Despite their long trajectory in the social sciences, few systematic works analyze how often and for what purposes focus groups appear in published works. This study fills this gap by undertaking a meta-analysis of focus group use over the last 10 years. It makes several contributions to our understanding of when and why focus groups are used in the social sciences. First, the study explains that focus groups generate data at three units of analysis, namely, the individual, the group, and the interaction. Although most researchers rely upon the individual unit of analysis, the method’s comparative advantage lies in the group and interactive units. Second, it reveals strong affinities between each unit of analysis and the primary motivation for using focus groups as a data collection method. The individual unit of analysis is appropriate for triangulation; the group unit is appropriate as a pretest; and the interactive unit is appropriate for exploration. Finally, it offers a set of guidelines that researchers should adopt when presenting focus groups as part of their research design. Researchers should, first, state the main purpose of the focus group in a research design; second, identify the primary unit of analysis exploited; and finally, list the questions used to collect data in the focus group.

Psychological, sociological and feminist models of understanding domestic violence have contributed to the development of interventions that seek to raise awareness, keep women safe, and help them to create new lives for themselves and their families. Research literature has extensively paid attention to the ways in which women both live with and move away from domestic violence, documenting how they employ strategies of survival and resistance. The research methods employed to investigate domestic violence includes a range of quantitative and qualitative methods with particular emphasis placed upon enabling women to tell their stories in as authentic a way as possible. This thesis adds to the literature by considering how women construct what will be referred to as transitional stories of domestic violence, within which they imagine their future selves and develop the means to become what they hope for. The methodology used is original within the study of domestic violence in its synthesis of arts-based, feminist and participatory methods. The adopted epistemology sought to value the use of embodiment and imagination in the construction of knowledge, both of which are considered to be situated. The use of an arts-based method is chosen to enable a different way for women to tell their stories about their response to living with and transitioning away from domestic violence. The evaluation of this methodology shows that it is a valid form of enabling women to have the embodied subjectivity of their experiences and imagination witnessed in a way that complements the written and spoken word, whilst better allowing the physical and metaphorical quality of their stories to come to the foreground. Following a feminist agenda, attention is paid to the influence of gender upon the researcher’s findings, and upon the participants’ and researchers’ reflexive engagement with the research process. The research shows that the home has special significance for women as they transition away from domestic violence and plan for their future. The home becomes a physical manifestation and container for women’s hopes and fears for a harmonious future that often incorporates the desire for the return to the idea of a complete family. Relationships with family, friends and services are shown to be both enablers of women’s agency and resistance. Those same relationships are also shown to be capable of acting as barriers to women’s positive transitional journeys. The findings show that attention needs to be placed upon the appearance of women’s agency within the everyday tasks of creating and maintaining a home and managing relationships as they move away from domestic violence. The findings also point to the need for services to work harder on empowering women, both by adequately listening to the stories told about their pasts and hopes for the future, and by helping them to achieve their plans through challenging the limitations imposed by policies and economics.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Statistics and Actuarial Science / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / Mathematics / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / Statistics and Actuarial Science / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / Statistics and Actuarial Science / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Civil Engineering / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Statistics and Actuarial Science / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Computer simulations of the optical servo functions of optical disk drives are developed and compared with experimental results. The focus control servo is investigated first, with emphasis on the astigmatic focus detection method. A paraxial ray trace, enhanced to allow tolerance studies of tilted and decentered surfaces, is used to calculate the size and orientation of an astigmatic blur on a quadrant photodetector as a function of focus error. The resulting irradiance distribution is integrated over the detector elements and processed to yield typical focus servo signals. A method for simulating generalized astigmatic focus systems, independent of a particular design, is also shown. The simulation results are used to derive normalized tolerance curves for detector misalignment and spot motion. Alignment diagnostics based on the servo signals are also presented. A wavefront aberration model is also developed and used to investigate the focus servo's performance in the presence of common aberrations. Simulations based on diffraction theory are used to investigate the radial tracking servo. Both scalar and vector diffraction theories are considered. The scalar theory is found to be adequate in most cases, while offering a large advantage in computational efficiency. A model for computing the signals detected by scanning the microscopic features of the disk is developed using the optical cross transfer function that describes the imaging characteristics of partially coherent systems. This model is used to investigate push-pull and three beam tracking. Aberrations, data patterns, detector misalignment, and pregroove profile are all examined for their effects on the servo signals. Crosstalk between the focus and tracking error detection is also briefly considered, and a possible extension of the radial tracking servo model to investigate this phenomenon is suggested.

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