3 notation is also used in information system modeling processes, which in turn uses a graphical description of information flows, relationships between information processing processes and objects that are part of these processes. Thus, in this case, it is possible to describe and model the components of the decomposition diagram of the process of assessing the professional training of information security auditors. The information system of the specified subject area must first be a simulated system, ie the basic requirements and mechanisms for the implementation of an independent audit of information security at critical infrastructure facilities must be defined.

ANALYTICAL TOOLS FOR FORMING A QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR CONSTRUCTION COMPANIES BASED ON PROCESS MANAGEMENT

The article outlines the basic imperatives of the theory and practice of quality management in modern construction companies in a socially oriented market economy. The research is aimed at detailed coverage of the main provisions of the modern concept of quality management; the basics of a systematic approach to quality management and the content of the key provisions of the concept of Total Quality Management (TQM). The issue of creating quality management systems at enterprises is covered: the essence and components of quality management systems, the mechanism of application of economic and mathematical methods in the management of quality assurance processes and quality management costs. Ways to ensure the effective functioning of the quality management system in the enterprise through the understanding of key aspects of business organization development based on the process approach and ensuring the behavioral component. It has been proven that for an organization to function effectively and efficiently, it must identify and manage numerous interrelated activities. An activity that uses resources and can be managed to turn inputs into outputs can be considered a process. Often the output of one process is directly the input of the next. The "process approach" means the application within the organization of a system of processes together with their definition and interaction, as well as their management. The advantage of the process approach is that it provides continuous control of the connections of individual processes within the process system, as well as their connections and interactions. It is substantiated that this approach is applied within the quality management system, it emphasizes the importance of: a) understanding and compliance with the requirements; b) the need to consider processes in terms of creating additional values; c) obtaining the results of the functioning of the process and its efficiency; d) continuous improvement of processes based on objective measurements. The content and hierarchy of parameters and the calculation and analytical basis of the created technology are subject to the features of the operating system of the construction company, the requirements of the construction project environment and the features of the investment cycle. The underlying technology economic model creates appropriate grounds for the transformation of the results of formalized assessment of management, production, resource-property and financial potential of the construction company into an integrated assessment of the quality of management of the investigated enterprise as a stakeholder of the construction project.

What Drives Continuance Intention towards Social Media? Social Influence and Identity Perspectives

With the growth of social media communities, people now use this new media to engage in many interrelated activities. As a result, social media communities have grown into popular and interactive platforms among users, consumers and enterprises. In the social media era of high competition, increasing continuance intention towards a specific social media platform could transfer extra benefits to such virtual groups. Based on the expectation-confirmation model (ECM), this research proposed a conceptual framework incorporating social influence and social identity as key determinants of social media continuous usage intention. The research findings of this study highlight that: (1) the social influence view of the group norms and image significantly affects social identity; (2) social identity significantly affects perceived usefulness and confirmation; (3) confirmation has a significant impact on perceived usefulness and satisfaction; (4) perceived usefulness and satisfaction have positive effects on usage continuance intention. The results of this study can serve as a guide to better understand the reasons for and implications of social media usage and adoption.

СУТНІСТЬ ТА ХАРАКТЕРИСТИКИ ПРОЦЕСНО-ОРІЄНТОВАНОГО УПРАВЛІННЯ ЕКОНОМІЧНИМ ПОТЕНЦІАЛОМ ПІДПРИЄМСТВ

The article explores the nature and essential characteristics of process-based management of enterprise economic potential in the frameworks of system analysis of the current approaches and critical thinking to the development of modern economic theory. A retrospective analysis of the research studies over the past two decades has provided insights into the nature of an ‘economic potential’ concept and has revealed a shift of focus in understanding and interpretation of the given category. It is emphasized that modern scholarly publications demonstrate evidence of extensive research on various aspects of the economic potential concept and fundamental differences in the above term interpretations, however, the application of structural analysis would greatly enlarge the research scope, in particular, will enable to identify the four basic dimensions: the level and functionality of resources, their value-based perspective, along with the focus to production outcome or a transformation process. Through the realization of such approach, a company will get an opportunity to build an up-to-date action plan trajectory; accumulate the necessary range of resources, skills and capabilities, where company business processes of sustainable operation and development are designed to ensure their close interaction, clear manner and consistency. An in-depth literature review to summarize numerous academic viewpoints has provided for identifying a business process as a set of interrelated activities that have their entry and exit points, specific interfaces, and organizational structure. Through a number of functions, they effectively design a range of actions and perform tasks to ensure well-ordered operation, thus producing results (production outcomes) that have value to a customer. A thorough study on modern companies’ economic potential provides argument that it is the business process that creates opportunities to shape its capacity to manufacture competitive products to meet customers’ needs. These companies understand the vast potential sustainable development provides that translates into the growing need to design their own strategic indicators to ensure common and effective structure and organizational pattern of business processes. In this context, such factors as the company size, price or other indicators are becoming paramount. Companies always strive for attaining better performance, thus it is critical to develop a reasonable ranking methodology to manage fundamental and auxiliary business processes, as well as the company internal efficiency. This study has deployed commonly accepted indicators of quality assurance affected by economic potential factors through active interaction between company business processes, technology, human resources, management, information, knowledge, etc. The research findings have revealed the specifics of a certain shift in business management associated with the transition from functional management approach to process-based management. Accordingly, the economic potential is viewed as a network of interconnected decisions and processes. Since the main characteristics of the economic potential are the structure of business processes and the relationships between them at different levels which accommodate the important phases of business planning, control and adjustment to changing environment, the ultimate benefit a company obtains is the relevant toolkit to ensure effective business development.

Victory or defeat: narratives of recovery and chronic substance misuse revealed through the “Life as a Film”

ABSTRACT Background Recent “Life as a film” (LAAF) studies demonstrate a relationship between themes of agency and communion in life stories and substance misuse recovery, contrasting with theme deficits in addicted populations, suggesting pathways to positive identity change. The present study aims to elucidate other key constructs differentiating recovery and non-recovery to comprehensively model interactive narrative processes. Methods The LAAF procedure was used to collect personal narratives in a cohort of 32 active or recovering substance users. Narratives were coded for themes of interest and an inventory was used to assess recovery. Results Analysis revealed two narrative structures: the first, comprising self-mastery, unity, redemption, healer, and happy ending, was significantly correlated with recovery outcomes, representing a Victory story; the second, comprising compulsion, avoidance, contamination, escapist, and sad ending, significantly correlated with non-recovery outcomes, representing a Defeat story. Conclusions Findings build on previous observations to reveal constellations of interrelated self-story themes distinguishing activity or recovery from substance misuse. This enriches understanding of psychological processes associated with ongoing addiction and recovery, developing a meaningful framework of opposing narrative structures using the LAAF model, with proposed integrated pathways to positive identity and behavioral change.

Preoperative Vitamin D Level is Associated with Postoperative Delirium After Cardiac Surgery in Patients Over 65 Years of Age.

Delirium after cardiac surgery is a devastating and important complication. Delirium is defined as "disturbance in attention (i.e., reduced ability to direct, focus, sustain, and shift attention) and awareness (reduced orientation to the environment)." In this study, we analyzed the association of preoperative vitamin D levels and postoperative delirium after cardiac surgery in patients over 65 years. We retrospectively reviewed the data of 212 adult patients above 65 years of age who underwent isolated coronary artery bypass graft surgery from January 2016 to January 2018. The mean age for Group I was 69.7 ± 7.4 and Group II was 70.6 ± 4.8 years. There were 112 female patients in Group I and 46 female patients in Group II. The patient population was divided into 2 groups based on preoperative serum vitamin D (25-hydroxyvitamin D [25-OHD]) levels (normal range of 25-75nmol/L). Group I included patients with preoperative serum 25-OHD level<25nmol/L. Group II included patients with preoperative serum 25-OHD level ≥25nmol/L. The incidence of delirium in this study was 30.2%. In this study, 138 patients (65.1%) had preoperative serum 25-OHD levels <25 nmol/L, and 74 patients (34.9%) had preoperative serum 25-OHD levels ≥25 nmol/L. Preoperative serum 25-OHD levels were associated with postoperative delirium after coronary artery bypass graft surgery. Our retrospective study illustrated that a lower preoperative serum level of 25-OHD was associated with postoperative delirium. Our results showed that 65.1% of patients had preoperative serum 25-OHD levels <25 nmol/L, and this was associated with postoperative delirium. Vitamin D deficiency exacerbates delirium after coronary artery bypass surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass. Whether the effects of vitamin D deficiency during this event represent separate or interrelated activities with cardiopulmonary bypass is an important question to address and prospective randomized studies are necessary to confirm these results.

The future of environmental sustainability labelling on food products

The future of environmental sustainability labelling on food products

IT risk management: interrelationships based on strategy implementation

PurposeRisk management is an under-explored topic in information systems (IS) research that involves complex and interrelated activities. Consequently, the authors explore the importance of interrelated activities by examining how the maturity of one type of information technology risk management (ITRM) practice is influenced by the maturity of other types of ITRM practices. The purpose of this paper is to explore these relationships, the authors develop a model based on organizational strategy implementation theory and the COBIT framework. The model identifies four types of ITRM practices, namely, IT governance (ITG); communications; operations; and monitoring.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use a survey methodology to collect data on senior information technology (IT) executives' perceptions on ITRM practices. The authors use an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to identify four dimensions of ITR M practices and conduct a structural equation model to observe the associations.FindingsThe survey of senior IT executives' perceptions suggests that the maturity of ITRM practices related to ITG, communications and monitoring positively influence the maturity of operations-related ITRM practices. Further, the maturity of communications-related ITRM practices mediates the relationship between ITG and operations-related ITRM practices. The aggregate results demonstrate the inter-relatedness of ITRM practices and highlight the importance of taking a holistic view of ITRM.Research limitations/implicationsGiven the content and complexity of the study, it is difficult to obtain senior executives’ responses in large firms. Therefore, this study did not use a separate sample to conduct the EFA to obtain the underlying four constructs. Also, the ITRM practices identified are perceptions. Even though the authors consider this to be a limitation, it also communicates the pressing areas that senior IT professionals are expected to focus given various external and internal pressures. This study focuses on large firms, hence, small to midsize firms are not well represented.Practical implicationsGiven the demanding regulatory and financial reporting requirements and the complexity of IT, there is an increasing possibility that the accounting profession will require IT professionals to focus on operations-related ITRM practices, such as security, availability and confidentially of data and IS are closely related to internal controls. However, as this study demonstrates, the maturity of operations-related ITRM practices cannot be achieved by focusing solely on operations-related IT risks. Therefore, IT practitioners can use this study to raise awareness of the complex interrelationships among ITRM practices among managers to improve the overall ITRM practices in a firm.Social implicationsThe study also shows the importance of establishing proper communication channels among various business functions with regard to ITRM. Extant IT research identifies the importance of the firm’s communication structure on various firm performance measures. For example, Krotov (2015) mentions the importance of communication in improving trust between the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer. Firms with established communication channels have the necessary medium to educate and involve other departments with regard to the security of data. Thus, such firms are more likely to have mature risk management practices because of increased awareness of risks and preventive techniques.Originality/valueThe study contributes to ITG and risk management literature by identifying the role of monitoring-related ITRM practices on improving other areas of risk management. The study also extends the existing ITRM literature by providing an organizational strategy perspective to ITRM practices and showing how ITRM practices follow organizational strategy implementation. Further, the authors identify four underlying ITRM categories. Consequently, researchers could choose between two factors (Vincent et al., 2017) or four factors based on the level of detail required for the particular study.

The development of fertilizer application technology and the structure of the fleet

Intensive and industrial technologies are based on the effective use of chemicals. However, its capabilities are far from being fully utilized. The shortage of grain crops cultivated by intensive technologies was largely predetermined by the low level of organization of agrochemical work. A successful increase in the effectiveness of the use of all types of fertilizers and chemical plant protection products is possible only on the basis of an integrated quality management system for technological processes (IQMS TP), which includes interrelated organizational, technological and social activities. The technological process of using solid organic fertilizers is a set of technological operations for the preparation of fertilizers (composts), their loading, transportation and incorporation into the soil, i.e. complex system. The efficiency indicators for it are the uneven distribution of nutrients over the entire cultivated area and the dose of fertilizers. Given that the complete identification of the technological process is a complex task, in this paper authors restrict themselves to establishing functional relationships between indicators of the second, third, and fourth levels. The need to establish a connection between these levels is due, first of all, to the fact that the quality of the technological process of using fertilizers in a production environment is determined mainly by the operations of their preparation and application, which can be controlled and managed. To justify the technological tolerances for performing these operations, authors first established a functional relationship between indicators characterizing the quality of distribution of nutrients in the mass of fertilizers and the distribution of their physical mass throughout the field to be processed, and complex indicators of the quality of distribution of nutrients in the same field. According to the compost preparation operation, dependencies are established between such input indicators as the quality of the initial components (humidity, density, fractional composition), their ratio, and the output: humidity, density and fractional composition of the obtained fertilizer, quality of distribution of nutrients in the mass. As technological constants and parameters the dependence should also include the preparation time, energy consumption for preparation and other indicators. These data are necessary to optimize the preparation operation and the entire technological process.