Self-awareness in Software Engineering:A systematic literature review

Background: Self-awareness has been recently receiving attention in computing systems for enriching autonomous software systems operating in dynamic environments. Objective: We aim to investigate the adoption of computational self-awareness concepts in autonomic software systems and motivate future research directions on self-awareness and related problems. Method: We conducted a systemic literature review to compile the studies related to the adoption of self-awareness in software engineering and explore how self-awareness is engineered and incorporated in software systems. From 865 studies, 74 studies have been selected as primary studies. We have analysed the studies from multiple perspectives, such as motivation, inspiration, and engineering approaches, among others. Results: Results have shown that self-awareness has been used to enable self-adaptation in systems that exhibit uncertain and dynamic behaviour. Though there have been recent attempts to define and engineer self-awareness in software engineering, there is no consensus on the definition of self-awareness. Also, the distinction between self-aware and self-adaptive systems has not been systematically treated. Conclusions: Our survey reveals that self-awareness for software systems is still a formative field and that there is growing attention to incorporate self-awareness for better reasoning about the adaptation decision in autonomic systems. Many pending issues and open problems outline possible research directions

Self-awareness for dynamic knowledge management in self-adaptive volunteer services

Engineering volunteer services calls for novel self-adaptive approaches for dynamically managing the process of selecting volunteer services. As these services tend to be published and withdrawn without restrictions, uncertainties, dynamisms and 'dilution of control' related to the decisions of selection and composition are complex problems. These services tend to exhibit periodic performance patterns, which are often repeated over a certain time period. Consequently, the awareness of such periodic patterns enables the prediction of the services performance leading to better adaptation. In this paper, we contribute to a self-adaptive approach, namely time-awareness, which combines self-aware principles with dynamic histograms to dynamically manage the periodic trends of services performance and their evolution trends. Such knowledge can inform the adaptation decisions, leading to increase in the precision of selecting and composing services. We evaluate the approach using a volunteer storage composition scenario. The evaluation results show the advantages of dynamic knowledge management in self-adaptive volunteer computing in selecting dependable services and satisfying higher number of requests

Time experience and judgement in depression : A theory of isomorphic general relativity (TIGR)

This thesis presents studies assessing aspects of time experience and judgement in depression. It focuses on a phenomenon called time dilation, which is the perception of slow temporal flow in conscious experience. This thesis by publication explains a novel theory of time dilation in depression, called the Theory of Isomorphic General Relativity (TIGR), and elaborates this theory to propose a general framework for consciousness and cognition according to timescale. The final outcome is a dual-pronged theory of time consciousness and the experience of time dilation in depression that has the same form as Einstein’s (1920) general theory of relativity. The thesis begins with a published paper called “Duration perception versus perception duration: A proposed model for the consciously experienced moment” (Kent, 2019). This paper defines temporal flow in conscious experience in terms of an interval of time perception known as the ‘experienced moment’ (Wittmann, 2011). In this paper, I reviewed evidence for a view of time dilation in depression that is distinct from either immediate sensory integration or working memory (WM) activity. The thesis continues with a second published paper called “Time dilation and acceleration in depression” (Kent, Van Doorn, & Klein, 2019) that reviews the literature specific to time perception in depression, and meta-analytically tests the preceding definition of time dilation within the experienced moment. This paper also details the experimental methodology used and proposes the TIGR as a descriptive and explanatory theory of time perception. xx The third published paper, “Bayes, time perception, and relativity: The central role of hopelessness” (Kent, Van Doorn, Hohwy, & Klein, 2019), formulates and tests the TIGR in a time perception experiment using the methodology outlined in the second paper. The time judgement and experience data of 64 participants, with and without sub-clinical symptoms of depression, were analysed using a statistical version of a Bayesian prediction error minimisation framework called ‘distrusting the present’ (Hohwy, Paton, & Palmer, 2016). The results showed that hopelessness was associated with slower time experience, while arousal was associated with faster time experience. The paper also supported the use of a relative difference equation to model these effects. This relative difference equation has the same general form as a basic general relativity equation used to calculate time dilation due to gravity, called the Schwarzschild metric (Schwarzschild, 1916). The fourth paper, “Time perception in depression: A perceived delay cues feelings of hopelessness” (Kent, Van Doorn, Hohwy, & Klein, under review), is under review by the journal Acta Psychologica. It looks more closely at the experimental effect reported in the third paper to explore the clinical implications of an increase in hopelessness caused by a brief time production task. The analysis showed that a particular sub-factor of the Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS) called ‘feelings of hopelessness’ was more affected than other facets of hopelessness (Beck, Weissman, Lester, & Trexler, 1974). The fifth paper, “Systema temporis: A time-based dimensional framework for consciousness and cognition” (Kent, Van Doorn, & Klein, under review), is currently under review by the journal Consciousness and Cognition. In this paper, we extend elements of the TIGR related to consciousness in the first four papers xxi to argue that time consciousness can be used to systematise aspects of consciousness and cognition. The paper proposes a hierarchical framework that reflects the commonly-conceived structure of memory, intelligence, and emotional intelligence. This framework integrates aspects of consciousness including experience, wakefulness, and self-consciousness. The final paper, submitted to the journal Personality and Social Psychology Review and entitled “Systema psyches: A time-based framework for consciousness, cognition and related psychological and social theories” (Kent, Van Doorn, & Klein, submitted) extends the ‘Systema Temporis’ paper to incorporate extended timeframes and theories of social cognition including personality, cognitive and moral development, and personal values. The analysis suggests that time consciousness is also a facet of collective experience and so, in framing the closing discussion around time dilation in depression, the thesis concludes that the TIGR extends beyond the narrow domain of individual psychopathology to incorporate timescales of collective memory and human evolution.Doctor of Philosoph

The barzakh and the bardo: challenges to religious violence in Sufism and Vajrayana Buddhism

In the twenty-first century, religious violence has become endemic in our world. Scholars are divided on the true motivations for such violence, however. While some perceive inherent incitements to violence embedded in religion itself, others blame other factors—primarily, competition for resources, which then co-opts religious feeling in order to justify and escalate conflict. This dissertation proposes that more fruitful answers to the riddle of religious violence may lie in the relationship between collective identity and religious allegiance. Identity construction is liminal and, as such, experiential. Hence, this study applies the analytical lens of liminality to explore possible understandings of religious violence. Taking the position that liminal passages are natural and unavoidable aspects of lived experience, it argues that the fixation on doctrinal certainties and religious ideals common among perpetrators of religious violence functions largely to oppose the ambivalence and uncertainty characteristic of liminality. It further posits the hypothetical phenomena of reactive projection and autonomic liminality as reactions to liminal experience, leading to eruptions of violence. The Tibetan Buddhist bardo and Sufi barzakh constitute religiously sanctioned instances of liminality. Although these passages are conventionally perceived as postmortem locales, both systems include broader metaphysical understandings, making their transformative potential profoundly relevant to spiritual practice during this lifetime. I argue that a close reading of the bardo and the barzakh demonstrates the capacity of religious tradition to offer compelling alternatives to the fixation on the extreme views typically implicated in religious violence. I further propose that the nondualistic, inclusive worldview implicit in understandings of the bardo and barzakh may prove useful in promoting a practice of “reflective interiority”—not only in disrupting the rigid mindset of those moved to perpetrate religious violence, but also in shifting the moral fixity sometimes associated with the scholarship on religious violence

In the mood: online mood profiling, mood response clusters, and mood-performance relationships in high-risk vocations

The relationship between mood and performance has long attracted the attention of researchers. Typically, research on the mood construct has had a strong focus on psychometric tests that assess transient emotions (e.g., Profile of Mood States [POMS]; McNair, Lorr, & Dropplemann, 1971, 1992; Terry, Lane, Lane, & Keohane, 1999). Commonly referred to as mood profiling, many inventories have originated using limited normative data (Terry et al., 1999), and cannot be generalised beyond the original population of interest. With brevity being an important factor when assessing mood, Terry et al. (1999) developed a 24-item version of the POMS, now known as the Brunel Mood Scale (BRUMS). Including six subscales (i.e., tension, depression, anger, vigour, fatigue, and confusion), the BRUMS has undergone rigorous validity testing (Terry, Lane, & Fogarty, 2003) making it an appropriate measure in several performance environments. Mood profiling is used extensively for diverse purposes around the world, although Internet-delivered interventions have only recently been made available, being in conjunction with the proliferation of the World Wide Web. Developed by Lim and Terry in 2011, the In The Mood website (http://www.moodprofiling.com) is a web-based mood profiling measure based on the BRUMS and guided by the mood-performance conceptual framework of Lane and Terry (2000). The focus of the website is to facilitate a prompt calculation and interpretation of individual responses to a brief mood scale, and link idiosyncratic feeling states to specific mood regulation strategies with the aim of facilitating improved performance. Although mood profiling has been a popular clinical technique since the 1970s, currently there are no published investigations of whether distinct mood profiles can be identified among the general population. Given this, the underlying aim of the present research was to investigate clusters of mood profiles. The mood responses (N = 2,364) from the In The Mood website were analysed using agglomerative, hierarchical cluster analysis which distinguished six distinct and theoretically meaningful profiles. K-means clustering with a prescribed six-cluster solution was used to further refine the final parameter solution. The mood profiles identified were termed the iceberg, inverse iceberg, inverse Everest, shark fin, surface, and submerged profiles. A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) showed significant differences between clusters on each dimension of mood, and a series of chi-square tests of goodness-of-fit indicated that gender, age, and education were unequally distributed. Further, a simultaneous multiple discriminant function analysis (DFA) showed that cluster membership could be correctly classified with a high degree of accuracy. Following this, a second (N = 2,303) and third (N = 1,865) sample each replicated the results. Given that certain vocations are by nature riskier than others (Khanzode, Maiti, & Ray, 2011) highlighting the importance of performance in the workplace, the present research aimed to further generalise the BRUMS to high-risk industries using a web-based delivery method. Participants from the construction and mining industries were targeted, and the relationship between mood and performance in the context of safety was investigated, together with associated moderating variables (i.e., gender, age, education, occupation, roster, ethnicity, and location)

Parent-child bonding and attachment during pregnancy and early childhood following congenital heart disease diagnosis

Diagnosis and treatment of congenital heart disease (CHD) can present challenges to the developing parent-child relationship due to periods of infant hospitalisation and intensive medical care, parent-infant separations, child neurodevelopmental delay and feeding problems, and significant parent and child distress and trauma. Yet, the ways in which CHD may affect the parent-child relationship are not well-understood. We systematically reviewed the evidence on parental bonding, parent-child interaction, and child attachment following CHD diagnosis, according to a pre-registered protocol (CRD42019135687). Six electronic databases were searched for English-language studies comparing a cardiac sample (i.e., expectant parents or parents and their child aged 0-5 years with CHD) with a healthy comparison group on relational outcomes. Of 22 identified studies, most used parent-report measures (73%) and yielded mixed results for parental bonding and parent-child interaction quality. Observational results also varied, although most studies (4 of 6) found difficulties in parent-child interaction on one or more affective or behavioural domains (e.g., lower maternal sensitivity, lower infant responsiveness). Research on parental-fetal bonding, father-child relationships, and child attachment behaviour was lacking. Stronger evidence is needed to determine the nature, prevalence, and predictors of relational disruptions following CHD diagnosis, and to inform targeted screening, prevention, and early intervention programs for at-risk dyads

Theory of transition: latency and adolescence from an object-relations viewpoint

In this study, the uniqueness of reflective man expressed in a variety of separate persons, each with his own expanding system of relationships the separate elements of which overlap and form parts of the systems of others provides our definition of personality which is that specially human quality by which a person manifests his individuality in relationships with objects. The person who forms the unit is the product of processes of biological evolution and the force which is activating these processes is taken to be ultimately the same as that which energises systems of physical matter. The study of interchange of energy between physical structures and the psychic apparatus of individuals is within the field of metapsychology in which the unit is a mental process. Metapsychologically, persons are themselves systems. Recent developments in ego psychology indicate that the time has now come to attempt a synthesis of Freudian and later theoretical contributions to personality study, clinical findings in both adult and child analysis, philosophical considerations of the nature of reality and consciousness and some recent advances in the natural sciences. Such a large aim is beyond the scope of this work which is confined to an attempt to reformulate the Freudian theory of latency and adolescence within a comprehensive theory of transition

The entropy of suffering : an inquiry into the consequences of the 4-Hour Rule for the patient-doctor relationship in Australian public hospitals

As a medical practitioner, predominantly working in Australian public hospitals, I have always been interested in the factors that shape and influence my and my colleagues’ performance in the practice of medicine. In 2011, the Australian Government instituted a range of reforms to the public health-care system, including some directed at improving access for patients to Emergency Departments, which had, over many years, become increasingly overwhelmed by the number and complexity of presentations. This included a target of four hours within which patients in Emergency Departments were to be discharged, admitted or transferred to alternative institutions. These reforms generated widespread strong emotional responses from medical and other health staff with whom I worked, and I was prompted to consider the origins of these powerful human reactions to the administrative intervention. Emergency Departments are often described, derisively, as chaotic working environments. However, this epithet may instead be describing something quite profound about the ontological nature of hospitals and Emergency Departments — that they are, indeed, non-linear dynamical physical systems in which phenomena of complexity exist. Other human-centred interactional and transactional systems have been successfully examined from a complexity perspective, including economics and human physiology. Framing inquiry into Emergency Departments, and the humans who encounter each other within them, from a complexity perspective might also then prove useful in defining and characterising the complex and manifold relationships and interactions between people, technology and systemic organising principles. This health services research evaluates the lived experience of four medical practitioners through the paradigm of phenomenological inquiry, as actors on a performance landscape of clinical encounters and as key sources of information about the structure and functions of that performance manifold. Inquiry into and analysis of these rich descriptive data yield strong inferences that non-linear dynamics are operating across scales — from the cellular to the organisational. The complexity perspective provides a unifying explanatory power for making sense of how energetic transactions and transformations between patients, health-care practitioners, technology and the hospital system unfold to result in the recovery from injury and trauma. Specifically, literature on interoception suggests that human biological systems are exquisitely sensitive to changes in dynamic steady-states that might indicate increased entropy. This inquiry suggests that suffering is a phenomenological experience of sudden increases in entropy. An explanatory model in complexity, using the Second Law of Thermodynamics in open systems, suggests that entropy — that is, suffering — can be understood as being transferred and expelled from patient to doctor. Framing in this explanatory model would suggest that the patient-doctor relationship is a powerful systemic attractor in a dynamic system. Elaborating this construct of energetic dynamics further suggests that insertion of system controllers, such as time-based targets, can have profound non-linear effects on the function of these dynamics and, hence, the outcomes of these patient-doctor encounters. The implications of this inquiry include a new and powerful reframing of the ontological characterisation of the practice of medicine in Emergency Departments in terms of nonlinear open thermodynamic functions operating at distance from equilibrium. It recommends a more thoughtful consideration of human experiences such as suffering and its relief. Giving priority and visibility to suffering within health-care, a recrudescence of times past when technology in medicine was limited, may elucidate ways of practising that improve patient experiences and health outcomes. Furthermore, the findings suggest that medical practitioners, health workers and administrators are called on to deeply consider embracing complex dynamics as problem framing references, and to engage with methodologies that build better theories about the nature of phenomena under investigation. Rather than seeking to diminish or extinguish the complexities of Emergency Departments, researchers and practitioners might acknowledge and engage with the next wave of complexity-informed health-care research to better understand how and why health-care relieves suffering and restores human function

Profiling Emotion Regulation: Exploring patterns of regulation in classroom behaviour

Emotion Regulation describes the ability to influence the experience and expression of affect. Adaptive emotion regulation contributes to healthy development, social competence and academic success (Kochanska, Murray & Harlan, 2000). This study investigated the behavioural strategies for emotion regulation, emotion expression, regulatory styles and classroom behaviour in middle childhood. One hundred and twenty-eight children were recruited from five UK public and private primary schools. From within their school setting, participant sensitivity to emotion-eliciting events was recorded using ambulatory skin conductance technology whilst age-group paired children performed two LEGO construction tasks. Observed behaviours were video-recorded and coded to establish frequencies of distinct regulatory behaviours. These were compared to self-reports of emotion regulation strategies and teacher-reports of classroom behaviour. Iterative partitioning cluster analysis methods were used to identify four regulatory profiles: 1) the ‘Adaptive’ cluster: employed high levels of positive problem solving and reappraisal strategies and frequently expressed both positive and negative emotions; 2) the ‘Maladaptive’ cluster: used more negative regulation (avoidant or obstructive strategies), expressed more negative emotion and had more social and behavioural problems in class; 3) the ‘Reactive’ cluster showed high levels of electrodermal activity, expressed little emotion and were reported as inattentive/hyperactive in class; and 4) the ‘Distracted’ cluster demonstrated high levels of behavioural and cognitive distraction. These results indicate four meaningful profiles that could support the identification of vulnerable individuals for positive school-based intervention and support