Musical Instruments in Japanese School Education: Ideas, Policy, and Reality

At the last meeting of the Study Group on Musical Instruments in Lisbon (2019), my discussion focused on teaching and learning musical instruments in Japanese schools. I reported about the musical instruments applied for educational purposes from a historical perspective. Examining the introduction and development of instrument education in music classes revealed that various musical instruments have been used as teaching tools. On the one hand, some of them are a reinvention or an improvement of already existing musical instruments. On the other hand, cultural and socio-economic factors always play a vital role in adopting and mastering musical instruments in formal education. In this paper, as a follow-up study of the topic, I will give due emphasis on the musical instruments recommended in the educational guidelines. Consequently, I will examine their organology and the ideas behind applying specific musical instruments in school education.

FUZZY GREEN CONSTRUCTION FOR MEASURING ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCES OF CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

In the last three decades the Indonesian construction industry has gradually answered to demands for more environmentally responsible industry, where sustainability initiative has evolved from sharing idea amongst academia and professionals to real on-field implementation of green concept. While the application of the concept of green buildings has become a common practice in the building and housing sector, efforts to expand the application of green principles and sustainability to also cover the stages of the construction process only proceed slowly. One challenge is the lack of understanding from construction practitioners and project owners about the benefits of the green process, which is caused by the unavailability of metrics to assess the performance of green measures in construction projects. Such condition makes it difficult for the construction industry to promote the idea of green construction. This paper will discuss the development of instrument to measure the environmental impact of construction process in building construction process. This instrument is arranged in the form of a hierarchical structural system that addresses seven environmental aspects of construction work, that adopts fuzzy concepts to better accommodate human subjective assessments of resource use and other practical aspects of construction during the construction implementation process.

Research strategy for development of instrument and computer support for diagnosis and treatment of addictive patients considering the consequences of the covid-19 pandemic

The article states кesearch strategy for development of instrument and computer support for diagnosis and treatment of dependents of patients considering the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the growing worldwide number of addicted people and the deterioration of this situation due to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to introduce improved methods of computer diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of addicted patients and those suffering from on diseases of the central nervous system (CNS). These categories of patients make up a risk group. The proposed methods include the development of a computer database "Addictiveness", the accumulation and generalization of instrumental diagnostic data and the results of patients examinations of the development of a mathematical procedure for correlation "Brain Similarity", to identify signs of symptoms closeness of a dependent patient to one from the groups of already examined persons and those who underwent treatment. On the basis of mathematical methods "Procedure Brain Similarity" and the corresponding data of the database "Addictiveness" the creation of a software package of addicted patients precision diagnostics with computer calculations is provided. Scientific research results, relevant theoretical and experimental developments are the methodological basis for sufficiently qualified studies of a number of poorly studied human CNS phenomena, including not only diagnosis and treatment of addictive patients, but also understudied phenomena of extreme functions of cognitive brain activity

Parenting functioning in stunting management: A concept analysis

Stunting, a global issue, is the retarded growth and development of children resulting from inadequate nutrition, frequent infection, and insufficient psychosocial stimulation. It is usually an indicator of poor parenting. The role of parents is important for children’s growth, development and learning. Parenting functioning is a concept health care professionals use to describe parenting activities for the purpose of intervention. But, the health professionals and patients have different understanding on parental functioning. There is a need to have a consistent definition of parenting functioning, and therefore this study aims to analyze the concept. Walker and Avant’s method of concept analysis was used to study parenting functioning for the purpose of improving management of stunting. The attributes of parenting functioning are knowledge, competency, effort, responsibility, partnership, caring, teaching and communicating. Antecedents for parenting functioning are relationship, children’s characteristics, careful observation and vicarious experiences. The consequences are positive child-rearing practice, less psychological stress and children’s wellness. The empirical referents for parenting functioning are Keys to Interactive Parenting Scale (KIPS) and Parenting Interaction with Children: Checklist of Observations Linked to Outcomes (PICCOLO). In conclusion, this analytical concept can provide insights into nursing and public health colleagues to improve understanding of parenting functioning and to facilitate development of instrument to improve to an advance stage and to improve the stunting management.

ISLAMIC WEALTH PLANNING: THE DEVELOPMENT OF INSTRUMENT

The purpose of this paper is to develop new instrument that measures the Islamic wealth planning concept based on the Islamic literature. The concept was conceptualized and transformed into an instrument based on two methods, namely experts’ validity (using Lawshe’s technique with eight Malaysian certified Islamic financial planners and two representatives from the official Islamic religious departments in Kedah and Perlis states/Malaysia) and focus group session with seven experts in several related areas, i.e. Islamic philosophy, Islamic finance, and Islamic financial planning. This paper used a quantitative approach using questionnaire. The developed instrument was then distributed to 120 respondents to further improve its validity and two analyses were performed: reliability analysis and exploratory factor analysis. The finding of this study is a new validated instrument for the concept of Islamic wealth planning which contains two main sections, i.e. worldly financial planning and hereafter financial planning. The first section consists of income/investment planning, retirement planning, education (for the individual) planning, and Takaful/insurance planning, while the second section consists of education (for his/her family) planning, Faraid planning, Wasiyyah planning, Zakat/taxes planning, Hajj planning, Hibah planning, Waqf planning, and charitable financial planning. This paper contributes to the existing scarce studies in the area of Islamic wealth planning and management. In addition, this study contributes in transforming the Islamic wealth planning concept into a measurable instrument that can be used for several parties such as Islamic financial planners, high net worth individuals (HNWI) as well as middle class individuals, Islamic financial institutions, and researchers.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF INSTRUMENT TO ASSESS STUDENTS' AFFECTIVE BASED ON SCIENTIFIC APPROACH IN ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE (EFL) CLASSROOM

Purpose of the study: The objective of this research was to explain the results of the development of instruments to assess the students' affective based on scientific approaches in the EFL class.Methodology: This study used the ADDIE method that consists of five steps: (1) analyzing, (2) designing, (3) developing, (4) implementing, and (5) evaluating. There were some instruments of the research used to gather the data such as the expert's validation sheet and questionnaire. Statistical analyses used in this research were Alpha Cronbach, the test of normality Kolmogorov-Smirnov, the test of homogeneity Levene, the test of linearity, the test of correlational Pearson, test of regression, and Wilcoxon test.Main Findings: The result showed that the development of an instrument to evaluate students' affective based on scientific approach was considered by some items, e.g. phases in scientific approach, skills in English language teaching, learning experiences, affective aspects, and indicator of assessment. Finally, it can be stated that (1) the instrument was valid with the mean Score in rank between 1-124 is 114.8; (2) the instrument reliable with the Score is 0.754; (3) the instrument was tested with the Asymp. Sig score of 0.042.Applications of this study: This study proved that the instrument of affective assessment was valid, practice, and effective to be used by the English teachers in assessing the students' affective during the teaching and learning process at the EFL classroom.Novelty/Originality of this study: The success of a student is not only measured based on the cognitive aspect but also based on the affective aspect.

Older African Americans’ Perspectives on Exposure to Structural Discrimination Across Contexts and the Life Course

This presentation reports on findings from the first phase of a mixed methods study aimed at developing an instrument to assess older African Americans’ exposure to structural racial discrimination. We conducted semi-structured interviews with older African Americans about their perspectives on and exposure to structural discrimination. Participants (n=20) were community-dwelling African Americans aged fifty and older in Baltimore, MD. Participants described exposure to structural discrimination that had accumulated across the life course and across the contexts of education, employment, healthcare services, criminal justice system, neighborhood factors, media and marketing of unhealthy products, environmental toxin exposures, and income, credit and wealth. In the next phase of the study, we will incorporate these findings into the development of instrument items. Developing and testing a tool to assess exposure to discrimination beyond the interpersonal level is an important step in identifying solutions to mitigate the contribute of discrimination to racial health disparities.

Ensuring growth in international competitiveness of national instrument production

Introduction. Mechanical engineering and instrument-making is one of the most science-intensive industries and the level of development of instrument-making directly depends on the main indicators of socio-economic development of the state. At the same time, in Ukraine this industry and its products lag behind the world level due to a number of objective reasons, which are of economic, political and technological nature. Lagging in technologies, lack of domestic innovations and high cost of new equipment make it necessary for enterprises to replace the main production assets, as well as to complete the final reorientation of the economic model of development. Aim and tasks. Study the state of instrument-making products of Ukraine, with subsequent identification of areas to improve its competitiveness. Results. The dynamics of indices of industrial production during 2015-2019 was analyzed and the share of instrument-making in industry from 2015 to 2019 was identified. PEST-analysis of domestic instrumentation was carried out to identify economic, political, social and technological factors affecting its competitiveness. The sufficient efficiency of instrument-making enterprises is justified taking into account methodological postulates of the theory of effective competition. Certain fluctuations can be explained firstly by the presence of crisis phenomena in the Ukrainian economy in 2014-2015. And secondly, the dynamics of indicators is closely related to the processes within the company. On the other hand, the analysis of the export structure indicates a decrease in the volume of high-tech products due to the lack of international competitiveness of the industry. Conclusions. It is proved that the development of instrument-making enterprises is cyclical. The main directions of increasing the competitiveness of domestic instrument-making enterprises and their products on world markets are proposed, namely: updating of the entire technological platform of instrument-making; launching production of new high-tech products that are more innovative and knowledge-intensive, development of international cooperation and cooperation, a course to develop the scientific environment in the field of instrumentation.