09501 Abstracts Collection -- Software Synthesis

From 06.12.09 to 11.12.09, the Dagstuhl Seminar 09501 ``Software Synthesis \u27\u27 in Schloss Dagstuhl~--~Leibniz Center for Informatics. During the seminar, several participants presented their current research, and ongoing work and open problems were discussed. Abstracts of the presentations given during the seminar as well as abstracts of seminar results and ideas are put together in this paper. The first section describes the seminar topics and goals in general. Links to extended abstracts or full papers are provided, if available

Developing a data and knowledge management approach for Integrated vehicle health management.

Skaf, Zakwan - Associate SupervisorIn Integrated Vehicle Management (IVHM), research and engineering activities are conducted that generate large amounts of data and content. These activities include simulations, observations, derivation, experiments and referencing. However, IVHM still faces a range of data- and Knowledge Management (KM) challenges ranging from data accuracy to long-term availability for prognostic and diagnostic health management. IHVM is data-centric and therefore requires a robust data life cycle management to supports its data- and Knowledge Management activities. An understanding of the concept of KM is fundamental to addressing the IVHM data and knowledge management issues. In this regard, this thesis contextualises ‘Knowledge Management’ for IVHM by attempting to resolve the intellectual paradox that has characterised it over the years. It discusses the origins of Knowledge Management as a discipline and addresses its historical inconsistencies. This review of KM and its origins serves as a scoping study guiding a systematic review of data life cycle models. It reviews relevant standards and their role in the data life cycle. Guided by the V-Model, a Data Life Cycle Model is developed as a result and validated using a multi-technique approach combining peer review and expert insights obtained through a purposive survey. The model is then applied to IVHM centre Knowledge Management System development (KMS). The outcome includes an improved requirements gathering process and a solid foundation for resolving IVHM data and Knowledge Management challenges.PhD in Transport System

The Rise and Fall of Comprehensive Accounting Theories: R. J. Chambers and Continuously Contemporary Accounting

The thesis is an exploratory study of the gap between accounting research and financial reporting practices. The fundamental issue is that comprehensive accounting theories (CATs) have been largely disregarded in the formation of financial reporting practices. To understand why this should be so, the thesis studies continuously contemporary accounting (COCOA), the CAT associated with the Australian scholar Raymond John Chambers. The thesis adopts a hyperbolic reading of actor-network theory (ANT), which treats ANT on its own terms rather than diluting it by reference to other interpretive approaches. The thesis uses a single case-study approach that traces how Chambers developed what was to become COCOA throughout his life. Archival data and interviews, as well as primary and secondary literature, inform the empirical narrative. The narrative focuses on six distinct episodes: the publication of Chambers’ first academic article in 1955, the debate and events that followed this article, attempts to influence financial reporting practices in the US in the 1960s, the publication of Chambers’ most comprehensive statement on COCOA in 1966, further attempts to influence financial reporting practices in the US, UK, and Australia in the 1970s, and three instances where financial statements were prepared in accordance with COCOA in the 1970s. Through the empirical narrative, the thesis contributes to knowledge about the gap between accounting research and financial reporting practices by studying an actual CAT and the attempts of its proponent to change conventional thinking. What emerges is a nuanced narrative about COCOA filled with various actors, not normally associated with accounting research, that nonetheless turn out to be vital to the success of COCOA

Emotions, Self-Efficacy, and Accountability for Antiracism in White Women Counselors

Supporting the development of an antiracist identity in counselors could facilitate change toward equity, justice, and opportunity within the counseling profession and increase awareness of white counselors in working with clients of color. Understanding obstacles to and enablers of antiracist attitudes in white women counselors holds the potential to bring change to the profession as a whole, given their position in the majority. This quantitative study used instruments to assess white racial affects of white fear, anger, and guilt along with antiracist self-efficacy as influencing antiracist accountability in a sample of white women counselors in the United States (N = 64). White fear was shown to have a moderate inverse relationship with antiracist accountability, and white anger was demonstrated to have a moderate positive relationship with antiracist accountability. White guilt did not show a statistically significant influence. Both white fear and white anger were mediated by antiracist self-efficacy, and a strong positive relationship was shown between antiracist self-efficacy and antiracist accountability. Implications for the counseling profession, the practice of counseling, and counselor education are presented. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu)

Trauma-Informed Practice in Schools: Perceptions of School Staff

Background: The concept of ‘trauma-informed practice’ (TIP) has developed over the last twenty years. Recently, TIP has been applied to schools in acknowledging the widespread nature of trauma and preventing impacts on education, and mental health and wellbeing more broadly. ‘Trauma-informed schools’ are increasingly prevalent in the USA and are beginning to emerge in the UK. Preliminary research suggests positive results however research exploring school staff, perspectives is lacking. This is important in informing the development of this approach. Aims: This research explores school staff perceptions on the impact of trauma and TIP in UK schools. It aims to present perceptions of trauma and TIP, to explore experiences of responding to trauma and identify any barriers and areas for development. Method: Semi-structured interviews took place with thirteen school staff members working in a variety of roles, across a range of schools. Interviews were analysed using Thematic Analysis. Results: Thematic Analysis generated three themes: ‘Theory to practice: challenges defining trauma and TIP’; ‘Practice to theory: current response to trauma in schools’; ‘The influence of the wider context’. Eight subthemes were also generated. Conclusions: Although staff are largely unfamiliar with TIP and internalise a lack of expertise in the absence of training or guidelines, their individual practice is consistent with TIP. Indeed, findings suggest the barriers to a whole-school approach lie in the wider context. Implications highlight the need for an education paradigm shift towards prioritising wellbeing, and for greater funding and resource in schools and other public services, enabling a systemic approach. With greater resource and capacity, findings suggest TIP may be an acceptable and meaningful framework to embed in schools. This should involve strategic investment, wholeschool policy and training, staff support, and community involvement. The Covid-19 pandemic has both increased barriers and provided hope for a systemic shift

Traces to Entrenchment: A Mixed Methods Study Examining the Use of Reading and Writing to Facilitate Lexical Sequence Acquisition Among Bilingual Learners and Factors Influencing Their Language Learning

Informed by entrenchment and usage-based theories, this mixed methods study, modeled after Riazi\u27s mixed methods fully integrated design, examined how reading and writing may be used to facilitate lexical sequence acquisition for high school bilingual learners. The study compared the efficacy of two interventions on increasing the depth of knowledge of lexical sequences: a reading intervention requiring the reading of short informational texts embedded with eight target lexical sequences and a writing intervention requiring participants to follow the readings with the intentional use of target sequences in writing. A repeated measures factorial ANOVA found no impact of gender or first language on results; both groups made statistically significant gains on depth of knowledge during both interventions with large effect sizes, and they retained gains three to four weeks later. However, reading was found to be more impactful for one group, whereas reading and writing was found to be more impactful for the second group. Subsequent analyses of written responses by participants coupled with a repeated measures ANOVA measuring the acquisition of individual sequences demonstrated that participants were more likely to acquire and use some lexical sequences than others. Data from semi-structured interviews from 12 participants were analyzed through the lens of Anthias’ multilevel model of intersectionality to determine factors influencing intervention results as well as English learning generally. Results of this qualitative strand revealed that the requirement to read twice weekly led reading to become a habit for some participants, that text interest impacted some participants’ motivation to comprehend the text, and that interlinear glossing (providing synonyms above target sequences) was helpful for reading comprehension. Gender and L1 were found to influence learning through the long-lasting impact of bullying, which often led females and those with perceived accents to refrain from speaking English even years after bullying occurred. Other salient findings suggest that the employment of high school students may be underreported and that implicit teacher bias may impact the schooling of some bilingual learners. One LGBTQ bilingual learner narrative provided a positive example of empowerment despite the bullying of others. Several recommendations for research, policy, and teaching practices are discussed

The 2P-K Framework: A Personal Knowledge Measurement Framework for the Pharmaceutical Industry

Knowledge is a dynamic human process to justify our personal belief in pursuit of the truth. The intellectual output of any organisation is reliant upon the individual people within that organisation. Despite the eminent role of personal knowledge in organisations, personal knowledge management and measurement have received little attention, particularly in pharmaceutical manufacturing. The pharmaceutical industry is one of the pillars of the global economy and a knowledge-intensive sector where knowledge is described as the second product after medicines. The need of measurement to achieve effective management is not a new concept in management literature. This study offers an explanatory framework for personal knowledge, its underlying constructs and observed measures in the pharmaceutical manufacturing context. Following a sequential mixed method research (MMR) design, the researcher developed a measurement framework based on the thematic analysis of fifteen semi-structured interviews with industry experts and considering the extant academic and regulatory literature. A survey of 190 practitioners from the pharmaceutical manufacturing sector enabled quantitative testing and validation of the proposed models utilising confirmatory factor analysis. The pharmaceutical personal knowledge framework was the fruit of a comprehensive study to explain and measure the manifestations of personal knowledge in pharmaceutical organisations. The proposed framework identifies 41 personal knowledge measures reflecting six latent factors and the underlying personal knowledge. The hypothesised factors include: regulatory awareness, performance, wisdom, organisational understanding, mastership of product and process besides communication and networking skills. In order to enhance the applicability and flexibility of the measurement framework, an abbreviated 15-item form of the original framework was developed. The abbreviated pharmaceutical personal knowledge (2P-K) framework demonstrated superior model fit, better accuracy and reliability. The research results reveal that over 80% of the participant pharmaceutical organisations had a form of structured KM system. However, less than 30% integrated KM with corporate strategies suggesting that KM is still in the early stages of development in the pharmaceutical industry. Also, personal knowledge measurement is still a subjective practice and predominately an informal process. The 2P-K framework offers researchers and scholars a theoretically grounded original model for measuring personal knowledge. Also, it offers a basis for a personal knowledge measurement scale (2P-K-S) in the pharmaceutical manufacturing context. Finally, the study had some limitations. The framework survey relied on self-ratings. This might pose a risk of social desirability bias and Dunning–Kruger effect. Consequently, a 360- degree survey was suggested to achieve accurate assessments. Also, the model was developed and tested in an industry-specific context. A comparative study in similar manufacturing industries (e.g. chemical industries) is recommended to assess the validity of the current model or a modified version of it in other industries

Traces to Entrenchment: A Mixed Methods Study Examining the Use of Reading and Writing to Facilitate Lexical Sequence Acquisition Among Bilingual Learners and Factors Influencing Their Language Learning

Informed by entrenchment and usage-based theories, this mixed methods study, modeled after Riazi\u27s mixed methods fully integrated design, examined how reading and writing may be used to facilitate lexical sequence acquisition for high school bilingual learners. The study compared the efficacy of two interventions on increasing the depth of knowledge of lexical sequences: a reading intervention requiring the reading of short informational texts embedded with eight target lexical sequences and a writing intervention requiring participants to follow the readings with the intentional use of target sequences in writing. A repeated measures factorial ANOVA found no impact of gender or first language on results; both groups made statistically significant gains on depth of knowledge during both interventions with large effect sizes, and they retained gains three to four weeks later. However, reading was found to be more impactful for one group, whereas reading and writing was found to be more impactful for the second group. Subsequent analyses of written responses by participants coupled with a repeated measures ANOVA measuring the acquisition of individual sequences demonstrated that participants were more likely to acquire and use some lexical sequences than others. Data from semi-structured interviews from 12 participants were analyzed through the lens of Anthias’ multilevel model of intersectionality to determine factors influencing intervention results as well as English learning generally. Results of this qualitative strand revealed that the requirement to read twice weekly led reading to become a habit for some participants, that text interest impacted some participants’ motivation to comprehend the text, and that interlinear glossing (providing synonyms above target sequences) was helpful for reading comprehension. Gender and L1 were found to influence learning through the long-lasting impact of bullying, which often led females and those with perceived accents to refrain from speaking English even years after bullying occurred. Other salient findings suggest that the employment of high school students may be underreported and that implicit teacher bias may impact the schooling of some bilingual learners. One LGBTQ bilingual learner narrative provided a positive example of empowerment despite the bullying of others. Several recommendations for research, policy, and teaching practices are discussed

Mechanism of neuroprotective effets of thiamine and precursors with higher bioavaibility

Thiamine is very important for brain functioning and its deficiency causes specific lesions. This is mainly due to decreased levels of its diphosphorylated derivative thiamine diphosphate (ThDP), an essential cofactor for key enzymes in brain energy metabolism. Brain thiamine deficiency is not only the result of reduced thiamine intake, but also a consequence of chronic alcoholism, gastrointestinal diseases, diabetes, absorption of anti-thiamine factors, aging or reduced transport activity. As thiamine transport across the blood-brain barrier is relatively slow, thiamine precursors with higher bioavailability have been developed. One such compound is benfotiamine (BFT). After oral intake, BFT is dephosphorylated by intestinal alkaline phosphatase to the lipophilic S-benzoylthiamine, which freely diffuses across the intestinal mucosa and is transformed to thiamine. After administration of BFT, much higher blood thiamine levels are reached than after administration of an equivalent amount of thiamine. BFT was first shown to be efficient against diabetes-related complications. More recently, it was shown to have highly beneficial effects in mouse models of neurodegenerative diseases. In particular, it decreases brain amyloid deposits and tau hyperphosphorylation. The aim of our thesis was to investigate the mechanisms involved in central nervous system effects of BFT. In a first part, using the mouse neuroblastoma cell line N2a, we demonstrated that BFT indeed requires prior dephosphorylation to S-benzoylthiamine in order to enter the cells and raise intracellular thiamine concentrations. Surprisingly, when orally administered to mice, BFT strongly increased blood thiamine concentration but did not increase brain ThDP levels, suggesting that potential central nervous system effects are cofactor-independent. It has been suggested that treatment with benfotiamine induces an increase in brain GSK-3ß phosphorylation, thereby decreasing its activity. As GSK-3ß is in part responsible for tau hyperphosphorylation, such a mechanism might explain a reduced formation of neurofibrillary tangles in the above-mentioned models of neurodegeneration. Using N2a cells, we indeed confirm a stimulation of the RTK – PI3K – Akt pro-survival pathway. As it is known that benfotiamine treatment has potent beneficial effects in 2 different mouse models of neurodegeneration and that exposure of WT mice to intense stress is also harmful for the hippocampus, we investigated the effects of predator stress on adult hippocampal neurogenesis. The latter has been shown to be impaired by stress in rodents. We therefore tested the effects of thiamine and BFT treatment on hippocampal neurogenesis in predator-stressed mice. Our results show that both thiamine and BFT prevented the reduction of neurogenesis induced by stress, benfotiamine being most effective. Moreover, we show that thiamine and benfotiamine counteract stress-induced bodyweight loss and increase of anxiety-like behavior. Both treatments elevated brain levels of thiamine, but not of the coenzyme thiamine diphosphate (ThDP), again suggesting that the beneficial effects observed are not linked to the cofactor role of ThDP. Our study demonstrates for the first time that thiamine and benfotiamine prevent stress-induced inhibition of hippocampal neurogenesis and accompanying physiological changes, probably by non-cofactor-dependent mechanisms. The use of thiamine precursors might thus be considered as a complementary therapy in several neuropsychiatric disorders, especially depression caused by chronic stress

Factors influencing caregivers’ choice of support sources and support-acceptance decisions : a systematic review.

Background Social support has been found to be an alternative to formal treatments and can be effective in buffering against the stress experienced by parents and teachers, due to the demands of their roles. Support provided from various sources in the form of encouragements, tangible help or information sharing can equip exhausted parents and teachers with more resources to meet the challenging demands of childrearing or teaching. The perception that support sources are present and social contacts are willing to provide them with additional support is alone sufficient to trigger an elevated sense of self-efficacy and encourage parents and teachers to adopt more effective problem-focused coping strategies. Yet, despite these known benefits, parents and teachers have continued to report their non- or minimal-access to support sources. Since support can only be received when parents and teachers are willing to accept the support offered, it is crucial to investigate and gather their reasons behind their non-access or lack of willingness to seek or accept support offers. Objectives This study investigates the various groups of social supporters to whom parents and teachers (i.e. caregivers) would turn for support when they are faced with challenges, and the factors that influence their decisions to seek, accept or reject social support rendered by individuals from a support source. In particular, it aims to answer (1) who do caregivers turn to and seek support from, when faced with role-related challenges while caring for young children? and (2) why do caregivers choose to seek or refuse support from a support source? Method The method of this review involved a systematic search for qualitative studies that recorded caregivers’ reports of support experiences and their rationales for seeking, receiving or rejecting support rendered by their various networks of social contacts. The systematic search was conducted in three electronic databases, namely ERIC, Scopus and EBSCOhost, and via the Google Scholar search engine. Eligibility criteria were imposed to ensure only studies that met the inclusion criteria were accepted for further quality assessment. The COREQ (Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research) checklist was used to appraise the overall quality of the included studies. This overall quality is determined through the explicitness of descriptions and comprehensiveness of report. All included studies underwent two rounds of independent quality assessments. Inductive thematic analysis was employed to synthesise the extracted data and all extracted data were independently analysed and coded by the primary author and her supervisor. Results A total of 1228 studies was identified and 22 of the studies met all the inclusion criteria set for this review. Of the 22 studies, only two studies recorded teachers’ experiences of receiving support and one recorded teachers’ experiences of supporting parents. These three studies were excluded on the grounds that they provided insufficient data for gaining a comprehensive understanding of the teachers’ support experiences. The remaining 19 studies were assessed on their overall quality using the COREQ checklist. The quality of these 19 studies was judged as moderate to high, indicating the descriptions and report of each study were explicit and comprehensive. All 19 studies recorded only the support sources accessed by and the support experiences of parents. Four main themes and 19 subthemes were identified through the extracted and synthesised data: (1) accessibility – subthemes: distance, time, availability, and information, (2) relationship – subthemes: strength of relationship, social inclusion versus social exclusion, opportunity to build relationship, and interest in building relationship, (3) supporter’s factors – subthemes: similarity of life experiences, relevancy and practicality of supporter’s knowledge or experience, supporter’s obtrusiveness, sensitivity to parent’s needs, quality of parenting support, and affirmation of parent’s goals or interest, and (4) parent’s personal factors – subthemes: guilt, fear, reciprocal support, and social comparison. Each of these subthemes explained the factors that had influenced parents in their support-seeking, -acceptance or -rejection decisions. Results showed that parents had sought, accepted or rejected support rendered by social contacts belonging to the four support sources, namely the informal support source (e.g. family members, spouse or partner, friends and colleagues), semi-formal support source (e.g. other parents, support volunteers, staff members of their child’s preschool, and members of the public), formal support source (e.g. professionals like doctors, healthcare workers, midwives, doctors, psychologists, counsellors, and others), or mixed support source (e.g. existing informal social contacts, newly acquainted semi- formal contacts or unfamiliar professionals who provide support via digital platforms or print media). The 19 subthemes represented the factors that had influenced or gave reason for their decisions and their rationales behind seeking, accepting or rejecting support from the various support sources. Conclusion Two main conclusions were drawn from the findings of this systematic review. Firstly, parents may seek or accept assistance or advice from various sources, while holding a preference for support rendered by social contacts of some sources, like their informal support sources of close kin and friends, more than others. Secondly, the factors that most crucially affect parents’ support- seeking, support-acceptance or support-rejection decisions and behaviour vary from person to person. These factors may be dependent on the social support theoretical perspective, together with its relating models, that is implicitly endorsed by each parent. This endorsed theoretical perspective influences parents’ purpose for seeking support and the expectations they hold towards those who offer support. Parents with positive support experiences of effective social supporters fulfilling the expected purposes may thus continue to gain social resources to cope with their challenges. Conversely, those with negative support experiences may resist seeking help from ineffective social supporters, continue to depend on their limited repertoire of skills and knowledge to cope, and have higher risk of experiencing sustained high levels of stress and burnout that also encourage them towards the trajectory of developing psychological disorders