Too sleepy to drive : self-perception and regulation of driving when sleepy

Background: Sleepiness is a direct contributor to a substantial proportion of fatal and severe road cashes. A number of technological solutions designed to detect sleepiness have been developed, but self-awareness of increasing sleepiness remains a critical component in on-road strategies for mitigating this risk. In order to take appropriate action when sleepy, drivers’ perceptions of their level of sleepiness must be accurate. Aims: This study aimed to assess capacity to accurately identify sleepiness and self-regulate driving cessation during a validated driving simulator task. Participants: Participants comprised 26 young adult drivers (20-28 years). The drivers had open licenses but no other exclusion criteria where used. Methods: Participants woke at 5am, and took part in a laboratory-based hazard perception driving simulation, either at mid-morning or mid-afternoon. Established physiological measures (including EEG) and subjective measures (sleepiness ratings) previously found sensitive to changes in sleepiness levels were utilised. Participants were instructed to ‘drive’ until they believed that sleepiness had impaired their ability to drive safely. They were then offered a nap opportunity. Results: The mean duration of the drive before cessation was 39 minutes (±18 minutes). Almost all (23/26) of the participants then achieved sleep during the nap opportunity. These data suggest that the participants’ perceptions of sleepiness were specific. However, EEG data from a number of participants suggested very high levels of sleepiness prior to driving cessation, suggesting poor sensitivity. Conclusions: Participants reported high levels of sleepiness while driving after very moderate sleep restriction. They were able to identify increasing sleepiness during the test period, could decide to cease driving and in most cases were sufficiently sleepy to achieve sleep during the daytime session. However, the levels of sleepiness achieved prior to driving cessation suggest poor accuracy in self-perception and regulation. This presents practical issues for the implementation of fatigue and sleep-related strategies to improve driver safety.

Self in the City : Young Adult Fiction about New York City after 9/11

This chapter discusses fictional texts set in New York City soon after Septem- ber 11, 2001 (9/11), or whose characters are affected by the attacks on the World Trade Center. Whereas these texts may not have been directly marketed at young adults, they all address ‘youth issues’. Each of the books discussed here contain or are focalized through the eyes of adolescent protagonists. They are all coming-of-age narratives in that the crises within them are usually a result of a catastrophe, taking the characters on journeys of self-discovery, which, once fulfilled, lead them back home.1 As Jerry Griswold (1992) has suggested, coming-of-age stories are especially well suited to the American psyche, and are already familiar to readers of literature based in New York City (the most familiar work being J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye). As with other clas- sic American young adult (YA) literature, the journey and homecoming com- monly associated with coming-of-age are often employed in fiction about 9/11. With the key elements of loss and suffering, self-awareness, introspection, and growth, the coming-of-age novel also fulfils agendas common to both litera- ture and politics: the literary journey becomes the nation’s journey.

Self-generated expressions of residual complaints following brain injury

Following brain injury there is often a prolonged period of deteriorating psychological condition, despite neurological stability or improvement. This is presumably consequent to the remission of anosognosia and the realisation of permanently worsened status. This change is hypothesised to be directed partially by the socially mediated processes which play a role in generating self-awareness and which here direct the reconstruction of the self as a permanently injured person. However, before we can understand this process of redevelopment, we need an unbiassed technique to monitor self-awareness. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 individuals with long-standing brain injuries to capture their spontaneous complaints and their level of insight into the implications of their difficulties. The focus was on what the participants said in their own words, and the extent to which self-knowledge of difficulties was spontaneously salient to the participants. Their responses were subjected to content analysis. Most participants were able to say that they had brain injuries and physical difficulties, many mentioned memory and attentional problems and a few made references to a variety of emotional disturbances. Content analysis of data from unbiassed interviews can reveal the extent to which people with brain injuries know about their difficulties. Social constructionist accounts of self-awareness and recovery are supported.

Foodies in the UK: A Sense of Self, Connection and Belonging Beyond the Passion?

The global rise of the Foodie movement has attracted some research attention as well as critique in the food industry trend followers, but little research attention in marketing research. The present study looks at the ‘Foodie’ phenomenon in the UK and aims to extend how the notion has been coined in literature through a qualitative investigation of a sample of self-professed Foodies. The objective is to provide an in-depth understanding of what it means to be a Foodie at the individual and group levels, probing attitudes, motivations and self-awareness. Results indicate that the term Foodie cannot be used as an implicit definition of someone ‘simply interested in food’; the capacity of the Foodie may be dependent on individual involvement and the level of importance along the five emerging themes; these being: Learning and discovery; Pleasure and enjoyment; Inspirational influences; Quality; and Experiencing food as an individual and in connection with others. Findings imply that there might be different levels of Foodies, leading to a start on developing a Foodie Typology. The study poses implications for food marketers and researchers that can assist in more effective segmentation, efficient targeting and tailored positioning, as well as opportunities for future research.

Creating a Space for Self-Transformation: Factors of Success for Adult Literacy Learners with Specific Learning Difficulties

A significant number of adults in adult literacy programs in Ontario have specific learning difficulties. This study sought to examine the holistic factors that contributed to these learners achieving their goals. Through a case study design, the data revealed that a combination of specific learning methods and strategies, along with particular characteristics of the instructor, participant, and class, and the evidence of self-transformation all seemed to contribute to the participant's success in the program. Instructor-directed teaching and cooperative learning were the main learning methods used in the class. General learning strategies employed were the use of core curriculum and authentic documents, and using phonics, repetition, assistive resources, and using activities that appealed to various learning styles. The instructor had a history of both professional development in the area of learning disabilities as well as experience working with learners who had specific learning difficulties. There also seemed to be a goodness of fit between the participant and the instructor. Several characteristics of the participant seemed to aid in his success: his positive self-esteem, self-advocacy skills, self-determination, self-awareness, and the fact that he enjoyed learning. The size (3-5 people) and type of class (small group) also seemed to have an impact. Finally, evidence that the participant went through a self-transformation seemed to contribute to a positive learner identity. These results have implications for practice, theory, and further research in adult education.

Using Accuracy of Self-Estimated Interest-Type as a Sign of Career Choice Readiness in Career Assessment of Secondary Students

A frequent applied method in career assessment to elicit clients’ self-concepts is asking them to predict their interest assessment results. Accuracy in estimating one’s interesttype is commonly taken as a sign of more self-awareness and career choice readiness. The study evaluated the empirical relation of accuracy of self-estimation to career choice readiness within a sample of 350 Swiss secondary students in seventh grade. Overall, accuracy showed only weak relations to career choice readiness. However, accurately estimating one’s first interest-type in a three-letter RIASEC interests-code emerged as a sign of more vocational identity and total career choice readiness. Accuracy also correlated positively with interest profile consistency, differentiation, and congruence to career aspirations. Implications of the results for career counseling and assessment practice are presented.

Self Taut

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-06

A review of awareness interventions in brain injury rehabilitation

Unawareness related to brain injury has implications for participation in rehabilitation, functional outcomes, and the emotional well-being of clients. Addressing disorders of awareness is an integral component of many rehabilitation programmes, and a review of the literature identified a range of awareness interventions that include holistic milieu-oriented neuropsychological programmes, psychotherapy, compensatory and facilitatory approaches, structured experiences, direct feedback, videotaped feedback, confrontational techniques, cognitive therapy, group therapy, game formats and behavioural intervention. These approaches are examined in terms of their theoretical bases and research evidence. A distinction is made between intervention approaches for unawareness due to neurocognitive factors and approaches for unawareness due to psychological factors. The socio-cultural context of unawareness is a third factor presented in a biopsychosocial framework to guide clinical decisions about awareness interventions. The ethical and methodological concerns associated with research on awareness interventions are discussed. The main considerations relate to the embedded nature of awareness interventions within rehabilitation programmes, the need for individually tailored interventions, differing responses according to the nature of unawareness, and the risk of eliciting emotional distress in some clients.

A metacognitive contextual intervention to enhance error awareness and functional outcome following traumatic brain injury: A single-case experimental design

Very few empirically validated interventions for improving metacognitive skills (i.e., self-awareness and self-regulation) and functional outcomes have been reported. This single-case experimental study presents JM, a 36-year-old man with a very severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) who demonstrated long-term awareness deficits. Treatment at four years post-injury involved a metacognitive contextual intervention based on a conceptualization of neuro-cognitive, psychological, and socio-environmental factors contributing to his awareness deficits. The 16-week intervention targeted error awareness and self-correction in two real life settings: (a) cooking at home: and (b) volunteer work. Outcome measures included behavioral observation of error behavior and standardized awareness measures. Relative to baseline performance in the cooking setting, JM demonstrated a 44% reduction in error frequency and increased self-correction. Although no spontaneous generalization was evident in the volunteer work setting, specific training in this environment led to a 39% decrease in errors. JM later gained paid employment and received brief metacognitive training in his work environment. JM's global self-knowledge of deficits assessed by self-report was unchanged after the program. Overall, the study provides preliminary support for a metacognitive contextual approach to improve error awareness and functional Outcome in real life settings.

An integrated biopsychosocial approach to understanding awareness deficits in Alzheimer's disease and brain injury

Considerable emphasis has been placed upon cognitive neuropsychological explanations of awareness disorders in brain injury and Alzheimer's disease (AD), with relatively few models acknowledging the role of psychosocial factors. The present paper explores clinical presentations of unawareness in brain injury and AD, reviews the evidence for the influence of psychosocial factors alongside neuropsychological changes, and considers a number of key issues that theoretical models need to address, before going on to discuss some recently-developed models that offer the potential for developing a comprehensive biopsychosocial account. Building on these developments, we present a framework designed to assist clinicians to identify the specific factors contributing to an individual's presentation of unawareness, and illustrate its application with a case example.

Architecting self-aware software systems

Contemporary software systems are becoming increasingly large, heterogeneous, and decentralised. They operate in dynamic environments and their architectures exhibit complex trade-offs across dimensions of goals, time, and interaction, which emerges internally from the systems and externally from their environment. This gives rise to the vision of self-aware architecture, where design decisions and execution strategies for these concerns are dynamically analysed and seamlessly managed at run-time. Drawing on the concept of self-awareness from psychology, this paper extends the foundation of software architecture styles for self-adaptive systems to arrive at a new principled approach for architecting self-aware systems. We demonstrate the added value and applicability of the approach in the context of service provisioning to cloud-reliant service-based applications.

A modelling and simulation environment for self-aware and self-expressive systems

Self-awareness and self-expression are promising architectural concepts for embedded systems to be equipped with to match them with dedicated application scenarios and constraints in the avionic and space-flight industry. Typically, these systems operate in largely undefined environments and are not reachable after deployment for a long time or even never ever again. This paper introduces a reference architecture as well as a novel modelling and simulation environment for self-aware and self-expressive systems with transaction level modelling, simulation and detailed modelling capabilities for hardware aspects, precise process chronology execution as well as fine timing resolutions. Furthermore, industrial relevant system sizes with several self-aware and self-expressive nodes can be handled by the modelling and simulation environment.

The handbook of engineering self-aware and self-expressive systems

When faced with the task of designing and implementing a new self-aware and self-expressive computing system, researchers and practitioners need a set of guidelines on how to use the concepts and foundations developed in the Engineering Proprioception in Computing Systems (EPiCS) project. This report provides such guidelines on how to design self-aware and self-expressive computing systems in a principled way. We have documented different categories of self-awareness and self-expression level using architectural patterns. We have also documented common architectural primitives, their possible candidate techniques and attributes for architecting self-aware and self-expressive systems. Drawing on the knowledge obtained from the previous investigations, we proposed a pattern driven methodology for engineering self-aware and self-expressive systems to assist in utilising the patterns and primitives during design. The methodology contains detailed guidance to make decisions with respect to the possible design alternatives, providing a systematic way to build self-aware and self-expressive systems. Then, we qualitatively and quantitatively evaluated the methodology using two case studies. The results reveal that our pattern driven methodology covers the main aspects of engineering self-aware and self-expressive systems, and that the resulted systems perform significantly better than the non-self-aware systems.

Self-aware and self-expressive camera networks

Smart cameras perform on-board image analysis, adapt their algorithms to changes in their environment, and collaborate with other networked cameras to analyze the dynamic behavior of objects. A proposed computational framework adopts the concepts of self-awareness and self-expression to more efficiently manage the complex tradeoffs among performance, flexibility, resources, and reliability. The Web extra at http://youtu.be/NKe31-OKLz4 is a video demonstrating CamSim, a smart camera simulation tool, enables users to test self-adaptive and self-organizing smart-camera techniques without deploying a smart-camera network.

Architectural aspects of self-aware and self-expressive computing systems:from psychology to engineering

Work on human self-Awareness is the basis for a framework to develop computational systems that can adaptively manage complex dynamic tradeoffs at runtime. An architectural case study in cloud computing illustrates the framework's potential benefits.