The effect of self-assessment on the behaviors of a collegiate swim coach

This study examined the effects of a self-assessment program on the coaching behaviors of a collegiate swim coach. [This is an excerpt from the abstract. For the complete abstract, please see the document.

Who is even studying journalism to become a journalist?

[EN] The paper addresses the question why people are entering training programs which disseminate knowledge necessary for becoming part of the journalistic profession and how these motives go along with the intention to become a member of the profession. Therefore it draws on data collected among students in journalism related programs in Austria in 2015 (n=352) and tests the linkage between socioeconomic background of the students, their motives for entering a program and how these affect the intention to work in the field of journalism. Factor analysis allowed the identification of four main motives: political and social agency; employment driven; social benefits; and calling/talent. Results show that a) motives for entering a program differ according to the socioeconomic background of the respondents. And b) the intention to work in the field is higher if motives tied to the ideas of agency and calling are reported and lower if employment driven motives are predominant. This leads to the conclusion that the motivation of students to join the journalistic profession is deeply related to believes and normative aspirations of individuals.http://ocs.editorial.upv.es/index.php/HEAD/HEAD18Prandner, D.; Moosbrugger, R. (2018). Who is even studying journalism to become a journalist?. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 629-636. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAD18.2018.8047OCS62963

Higher Education and Solidarity? The Integration of Refugee Students at Austrian Universities

The refugee streams of 2015 had a tremendous impact on European societies. In context of the influx of refugees, civil society showed large solidarity. Universities did so as well, organizing programs to accommodate asylum seekers and refugees on campus. As solidarity is necessary for social relationships and coordinating life chances in a just way, the effectiveness of such programs can only be understood, taking insights from refugee students’ experiences into account. In this article the case example of the Austrian MORE Initiative is used to tackle the question what kind of bonds refugee students see between themselves, the universities and the goal to become part of the new (host) society. Results show that refugee students are in danger of not being recognized, either because of their legal status or lack of opportunities and migrant sceptic surroundings. Programs like MORE – and universities in general – may contribute to lessen these effects.Prandner, D.; Moosbrugger, R. (2020). Higher Education and Solidarity? The Integration of Refugee Students at Austrian Universities. En 6th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'20). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. (30-05-2020):617-624. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAd20.2020.11117OCS61762430-05-202

Unobtrusive Software and System Health Management with R2U2 on a Parallel MIMD Coprocessor

Dynamic monitoring of software and system health of a complex cyber-physical system requires observers that continuously monitor variables of the embedded software in order to detect anomalies and reason about root causes. There exists a variety of techniques for code instrumentation, but instrumentation might change runtime behavior and could require costly software re-certification. In this paper, we present R2U2E, a novel realization of our real-time, Realizable, Responsive, and Unobtrusive Unit (R2U2). The R2U2E observers are executed in parallel on a dedicated 16-core EPIPHANY co-processor, thereby avoiding additional computational overhead to the system under observation. A DMA-based shared memory access architecture allows R2U2E to operate without any code instrumentation or program interference

Automated Sensitivity Analysis for Probabilistic Loops

We present an exact approach to analyze and quantify the sensitivity of higher moments of probabilistic loops with symbolic parameters, polynomial arithmetic and potentially uncountable state spaces. Our approach integrates methods from symbolic computation, probability theory, and static analysis in order to automatically capture sensitivity information about probabilistic loops. Sensitivity information allows us to formally establish how value distributions of probabilistic loop variables influence the functional behavior of loops, which can in particular be helpful when choosing values of loop variables in order to ensure efficient/expected computations. Our work uses algebraic techniques to model higher moments of loop variables via linear recurrence equations and introduce the notion of sensitivity recurrences. We show that sensitivity recurrences precisely model loop sensitivities, even in cases where the moments of loop variables do not satisfy a system of linear recurrences. As such, we enlarge the class of probabilistic loops for which sensitivity analysis was so far feasible. We demonstrate the success of our approach while analyzing the sensitivities of probabilistic loops

Strong Invariants Are Hard: On the Hardness of Strongest Polynomial Invariants for (Probabilistic) Programs

We show that computing the strongest polynomial invariant for single-path loops with polynomial assignments is at least as hard as the Skolem problem, a famous problem whose decidability has been open for almost a century. While the strongest polynomial invariants are computable for affine loops, for polynomial loops the problem remained wide open. As an intermediate result of independent interest, we prove that reachability for discrete polynomial dynamical systems is Skolem-hard as well. Furthermore, we generalize the notion of invariant ideals and introduce moment invariant ideals for probabilistic programs. With this tool, we further show that the strongest polynomial moment invariant is (i) uncomputable, for probabilistic loops with branching statements, and (ii) Skolem-hard to compute for polynomial probabilistic loops without branching statements. Finally, we identify a class of probabilistic loops for which the strongest polynomial moment invariant is computable and provide an algorithm for it

Interaction with customers: The Application of Social Media within the Austrian Supply Chain for Food and Beverages

Social media marketing has become a powerful tool of interaction with stakeholders. An increasing number of companies are using social media platforms to initiate active interaction and communication with current and prospective customers. Within this study, certain content and contact features, as well as social media activities of companies of the Austrian food and beverage industry were evaluated. Empirical findings concerning the threats, risks, and opportunities connected with the application of social media are presented. The results imply that social media applications are innovative alternatives for customer relationship management. However, more knowledge on how to properly use social media marketing seems to be necessary