Professional Age: On the Issue of Sociological Conceptualization (On the Example of Professional Athletes)

The article presents a sociological conceptualization of the category "professional age" in relation to the field of professional sports. Based on the interpretation of the terms "age" and "professional athlete", the author's vision of the category "professional age" is proposed. The interpretation of the concept of "professional age" is carried out through the prism of chronological, biological, social, and psychological ages, as a result of which the specifics of professional age are determined on the example of professional athletes. The specific features of integration of athletes into the professional environment, which is associated with the specific functioning of this sphere of activity that affects the process of formation of their professional age, are shown. In turn, the professional age of athletes is determined, firstly, by the earlier entry of the individual into the professional sports environment and, consequently, by a faster entry into professional age; secondly, a shorter work experience depending on the sport compared to other areas of work and, accordingly, a faster completion of professional age. Factors leading to the formation of perceptions of professional age are established: discrepancy between the chronological and social functioning of the individual; effects of biological ageing on the course of professional age; effect of psychological aging on the duration of professional age. The characteristics of the professional age of athletes that have a changeable nature of existence are revealed: heterochronicity, variability, normativity, multidimensionality, linearity and cyclicality. The professional age of athletes is analyzed as a multivariate social phenomenon, in particular, the significance of biographical, ideological, social-stratificational, ethnological, historical, aesthetic research aspects is revealed. The socio-cultural features of the professional age of the representatives of elite sport are for egrounded, firstly, the construction of the sports self-awareness of the individual / community, which is specific depending on the kind of sport; secondly, the construction of a sports subculture based on a constant stressful situation. On the basis of theoretical developments, the author's conceptualization of the professional age of athletes is proposed.

Combined Artificial Intelligence Approaches Analyzing 1000 Conservative Patients with Back Pain—A Methodological Pathway to Predicting Treatment Efficacy and Diagnostic Groups

Patients with back pain are common and present a challenge in everyday medical practice due to the multitude of possible causes and the individual effects of treatments. Predicting causes and therapy efficien cy with the help of artificial intelligence could improve and simplify the treatment. In an exemplary collective of 1000 conservatively treated back pain patients, it was investigated whether the prediction of therapy efficiency and the underlying diagnosis is possible by combining different artificial intelligence approaches. For this purpose, supervised and unsupervised artificial intelligence methods were analyzed and a methodology for combining the predictions was developed. Supervised AI is suitable for predicting therapy efficiency at the borderline of minimal clinical difference. Non-supervised AI can show patterns in the dataset. We can show that the identification of the underlying diagnostic groups only becomes possible through a combination of different AI approaches and the baseline data. The presented methodology for the combined application of artificial intelligence algorithms shows a transferable path to establish correlations in heterogeneous data sets when individual AI approaches only provide weak results.

Engineering the Structure of Multi-thread Fancy Bouclé Yarn: Individual Effects of the Number of Wraps and the Overfeed Ratio

This study is about the influence of the number of wraps and the overfeed ratio on the fancy bouclé yarn structure. The bouclé yarns of this study were made on a hollow-spindle spinning system. The number of wraps and the overfeed ratio were increased incrementally and individually in two different experiments. It was found that there were significant linear relationships between increasing the overfeed ratio and increasing the number and size of fancy bouclé profiles, but at the expense of decreasing their circularity ratio and changing the bouclé yarn morphology. However, increasing the number of wraps made a significant linear reduction to the size of fancy bouclé profile but without affecting their number. This study aids bouclé yarn manufacturers to increase their understanding of the structure and aesthetics of bouclé yarns. It also shows them how the morphology of bouclé profiles may change when the overfeed ratio or the number of wraps is changed. In particular, variants of bouclé profiles may appear, which can increase the potential for those variants to attract the attention of designers and consumers. It also can strengthen the manufacturers’ capabilities to satisfy the needs of a wide range of consumers, by creating a wider range of novelty clothing.

Stress and the Well-being of Nurses: an Investigation using the Demands-Resources- Individual Effects (DRIVE) model and the Well-being Process Questionnaire (WPQ).

Previous research shows that nurses have high levels of stress, but less is known about their well-being. The present research used an adapted version of the Demands-Resources-Individual Effects (DRIVE) model to investigate these areas. The Well-Being Process Questionnaire (WPQ), which consists of single items derived from longer scales, was also used. One hundred and seventy-seven British nurses (160 female, 17 male) participated in an online survey. The results showed that work characteristics could be grouped into three factors (resources; demands; and role/change/bullying), as were personality scores (positive personality; openness, agreeable, conscientious; and extraversion, emotional stability). Coping (positive and negative coping) and outcomes (positive and negative outcomes, and positive and negative job appraisals) had a two-factor solution. Results from logistic regressions showed that well-being outcomes were predicted by high positive personality and low negative coping. Positive job appraisals were predicted by high resources and low demands. These findings confirm that the use of the DRIVE model and a single short item measuring instrument can quickly provide information about factors predicting the well-being of nurses.

Operation of a six-effect evaporator station with a deficit in the vapour balance

During the operation of a six-effect evaporator station the vapour balance is subject of interfering incidents such as changing technological states of the process or surrounding conditions (ambient temperature e.g.) This article analyses and compares possible methods of managing the operation i.e. reaction to these incidents. In particular, methods of stabilizing the vapour balance by supplying water or thin juice to individual effects of the evaporator station and bypassing the vapours between effects are compared. The best way of reacting to the overload of the evaporator station seems to be the bypass of vapour from an effect of higher parameters to an effect of lower parameters. This method creates a much faster reaction of the evaporator station to excessive bleeding of vapour than supply of water or thin juice, which need to mix with the juice in the vessels. Feeding water to the thin juice tank or to one of the effects of the evaporator station to compensate excessive vapour consumption can be an acceptable solution in case of prolonged increase in vapour consumption from the evaporator station due to e.g. a significant decrease in ambient temperature.

Members of Parliament are Minimally Accountable for Their Issue Stances (and They Know It)

For incumbents to be accountable for their issue stances, voters must sanction incumbents whose positions are “out of step” with their own. We test the electoral accountability of British legislators for their stance on Brexit. We find that there is very limited issue accountability. Individuals who disagreed with their representative’s stance on Brexit were 3 percentage points less likely to vote for them. The aggregate consequences of these individual effects are limited. A one-standard-deviation increase in the proportion of constituents agreeing with their incumbent’s Brexit stance is associated with an increase of 0.53 percentage points in incumbent vote share. These effects are one and a half times larger when the main challenger has a different Brexit stance to the incumbent. A follow-up survey of Members of Parliament (MPs) shows that MPs’ estimates of the effects of congruence are similar in magnitude. Our findings suggest that issue accountability is conditional in nature and limited in magnitude even for an issue such as Brexit, which should be maximally amenable to such effects.