VALOIR 2012 2nd Workshop on Managing the Client Value Creation Process in Agile Projects: Message from the Chairs

Welcome to the 2nd Workshop on Managing the Client Value Creation Process in Agile Projects (VALOIR) at the PROFES 2012 conference! The overall goal of VALOIR is to make the knowledge on value creation and management explicit, encouraging the discussion on the use of measurement and estimation approaches in managing value in agile project

An Aspect-Oriented Approach for Supporting Autonomic Reconfiguration of Software Architecture

The increasing complexity of current software systems is encouraging the development of self-managed software architectures, i.e. systems capable of reconfiguring their structure at runtime to fulfil a set of goals. Several approaches have covered different aspects of their development, but some issues remain open, such as the maintainability or the scalability of self-management subsystems. Centralized approaches, like self-adaptive architectures, offer good maintenance properties but do not scale well for large systems. On the contrary, decentralized approaches, like self-organising architectures, offer good scalability but are not maintainable: reconfiguration specifications are spread and often tangled with functional specifications. In order to address these issues, this paper presents an aspect-oriented autonomic reconfiguration approach where: (1) each subsystem is provided with self-management properties so it can evolve itself and the components that it is composed of; (2) self-management concerns are isolated and encapsulated into aspects, thus improving its reuse and maintenance. Povzetek: Predstavljen je pristop s samo-preoblikovanjem programske arhitekture

Majorana Physics Through the Cabibbo Haze

We present a model in which the Supersymmetric Standard Model is augmented by the family symmetry \bs{\m Z_7 \rtimes \m Z_3}. Motivated by $SO(10)$, where the charge two-thirds and neutral Dirac Yukawa matrices are related, we propose, using family symmetry, a special form for the seesaw Majorana matrix; it contains a squared correlated hierarchy, allowing it to mitigate the severe hierarchy of the quark sector. It is reproduced naturally by the invariant operators of \bs{\m Z_7 \rtimes \m Z_3}, with the hierarchy carried by familon fields. In addition to relating the hierarchy of the $\Delta I_{\rm w}=1/2$ to the $\Delta I_{\rm w}=0$ sector, it contains a Gatto-Sartori-Tonin like relation, predicts a normal hierarchy for Tri-bimaximal and Golden Ratio mixings, and gives specific values for the light neutrino masses.Comment: 33 pages, 1 figure. This revised version omits a section where a particular linear combination of dimension-five operators was mistakenly claimed to produce the special form of the Majorana matrix. The main changes are to the Introduction, Sec. 5.1 of the previous version, and Summary and Conclusions. In addition to minor changes throughout, we have corrected an erroneous sign in Eq. 1

Fostering oral interaction and self-regulation through problem-based learning

145 páginasEl propósito del presente estudio fue analizar la incidencia del aprendizaje basado en resolución de problemas (ABP) para promover la interacción oral y la autorregulación. Cuarenta y cinco estudiantes matriculados en el cuarto nivel de inglés de una universidad pública en Pasto, participaron de este estudio. El proyecto se llevó a cabo con el fin de identificar las estrategias que fortalecen las habilidades lingüísticas de los estudiantes y su capacidad para auto-regular su aprendizaje y autoeficacia, mientras discuten temas actuales relevantes, solucionando problemas creativamente. La intervención pedagógica consistió de diez lecciones, aplicadas a 30 participantes del grupo 1 y replicadas con 15 participantes del grupo 2. Durante este periodo, se utilizaron varios instrumentos para recolectar los datos, tales como un pre-examen, un post-examen, diarios de campo, un formato de autoevaluación, y entrevistas. Los resultados revelaron que el PBL promueve la práctica oral, la interacción, el desarrollo de habilidades transferibles y de autoevaluación, fomentando un modelo educativo centrado en el estudiante. Sin embargo, la mayoría de participantes concordaron en que esta metodología es más adecuada en ambientes de aprendizaje controlados o semi-controlados, que dentro de contextos totalmente independientes

Supporting Sustainability and Technical Debt-Driven Design Decisions in Software Architectures

Degraded software usually incurs higher energy consumption, therefore suboptimal decisions in software architectures may lead to higher technical debt and less sustainable software products. There are metrics and tools to calculate technical debt and energy consumption of software, but it is required to provide mechanisms to store their relationship and how they change depending on the design decisions. In addition, there are different models for calculating the same metric and different metrics to measure technical debt and power consumption, and software engineers require selecting the most suitable model and metric depending on the software product context. This work presents a metamodel called ARCMEL to provide the required base of knowledge for supporting green-aware design decisions and to flexibly configure and select metrics and their models. ARCMEL has been implemented as part of the ARCMEL SCAT tool. Its validation is also presented in terms of completeness and flexibility

Latinas’ Access to Advanced Placement Courses: A Case Study of a Catholic Female Single-Sex High School

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine Latinas’ access to Advanced Placement/ Honors courses in a Catholic female single-sex high school and to examine their experiences and perspectives when they are granted or denied access into an AP/Honors course. This study also aimed to explore how the Catholic single-sex high school is aligned with the Catholic, single-sex, and Advanced Placement advantage for Latina students who have been granted or denied access to an Advanced Placement/Honors course. The case study focused on one Catholic all-female high school in the Western United States and participants included Latina current students and alumnae (n=11), the high school principal (n=1), and teachers (n=2) from the school. Data was collected via document review, the gathering of descriptive data, as well as participant interviews. The theoretical framework used to analyze this data was a blend of Critical biculturalism, Chicana feminist theory, as well as the principles of Catholic social teaching. Findings highlight a fairly exclusive AP/Honors placement process with unclear guidelines to be followed in order to appeal a decision. Latinas’ experiences range from feeling like outsiders and being made to feel not good enough, to feeling competitive and being resilient. Their perspectives on why they decided to appeal the decision of their placement had to do with their feeling that they had the capacity for advanced work, their driven nature, and their desire to be exposed to more learning. Further, perspectives also emerged concerning the school’s sisterhood and its influence on issues of race and class. In regards to alignment with the Catholic, single-sex, and AP advantage the data illustrates that while participants seemingly agree that there are advantages, they are also cognizant of other factors that overshadow these advantages

Linguistic outcomes of English medium instruction programmes in higher education: A study on economics undergraduates at a Catalan University

Globalisation and international mobility in the 21st century has led to the internationalisation of the English language (Crystal, 2003). Research regarding linguistic gains at university levels is however extremely scarce. This study aims to address this gap of knowledge and provide some answers as to how much linguistic gain can be expected after one year of English medium instruction. Two groups of undergraduate students enrolled in different levels of English medium instruction (EMI) were given a pre and post-test over a 1 year period. Results were analysed statistically; significant gains were found only in the semi- immersion group in the grammatical domain; although, there was a trend for improvement as well as higher scores for full immersion students. It might be interpreted that in order for linguistic gains to be seen in adults there needs to be some focus on form and language guidance (Muñoz, 2007; Pérez-Vidal, 2007). Thus, an integrated content and language (ICLHE) approach is more effective than a solely content based EMI model for university level content courses, if linguistic gains are the desired outcomes of the programme.DOI: 10.18870/hlrc.v5i1.23

Latinos and Cancer Information: Perspectives of Patients, Health Professionals and Telephone Cancer Information Specialists

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 Latino cancer patients diagnosed in California; 10 health professionals from the San Francisco Bay Area and Fresno, California; and 10 Cancer Information Services (CIS) information specialists from the regional offices handling calls from Spanish-speakers. Interview guides were designed by the investigators to answer three main research questions: 1) How do Latinos obtain information about cancer and what types of information do they access?; 2) What sources of cancer information do they seek out and find credible?; and 3) What are the barriers and facilitators to Latinos obtaining cancer information? Stakeholders generally viewed health professionals as the most credible source of cancer information. All groups regarded family and friends as important sources of information. Patients and health professionals tended to differ on the value of print materials. Although patients found them generally useful, health professionals tended to view them as inadequate for meeting the informational needs of their Latino patients due to the challenge of low health literacy. Health professionals also tended to undervalue internet resources compared to patients and CIS specialists. All stakeholders viewed language, ethnic discordance and the impact on patients of the initial diagnosis as barriers to effective communication of cancer information. Health professionals and CIS specialists, but not patients, mentioned low literacy as a barrier. Our findings underscore the importance of the physician-patient relationship as a point of intervention to address the unmet informational and psychosocial needs of Latino cancer patients

What We Talk About When We Talk About Psychometrics?

[EN]Understanding the meaning of the term psychometrics can be approached from different perspectives, such as the consultation of dictionaries, the point of view of international experts, or the analysis of a linguistic corpus. For this study, an up-to-date Spanish corpus was used as the starting point. The sample consisted of 90 valid documents from which the first text was selected so that the frequencies of the themes came from independent texts. The method used was structured tabular thematic analysis (ST-TA). The results indicate that the most frequent meaning in Spanish is that related to the analysis of the quality of measurements, followed by that referring to evaluation, and finally that of a methodological approach in general. This is consistent with the dictionaries of authorities, but departs from the majority perspective of international experts, who consider that psychometrics does not necessarily have to be linked to psychology.[ES]El significado del término psicometría se puede abordar desde distintas perspectivas, tales como la consulta de diccionarios, el punto de vista de expertos internacionales o el análisis de un corpus lingüístico. Para este estudio, se ha partido de un corpus actualizado del español. La muestra fue de 90 documentos válidos de los que se seleccionó el primer texto de modo que las frecuencias de los temas procedieran de textos independientes. El método empleado fue el análisis temático tabular estructurado (AT-TE). Los resultados indican que la acepción más frecuente en español es la relativa al análisis de la calidad de las medidas, seguida de la que refiere a la evaluación y finalmente la de un enfoque metodológico en general, lo que es coherente con los diccionarios de autoridades, pero se aleja de la perspectiva mayoritaria de expertos internacionales, que consideran que la psicometría no tendría por qué vincularse a la psicología

Motivation and investment : exploring the choice of English-medium instruction for mid-degree undergraduates in Catalonia

The purpose of the present study is to offer insights into how Spanish undergraduates, who were mid-way through an English-medium programme at a university in Catalonia, articulate their past decision to study an academic subject in English. Economics students (34 in total) completed an oral elicitation task and the monologues yielded were analysed using thematic analysis. Three dominant themes emerged: (1) The right fit for me; (2) To practise my English; and (3) English comes with benefits. Each of these themes is presented as a composite description of the students' ideas about their past choice from the temporal position of the here-and-now, and explored through distinct but complementary social psychological and sociological lenses. The present study finds threads running through the students' narratives of a near effortlessness to choose to learn in this way, as well as an understanding of the capital value of English. For some, their sole stated motive was to develop and preserve this linguistic asset