Measuring Ministry-Specific Stress and Satisfaction: The Psychometric Properties of the Positive and Negative Aspects Inventories

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 313-327
Author(s):  
Wanda M. Malcolm ◽  
Karen L. Coetzee ◽  
Elizabeth A. Fisher

This article outlines the creation and validation of a pair of questionnaires that measure both the intensity of potentially positive and negative aspects of Christian ministry life, and the frequency with which these aspects occur. These measures of ministry-specific stress and satisfaction identify life-giving and life-eroding aspects of ministry life that are not typically shared with secular professions and occupations, and also help capture the aspects that either overlap with or differentiate between those who minister inside traditional church settings and those involved in community-based or parachurch ministries. Psychometric testing of the Positive Aspects Inventory (PAI) and Negative Aspects Inventory (NAI) was conducted in two phases. The first phase involved an item and subscale refinement and reliability investigation. The second phase entailed a validity investigation regarding each construct claimed to be measured by the questionnaires, and the establishment of meaningful score ranges for interpretative purposes. The resulting measures have empirical validity and have potential usefulness in further investigations of ministry life wellbeing and stress.

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 518-530
Author(s):  
G. Prateek ◽  
R.C. Knopf

Evaluation of successful outcomes in community-based natural resource management has long been debated in academic and policy literature. Scholarly assessments of success in Van Panchayats (VPs) of Uttarakhand, representing the oldest thriving institution of community-based forestry in India, are also under contestation. Predominantly, success has been identified with forest conditions (ecological) and the workings of VPs (institutional). Although these assessments have been useful, the perspectives of the community of users in defining successful outcomes have been less emphasized. Drawing upon two phases of field-work in Almora, Uttarakhand we first use an interpretive approach in exploring the success of VPs through the narrative framings of its three primary stakeholders. Through qualitative analysis, we show the prominence of three contextual issues: human-wildlife conflicts, constraints to women's participation, and subsistence livelihood needs, deemed crucial to the success of VPs by the user's community. Using the analysis of household survey data and secondary sources in the second phase of field work, we then show the validity of the community's concerns raised in the first phase. As a result, we argue that evaluations of successful outcomes should consider interpretive approaches, involving the community of users, to uncover the local contextual conditions crucial to the success of community-based forestry.


BMC Nursing ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Banafsheh Tehranineshat ◽  
Mahnaz Rakhshan ◽  
Camellia Torabizadeh ◽  
Mohammad Fararouei ◽  
Mark Gillespie

Abstract Background Compassionate care is emphasized within professional ethics codes for nursing and is a key indicator of care quality. The purpose of the present study is to develop and assess the psychometric properties of a compassionate care instrument for nurses. Methods This methodological study was carried out in two phases -qualitative and quantitative-from February 2016 to October 2018. In the qualitative stage of the study, a content analysis approach was used to establish the concept of compassionate care through interviews with nurses, patients, and family caregivers. The initial draft of the questionnaire was developed based on the qualitative findings and a subsequent review of the literature. In the second phase, the psychometric properties of the questionnaire were assessed for validity and reliability. Data analysis was performed using descriptive and inferential statistics in SPSS v.16. Results From the results of the qualitative phase and review of literature, 80 items were extracted. In the quantitative phase, after evaluation of the face and content validity, 40 items were kept. After measurement of the construct validity, 28 items whose factor loading was above 0.4 were retained. Measurement of convergent validity showed a moderate correlation between the questionnaire and the nurses’ caring behaviors scale (r = 0.67, P = 0.01). The reliability of the 28-item questionnaire was tested by measuring its Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and intra-class correlation coefficient which were found to be 0.91 and 0.94 for the whole questionnaire, respectively. Conclusion The questionnaire has enough validity and reliability to be used for measuring the nurses’ compassionate care. Therefore, the instrument can be used to measure and record the quality of nursing care.


2021 ◽  
Vol 71 (11) ◽  
pp. 2524-2530
Author(s):  
Yasmeen Wajid ◽  
Humaira Jami ◽  
Aisha Zubair ◽  
Arooj Mujeeb

Objective: To translate and evaluate the psychometric properties of the Clinically Useful Anxiety Outcome Scale on Urdu-speaking population. Method: The observational validation study was conducted in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, Pakistan, from January 2018 to December 2019 in two phases. In the first phase, the Clinically Useful Anxiety Outcome Scale was forward and backward translated, while in the second phase, the translated scale was validated on a human sample comprising subjects in clinical and nonclinical settings. Item-to-total correlation, internal consistency and test-retest reliabilities were checked with inter-group comparisons. To find out the level of language equivalence between the original and the translated versions, a separate sample of bilingual participants was raised. Data was analysed using SPSS 22. Continue


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashraf Ghiasi ◽  
Afsaneh Keramat ◽  
Farid Zayeri ◽  
Maryam Farjamfar ◽  
Katayon Vakilian ◽  
...  

Abstract BackgroundTo date, there is no valid and reliable instrument to specifically evaluate the married adolescent women's SRH needs. Hence, the aim of this study was to develop and evaluate the psychometric properties of a questionnaire for assessing Iranian married adolescent women's SRH needs. MethodsThe current exploratory sequential mixed method study was performed in two phases. In the first phase, a preliminary questionnaire was developed based on in-depth interviews with 34 married adolescent women and 4 key informants as well as a comprehensive literature review. In the second phase, validity of the questionnaire was assessed using face, content, and construct validity and reliability of the questionnaire was assessed using internal consistency and test-retest reliability.ResultsBased on qualitative content analysis and literature review, 137 items were extracted. After several modifications of the generated items, a 108-item questionnaire was prepared for the psychometric process. After checking face and content validity, 85 items remained in the study. In the exploratory factor analysis, eleven items were removed and the remaining 74 items were categorized into nine factors. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient and the Intraclass correlation coefficient were found to be 0.878 and 0.99 for whole scale, respectively.Conclusions The 74-item questionnaire has acceptable validity and reliability. Therefore, it can be used as an appropriate instrument for assessing married adolescent women's SRH needs.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 236-247
Author(s):  
Divya Srivastava ◽  
Rajitha B. ◽  
Suneeta Agarwal

Diseases in leaves can cause the significant reduction in both quality and quantity of agricultural production. If early and accurate detection of disease/diseases in leaves can be automated, then the proper remedy can be taken timely. A simple and computationally efficient approach is presented in this paper for disease/diseases detection on leaves. Only detecting the disease is not beneficial without knowing the stage of disease thus the paper also determine the stage of disease/diseases by quantizing the affected of the leaves by using digital image processing and machine learning. Though there exists a variety of diseases on leaves, but the bacterial and fungal spots (Early Scorch, Late Scorch, and Leaf Spot) are the most prominent diseases found on leaves. Keeping this in mind the paper deals with the detection of Bacterial Blight and Fungal Spot both at an early stage (Early Scorch) and late stage (Late Scorch) on the variety of leaves. The proposed approach is divided into two phases, in the first phase, it identifies one or more disease/diseases existing on leaves. In the second phase, amount of area affected by the disease/diseases is calculated. The experimental results obtained showed 97% accuracy using the proposed approach.


Author(s):  
Paulo César Antonini de Souza ◽  
Derick Trindade Bezerra

ResumoTendo por campo de investigação o Festival da América do Sul Pantanal (FASP) em 2018, na cidade de Corumbá (Brasil), objetiva-se identificar a materialidade e conceitos que permeiam as manifestações artísticas bidimensionais nesta região de fronteira, a partir da percepção de artistas da Bolívia. A pesquisa se organizou em duas fases: na primeira foi realizado um levantamento em plataformas online de produções acadêmicas em artes visuais, com foco no trabalho bidimensional, utilizando os descritores “arte popular” e “estética latina” resultando em três artigos. Na segunda fase foram selecionados dois trabalhos de uma artista da Bolívia, participante da mostra “Conexão Santa Cruz”, realizada durante o FASP 2018, que foram analisados em seus níveis representacional e simbólico. Pela interpretação das imagens foi possível construir uma leitura sobre a perspectiva da artista a respeito de suas condições culturais dentro da ordenação social em que se encontra situada.Palavras-chave: Artes Visuais. Arte Popular. Arte Regional. América Latina. Representation and symbolism: visual arts on the Brazil/Bolivia frontierAbstractHaving as research field the Festival da América do Sul Pantanal (FASP) in 2018, in the city of Corumbá (Brazil), the objective is to identify the materiality and concepts that permeate the two-dimensional artistic manifestations in this border region, from the perception of artists from Bolivia. The research was organized in two phases: in the first, a survey was carried out on online platforms of academic productions in visual arts, focusing on two-dimensional work, using the descriptors “arte popular” and “estética latina” resulting in three articles. In the second phase, two works were selected by an artist from Bolivia, participating in the exhibition “Conexão Santa Cruz”, held during FASP 2018, which were analyzed at their representational and symbolic levels. Through the interpretation of the images, it was possible to construct a reading on the artist’s perspective regarding her cultural conditions within the social order in which she is located.Keywords: Visual Arts. Folk Art. Regional Art. Latin America.Representación y simbolismo: artes visuales en la frontera de Brasil/BoliviaResumenTeniendo como campo de investigación el Festival de Sudamérica Pantanal (FASP) en 2018, en la ciudad de Corumbá (Brasil), el objetivo es identificar la materialidad y conceptos que permean las manifestaciones artísticas bidimensionales en esta región fronteriza, desde la percepción de artistas de Bolivia. La investigación se organizó en dos fases: en la primera, se realizó una encuesta en plataformas online de producciones académicas en artes visuales, con foco en el trabajo bidimensional, utilizando los descriptores “arte popular” y “estética latina” dando como resultado tres artículos. En la segunda fase, dos obras fueron seleccionadas por un artista de Bolivia, participante de la exposición “Conexão Santa Cruz”, realizada durante FASP 2018, que fueron analizadas en sus niveles representativos y simbólicos. A través de la interpretación de las imágenes, fue posible construir una lectura sobre la perspectiva de la artista sobre sus condiciones culturales dentro del orden social en el que se ubica.Palabras clave: Artes Visuales. Arte Popular. Arte Regional. América Latina.


Author(s):  
A. Geerinck ◽  
C. Beaudart ◽  
J.-Y. Reginster ◽  
M. Locquet ◽  
C. Monseur ◽  
...  

Abstract Purpose To facilitate the measurement of quality of life in sarcopenia, we set out to reduce the number of items in the previously validated Sarcopenia Quality of Life (SarQoL®) questionnaire, and to evaluate the clinimetric properties of this new short form. Methods The item reduction process was carried out in two phases. First, information was gathered through item-impact scores from older people (n = 1950), a Delphi method with sarcopenia experts, and previously published clinimetric data. In the second phase, this information was presented to an expert panel that decided which of the items to include in the short form. The newly created SFSarQoL was then administered to older, community-dwelling participants who previously participated in the SarcoPhAge study. We examined discriminative power, internal consistency, construct validity, test–retest reliability, structural validity and examined item parameters with a graded response model (IRT). Results The questionnaire was reduced from 55 to 14 items, a 75% reduction. A total of 214 older, community-dwelling people were recruited for the validation study. The clinimetric evaluation showed that the SF-SarQoL® can discriminate on sarcopenia status [EWGSOP2 criteria; 34.52 (18.59–43.45) vs. 42.86 (26.56–63.69); p = 0.043], is internally consistent (α = 0.915, ω = 0.917) and reliable [ICC = 0.912 (0.847–0.942)]. A unidimensional model was fitted (CFI = 0.978; TLI = 0.975; RMSEA = 0.108, 90% CI 0.094–0.123; SRMR = 0.055) with no misfitting items and good response category separation. Conclusions A new, 14-item, short form version of the Sarcopenia Quality of Life questionnaire has been developed and shows good clinimetric properties.


Author(s):  
Kui Xu ◽  
Ming Zhang ◽  
Jie Liu ◽  
Nan Sha ◽  
Wei Xie ◽  
...  

Abstract In this paper, we design the simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) protocol for massive multi-input multi-output (mMIMO) system with non-linear energy-harvesting (EH) terminals. In this system, the base station (BS) serves a set of uplink fixed half-duplex (HD) terminals with non-linear energy harvester. Considering the non-linearity of practical energy-harvesting circuits, we adopt the realistic non-linear EH model rather than the idealistic linear EH model. The proposed SWIPT protocol can be divided into two phases. The first phase is designed for terminals EH and downlink training. A beam domain energy beamforming method is employed for the wireless power transmission. In the second phase, the BS forms the two-layer receive beamformers for the reception of signals transmitted by terminals. In order to improve the spectral efficiency (SE) of the system, the BS transmit power- and time-switching ratios are optimized. Simulation results show the superiority of the proposed beam-domain SWIPT protocol on SE performance compared with the conventional mMIMO SWIPT protocols.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 2745
Author(s):  
Manoj Kumar ◽  
Ritu Dogra ◽  
Mahesh Narang ◽  
Manjit Singh ◽  
Sushant Mehan

Manual transplanting, a pre-dominant practice in almost all the paddy growing areas in India, is laborious, burdensome, and has many expenses on raising, settling, and transplanting nursery. The transplanting process’s limitations motivated the replacement of conventional paddy transplanting methods. The study was divided into two phases. The first phase included laboratory testing of three levels of metering mechanisms, namely cell type (M1) with 10 cells grooved around a circular plate having a 13 cm diameter, inclined plate (M2) containing 24 U shaped cells provided on an 18 cm diameter plate, and fluted roller (M3) with 10 flutes on a 5 cm diameter shaft. The testing matrix included a missing index, multiple index, and seed damage with forward speeds (2.5, 3.0, and 3.5 km/h), and pre-germination levels of 24 h soaked (P1), 24 h pre-germinated (P2), and 36 h pre-germinated paddy seeds (P3)). The second phase included selecting the best combination obtained from the laboratory study and developing a new efficient planter for the puddled field. The inclined plate metering mechanism operating at 2.5 km/h for 24 h pre-germinated seeds was reported most efficient from the first phase. Therefore, a self-propelled 8-row planter equipped with an inclined plate metering mechanism having a row-to-row spacing of 22.5 cm was developed, fabricated, and evaluated in the puddled field. The designed planter was assessed on two different soils: sandy loom (ST1) and clay loom (ST2) and at two different hopper fill levels as ½ filled hopper (F1) and ¾ filled hopper (F2). The number of plants per square meter and hill-to-hill spacing was measured. The on-field evaluation revealed that the number of plants per square meter was non-significantly affected by the type of soil but was significantly affected by hopper fill.


Author(s):  
Vishu Madaan ◽  
Aditya Roy ◽  
Charu Gupta ◽  
Prateek Agrawal ◽  
Anand Sharma ◽  
...  

AbstractCOVID-19 (also known as SARS-COV-2) pandemic has spread in the entire world. It is a contagious disease that easily spreads from one person in direct contact to another, classified by experts in five categories: asymptomatic, mild, moderate, severe, and critical. Already more than 66 million people got infected worldwide with more than 22 million active patients as of 5 December 2020 and the rate is accelerating. More than 1.5 million patients (approximately 2.5% of total reported cases) across the world lost their life. In many places, the COVID-19 detection takes place through reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests which may take longer than 48 h. This is one major reason of its severity and rapid spread. We propose in this paper a two-phase X-ray image classification called XCOVNet for early COVID-19 detection using convolutional neural Networks model. XCOVNet detects COVID-19 infections in chest X-ray patient images in two phases. The first phase pre-processes a dataset of 392 chest X-ray images of which half are COVID-19 positive and half are negative. The second phase trains and tunes the neural network model to achieve a 98.44% accuracy in patient classification.


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