58,759 research outputs found
A concept analysis of befriending
Aim. To report an analysis of the concept of Befriending.
Background. Befriending is an intervention used in a range of nursing, health and
social care settings to provide support for individuals who are socially isolated or
lack social support. However, in many cases befriending and its impact remains
poorly understood and under researched. Concept analysis provides clarification
of the concept and basis for further research and development.
Design. Concept analysis.
Data sources. AMED, Psyc Articles, Psych Info, Medline, MedlinePlus, Social
Science Index and CINHAL databases were searched for literature published
between 1993–2013 using the search term Befriending.
Methods. Walker and Avant’s method of concept analysis was chosen. This
combined with insights from Risjord’s work produced a theoretical concept
analysis which focused on the concept in peer reviewed academic literature.
Results. There are currently several ways the mechanisms of befriending and its
effects on individuals and communities are understood. It is possible however to
identify key attributes which define the concept and differentiate it from related
concepts, such as peer support and mentoring. Key attributes are that it is an
organised intervention, involving the creation of an emotionally connected friendlike
relationship, where there is a negotiation of power.
Conclusion. This concept analysis has clarified current understandings and uses
of befriending. It provides the basis for widening the focus of research into the
effectiveness and impact of befriending on those who are befriended, those who
befriend and the communities where befriending takes place
Grand Challenges of Traceability: The Next Ten Years
In 2007, the software and systems traceability community met at the first
Natural Bridge symposium on the Grand Challenges of Traceability to establish
and address research goals for achieving effective, trustworthy, and ubiquitous
traceability. Ten years later, in 2017, the community came together to evaluate
a decade of progress towards achieving these goals. These proceedings document
some of that progress. They include a series of short position papers,
representing current work in the community organized across four process axes
of traceability practice. The sessions covered topics from Trace Strategizing,
Trace Link Creation and Evolution, Trace Link Usage, real-world applications of
Traceability, and Traceability Datasets and benchmarks. Two breakout groups
focused on the importance of creating and sharing traceability datasets within
the research community, and discussed challenges related to the adoption of
tracing techniques in industrial practice. Members of the research community
are engaged in many active, ongoing, and impactful research projects. Our hope
is that ten years from now we will be able to look back at a productive decade
of research and claim that we have achieved the overarching Grand Challenge of
Traceability, which seeks for traceability to be always present, built into the
engineering process, and for it to have "effectively disappeared without a
trace". We hope that others will see the potential that traceability has for
empowering software and systems engineers to develop higher-quality products at
increasing levels of complexity and scale, and that they will join the active
community of Software and Systems traceability researchers as we move forward
into the next decade of research
Unmet goals of tracking: within-track heterogeneity of students' expectations for
Educational systems are often characterized by some form(s) of ability grouping, like tracking. Although substantial variation in the implementation of these practices exists, it is always the aim to improve teaching efficiency by creating homogeneous groups of students in terms of capabilities and performances as well as expected pathways. If students’ expected pathways (university, graduate school, or working) are in line with the goals of tracking, one might presume that these expectations are rather homogeneous within tracks and heterogeneous between tracks. In Flanders (the northern region of Belgium), the educational system consists of four tracks. Many students start out in the most prestigious, academic track. If they fail to gain the necessary credentials, they move to the less esteemed technical and vocational tracks. Therefore, the educational system has been called a 'cascade system'. We presume that this cascade system creates homogeneous expectations in the academic track, though heterogeneous expectations in the technical and vocational tracks. We use data from the International Study of City Youth (ISCY), gathered during the 2013-2014 school year from 2354 pupils of the tenth grade across 30 secondary schools in the city of Ghent, Flanders. Preliminary results suggest that the technical and vocational tracks show more heterogeneity in student’s expectations than the academic track. If tracking does not fulfill the desired goals in some tracks, tracking practices should be questioned as tracking occurs along social and ethnic lines, causing social inequality
Grand Challenges of Traceability: The Next Ten Years
In 2007, the software and systems traceability community met at the first
Natural Bridge symposium on the Grand Challenges of Traceability to establish
and address research goals for achieving effective, trustworthy, and ubiquitous
traceability. Ten years later, in 2017, the community came together to evaluate
a decade of progress towards achieving these goals. These proceedings document
some of that progress. They include a series of short position papers,
representing current work in the community organized across four process axes
of traceability practice. The sessions covered topics from Trace Strategizing,
Trace Link Creation and Evolution, Trace Link Usage, real-world applications of
Traceability, and Traceability Datasets and benchmarks. Two breakout groups
focused on the importance of creating and sharing traceability datasets within
the research community, and discussed challenges related to the adoption of
tracing techniques in industrial practice. Members of the research community
are engaged in many active, ongoing, and impactful research projects. Our hope
is that ten years from now we will be able to look back at a productive decade
of research and claim that we have achieved the overarching Grand Challenge of
Traceability, which seeks for traceability to be always present, built into the
engineering process, and for it to have "effectively disappeared without a
trace". We hope that others will see the potential that traceability has for
empowering software and systems engineers to develop higher-quality products at
increasing levels of complexity and scale, and that they will join the active
community of Software and Systems traceability researchers as we move forward
into the next decade of research
Why is a new Journal of Informetrics needed?
In our study we analysed 3.889 records which were indexed in the Library and
Information Science Abstracts (LISA) database in the research field of
informetrics. We can show the core journals of the field via a Bradford (power
law) distribution and corroborate on the basis of the restricted LISA data set
that it was the appropriate time to found a new specialized journal dedicated
to informetrics. According to Bradford's Law of scattering (pure quantitative
calculation), Egghe's Journal of Informetrics (JOI) first issue to appear in
2007, comes most probable at the right time.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure
Conceptual biology, hypothesis discovery, and text mining: Swanson's legacy
Innovative biomedical librarians and information specialists who want to expand their roles as expert searchers need to know about profound changes in biology and parallel trends in text mining. In recent years, conceptual biology has emerged as a complement to empirical biology. This is partly in response to the availability of massive digital resources such as the network of databases for molecular biologists at the National Center for Biotechnology Information. Developments in text mining and hypothesis discovery systems based on the early work of Swanson, a mathematician and information scientist, are coincident with the emergence of conceptual biology. Very little has been written to introduce biomedical digital librarians to these new trends. In this paper, background for data and text mining, as well as for knowledge discovery in databases (KDD) and in text (KDT) is presented, then a brief review of Swanson's ideas, followed by a discussion of recent approaches to hypothesis discovery and testing. 'Testing' in the context of text mining involves partially automated methods for finding evidence in the literature to support hypothetical relationships. Concluding remarks follow regarding (a) the limits of current strategies for evaluation of hypothesis discovery systems and (b) the role of literature-based discovery in concert with empirical research. Report of an informatics-driven literature review for biomarkers of systemic lupus erythematosus is mentioned. Swanson's vision of the hidden value in the literature of science and, by extension, in biomedical digital databases, is still remarkably generative for information scientists, biologists, and physicians. © 2006Bekhuis; licensee BioMed Central Ltd
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