Enforcement of Patterns by Constraint-Aware Model Transformations

Patterns are descriptions and solutions for recurring problems in software design and implementation. In this paper, some ideas towards a formal approach to the specification of patterns in model-driven engineering (MDE) is presented. The approach is based on the Diagram Predicate Framework which provides a formal approach to (meta)modelling, model transformation and model management in MDE. In particular, patterns are defined as diagrammatic specifications and constraint-aware model transformations are adapted to enforce patterns. Moreover, running examples are used to illustrate the facade design pattern in structural models

Form, science, and narrative in the anthropocene

A significant strand of contemporary fiction engages with scientific models that highlight a constitutive interdependency between humanity and material realities such as the climate or the geological history of our planet. This article looks at the ways in which narrative may capture this human-nonhuman interrelation, which occupies the foreground of debates on the so-called Anthropocene. I argue that the formal dimension of scientific knowledge-as manifested by diagrams or metaphors used by scientists-is central to this narrative remediation. I explore two analogical strategies through which narrative may pursue a formal dialogue with science: clusters of metaphorical language and the global structuring of the plot. Rivka Galchen's novel Atmospheric Disturbances (2008), for instance, builds on a visual representation of meteorological patterns in a storm (lifted from an actual scientific paper) to stage the narrator's mental illness. Two other contemporary works (Orfeo by Richard Powers and A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki) integrate scientific models through the overall design of the plot. By offering close readings of these novels, I seek to expand work in the area of New Formalism and show how formal choices are crucial to bringing together the human-scale world and more-than-human phenomena

Making qualitative research accessible and acceptable in the scientific management arena: a life-world perspective

Western organizational culture, in part founded on the scientific management (Taylorist) techniques employed by Henry Ford, tends to emphasize the capture and control of explicit forms of knowledge, and technological advancement has encouraged this tendency. This is apparent within hegemonic business practices (e.g. ITIL IT Service Management processes) which emphasize quantitative data collection. In contrast, managers are often frustrated by an inability to take control of tacit forms of knowledge, embodied within the worker and acknowledged as important for organizational success, yet resistant to effective quantitative data collection. As a business school researcher I was faced with the challenge of deciding upon a research method that would enable my interpretations to be both credible within the academic community and accessible and acceptable within the IT Service Management practitioner community. By close observation of specific work activity as it is experienced by the IT support worker, recording as much data as possible relating to the cerebral and sensory experience of the worker, the research attempts to draw diagrammatic patterns that provide some clarity for managers over the forms of knowledge that are used by a worker or team. The paper reflexively considers this qualitative research from the different life-world perspectives of the researcher-perceived academic and practitioner recipients of the research, seeking credibility, accessibility and acceptability across these life-worlds whilst maintaining researcher integrity

Absolute spatial deixis and proto-toponyms in Kata Kolok

This paper presents an overview of spatial deictic structures in Kata Kolok, a sign language which is indigenous to a Balinese village community. Sociolinguistic surveys and lexicographic comparisons have indicated that Kata Kolok is unrelated to the signing varieties in other parts of Bali and should be considered a sign language isolate as such. Kata Kolok emerged five generations ago and has been in intimate contact with spoken Balinese from its incipience. The findings from this paper suggest that this cross-modal contact has led to an absolute construction of the signing space, which is radically different in comparison to spatial deixis in other sign languages. Furthermore, Kata Kolok does not seem to have a class of true toponyms, but rather deploys deictic proto-toponyms. The Kata Kolok system on the whole does not exhibit any related linguistic forms or direct calques from spoken Balinese, and this suggests that the conceptual overlap between these two languages may have been facilitated by shared cultural practices as well as gestural communication rather than direct borrowings. Ultimately, this analysis challenges the very notion of a sign language isolate and suggests that Kata Kolok and other emergent signing varieties should be considered in light of the broader semiotic context in which they have evolved

“Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know”: the pervasive socio-medical and spatial coding of mental health day centres

In a research area typically dominated by the biomedical field, this paper seeks to explore the emotional experiences of long-term, mental health service users who attend charitable day centres. Academic literature has predominantly focussed on a macro-analysis of the social, political and geographical position of those with mental health distress. Subsequently, service users have been positioned as a largely homogenous group who mainly reside on the boundaries of social integration due to the negative social representations of mental health impairment. These postulations can advocate a romanticised notion of how service users engage in consensual and non-judgemental social norms in terms of social inclusion of those within therapeutic spaces. Thus, indicating that a high level of mutual camaraderie exists within a day centre. However, this approach can negate the realities encountered by service users on a daily basis whereby differing medical ascriptions such as ‘depression’ and ‘schizophrenia’ can not only influence a service user’s own self-identity and behaviour but ultimately, the acceptance of other members. In conclusion, this work indicates that rather than a discrete linear position between the ‘otherness’ of mental health distress and ‘normative’ human geographies, this area remains a complex phenomenon with levels of diversity when linked to diagnostic criteria