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Conceptual Structure (conceptual + structure)
Selected AbstractsFrom Impossible Words to Conceptual Structure: the Role of Structure and Processes in the LexiconMIND & LANGUAGE, Issue 3 2004Kent Johnson At the same time, most contemporary linguists posit a great deal of structure in words. Such a trend makes some atomists about concepts uncomfortable. The details of linguistic methodology undermine several strategies for avoiding positing structure in words. I conclude by arguing that there is insufficient evidence to hold that word-structure bears any interesting relation to the structure of concepts. [source] Measuring disability in older adults: The International Classification System of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) frameworkGERIATRICS & GERONTOLOGY INTERNATIONAL, Issue 1 2008W Jack Rejeski Background: Despite the importance of disability to geriatric medicine, no large scale study has validated the activity and participation domains of the International Classification System of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) in older adults. The current project was designed to conduct such as analysis, and then to examine the psychometric properties of a measure that is based on this conceptual structure. Methods: This was an archival analysis of older adults (n = 1388) who had participated in studies within our Claude D Pepper Older Americans Independence Center. Assessments included demographics and chronic disease status, a 23-item Pepper Assessment Tool for Disability (PAT-D) and 6-min walk performance. Results: Analysis of the PAT-D produced a three-factor structure that was consistent across several datasets: activities of daily living disability, mobility disability and instrumental activities of daily living disability. The first two factors are activities in the ICF framework, whereas the final factor falls into the participation domain. All factors had acceptable internal consistency reliability (>0.70) and test,retest (>0.70) reliability coefficients. Fast walkers self-reported better function on the PAT-D scales than slow walkers: effect sizes ranged from moderate to large (0.41,0.95); individuals with cardiovascular disease had poorer scores on all scales than those free of cardiovascular disease. In an 18-month randomized clinical trial, individuals who received a lifestyle intervention for weight loss had greater improvements in their mobility disability scores than those in a control condition. Conclusion: The ICF is a useful model for conceptualizing disability in aging research, and the PAT-D has acceptable psychometric properties as a measure for use in clinical research. [source] A fuzzy logical vigilance alarm system for improving situation awareness and trust in supervisory controlHUMAN FACTORS AND ERGONOMICS IN MANUFACTURING & SERVICE INDUSTRIES, Issue 4 2006Cheng-Li Liu An automation system's operating performance is judged by how well an automation unit is monitored and maintained by its supervisors. Previous research has shown that situation awareness (SA) and trust are critical factors in automation. The purpose of this study was to evaluate and improve supervisory performance in automation manufacturing. First, a conceptual structure of the relationship among SA, trust, and vigilance was developed. Second, a quantitative vigilance performance-measuring model (, value) was proposed. Third, a matrix experiment based on orthogonal arrays through a simulated system of an auxiliary feed-water system (AFWS) was conducted to verify the effect of the measuring model. Finally, according to the vigilance performance-measuring model, a fuzzy logical vigilance alarm system was constructed to improve operating performance. The results of the first experiment indicated that the , value on human dynamic decision-making characteristics was easy and objective in the measurement of operators' vigilance. With greater vigilance, there is a greater likelihood of making appropriate SA and acquiring more trust in automation. The results of the second experiment indicated that applying the , value to the design of the fuzzy logical vigilance alarm system could improve supervisory performance efficiently. Therefore, an adaptive vigilance performance-measuring model combined with a fuzzy technique applied to the design of a human,machine interface for the improvement of cognitive decision making and operating performance is an important new direction in automation manufacturing. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Hum Factors Man 16: 409,426, 2006. [source] CONTEXTUAL ASSESSMENT OF COUPLES THERAPY: THE CLINICAL DISCOURSE Q-SETSJOURNAL OF MARITAL AND FAMILY THERAPY, Issue 4 2002Steven M. Kogan This article describes a method for creating highly contextual assessments of couples therapy interaction using concepts from Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). According to SFL, talk in interaction serves three primary functions: to mediate social relations, to negotiate representations of reality, and to organize and structure the event as coherent. These concepts are operationalized using observational q-methodology. The Clinical Discourse Q-Sets (CDQS) include three separate q-sets for use by trained observers in rating 12-min segments of couples therapy conversation. Each q-set captures one aspect of the communication process as defined by Systemic Functional theory. Good-to-high reliabilities for the q-set profiles over various (n=16) couples therapy episodes were found. Preliminary evidence for the conceptual structure and clinical validity of the system was found. [source] A tale of the land, the insider, the outsider and human rights (an exploration of some problems and possibilities in the relationship between the English common law property concept, human rights law, and discourses of exclusion and inclusion)LEGAL STUDIES, Issue 1 2003Anna Grear This paper examines the interplay between discourses of exclusion and inclusion in the relationship between land law and human rights. It explores the common law conception of property in land and its relationship with the conceptual structure of property before suggesting that the particular form the conception takes in the English common law is problematic as a discourse of exclusion in the light of inclusive human rights considerations. However, further submerged exclusions in law are also explored, suggesting a problematic ideological continuity between land law and human rights law, notwithstanding identifiable surface tensions between them as contrasting discourses. Once the continuity of hidden exclusions is identified, the paper explores the theoretical unity between the deep structure of property as ,propriety' and human rights as ,what is due', and suggests their mutual potential for embracing more inclusive concerns. Finally, two modest proposals for future theoretical reform are offered: the need for a more anthropologically adequate and inclusive construct of the human being as legal actor, and the need for a more differentiated, context-sensitive formulation of the common law1 property conception, one capable of reconciling conceptually necessary elements of excludability with inclusive human rights impulses. [source] Elementary Propositions and Essentially Incomplete Knowledge: A Framework for the Interpretation of Quantum MechanicsNOUS, Issue 1 2004William Demopoulos A central problem in the interpretation of non-relativistic quantum mechanics is to relate the conceptual structure of the theory to the classical idea of the state of a physical system. This paper approaches the problem by presenting an analysis of the notion of an elementary physical proposition. The notion is shown to be realized in standard formulations of the theory and to illuminate the significance of proofs of the impossibility of hidden variable extensions. In the interpretation of quantum mechanics that emerges from this analysis, the philosophically distinctive features of the theory derive from the fact that it seeks to represent a reality of which complete knowledge is essentially unattainable. [source] Utility of Qualitative Research Findings in Evidence-Based Public Health PracticePUBLIC HEALTH NURSING, Issue 3 2006Ph.D., Susan M. Jack R.N. ABSTRACT Epidemiological data, derived from quantitative studies, provide important information about the causes, prevalence, risk correlates, treatment and prevention of diseases, and health issues at a population level. However, public health issues are complex in nature and quantitative research findings are insufficient to support practitioners and administrators in making evidence-informed decisions. Upshur's Synthetic Model of Evidence (2001) situates qualitative research findings as a credible source of evidence for public health practice. This article answers the following questions: (1) where does qualitative research fit within the paradigm of evidence-based practice and (2) how can qualitative research be used by public health professionals? Strategies for using qualitative research findings instrumentally, conceptually, and symbolically are identified by applying Estabrooks' (1999) conceptual structure of research utilization. Different research utilization strategies are illustrated through the use of research examples from the field of work on intimate partner violence against women. Recommendations for qualitative researchers disseminating findings and for public health practitioners/policy makers considering the use of qualitative findings as evidence to inform decisions are provided. [source] The selling of the President 2004: a marketing perspectiveJOURNAL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, Issue 3 2007Nicholas J. O'Shaughnessy George W. Bush won the 2004 US Presidential election despite the facts of one thousand people losing their life in the Iraq war, the highest rate of increase in unemployment in 70 years and a vitriolic propaganda campaign (Michael Moore, etc.) against him. This case study seeks to explain the success through the prism of marketing theory and conceptual structures, that is, that the Bush team had a superior communications strategy and, within those parameters, superior marketing elements. Thus we seek to surface and integrate a number of causal explanations for his victory that arose from a political marketing orientation, specifically the offer of a ,coherent narrative'; the conduct of a ,permanent campaign'; more effective negative advertising (especially by pro-Bush 527 groups), targeting and packaging; the success of the late campaign ,big tent' ploy. None of this however seeks to exclude the more purely political explanations for his success (located in such phenomena as the mobilization of the ,Christian Right' and the continuity to the aura attached to the ,911 President'); nor is the application of marketing thought to political contexts treated uncritically. A further aim is to introduce political marketing modes of analysis to a political science audience,not to present them as a new ,correctness', for they are certainly vulnerable to challenge, but rather to precipitate more of an intellectual exchange between these two disciplines. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Exploring teachers' informal formative assessment practices and students' understanding in the context of scientific inquiryJOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 1 2007Maria Araceli Ruiz-Primo This study explores teachers' informal formative assessment practices in three middle school science classrooms. We present a model for examining these practices based on three components of formative assessment (eliciting, recognizing, and using information) and the three domains linked to scientific inquiry (epistemic frameworks, conceptual structures, and social processes). We describe the informal assessment practices as ESRU cycles,the teacher Elicits a question; the Student responds; the teacher Recognizes the student's response; and then Uses the information collected to support student learning. By tracking the strategies teachers used in terms of ESRU cycles, we were able to capture differences in assessment practices across the three teachers during the implementation of four investigations of a physical science unit on buoyancy. Furthermore, based on information collected in a three-question embedded assessment administered to assess students' learning, we linked students' level of performance to the teachers' informal assessment practices. We found that the teacher who more frequently used complete ESRU cycles had students with higher performance on the embedded assessment as compared with the other two teachers. We conclude that the ESRU model is a useful way of capturing differences in teachers' informal assessment practices. Furthermore, the study suggests that effective informal formative assessment practices may be associated with student learning in scientific inquiry classrooms. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach [source] Memories, fantasies, archetypes: an exploration of some connections between cognitive science and analytical psychologyTHE JOURNAL OF ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 4 2001Jean M. Knox The value of cognitive science as a means of investigating psychodynamic theory and practice is discussed and the limitations of this approach are described. Research findings from cognitive science are drawn on to clarify the nature of memory, which is seen to be a mixture of reproduction and reconstruction and the concepts of true and false memory are explored in this light. The part played by implicit memory and internal working models in producing transference is also examined. New ways of conceptualizing fantasy, which describes it as another facet of internal working models, and the role of transgenerational transmission of attachment patterns in creating internal working models are explored. The nature of archetypes is considered in the light of cognitive science research and a minimalist model is proposed, in which they can be likened to image schemas, that is, primitive conceptual structures that exist in a form which can never be experienced directly or indirectly. [source] | |||||||||||||