Meaningful Positions Research Articles

Sociomateriality and the metaphysics of accounting information systems: Revisiting agential realism

This paper is a response to Weber’s (2020) call for further debate on the (potential) contribution of agential realism for the understanding of the content and functioning of accounting information systems (AIS) (Weber, 2020). Contrary to Weber’s conclusions, we suggest that agential realism can make important contributions to AIS studies. In order to realize such contributions we have to acknowledge that agential realism is a metaphysical framework rather than a theory or epistemology. Its potential contributions should be set against the potential contributions stemming from the metaphysical framework that is dominant in AIS research: representationalism. In representationalism, for the purpose of creating a knowledge base for a distant ‘knower’ who acts on the basis of such knowledge, accounting information systems are assumed to represent or provide information about a reality that is ‘out there’. In agential realism, accounting is assumed to be performative in (re)configuring local and temporal boundaries between meaningful positions for humans and non-humans. Rather than putting the human subject (the knower) at the centre of the stage, an agential realist account of accounting foregrounds accounting practices in their interrelation with other practices. It acknowledges that accounting participates in the (re)configuring of a sociomaterial world.

Review: A Theory of Assembly: From Museums to Memes, by Kyle Parry

Review: <i>A Theory of Assembly: From Museums to Memes</i>, by Kyle Parry

Unsupervised Visual Representation Learning via Dual-Level Progressive Similar Instance Selection.

The superiority of deeply learned representations relies on large-scale labeled datasets. However, annotating data are usually expensive or even infeasible in some scenarios. To address this problem, we propose an unsupervised method to leverage instance discrimination and similarity for deep visual representation learning. The method is based on an observation that convolutional neural networks (CNNs) can learn a meaningful visual representation with instancewise classification, in which each instance is treated as an individual class. By this instancewise discriminative learning, instances can reasonably distribute in the representation space, which reveals their similarities. In order to further improve visual representations, we propose a dual-level progressive similar instance selection (DPSIS) method to build a bridge from instance to class by selecting similar instances (neighbors) for each instance (anchor) and treating the anchor and its neighbors as the same class. To be specific, DPSIS adaptively selects two levels of neighbors, that is: 1) an "absolutely similar level" and 2) a "relatively similar level." Instances in the absolutely similar level are used as hard labels, while instances in the relatively similar level are used as soft labels. Moreover, during training, DPSIS is able to progressively select more neighbors without human supervision. At the beginning of training, because CNNs are weak, most instances are distributed relatively randomly in the representation space and only a few easy-to-recognize instances are selected as neighbors. As CNN models become stronger, the semantic meaning of each instance grows clearer. Those instances originally distributed in a relatively random manner gradually move to meaningful positions. This consequently facilitates CNN training since the number of reliable samples increases. Experiments on seven benchmarks, including three small-scale and two large-scale coarse-grained image classification datasets, and two fine-grained categorization datasets, demonstrate the effectiveness of our DPSIS. Our codes have been released at https://github.com/hehefan/DPSIS.

Shattering Glass Ceilings: Three Black Women Surgeons Ascend to Chairs of Departments of Surgery.

Shattering Glass Ceilings: Three Black Women Surgeons Ascend to Chairs of Departments of Surgery.

Creating or taking opportunity: Strategies for implementing expert by experience positions in mental health academia.

Accessible summaryWhat is known on the subject? Experts by experience involvement in the education of health professionals demonstrate positive attitudinal change.Meaningful positions for Experts by Experience are limited and ad hoc, due to attitudinal and other barriers to innovation within the higher education sector.Experiences of allies who have supported the implementation of Expert by Experience positions have not been researched. This is important knowledge that could be utilized by potential allies. What the paper adds to existing knowledge? Academic allies to experts by experience have a crucial role to play in identifying opportunities to establish, implement and sustain expert by experience positions.Allies who have successfully implemented positions for experts by experience have identified influential factors including: right person, right role, collaboration and coproduction, support, and career pathways.Understanding these factors can provide an important basis for other academics to support a widespread increase in academic roles for experts by experience in mental health education. What are the implications for practice? Establishing and maintaining genuine relationships with service users require significant attitudinal change on the part of mental health professionals. Involving experts by experience in mental health education provides an innovative approach to the challenging of attitudes and the enhancement of more collegial relationships with service users as colleagues in the workplace.This paper demonstrates the importance of allyship to the establishment, implementation and sustainability of expert by experience roles, and highlights critical factors allies have utilized in support of such roles.Nurses and other mental health professional academics have the potential to become allies and support change and innovation. IntroductionExperts by experience in academia have demonstrated more positive student attitudes towards relationships with service users. Notwithstanding this supportive evidence, academic positions for EBE have not grown substantially. Enhanced understanding of positions that have been implemented is important knowledge for others with similar aspirations.AimTo enrich understanding of the role of allies in identifying and pursuing opportunities to support academic positions for experts by experience.MethodsQualitative exploratory approach, involving In‐depth interviews with allies with expertise in supporting academic positions for experts by experience.ResultsParticipants were enthusiastic about creating or taking opportunities to secure expert by experience involvement within their programs. Factors facilitating success included right person, right role, collaboration and coproduction, support and career pathways.ConclusionsSignificant barriers have prevented proliferation of academic roles for experts by experience. Despite barriers, allies have been successful in supporting the implementation and sustaining of positions, and gained considerable expertise, which may be invaluable to academics with similar aspirations.Implications for practiceRealization of policy goals regarding service user involvement in mental health services requires health professionals with the will to embrace partnerships. By creating and taking opportunities, allies have developed expertise to facilitate implementation of positions more widely.

The performativity of accounting: advancing a Posthumanist understanding

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it seeks to articulate a framework for different conceptions of accounting’s performativity. Second, it aims to advance a Baradian posthumanist understanding of accounting’s performativity.Design/methodology/approachThe paper traces different foundational conceptions of performativity and then articulates and substantiates different conceptions of accounting’s performativity. It advances one of these conceptions by producing a Baradian posthumanist understanding of accounting’s performativity.FindingsSeven conceptions of performative accountings are articulated: accounting as a (counter)performative illocution; accounting as a performative perlocution; accounting as a self-fulfilling prophecy; accounting as an overflowing frame; accounting as a controlled relational agency; accounting as a mediator; and accounting as an exclusionary practice. It is argued how a posthumanist understanding of accounting as an exclusionary practice turns accounting from a world-knowing practice into a world-making practice. As such, it should be called to account.Research limitations/implicationsPosthumanist qualitative accounting research that conceives of accounting as an exclusionary practice focuses on how accounting is a material-discursive practice that intra-acts with other practices, and on how there is a power-performativity in the intra-actions that locally and temporarily (re)produces meaningful positions for subjects and objects and the boundaries between them.Practical implicationsA posthumanist understanding teaches practitioners to be attentive to and accountable for the exclusions that come with accounting or, more generally, with measurement. Accounting raises ethical concerns.Originality/valueThis paper articulates different conceptions of accounting’s performativity and makes the case for empirical non-anthropocentric examinations of accounting as an exclusionary practice.

Capturing the whole effect of social prescribing – meaningful outcomes and theoretical positions.

Capturing the whole effect of social prescribing – meaningful outcomes and theoretical positions.

PECULIARITIES OF CREATING INTERACTIVE EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT IN VOCATIONAL TRAINING OF FUTURE MEDICAL SPECIALISTS

The article deals with the actuality of creating interactive educational environment in vocational training of future specialists of medical field. The interactive study is considered in a context of pedagogical dialogue and cooperation. It has been generalized that interactive learning dialogue gives an opportunity for lecturers to establish the level of understanding theoretical material by future specialists, to identify the formation of students’ abilities and skills. Students can explain the essence, specific, direction and purpose of performing certain professional actions that is of particular importance in the vocational training of future medical specialists.&#x0D; The use of interactions in medical institutions of higher education contributes to the creation of interactive learning environment and is directed to stimulation of mental, emotional, social activity and independence in the practical activities of students. The main features of interactive learning environment have been specified: high level of communication intensity of its participants; dynamic and variety of types, forms and methods of communicative interaction; purposeful reflection of lecturers and students of their actions and organized interaction. It has been generalized that interactive technologies are technologies of cooperation of the subjects of pedagogical interaction. Therefore, interactive learning is considered a pedagogical process, which is a set of regular, consistent active interactions between a lecturer and students in order to develop them. Such as development is internal, personal process, which is, first of all, regulated by the student (self-development), the main function of the lecturer, in the process of interactive learning, is creating optimal conditions for student’s self-development, development of his/her individuality, subjectivity and adjustment of this process.&#x0D; The basis of interactive learning is dialogue interrelations. Dialogue in the interactive learning is considered as communicative process of real or imaginary partners, during which information is exchanged, identifying points of view, meaningful positions, value orientations and personal meanings of the participants of interactive cooperation are revealed.

Характеристика мовної особистості президента США Дональда Трампа

The article analyzes the linguistic personality of President Donald Trump, taking into account this status in political discourse. The president, as an elected representative of power, acts primarily in certain communication genres, and the content of his speeches, statements, appeals reflects both the policy of the state in general in a certain period of time, and specific political intentions. Thus, even within the limits of the regulated political discourse in modern conditions of communication individual features of the person as the president of the country are seen. The article analyzes Trump’s speeches and tweets in terms of their lexical, syntactic, and epideictic content, highlights the key words that denote the basic concepts of President Trump’s activities and serve as a means of rhetorical influence. The article presents and analyses the key words in Trump’s speeches. They are as follows: America, Americans, democracy, success, president, to defend, hounorable, responsibility, to promise, which, in general, help to form the image of the President who is ready to take responsibility for the democratic values of Americans. The traditional topics of the President’s speeches are finance, war and peace, protection of the country, its food and legislation. Syntactically, Trump’s speeches and statements are characterized by the use of simple, short sentences, in the content of which there is the use of simple, unambiguous nouns with the strong emotional meaning – fear, pride, crisis, dream, success. As a means of rhetorical influence, Trump places the most meaningful positions of his speeches at the end of sentences with logical emphasis on them. A lot of points in Trump’s speeches are the expressions of gratitude, jokes, references, and other means of establishing the connection with the audience and expressing hi own personal position. A feature of the linguistic personality in modern communication is the use of social networks, where there may be some deviations from the formalized institutional political discourse in terms of grammar and style, and this fact as clearly as possible also characterizes Trump’s language personality. For political discourse, especially in the country with the democratic values, the reaction of the society, feedback from the people of a government official’s activities is important, and social networks can fully provide the people’s immediate response to the President’s activity, so the communication can be full, not one-sided.

PEMAKNAAN JANJI POLITIK CALON PRESIDEN PRABOWO SUBIANTO-SANDIAGA UNO DI KOMPAS TV

Abstract&#x0D; Presidential candidate Prabowo - Sandi promised to fight for Emak-enak. The political promise to fight for Emak-emak is highlighted in the mass media coverage, both electronic, print and online. Election campaigns using mass media are very optimally utilized. Prospective couples use mass media to convince voters to offer a vision and mission as well as work programs. Like one of them is Kompas Tv coverage. The purpose of this study was to understand the meaning of the members of the Berhijab Journalist community regarding the reporting of political promises after candidate number 02 at Kompas Tv. This study uses qualitative research with interpretive paradigms. The method used is reception analysis. Data is collected through interviews and observations. The informant of this study was a member of the Berhijab Journalist Community. The results of this study indicate that the acceptance of political pledge promises 02 by KJB was accepted differently. The background of work, family to experience in the past was a decoding factor towards the pledge of Politics of candidate pairs 02. The results showed that informants were spread in three public positions which referred to Stu Hall Hall's theory of audience that the analysis of audience receptions was divided into three meaningful positions namely dominant-hegemonic reading , negotiated reading and oppositional reading.&#x0D; Keywords: reception, election, Emak-emak, kompass TV, politic communication

Enforcing Position-Based Confidentiality With Machine Learning Paradigm Through Mobile Edge Computing in Real-Time Industrial Informatics

Position-based services (PBSs) that deliver networked amenities based on roaming user's positions have become progressively popular with the propagation of smart mobile devices. Position is one of the important circumstances in PBSs. For effective PBSs, extraction and recognition of meaningful positions and estimating the subsequent position are fundamental procedures. Several researchers and practitioners have tried to recognize and predict positions using various techniques; however, only few deliberate the progress of position-based real-time applications considering significant tasks of PBSs. In this paper, a method for conserving position confidentiality of roaming PBSs users using machine learning techniques is proposed. We recommend a three-phase procedure for roaming PBS users. It identifies user position by merging decision trees and k-nearest neighbor and estimates user destination along with the position track sequence using hidden Markov models. Moreover, a mobile edge computing service policy is followed in the proposed paradigm, which will ensure the timely delivery of PBSs. The benefits of mobile edge service policy offer position confidentiality and low latency by means of networking and computing services at the vicinity of roaming users. Thorough experiments are conducted, and it is confirmed that the proposed method achieved above 90% of the position confidentiality in PBSs.

Digital models of the consult-organization of management in the company

The main segmental areas of activity of a consultant, invited by the head of the company for a fundamental correction of the organization of management in the context of the transition to digital format have been analyzed. The previous experience in management consulting has been rethought for application in modern, digital conditions for improving organizational management. This issue is extremely relevant for the entire consulting community, which is currently experiencing a serious crisis. The article has been addressed, first of all, to colleagues from the National Guild of professional consultants, who are looking for new methodological approaches, developing packages of new consult-competencies and new options for establishing contacts with potential customers. The previous developments have been adapted, namely: visual digital models for clearer visual support of the negotiation processes in business communication with the Customer. In the first digital model a general consulting approach to understanding management in a crisis and post-crisis period of organizing management in the process of mastering digital features of management relations has been introduced. In the second digital model, the positions of transition from a non-digital to digital format have been specified. In the third digital model the meaningful positions of the digital format in management consulting have been demonstrated. In the fourth digital model, the main contradiction in the organization of management has been identified, which must be submitted to the Customer for a final understanding of the situations, that arise. All four digital models are interrelated and help deeply understand the problems of the transition of the company from one state to another. These models “visualize” the negotiation process with the Customer, helping to quickly establish business contacts, as well as significantly reducing the time of the negotiation process.

The Iconostasis as an Image of the Garden of Eden

This paper aims to substantiate the hypothesis that the design of the architectural and decorative organization of iconostases of the second half of the seventeenth — first half of the eighteenth centuries is based on the symbolic concept of the iconostasis as an image of a paradise garden. Methodology. The author uses semiotico-hermeneutical and iconological approaches as a methodological basis of this study. The iconological methodology allows to study the architectural and decorative organization of the iconostasis from new meaningful positions. The semiotico-hermeneutical approach was applied to interpret the culturally predetermined forms of the Ukrainian iconostasis and its basic symbolic foundations. Results. The author examines the reasons for the transformation of architectural and decorative design of iconostases of the second half of the 17th — the first half of the 18th century in an icon of the mountain. The paper shows that such changes occur in the iconostasis as a realization of the concept of the iconostasis as an icon of the Garden of Eden represented as a garden on a mountain in Christian exegesis. Novelty. The article proposes a hypothesis explaining the symbolic basis of composition and decoration of iconostases of the time. It proposes to link the changes in the iconostasis architecture with the theological concepts actual of Ukrainian society of the 17th-18th centuries. The practical significance. The information provided may be used for researching further the semantics of iconostasis and developing the new courses of lectures and seminars in history of Ukrainian art and culture.

SEABIG: A Deep Learning-Based Method for Location Prediction in Pedestrian Semantic Trajectories

Pedestrian destination prediction of a user is known as an important and challenging task for LBSs (location-based services) like traffic planning and travelling recommendation. The typical method generally applies statistical model to predict the future location based on the raw trajectory. However, while predicting, existing approaches fall short in accommodating long-range dependency and ignore the semantic information existing in the raw trajectory. In this paper, we proposed a method named semantics-enriched attentional BiGRU (SEABIG) to solve the two problems. Firstly, we designed a probabilistic model based on the GMM (Gaussian mixture model) to extract stopover points from the raw trajectories and annotate the semantic information on the stopover points. Then we proposed an attentional BiGRU-based trajectory prediction model, which can jointly learn the embeddings of the semantic trajectory. It not only takes the advantage of the BiGRU (Bidirectional Gated Recurrent Unit) for sequence modeling, but also gives more attention to meaningful positions that have strong correlations w.r.t. destination by applying attention mechanism. Finally, we annotate the most likely semantic on the predicted position with the probabilistic model. Extensive experiments on Beijing real datasets demonstrate that our proposed method has higher prediction accuracy.

A Video-Based Method to Quantify Stroke Synchronisation in Crew Boat Sprint Kayaking.

The study aimed to quantify stroke synchronisation in two-seater crew boat sprint kayaking (K2) using a video-based method, and to assess the intra- and inter-rater reliabilities of this method. Twelve sub-elite sprint kayakers (six males and six females) from a national team were paired into six single-gender K2 crews. The crews were recorded at 120 Hz with a sagittal-view video camera during 200-m time trials. Video analysis identified four meaningful positions of a stroke (catch, immersion, extraction and release). The timing difference (termed “offset”) between the front and back paddlers, within each K2, at each stroke position was calculated, with zero offset indicating perfect synchronisation. Results showed almost perfect intra-rater reliability of this method. The intra-class correlation (ICC) ranged from .87 to 1.00, and standard error of measurement ( SEM) from 0 to 5 milliseconds (ms). Inter-rater reliability was substantial to almost perfect (ICC .72 – .94, SEM 2 – 6 ms). On average, 35 strokes were analysed for each crew and the mean offset was 17 ms, or 5.7% of water phase duration. Crews were more synchronised at the catch (11 ms, 3.8%) than the release (21 ms, 7.2%). However, the stroke synchronisation profiles of the six sub-elite crews varied considerably from each other. For example, the best performing male and female crews had directly contrasting profiles. This suggests that there is no universal stroke synchronisation profile for well-trained sprint kayakers. This video-based method may aid future investigations on improving performance.

Undercover Reporting on Refugees in European Union: Diegetic Narration

The article considers characteristics of telling stories in diegesis on the material of newspaper narrative. The aim of the article is examining communicative and pragmatic parameters of German newspaper reportages under the conditions of transformation of a multi-chronotope paper narrative model with the help of displacement of a communicative act of a narrator and a reader into the temporal and local space of the described characters. As examples of diegetic journalist texts, Shams Ul-Haq’s reports are considered that are outstanding specimen of German journalism. The reporter came from Pakistan and settled in Germany. The given reportages were made using the method of undercover observation, when the journalist is disguised as a described character and is a communicator in diegesis. The research makes it possible to conclude that pragmatically meaningful positions in narrative are the chronotope, the voices of the storyteller and the described characters, communicating with recipients. The article confirms the thesis of relevance of speech act synergy for optimization of persuasion in the research report with the help of displacement of the narrator/journalist into the environment of the described characters, where he can start a dialogue with the characters and the reader.

Reflections on Racial Stigmas and Stereotyping

I have been a member of the bar for over 50 years. When I graduated from law school, blacks were denied access to most meaningful positions in private firms, corporations, government jobs, the judiciary, and the academy. Today we can point to significant numbers of African Americans in prominent positions in every arena in which lawyers serve our society. Yet, with all the progress we have seen, we are still plagued by the pernicious effects of racial stigmas and stereotyping. And racial injustices still stain the landscape of our country. In this piece, I reflect on our ongoing quest for racial justice. I respond to those who suggest that our pursuits are fruitless. I also ponder whether we too often label ourselves victims and, consequently, internalize stigmas and stereotypes that become self-fulfilling prophecies.

The ethics of postoperative pain management: Mapping nurses' views.

We explored the positions of nurses working in hospitals regarding the acceptability of refusing to give a repeat dose of painkiller to a postoperative patient who requested it. These positions were compared with that of lay people, physicians, and other health professionals. Factorial design was used to assess the impact of 6 situational factors: the patient's age, the current level of pain as assessed by the nurse, the number of requests, the level of risk associated with the administration of a repeat dose, the outcome of surgery, and the giving of alternative mild analgesics. We implemented a combination of scenario technique and of cluster analysis. Data were collected from April 2013 to December 2015. 138 registered nurses, 32 nurse's aides, 33 physicians, 23 psychologists, and 169 lay people participated in the study. We found 4 qualitatively different meaningful positions. A plurality of participants (57% of nurses) considered that refusing was not acceptable, irrespective of circumstances. A substantial minority of participants (but 52% of physicians) considered that refusing was acceptable only if the level of pain was low and the risk was high. Other participants (mostly lay people) considered that refusing was always acceptable each time a risk of side effects, either serious or simply mild, was present.

Dismissing the Moral Sceptic: A Wittgensteinian Approach

Cartesian scepticism poses the question of how we can justify our belief that other humans experience consciousness in the same way that we do. Wittgenstein’s response to this scepticism is one that does not seek to resolve the problem by providing a sound argument against the Cartesian sceptic. Rather, he provides a method of philosophical inquiry which enables us to move past this and continue our inquiry without the possibility of solipsism arising as a philosophical problem in the first place. In this paper, I propose that Wittgenstein’s method of dismissing the Cartesian sceptic can also be applied to the problems posed by the ‘moral sceptic’, who denies the truth of all ethical or moral claims. I will argue that in the same way Wittgenstein’s focus on public language enables us to dismiss the traditional problem of other minds, a focus on public moral practices or language-games also enables us to dismiss the idea that moral claims are always ‘meaningless’, ‘false’ or ‘nonsensical’. On this account, the moral sceptic is misguided in much the same way as the solipsist who implicitly admits the existence of other minds in her practices. The moral sceptic who still engages in moral activities also implicitly admits the existence of meaningful moral positions. Wittgenstein’s dismissal of the Cartesian sceptic, as I understand it, can be broadly divided into two parts. The first part is an account of language acquisition. This part outlines how we might come to see other humans as conscious, thinking, feeling beings from a causal perspective. This suggests that we can arrive at an understanding of other minds as a primary perception itself - without needing to posit this perception as a kind of deductive or inductive hypothesis. Secondly, we can see how this relates to an epistemic model of language. This focuses on the role of language as something which consists of rule-governed activities, where the existence of other minds is embedded in our understanding of the world as a kind of grammatical rule, rather than an observational hypothesis. From both these arguments the Cartesian sceptic is, (on Wittgenstein’s account), irrelevant to some forms of philosophical inquiry. This is because the sceptic takes the existence of other minds to be a rational hypothesis/inference when it is not. I suggest that this approach can be applied to moral scepticism if we take certain normative claims as grammatical dispositions (practical and tautological), rather than rational or metaphysical propositions. Hence, the moral sceptic who offers a rational or logical critique of these moral foundations is not necessarily saying anything relevant to our practices – the moral stances which they refute as rationally meaningless were never based on purely rational or logical hypotheses in the first place.

Ibsen in Russia Revisited: The Ibsenian Legacy in the Writings of the Russian Symbolist Andrey Bely

The intellectual atmosphere of Russian fin de siècle was characterized by a strong fascination for Norway, its nature, its culture and its literature. A good example is Henrik Ibsen who was a significant source of inspiration for Russian dramatists, writers and poets. The Russian symbolists in particular saw Ibsen as a tutelary spirit and not least the “younger” symbolist Andrey Bely regarded his works and thoughts as a prefiguration and a foreshadowing of his own. Ibsen was important to Bely through all his various stages of intellectual, artistic and spiritual seeking and in accordance with Bely’s highly interpretative, hermeneutical approach to the world, in which everything he experienced was transformed to confirm his own symbolist Weltanschauung, also Ibsen was transformed in much the same manner. And the very intriguing way in which Bely rewrites the Norwegian playwright into his own writings will be the main topic of this article, illustrating how the Russian symbolist refigures the Norwegian dramatist to make him fit into his own continuous search for new and meaningful perspectives and positions. Moreover and even still more remarkable, this search convincingly demonstrates how the Ibsenian legacy throughout the many different phases of Bely’s creative development keeps it crucial place within Bely’s life cycle, thereby establishing a most interesting thread in the complex web of Ibsen’s Wirkungsgeschichte.