The CRS-R was developed at the JFK Johnson Rehabilitation Institute and grades patients' verbalization, communication, motor function, visual function and response to sound.

CNN: Trapped 'coma' man: How was he misdiagnosed?

But gauging patient response is a fuzzy function.

FORBES: Quest for Desire

Groundwater response to global changes is a complex function that depends on climate change and variability, topography, aquifer characteristics, vegetation dynamics, and human activities.

UNESCO: Climate Change Effects on Groundwater Resources: A Global Synthesis of Findings and Recommendations | United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

The extraordinary scope and magnitude of the recent financial crisis of 2007-09 required an extraordinary response by the Fed in the fulfillment of its lender-of-last-resort function.

FORBES: Runaway Government Spending Keeps Gold Bull Breathing

Another response: Finance companies are offering, or will soon offer, plans in New York that function like leases but transfer titles to car buyers.

FORBES: Guilt by Association

That would normally be a good response, but then this same small government establishment has for years explained heavy spending during the Reagan years as a function of the Republicans not being in control of a House of Representatives where spending constitutionally originates.

FORBES: The Small Government Establishment Joins the Establishment