Reflective Capabilities Research Articles

Change in Self-Criticism Across Emerging Adulthood and Psychological Well-Being at Age 35: The Mediating Role of Reflectivity

Recent conceptualization and research in personality development have shown that significant changes in personality taking place during emerging adulthood where young people tend to become more emotionally mature and stable. In line with these contentions, we examined in a sample of 205 Israeli emerging adults the longitudinal association between change in self-criticism across ages 23 and 29 and positive developmental and psychological well-being outcomes at age 35. In addition, we examined the extent to which the association between change in self-criticism and future outcomes would be mediated through reflectivity. Findings indicated that greater decrease in self-criticism during emerging adulthood associated with greater reflective capability at age 29 and both longitudinally associated with greater achievement of developmental tasks and better psychological well-being at age 35. Additionally, associations of decrease in self-criticism with future outcomes were mediated through reflectivity. These findings point to maturity processes that can explain outcomes in young adulthood.

Cool Roof Impact on Building Energy Need: The Role of Thermal Insulation with Varying Climate Conditions

Cool roof effectiveness in improving building thermal-energy performance is affected by different variables. In particular, roof insulation level and climate conditions are key parameters influencing cool roofs benefits and whole building energy performance. This work aims at assessing the role of cool roof in the optimum roof configuration, i.e., combination of solar reflectance capability and thermal insulation level, in terms of building energy performance in different climate conditions worldwide. To this aim, coupled dynamic thermal-energy simulation and optimization analysis is carried out. In detail, multi-dimensional optimization of combined building roof thermal insulation and solar reflectance is developed to minimize building annual energy consumption for heating–cooling. Results highlight how a high reflectance roof minimizes annual energy need for a small standard office building in the majority of considered climates. Moreover, building energy performance is more sensitive to roof solar reflectance than thermal insulation level, except for the coldest conditions. Therefore, for the selected building, the optimum roof typology presents high solar reflectance capability (0.8) and no/low insulation level (0.00–0.03 m), except for extremely hot or cold climate zones. Accordingly, this research shows how the classic approach of super-insulated buildings should be reframed for the office case toward truly environmentally friendly buildings.

IOT Based Efficient Farming System

In the area of farming, utilization of appropriate means of irrigation is significant. Field irrigation is a most precise task, where excess or scarcity of water will result in crop damage. Human controlled field irrigation is difficult for large acres of land and also late hour irrigation scenarios are risky in nature because of animal disturbances. Automation of water irrigation based on moisture sensing eradicates a part of the problem. This project idea intends to further automate the irrigation process based on an intelligent query of web weather forecast so that excess water flow to the field can be controlled. An Android Application acts as a central monitoring unit of the proposed irrigation system. To sense the type of crop Optical modules consists of an variable wavelength Light emitting Diode and IR Receiver with proper power bias. The optical module theory is based on the richness of minerals in the soil but the reflection capabilities of the soil will vary. Light emitting Diode with different wavelength is used to pass the light beam to the soil. IR receiver will capture the amount of reflection made by the soil and it will be presented as an Analog Voltage value. The expected output is to control the pumping of motor by considering the content of moisture in the soil and prediction of rainfall in the region. This irrigation reduces human effort and enables precise water flow management to the field.

The Effect of Continued Team Randomization on Student’s Perception and Performance in a Blended Team-Based Teaching Approach

The purpose of this study is to investigate how constant changes in team allocation within a modified flipped team-based learning (FTBL) study can affect student’s perception of a course (gathered by an online questionnaire) and academic performance. This teaching strategy is a team-based learning (TBL) approach combined with flipped classroom learning methodology, in which BSc students studying pharmaceutical science/biotechnology courses in a UK satellite campus in China preview online lectures and apply their knowledge in different in-class activities. The students are randomly assigned into teams in each session. The project was run across the full academic year (sixteen sessions). Students’ perceptions regarding modified FTBL were statistically analyzed, and their academic performance was compared with previous results obtained by the initial FTBL study. Although students initially showed reluctance to leave their ‘comfort zone’—the main limitation of this study—our findings show that learners perceived benefits to the adoption of continued random allocation, which resulted in the removal of limitations from their social clustering and eventual accustomization to this learning approach. Modified FTBL assisted students in enhancing their team-work skills, improving their academic performance, developing their reflective capabilities, improving their rapport building skills, learning and academic performance. Learners also believed that this learning strategy creates critical incidents that can simulate their future work environment, as they might be expected to work in unfamiliar situations. Therefore, the present study indicated strong support for the modified FTBL method, which was seen to work exceptionally well despite some minor problems that students experienced working in a team with different teammates in every session.

Overcoming “Crisis”: Mobility Capabilities and “stretching” a Migrant Identity among Young Irish in London and Return Migrants

AbstractWe bring into dialogue the migrant identities of young Irish immigrants in the UK and young returnees in Ireland. We draw on 38 in‐depth interviews (20 in the UK and 18 in Ireland), aged 20–37 at the time of interview, carried out in 2015–16. We argue that “stretching” identities – critical and reflective capabilities to interpret long histories of emigration and the neglected economic dimension – need to be incorporated into conceptualizing “crisis” migrants. Participants draw on networks globally, they choose migration as a temporary “stop‐over” abroad, but they also rework historical Irish migrant identities in a novel way. Becoming an Irish migrant or a returnee today is enacted as a historically grounded capability of mobility. However, structural economic constraints in the Irish labour market need to be seriously considered in understanding return aspirations and realities. These findings generate relevant policy ideas in terms of relations between “crisis” migrants and the state.

Infracomposer: Policy-driven adaptive and reflective middleware for the cloudification of simulation & optimization workflows

Abstract The simulation and optimization of complex engineering designs in automotive or aerospace involves multiple mathematical tools, long-running workflows and resource-intensive computations on distributed infrastructures. Finding the optimal deployment in terms of task distribution, parallelization, collocation and resource assignment for each execution is a step-wise process involving both human input with domain-specific knowledge about the tools as well as the acquisition of new knowledge based on the actual execution history. In this paper, we present a policy-driven adaptive and reflective middleware that supports smart cloud-based deployment and execution of engineering workflows. This middleware supports deep inspection of the workflow task structure and execution, as well as of the very specific mathematical tools, their executions and used parameters. The reflective capabilities are based on multiple meta-models to reflect workflow structure, deployment, execution and resources. Adaptive deployment is driven by both human input as meta-data annotations as well as adaptation policies that reason over the actual execution history of the workflows. We validate and evaluate this middleware in real-life application cases and scenarios in the domain of aeronautics.

SIMULATION RESULTS OF SPECKLE SUPPRESSION IN RADAR WITH SYNTHETIC APERTURE

The disadvantage of (RLI) radar images obtained with a single-channel radar station is the presence of speckle that leads to intensity flashes increasing the number of false alarms when detecting point targets. Therefore, the detection and target distinguishing by their reflective capability (using the energy characteristics of the signal) is not effective enough. In polarimetric radar stations the formation of each image element is carried out by the output signals of four receiving channels. Joint processing of these signals allows minimizing speckle without reducing the resolution capability. The paper presents the results of the computer simulation of the suppression methods of the image speckle obtained in the polarized radar stations with the synthesized antenna aperture. The first one uses the norm of the backscattering matrix as a parameter of the intensity of the reflected signal resolution from the i-th element. The incoherent addition of the intensities obtained by sequential overview of the space with several rays is carried out in the second one. Both of these methods can be applied together. The block diagram of such processing for one strip of range is given. The computer simulation of the three-rayed suppression method of the image speckle obtained in the radar stations with the synthesized antenna aperture is carried out. As a model of the reflecting surface a random diffraction grating formed by a set of independent reflectors located at the nodes of a regular rectangular grid with a step of 1 m is chosen. In this connection the image of the grating is formed as an incoherent sum of three images obtained at different angles. The results show that the speckle effect reduces even at angular changes of the order of degree units.

Negative reflection of elastic guided waves in chaotic and random scattering media

The propagation of waves in complex media can be harnessed either by taming the incident wave-field impinging on the medium or by forcing waves along desired paths through its careful design. These two alternative strategies have given rise to fascinating concepts such as time reversal or negative refraction. Here, we show how these two processes are intimately linked through the negative reflection phenomenon. A negative reflecting mirror converts a wave of positive phase velocity into its negative counterpart and vice versa. In this article, we experimentally demonstrate this phenomenon with elastic waves in a 2D billiard and in a disordered plate by means of laser interferometry. Despite the complexity of such configurations, the negatively reflected wave field focuses back towards the initial source location, thereby mimicking a phase conjugation operation while being a fully passive process. The super-focusing capability of negative reflection is also highlighted in a monochromatic regime. The negative reflection phenomenon is not restricted to guided elastic waves since it can occur in zero-gap systems such as photonic crystals, chiral metamaterials or graphene. Negative reflection can thus become a tool of choice for the control of waves in all fields of wave physics.

Principle and experimental study of self-stability of reflector based on two magneto-optical crystals and two mirrors under effect of temperature and radiation

Acquisition, tracking and pointing (ATP) is an important subsystem of satellite-based optical communication system. It controls the direction of the beam passing through the mirror, and then completes the alignment and stabilization of intersatellite/satellite-ground light path. As is well known, the ordinary mirror changes the polarization of photons, so the ATP mirrors must be specially processed in quantum communication system and coherent optical communication system. For example, in order to counteract the change of photon polarization caused by the mirror, it is usually necessary to coat the mirror. However, this membrane structure must be tested by the radiation and temperature change from the space environment. A polarization-independent reflector based on two magneto-optical crystals and two mirrors is proposed. This structure does not need any special treatment (such as coating) for the reflector. It can realize polarization-independent reflection at any angle only through the reasonable configuration of the ordinary reflector and 90° rotatory crystal. In addition, it is found that the structure has self-stability, that is, when the polarization characteristics of optical devices change due to environmental change, the overall polarization reflection characteristics of the reflective structure remain unchanged. The polarization equation of reflected light of reflector based on two magneto-optical crystal and two mirrors is derived. The polarization of reflected light under environmental influence is simulated, and the polarization independent reflection self-stability of double-rotating double-reflection structure is found. The polarization-independent self-stabilization of this structure is verified by temperature and radiation experiment. The experimental results show that the average polarization retention of the reflecting light of the reflector based on two magneto-optical crystal and two mirrors can reach 99.77% when the temperature varies from －45 ℃ to 85 ℃. The mirrors and the magneto-optical crystals are irradiated by cobalt 60 with a total dose of 400 Gy, and the average polarization retention of the reflective structure is also 99.35%. The experimental results show that the polarization-independent reflectance can be kept stable for a long time in the space environment where radiation and temperature change dramatically. Relying on this self-stability, the reflector based on two magneto-optical crystals and two mirrors can maintain high polarization-independent reflection capability for a long time in a space environment. This makes it a new option for polarization-preserving reflective components in satellite-based optical communication systems.

La tecnología como mediadora en la educación matemática: una experiencia con ingresantes universitarios

Este trabajo expone el diseño e implementación de una propuesta tecno-pedagógica, cuyo objetivo fue introducir a los ingresantes en el aprendizaje de la matemática superior, a través de un enfoque de resolución de problemas que habilitó sus capacidades de exploración, experimentación, argumentación y reflexión. Trabajamos desde una perspectiva constructivista de la enseñanza y el aprendizaje, sosteniendo que hacer matemática –en este nuevo siglo– se debe acercar al modo de trabajo del matemático, quien indaga, explora, ajusta hipótesis, se contesta lo que no sabe, y así avanza.La propuesta fue desarrollada desde una modalidad semipresencial, con la que buscamos reinterpretar los ritmos de la enseñanza y del aprendizaje a la luz de la influencia tecnológica y redimensionarlos para favorecer procesos críticos y colegiados de apropiación del conocimiento.El registro de las ideas con las que concebimos y construimos la propuesta, junto con lo percibido en el desarrollo de las prácticas pedagógicas, nos permitió una primera reconstrucción a posteriori, que constituyó un segundo plano de análisis, posibilitando nuevas construcciones conceptuales.

NEW METHOD TO DEFINE SOIL POLLUTION LEVEL WITH CRUDE OIL HYDROCARBONS BY USING DATA OF VEGETATIONS REFLECTION SPECTRUM

In the article a new method to define the level of pollution of soil with crude oil hydrocarbons using the data of reflection spectrum of vegeta- tion is described. It is known that vegetation located at the area polluted by crude oil hydrocarbons is affected by stress condition which in its turn weakens the reflection capability of vegetation. The analysis of results of known experimental researches of dependence of signals of reflection spectrum on wavelengths has shown the presence of special zones of wavelengths where the difference of reflected signals from the heavily and lightly polluted areas have appropriately positive or negative sign. It is suggested that value of said positive difference is proportional to level of pollution of soil and can be used for remote estimation of soil pollu- tion level. The analysis of results of known experimental researches confirmed the authenticity of such suggestions and show the possibility of realization of proposed method of estimation of soil pollution level depending on value of difference of reflected signals on two wave- lengths. Taking into account that one of major problems on processing of data of remote sensing is true accounting or compensation of hinder- ing components of sum signal generated due to negative effect of sum components of atmosphere upon remote sensing the estimation of effect of noise factors on accuracy of determination of soil pollution level is given. It is shown that the suggested two wavelength method has a much more accuracy in comparison with known one wavelength method due to joint compensation of hindering noisy additive components of signal.

Solving Environmental Problems Together? The Roles of Value Orientations and Trust in the State in Environmental Policy Support among Swedish Undergraduate Students

This paper explores whether value orientation (VO) and trust in the state (TIS) are linked to support for environmental intervention and steering among Swedish students in economics, law, and political science. Furthermore, we considered whether environmental personal norms mediate the link between VO and support for environmental policy instruments and finally, whether TIS moderates the link between environmental personal norms and support for environmental policy instruments, testing this on a sample of over 800 Swedish students. We found a positive link between both a self-transcendence VO and TIS on environmental policy support; however, we cannot confirm a moderating effect of TIS on the relation between environmental personal norms and policy support. Furthermore, left-wing students displayed stronger support for environmental intervention. We conclude that more knowledge on programme-specific characteristics regarding environmental values, beliefs, and attitudes among freshman students can enhance sustainability teaching intended to develop the students’ critical and reflective capabilities.

Developing Undergraduate Management Students‘ Reflection Capabilities

Business schools have been repeatedly confronted with demands to change their ways of educating future managers. Much of the current criticism focuses on content-related aspects of management education, targeting economic theory and management studies as an academic discipline. However, addressing what is taught alone has a very limited scope. Business schools also need to equip their students and their instructors with capabilities that allow them to question the viability of the theories, models and concepts for solving specific management tasks. In other words: Managers and therefore management education need to become more reflective in their practices. We present a study addressing the following research questions (1) What is the current level of reflective capabilities in management students across different business schools/programmes and in comparison to students in other disciplines? (2) Which characteristics of educational contexts influence the development of reflective capabilities? (3) What kinds of interventions for developing student reflection are suitable for being implemented in typical large-cohort undergraduate management programmes? Therefore we developed a survey measuring both students’ reflection modes (dependent variables) as well as factors influencing these modes (independent variables). We measured student reflection at two universities with a total sample of 747 students. Results show that undergraduate management students reflect less on their studies than their counterparts in other subjects. Second, we found that undergraduate management education seems to worsen than to improve students’ readiness to reflect. We used our findings to systematize existing teaching and learning methods and suggest a basic structure for effective interventions to foster undergraduate management students’ reflection capabilities.

The impact of organizational and personnel changes on a college–school partnership vision

The current qualitative descriptive–interpretive study was adopted to explore the impact of organizational and personnel changes carried out during two years of college–school partnership on the partnership vision, as well as on the attainment of professional development improvement in science teaching and pre-service teacher education. The data were collected by a semi-structured interview of the participants (12 pre-service teachers, 6 school teachers, the science instructor, the general pedagogical instructor and the school principal); personal discussions; and a researcher’s diary. A content analysis was carried out using the Narralizer software. Despite the importance of defining a vision and careful organizational planning of a college–school partnership, this study points to the importance of ambiguity and problem-solving for the partnership’s success. The study recommends fostering ambiguity tolerance; improving the participants’ reflective capabilities; and addressing organizational challenges and problem-solving in science education as part of a learning community, to improve the study of science and the shared leadership.

Exploring the Relationship Between Self-Regulation and TPACK of Taiwanese Secondary In-Service Teachers

Although self-regulation (SR) has been regarded as an important factor of teachers’ learning and professional development, its relationship with teachers’ knowledge for teaching (Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge, TPACK) remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to explore the interrelationship between Taiwanese secondary in-service teachers’ SR and TPACK in the national context ( N = 386). Descriptive analysis, Pearson’s bivariate correlation, and canonical correlational analysis were used to examine the interrelationship between the two sets of variables. Results showed that teachers scored highest on monitoring capability and controlling capability (MC/CC) but lowest on Information and Communications Technology (ICT)-related SR. Moreover, the participants scored greatest on Content Knowledge (CK) but lowest on Technology Knowledge (TK) and Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK). In-service teachers’ MC/CC and Reflection Capability correlated higher with CK and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) but lower with TK and TPCK. Conversely, ICT was associated more significantly with TK and TPCK but less significantly with CK and PCK. Implications of this study were provided along with suggestions.

Fully Reflective Execution Environments: Virtual Machines for More Flexible Software

VMs are complex pieces of software that implement programming language semantics in an efficient, portable, and secure way. Unfortunately, mainstream VMs provide applications with few mechanisms to alter execution semantics or memory management at run time. We argue that this limits the evolvability and maintainability of running systems for both, the application domain, e.g., to support unforeseen requirements, and the VM domain, e.g., to modify the organization of objects in memory. This work explores the idea of incorporating reflective capabilities into the VM domain and analyzes its impact in the context of software adaptation tasks. We characterize the notion of a fully reflective VM, a kind of VM that provides means for its own observability and modifiability at run time. This enables programming languages to adapt the underlying VM to changing requirements. We propose a reference architecture for such VMs and present TruffleMATE as a prototype for this architecture. We evaluate the mechanisms TruffleMATE provides to deal with unanticipated dynamic adaptation scenarios for security, optimization, and profiling aspects. In contrast to existing alternatives, we observe that TruffleMATE is able to handle all scenarios, using less than 50 lines of code for each, and without interfering with the application's logic.

“One of these days, things are going to change!” How do you make sense of market disruption?

The significance of mindsets is apparent in everyday business life. As today’s managers and companies face uncertainty and disruptive change in the business environment and markets, there is a growing need to understand and strategically address such change. This becomes challenging when disruptive market forces confront the institutional logic or rules of the game based on collectively acquired experience of doing business in the given field. In overcoming such challenges, managers’ hidden reasoning remains an untapped potential while their existing mindset influences what they attend to and what they decide to do. This article elaborates a diagnostic framework, accompanied by a tool to help managers make sense of disruptive markets and reflect individually and collectively on possible courses of action. The framework has two principal dimensions—strategic scope and focus—that are further divided into three business elements of strategic market-oriented management: offering, customer, and market. The tool offers a practical means of profiling individuals’ mindsets. In increasingly dynamic business environments, reflection capabilities represent a new source of competitive advantage.

The Solar Reflectance Index as a Tool to Forecast the Heat Released to the Urban Environment: Potentiality and Assessment Issues

Overheating of buildings and urban areas is a more and more severe issue in view of global warming combined with increasing urbanization. The thermal behavior of urban surfaces in the hot seasons is the result of a complex balance of construction and environmental parameters such as insulation level, thermal mass, shielding, and solar reflective capability on one side, and ambient conditions on the other side. Regulations makers and the construction industry have favored the use of parameters that allow the forecasting of the interaction between different material properties without the need for complex analyses. Among these, the solar reflectance index (SRI) takes into account solar reflectance and thermal emittance to predict the thermal behavior of a surface subjected to solar radiation through a physically rigorous mathematical procedure that considers assigned air and sky temperatures, peak solar irradiance, and wind velocity. The correlation of SRI with the heat released to the urban environment is analyzed in this paper, as well as the sensitivity of its calculation procedure to variation of the input parameters, as possibly induced by the measurement methods used or by the material ageing.

A feature-oriented model-driven engineering approach for the early validation of feature-based applications

The software industry has to offer increasingly individualized software for a large number of platforms. In a constantly evolving technical context, the appropriateness and the profitableness of a software has to be ensured earlier, before most of the costs have been incurred and before most of the risks have been taken. Feature-Oriented Model-Driven Development (FOMDD) is a promising paradigm to tackle the issue of developing software variants when multiple platforms are targeted. However, because of its model-driven fundament, FOMDD suffers from limited capabilities regarding model execution and early validation. In this paper, we present CrossFabrik, an approach for the design and the early functional validation of feature-based applications. This approach allows the live debugging and editing of the underlying models during a simulation without being forced to stop and restart a validation process. Such an approach relies on the reflective capability of the development environment. An implementation of our approach within Pharo is also presented. • An approach for prototyping, executing and debugging models of feature-based applications within the modelling environment. • Validating early feature-based applications which need to support multiple platforms. • The approach relies on a modelling language and on a simulation process. • A one-to-many synchronization process is provided to ensure the consistency between models and runnable artifacts.

Steering of Sub-GeV electrons by ultrashort Si and Ge bent crystals

We report the observation of the steering of 855 MeV electrons by bent silicon and germanium crystals at the MAinzer MIkrotron. Crystals with 15 upmu m of length, bent along (111) planes, were exploited to investigate orientational coherent effects. By using a piezo-actuated mechanical holder, which allowed to remotely change the crystal curvature, it was possible to study the steering capability of planar channeling and volume reflection vs. the curvature radius and the atomic number, Z. For silicon, the channeling efficiency exceeds 35%, a record for negatively charged particles. This was possible due to the realization of a crystal with a thickness of the order of the dechanneling length. On the other hand, for germanium the efficiency is slightly below 10% due to the stronger contribution of multiple scattering for a higher-Z material. Nevertheless this is the first evidence of negative beam steering by planar channeling in a Ge crystal. Having determined for the first time the dechanneling length, one may design a Ge crystal based on such knowledge providing nearly the same channeling efficiency of silicon. The presented results are relevant for crystal-based beam manipulation as well as for the generation of e.m. radiation in bent and periodically bent crystals.