title: Synthesis of least restrictive controllable supervisors for extended finite-state machines with variable abstraction

authors: Malik, Robi

subjects: Science & technology

abstract: This paper presents an algorithm that combines modular synthesis for extended finite-state machines (EFSM) with abstraction of variables by symbolic manipulation, in order to compute least restrictive controllable supervisors. Given a modular EFSM system consisting of several components, the proposed algorithm synthesises a separate supervisor for each specification component. To synthesise each supervisor, the algorithm iteratively selects components (plants and variables) from a synchronous composition until a least restrictive controllable solution is obtained. This improves on previous results of the authors where abstraction is only performed by the selection of components and not variables. The paper explains the theory of EFSM synthesis and abstraction and its algorithms. An example of a flexible manufacturing system illustrates how the proposed algorithm works to compute a modular supervisor.

text: Synthesis of least restrictive controllable supervisors for extended finite-state machines with variable abstraction This paper presents an algorithm that combines modular synthesis for extended finite-state machines (EFSM) with abstraction of variables by symbolic manipulation, in order to compute least restrictive controllable supervisors. Given a modular EFSM system consisting of several components, the proposed algorithm synthesises a separate supervisor for each specification component. To synthesise each supervisor, the algorithm iteratively selects components (plants and variables) from a synchronous composition until a least restrictive controllable solution is obtained. This improves on previous results of the authors where abstraction is only performed by the selection of components and not variables. The paper explains the theory of EFSM synthesis and abstraction and its algorithms. An example of a flexible manufacturing system illustrates how the proposed algorithm works to compute a modular supervisor.

year: 2020

title: Use of interactive video for teaching and learning

authors: Gedera, Dilani S.P.

abstract: This paper focuses on the findings of Phases I and II of an institution-wide project on the effective use of interactive video for teaching and learning in a university in New Zealand. Responding to the emerging growth of video in teaching and learning practice and scholarship, and also to the university’s strategic focus on providing blended, flexible learning opportunities, this project explores the ways in which lecturers currently use videos in teaching, their challenges, and their attitudes towards making video as well as students’ perceptions of learning through video. This paper discusses what we conceptualise as effective learning moments and conditions and how these can be created and maximised through the effective production and manipulation of relevant, purposeful interactive videos. The overall project combines both research and impact and develops opportunities for lecturers to enhance their competencies in creating interactive videos.

text: Use of interactive video for teaching and learning This paper focuses on the findings of Phases I and II of an institution-wide project on the effective use of interactive video for teaching and learning in a university in New Zealand. Responding to the emerging growth of video in teaching and learning practice and scholarship, and also to the university’s strategic focus on providing blended, flexible learning opportunities, this project explores the ways in which lecturers currently use videos in teaching, their challenges, and their attitudes towards making video as well as students’ perceptions of learning through video. This paper discusses what we conceptualise as effective learning moments and conditions and how these can be created and maximised through the effective production and manipulation of relevant, purposeful interactive videos. The overall project combines both research and impact and develops opportunities for lecturers to enhance their competencies in creating interactive videos.

year: 2018

title: The embodied and lived experiences of welfare and care for highly impaired, high performance para-sport athletes in Aotearoa New Zealand

authors: Lowry, Amanda

abstract: Aligning with calls in critical disability studies to bring the body and impairment into disability sport, this thesis examines the welfare and care experiences of highly impaired athletes in high-performance sport. While a focus on athlete welfare has gained some international prominence, and a duty of care is increasingly invoked as an organisational and coaching responsibility, these developments remain largely disconnected from disability.  
The research is centred around two main objectives. First, to amplify the lived and embodied experiences of highly impaired, high performance disabled athletes as they prepare for, train, and compete in sport, and those who support them. Second, to understand how sporting institutions and regulations (within the broader context of government funding and national health care provision) influence welfare and care practices for high performance disabled athletes. 
Crip methodologies and Indigenous Māori storytelling methodologies such as pūrākau centres lived experience as a site of resistance and knowledge production. Using a reflexive, qualitative approach, including semi-structured interviews, autoethnographic vignettes, and visual ethnography, I expose how impairment effects are managed in ableist sporting environments that valorise normative athlete ideals. I interviewed 11 high-performance paraathletes, seven organisational representatives and two support workers. 
The research highlights the material, emotional, and temporal labour of care in highperformance sport. Findings are organised around three core themes: the embodied labour of care, impairment effects and interdependence; the tension between crip time, care time, and performance time; the intersecting structural, institutional, and ableist barriers that shape and constrain highly impaired athletes’ participation in disability sport.  
The first theme shows how high-performance sport privileges autonomous, efficient, and normative bodies, while marginalising those whose messy, gritty embodied impairment effects demand more time, support, and interdependence. The findings bring to the fore biosocial, psycho-emotional costs of navigating care and its impact on athlete welfare. The second theme uncovers how the rhythms of highly impaired bodies disrupt the linear, clockbound time of high-performance sport, revealing the incompatibility between care time and high performance cultures. It highlights the vital yet invisible labour of support workers, ii unacknowledged in contemporary sporting discourse. The third theme addresses the barriers that highly impaired athletes face when navigating ableist institutional and organisational structures. It exposes the complexity of the ableist disability sporting landscape and the gap between duty of care rhetoric and practice. 
Ultimately, this thesis calls for a radical reimagining of disability sport, one that centres interdependence, affirms bodily difference, and addresses the structural failures that marginalise highly impaired athletes.

text: The embodied and lived experiences of welfare and care for highly impaired, high performance para-sport athletes in Aotearoa New Zealand Aligning with calls in critical disability studies to bring the body and impairment into disability sport, this thesis examines the welfare and care experiences of highly impaired athletes in high-performance sport. While a focus on athlete welfare has gained some international prominence, and a duty of care is increasingly invoked as an organisational and coaching responsibility, these developments remain largely disconnected from disability.  
The research is centred around two main objectives. First, to amplify the lived and embodied experiences of highly impaired, high performance disabled athletes as they prepare for, train, and compete in sport, and those who support them. Second, to understand how sporting institutions and regulations (within the broader context of government funding and national health care provision) influence welfare and care practices for high performance disabled athletes. 
Crip methodologies and Indigenous Māori storytelling methodologies such as pūrākau centres lived experience as a site of resistance and knowledge production. Using a reflexive, qualitative approach, including semi-structured interviews, autoethnographic vignettes, and visual ethnography, I expose how impairment effects are managed in ableist sporting environments that valorise normative athlete ideals. I interviewed 11 high-performance paraathletes, seven organisational representatives and two support workers. 
The research highlights the material, emotional, and temporal labour of care in highperformance sport. Findings are organised around three core themes: the embodied labour of care, impairment effects and interdependence; the tension between crip time, care time, and performance time; the intersecting structural, institutional, and ableist barriers that shape and constrain highly impaired athletes’ participation in disability sport.  
The first theme shows how high-performance sport privileges autonomous, efficient, and normative bodies, while marginalising those whose messy, gritty embodied impairment effects demand more time, support, and interdependence. The findings bring to the fore biosocial, psycho-emotional costs of navigating care and its impact on athlete welfare. The second theme uncovers how the rhythms of highly impaired bodies disrupt the linear, clockbound time of high-performance sport, revealing the incompatibility between care time and high performance cultures. It highlights the vital yet invisible labour of support workers, ii unacknowledged in contemporary sporting discourse. The third theme addresses the barriers that highly impaired athletes face when navigating ableist institutional and organisational structures. It exposes the complexity of the ableist disability sporting landscape and the gap between duty of care rhetoric and practice. 
Ultimately, this thesis calls for a radical reimagining of disability sport, one that centres interdependence, affirms bodily difference, and addresses the structural failures that marginalise highly impaired athletes.

year: 2025-10