Goal Violations Research Articles

Reliable proactive adaptation via prediction fusion and extended stochastic model predictive control

Proactive self-adaptation has emerged as a vital approach in recent years, aiming to preemptively address potential goal violations or performance degradation, thus improving the system’s reliability. However, this approach encounters specific challenges in prediction and decision-making, including issues such as erroneous predictions and adaptation latency. Addressing these issues, our study presents an innovative framework that leverages evidence theory to improve prediction accuracy and employs stochastic model predictive control (SMPC) for devising reliable adaptation strategies. We further refine the decision-making process by incorporating a latency-aware system model and a novel utility model inspired by the technical debt metaphor into the SMPC. Our framework’s effectiveness is validated through experiments conducted on a cyber–physical system exemplar DARTSim, demonstrating notable improvements in prediction accuracy and system reliability within dynamic environments.

A Proactive Self-Adaptation Approach Based on Ensemble Prediction for Service-Based Systems

Service-based systems (SBSs) are a unique category of software systems that dynamically combine various third-party services at runtime to deliver complex and adaptive functionality. This dynamic composition introduces a high level of unpredictability and uncertainty, creating potential anomalies and exerting significant pressure on system maintenance. To tackle this challenge, the conventional approach involves employing prediction-based proactive self-adaptation. Despite the prevalence of existing approaches emphasizing prediction accuracy, the critical aspect of “earliness” in predictions is often overlooked. Striking a balance between early and accurate predictions is paramount in practice. In response, we propose Proactive Self-Adaptation based on Ensemble Prediction (PSA-EP) to effectively balance the trade-off between the prediction earliness and accuracy of in SBSs. At the heart of PSA-EP lies an ensemble prediction model built upon a deep neural network and an enhanced long short-term memory (DNN-ELSTM) architecture. PSA-EP is crafted to empower SBSs to adapt to the inherent unpredictability and instability, facilitating the achievement of their adaptation goals. This adaptation mechanism not only enables effective prediction and analysis of adaptation goal violations but also addresses the reliability and performance of service level agreements (SLAs) governing quality of service (QoS). We evaluated the performance of PSA-EP in a decentralized tele-assistance system using four key metrics, and the experimental results, examined from various perspectives, underscore its exceptional performance.

No longer able to or no longer wanting to? Are intention violations failures to exert or decisions not to exert self-control?

Several theoretical models describe two pathways linking self-control demands with subsequent goal violations. The volitional pathway suggests that these goal violations should be interpreted as failures, while the motivational pathway suggests an interpretation as decisions. In this article, we examined (a) which psychological processes may explain the relationship between self-control demands and subsequent intention violations and (b) to what extent these violations reflect self-control failures rather than deliberate decisions. Results of two experience sampling studies showed that facing demands can trigger two opposing processes: fatigue, which leads to more subsequent violations of intentions, and the feeling that one deserves a reward, which leads to fewer subsequent violations of intentions due to boosts in self-efficacy. The actor may attribute intention violations to either an inability to act otherwise (indicating an actual failure) or a deliberate decision (indicating no failure). The different attributions have marked implications for the cognitive and affective downstream consequences of violating one’s goals, pointing to the importance of distinguishing between actual and apparent failures in self-control.

The Reliability and Validity Study of the Turkish Version of the Global Meaning Violation Scale

As a psychological concept, meaning is a mental representation that enables us to connect relations or ideas predictably and stably. Highly stressful or traumatic life events may violate individuals’ global meaning (such as beliefs and goals) that provide a general framework to understand the world, themselves, and others. The Global Meaning Violation Scale (GMVS), consisting of 13 items and three subscales (belief violations, intrinsic goal violations and extrinsic goal violations), assesses violation in global meaning after exposure to a traumatic or stressful life event. In the present study, GMVS was translated into Turkish, and the psychometric properties of the scale were examined in a sample of 564 adult sample. Similar to the original form of the scale, the GMVS Turkish form consists of three factors. In order to evaluate the validity of the scale, the relationship between the SAM, DASS-21, PTSD Checklist-Civilian, perceived stressfulness of the event and the total score of GMVS and its subscales scale was examined. As a result of psychometric analyses, findings supporting the concurrent, distinctive, and incremental validity of the scale were obtained. It is found that the Turkish version of GMVS has satisfactory internal consistency and test-retest reliability. Cronbach alpha coefficients of the whole scale, GMVS-Beliefs, GMVS-Intrinsic and GMVS-Extrinsic were found to be .85, .77, .79 and .87 respectively; the test-retest reliabilities were found to be .79, .79, .68 and .66, respectively. The results showed that the Turkish form of the GMVS is a valid and reliable scale. Keywords Global Meaning Violation Scale, global meaning, validity, reliability

Do Violations of Global Beliefs and Goals Drive Distress and Meaning Making Following Life Stressors?

Theoretical and treatment approaches posit that violations of beliefs and goals by stressful experiences drive distress and meaning making. However, empirical work examining this notion is limited. Accordingly, we tested violations’ role in driving distress and meaning-making using repeated assessments among 180 undergraduates coping with a recent significant stressor. On four occasions over two months, we collected data on belief and goal violations, distress, and meaning making. A within-person analytic approach showed that when participants' violations changed, their distress and meaning making also changed in the same direction. Additionally, violations had a unique association with meaning making, independent of distress. Results suggest that experiencing discrepancy between a stressor and one's beliefs and goals may be distressing and lead to efforts to reduce that discrepancy. Additional research on how individuals successfully resolve violations could improve understanding and treatment of individuals dealing with significant stressors.

Processing and Resolving Major Life Stressors: An Examination of Meaning-Making Strategies

Meaning making is thought to be key to adjustment following major life stressors, but there is a dearth of research on the topic. We examined how three types of meaning-making related to distress and violations across time. Further, we examined whether meaning-making’s association with distress was contingent on whether meaning was made. Undergraduates who recently experienced a “very stressful event or situation” were assessed four times over 9 weeks (N = 180; 76% female; Mage = 18.84 years). Positive reinterpretation was cross-sectionally associated with better adjustment, but higher baseline emotional processing predicted faster declines in goal violations across time. Baseline emotional processing predicted improving or worsening intrusive thoughts depending on whether meaning was made Meaning-making strategies may have distinct roles in adjustment, with some conferring immediate benefits, while others confer benefits over time and perhaps only to the extent that it leads to greater meaning made.

Neural dynamics of grip and goal integration during the processing of others\u2019 actions with objects: An ERP study

Recent behavioural evidence suggests that when processing others’ actions, motor acts and goal-related information both contribute to action recognition. Yet the neuronal mechanisms underlying the dynamic integration of the two action dimensions remain unclear. This study aims to elucidate the ERP components underlying the processing and integration of grip and goal-related information. The electrophysiological activity of 28 adults was recorded during the processing of object-directed action photographs (e.g., writing with pencil) containing either grip violations (e.g. upright pencil grasped with atypical-grip), goal violations (e.g., upside-down pencil grasped with typical-grip), both grip and goal violations (e.g., upside-down pencil grasped with atypical-grip), or no violations. Participants judged whether actions were overall typical or not according to object typical use. Brain activity was sensitive to the congruency between grip and goal information on the N400, reflecting the semantic integration between the two dimensions. On earlier components, brain activity was affected by grip and goal typicality independently. Critically, goal typicality but not grip typicality affected brain activity on the N300, supporting an earlier role of goal-related representations in action recognition. Findings provide new insights on the neural temporal dynamics of the integration of motor acts and goal-related information during the processing of others’ actions.

What first drives visual attention during the recognition of object-directed actions? The role of kinematics and goal information.

The recognition of others' object-directed actions is known to involve the decoding of both the visual kinematics of the action and the action goal. Yet whether action recognition is first guided by the processing of visual kinematics or by a prediction about the goal of the actor remains debated. In order to provide experimental evidence to this issue, the present study aimed at investigating whether visual attention would be preferentially captured by visual kinematics or by action goal information when processing others' actions. In a visual search task, participants were asked to find correct actions (e.g., drinking from glass) among distractor actions. Distractors actions contained grip and/or goal violations and could therefore share the correct goal and/or the correct grip with the target. The time course of fixation proportion on each distractor action has been taken as an indicator of visual attention allocation. Results show that visual attention is first captured by the distractor action with similar goal. Then the withdrawal of visual attention from the action distractor with similar goal suggests a later attentional capture by the action distractor with similar grip. Overall, results are in line with predictive approaches of action understanding, which assume that observers first make a prediction about the actor's goal before verifying this prediction using the visual kinematics of the action.

Meaning Violations, Religious/Spiritual Struggles, and Meaning in Life in the Face of Stressful Life Events

ABSTRACTBoth meaning violations (i.e., discrepancies between individuals’ global meaning system and appraised meaning of events) and religious/spiritual (r/s) struggles (i.e., spiritual tensions often arising due to stressful life events) have been related to post-traumatic stress (PTS) symptoms. While both constructs represent strain on an individual’s meaning system, their interrelations and their independent relationships with PTS symptoms are not well understood. The aim of the current study was to explore those relations and investigate whether a sense of meaning in life (MIL) attenuates the hypothesized links. One-hundred-eighty-nine college students (78.3% female) who could identify a stressful life event that they had not yet resolved completed self-report measures of PTS symptoms, r/s struggles, meaning violations, and MIL. First, bivariate Pearson correlations indicated that all facets of r/s struggle and goal- (but not belief) violations, were significantly and positively related to PTS symptoms. Further, the association between goal and belief violations and r/s struggles differed based on the specific facet of struggle measured. Second, multiple regression analysis showed that both r/s struggles and goal violations were independently associated with PTS symptoms. Third, moderation analyses demonstrated that a sense of MIL attenuated the association between goal violations and symptomatology but only buffered the correlates of low and medium levels of r/s struggle. Promoting people’s general sense of MIL thus seems to have the potential to buffer the negative sequelae of both goal violations and certain levels of r/s struggle.

Timing of grip and goal activation during action perception: a priming study.

Several models of action recognition acknowledge the involvement of distinct grip and goal representations in the processing of others' actions. Yet, their functional role and temporal organization are still debated. The present priming study aimed at evaluating the relative timing of grip and goal activation during the processing of photographs of object-directed actions. Action could be correct or incorrect owing to grip and/or goal violations. Twenty-eight (Experiment 1) and 25 (Experiment 2) healthy adults judged the correctness of target actions according to object typical use. Target pictures were primed by action pictures sharing the same grip or same goal, both the same grip and same goal or none. Primes were presented for 66 or 300ms in Experiment 1 and for 120 or 220ms in Experiment 2. In Experiment 1, facilitative priming effects were observed for goal and grip similarity after 300ms primes but only for goal after 66ms primes. In Experiment 2, facilitative priming effects were found for both goal and grip similarity from 120ms of prime processing. In addition, results from a control condition in Experiment 2 indicated that mere object priming could partially account for goal similarity priming effects, suggesting that object identity may help the observer to make predictions about possible action goals. Findings demonstrate an early and first activation of goal representations, as compared to grip representations, in action decoding, consistent with predictive accounts of action understanding. Future studies should determine to what extent the timing of grip and goal activation is context-sensitive.

Assessing Disruptions in Meaning: Development of the Global Meaning Violation Scale

Models of meaning making following stressful events are based on the notion that individuals’ appraisals of events (i.e., their situational meaning) can violate their goals and beliefs (i.e., global meaning), and that resulting discrepancies between situational meaning and global meaning negatively affect their psychological adjustment. To date, research has relied primarily on indirect measures of meaning violation. We describe the development of a new instrument, the Global Meaning Violation Scale (GMVS), for directly assessing belief and goal violations. We establish the psychometric integrity of the GMVS across three studies. In Study 1, we identify and replicate a factor structure consisting of three subscales: belief violation, intrinsic goal violation, and extrinsic goal violation. In Study 2, we provide evidence for the reliability and validity of the GMVS. In Study 3, we test the predictive validity of the GMVS in a sample of undergraduates reporting on the most stressful experiences of their lives. Our findings indicate that the GMVS is a reliable and valid tool for directly examining global meaning violation. We anticipate that the GMVS will advance research on stress, trauma, and coping by giving researchers a tool to directly explore the role of violations in meaning making processes.

Violations of war: testing the meaning-making model among Vietnam veterans.

Posttrauma adjustment theories postulate that intense stressors violate people's beliefs about the world and perceived ability to achieve valued goals. Failure to make meaning from traumatic events exacerbates negative adjustment (e.g., PTSD), whereas success facilitates positive adjustment (e.g., stress-related growth). The current study aimed to test this model of direct and indirect effects among a sample of veterans. Vietnam veterans (N = 130) completed assessment measures in an online survey format. Participants were largely male (91%) and Caucasian (93%) with a mean age of 61 years. Results supported basic model tenets, linking military stress severity to violations of beliefs and goals. In the final model, only goal violations carried indirect effects of severity on PTSD symptoms. Presence of and search for meaning carried a portion of the indirect effects between goal violations and both PTSD and stress-related growth. Findings suggest that traumatic stress may disrupt people's goals and meaning-making may center on these disruptions.

Performing Safety Evaluation on Detailed Hardware Level according to ISO 26262

Electronic design on detailed hardware level for automotive safety-related systems requires evaluation of the hardware architecture to cope with random hardware failures. The international standard ISO 26262 - functional safety for road vehicles - claims two methods: hardware architectural metrics and evaluation of safety goal violations as a probabilistic approach. Although the utilization of these analyses is required, annotations of failure data in combination with performing evaluation of a preliminary hardware architecture using deposited failure data is not supported in an integrated model-based development environment. To overcome these inconveniences, we analyzed the ISO 26262, in particular Part 5 for product development at the hardware level, to provide both, meta-model for failure description of detailed hardware and performing evaluation of the hardware architecture. This UML-compliant meta-model expands existing EAST-ADL2 constructs. We implemented our concepts in a model-based architecture description language for large scaled electric and electronic architectures. To deposit specific failure rates and modes, we provide a library concept for hardware component types. Besides modeling schematics using the type library, an automatic preparation for characterization of safety-related hardware components is provided. To perform quantified analysis, we acquire relevant failure data using model queries and a metric framework to implement the equations for hardware evaluation according to ISO 26262 Part 5. Detailed results and compliance with target values including dedicated measures are documented in generated reports. Language: en

New methodology for grouping electric power consuming units to meet continuity indicators targets established by the Brazilian Regulatory Agency

The Brazilian electrical utility companies must meet continuity indicators for energy supply, which are represented by the indices of average interruption duration and frequency, according to targets established by the Brazilian Regulatory Agency for Electrical Energy (ANEEL). In a nationwide base, ANEEL has defined 30 clusters, each one having specific targets for Customer Average Duration Interruption Index and Customer Average Frequency Interruption Index; still, very frequently the utility distribution companies are financially penalised for not meeting these indicator targets. This study proposes a decision support system based on machine learning techniques so that the utility distribution companies can emulate the characteristics and procedures used by the ANEEL, and help in obtaining more adequate customer groups to evaluate the duration and frequency indicators. The proposed system was applied in a case study of a distribution utility whose supply area is located in the Brazilian Amazonia. The methodology proved to be adequate for seeking better customer grouping configurations that could result in a decrease in goal violations as well as providing more consistent goals, considering the specific characteristics of each distribution utility. Although this methodology was applied to a Brazilian scenario it also can be applied to other distribution utilities worldwide.

PTSD as Meaning Violation: Testing a Cognitive Worldview Perspective.

The cognitive perspective on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been successful in explaining many PTSD-related phenomena and in developing effective treatments, yet some of its basic assumptions remain surprisingly under-examined. The present study tested two of these assumptions: (1) situational appraisals of the event as violating global meaning (i.e., beliefs and goals) is related to PTSD symptomatology, and (2) the effect of situational appraisals of violation on PTSD symptomatology is mediated by global meaning (i.e., views of self and world). We tested these assumptions in a cross-sectional study of 130 college students who had experienced a DSM-IV level trauma. Structural equation modeling showed that appraisals of the extent to which the trauma violated one's beliefs and goals related fairly strongly to PTSD. In addition, the effects of appraisals of belief and goal violations on PTSD symptoms were fully mediated through negative global beliefs about both the self and the world. These findings support the cognitive worldview perspective, highlighting the importance of the meaning individuals assign to traumatic events, particularly the role of meaning violation.

Action semantic knowledge about objects is supported by functional motor activation.

The present study assessed the functional organization of action semantics by asking subjects to categorize pictures of an actor holding objects with a correct or incorrect grip at either a correct or incorrect goal location. Overall, reaction times were slower if the object was presented with an inappropriate posture, and this effect was stronger for goal violations compared with grip violations (Experiment 1). In addition, the retrieval of action semantics was found accompanied by the implicit activation of motor representations. Body-related objects (e.g., cup) were classified faster when a movement toward the subject's body was required, whereas world-related objects (e.g., pincers) were responded to faster with a movement in the opposite direction (Experiments 2 and 3). In contrast, when subjects were required to retrieve only visual semantics (Experiment 4), no interference effects of postural information were observed, and motor representations were only partially activated. These findings suggest that action semantics can be accessed independently from visual semantics and that the retrieval of action semantics is supported by functional motor activation reflecting the prototypical use of an object.

Determinants of Relapse and the Rule Violation Effect in Predicting Safer Sex Goal Violations1

Knowledge of the determinants of lapses into unsafe sex are important parts of HIV prevention interventions. The present study examines the determinants of lapses into unsafe sex, and the role of attribution in predicting lapses into unsafe sex within an HIV prevention treatment program for homosexual men based on the relapse prevention (RP) model (Marlatt & Gordon, 1985). Self‐reported negative emotional states and general urges to engage in sex were perceived to precede violations of safer sex goals. Stable and global attributions for a goal violation related to the probability of a second concurrently assessed violation. Prospective analyses indicated that future unprotected oral and anal sex was predicted by current unprotected oral and anal sex. In addition, more stable and external attributions for previous goal violations added to the prediction of future unprotected anal sex. Results are discussed in relation to the RP model, the role of attributions in safer sex goal violations, and treatments to reduce unsafe sexual behavior.