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Regular expressions (regexes) are a powerful mechanism for solving string-matching problems and are supported by all modern programming languages. While regular expressions are highly expressive, they are also often perceived to be highly complex and hard to read. While existing studies have focused on improving the readability of regular expressions, little is known about any other difficulties that developers face when programming with regular expressions. In this paper, we aim to provide a deeper understanding of the process of programming regular expressions by studying: (1) how developers make decisions through the process, (2) what difficulties they face, and (3) how aware they are about serious risks involved in programming regexes. We surveyed 158 professional developers from a diversity of backgrounds, and we conducted a series of interviews to learn more details about the difficulties and solutions that participants face in this process. This mixed methods approach revealed that some of the difficulties of regexes come in the shape of: inability to effectively search for them; fully validate them; and document them. Developers also reported cascading impacts of poor readability, lack of universal portability, and struggling with overall problem comprehension. The majority of our studied developers were unaware of critical security risks that can occur when using regexes, and those that were aware of potential problems felt that they lacked the ability to identify problematic regexes. Our findings provide multiple implications for future work, including development of semantic regex search engines for regex reuse, and improved input generators for regex validation. / Master of Science / Regular expressions (regexes) are a method to search for a set of matching text. They are easily understood as a way to flexibly search beyond exact matching and are frequently seen in the capacity of the find functionality of ctrl-f. Regexes are also very common in source code for a range of tasks including form validation, where a program needs to confirm that a user provided information that conformed to a specific structure, such as an email address. Despite being a widely supported programming feature, little is known about how developers go about creating regexes or what they struggle with when doing so. To gain a better understanding of how regexes are created and reused, we surveyed 158 professional developers from a diversity of backgrounds and experience levels about their processes and perceptions about regexes. As a followup to the survey we conducted a series of interviews focusing on the challenges faced by developers when tackling problems for which they felt that a regex was worth using. Through the combination of these studies, we developed a detailed understanding of how professional developers create regexes as well as many of the struggles that they face when doing so. These challenges come in the form of the inability to effectively search for, fully validate, and document regexes, as well as the cascading impacts of poor readability, lack of universal portability, and overall problem comprehension.

This study examined how parents experienced their first child's transition to adolescence. A multiple-case qualitative research design was chosen to examine parents' experiences. Family systems theory and family stress and coping theory provided a theoretical starting point. Participants were recruited who had adolescents between ages 13 and 16 and saw their family as normally stressed, indicated in part by an absence of court involvement, substance abuse issues, school failure, and participation in therapy. Ten families were selected: parents from eight of these families participated in focus groups, and five sets of parents were interviewed in their homes. The grounded theory approach to qualitative inquiry developed by Glaser and Strauss guided data collection and analysis. This study identified a complex array of intrapersonal, interpersonal, and contextual factors involved in parents' experience of this transition. A theoretical model was developed to illustrate how specific components of parents' experiences might be interrelated. The process seemed to be initiated when the parents noticed a physical, social/emotional, or relational change in their teenager. Parents responded to the perceived change through their affect, cognition, and behavior. They interpreted what was happening by processes of evaluation, reorientation, and frame. These three components-perception, response, and interpretation-were seen to interact with elements of past and current family context, such as expectations, family dynamics, family of origin influences, and sociocultural change. The overall process involved parents' attempts to regain family equilibrium at different levels of adolescent autonomy and progress toward anticipated future teen changes in ways that either enhance or diminish family cohesion. / Master of Science

Background: Between 1977 and 2002, the per capita intake of caloric beverages doubled in the United States, with most recent data from 2005–2006 showing that children and adults consume about 172 and 175 kcal daily, respectively, from sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) (Brownell et al., 2009). Also, a high intake of SSB has been related to many adverse health outcomes including type 2 diabetes, obesity, dental carries and heart disease (Malik, Schulze, & Hu, 2006; Vartanian, Schwartz, & Brownell, 2007; Schulze et al., 2004; Ismail, Sohn, Lim, & Willem, 2009; Fung et al., 2009); however, few studies have explored factors that influence SSB consumption. In addition, no theory-based interventions have been implemented targeting this public health problem. Objective: The primary objective of this study was to apply the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) (Ajzen, 1991) to investigate culturally specific attitudes, subjective norms and behavioral capabilities related to SSB, water, and artificially sweetened drink consumption among adults residing in rural Southwest Virginia. In addition, programmatic issues related to implementation of SSB interventions, including small group sessions and interactive voice response (IVR) technology was explored. Methods: A total of 8 focus groups were completed with 54 participants. Each focus group took place with residents from one of the 11 identified rural Southwest Virginia counties. Four focus groups included individuals on city water and four contained residents on well water to investigate any discrepancies in attitudes, norms and perceived behavioral control related to the intake of various drinks. Participants needed to be at least 18 years of age, English speaking, and consume >1 cup of SSB per day. A semi-structured script guided by the TPB constructs was used to facilitate the focus group discussions. All focus groups were transcribed verbatim. Two researchers independently reviewed the transcripts and met to identify major themes and develop a coding system. Three researchers independently coded meaning units (MU) to the major themes and subsequently met to review codes and reconcile disagreements. Results: The most notable themes that emerged included taste (n= 161 MU), availability/convenience (n= 95 MU), cost (n= 28 MU), and habit/addiction (n= 57 MU). Participants also continuously emphasized the importance of their doctor's advice and health concerns on their beverage choices. The majority of the participants (n=27 MU) indicated they would be willing to participate in a program with three small group sessions and phone calls, yet when asked specifically about receiving multiple interactive voice technology telephone messages, most participants said that they would not be receptive to an automated message (n=21 MU). Conclusions: Collectively, these findings provide unique cultural insight to better understand the salient beliefs associated with beverage behaviors and helps inform intervention development and delivery in the targeted vulnerable region of Southwest Virginia. / Master of Science

Yes / Gaining access in fieldwork is crucial to the success of research, and may often be problematic because it involves working in complex social situations. This paper examines the intricacies of access, conceptualizing it as a fluid, temporal and political process that requires sensitivity to social issues and to potential ethical choices faced by both researchers and organization members. Our contribution lies in offering ways in which researchers can reflexively negotiate the challenges of access by: 1. Underscoring the complex and relational nature of access by conceptualizing three relational perspectives – instrumental, transactional and relational – proposing the latter as a strategy for developing a diplomatic sensitivity to the politics of access; 2. Explicating the political, ethical and emergent nature of access by framing it as an ongoing process of immersion, backstage dramas, and deception; and 3. Offering a number of relational micropractices to help researchers negotiate the complexities of access. We illustrate the challenges of gaining and maintaining access through examples from the literature and from Rafael’s attempts to gain access to carry out fieldwork in a Police Force.

Yes / How to meaningfully partner with patients as data analysts remains obscure. A process evaluation of the ‘Improving the Safety and Continuity Of Medicines management at care Transitions’ (ISCOMAT) cluster randomised control trial of an intervention for improving medicines use for people living with heart failure is being conducted. The intervention includes patient held information on heart medicines and care, enhanced communication between hospital and community pharmacists, and increased engagement of community pharmacists with patient care post-hospital discharge. ISCOMAT patients living with heart failure were interviewed about experiences with the intervention. We sought to gain insights from patients on data collected to enhance our understanding of experiences with the intervention. To develop a method for involving patients as analysts of qualitative data in a process evaluation. Design: Patients and researchers co-analysed qualitative data. A framework method was applied involving; familiarisation, coding, developing an analytical framework and interpretation. The process was facilitated through home working and a workshop with a training component. Results: The co-designed framework enabled researchers to map all further patient interview data. Patients' specialist knowledge enhanced understanding of how the ISCOMAT intervention can be best implemented. Conclusions: Patients’ unique experiences can enhance validity and rigour in data analysis through sharing their interpretations of qualitative data. The involvement process is crucial in elucidating knowledge and avoiding tokenism. As analysts, patients gain an appreciation of research processes, building trust between researchers and patients. Group dynamics and involving patients throughout the whole research process are important considerations. / NIHR Grant RP-PG-0514-20009. NIHR Yorkshire and Humber Patient Safety Translational Research Centre.

Identical twins John and Edward Grimes (artist name "Jedward") have been active for six years and have a heterogeneous following of fans. This thesis aims to investigate how and in which situations fans think about Jedward as part of their everyday life. Each of the three informants, plus the author, kept diaries recording the above for the course of one week. The diaries were subsequently coded into the groups Traditional Fandom, Social Media, Music, Places, Family & Friends, Interests & Hobbies, Studies, Film & TV and Food & Drink respectively. Auto-ethnographic method was implemented and combined with work within the spheres of fandom and music. At a later date informants were asked if there are any products or causes that they associate with John and Edward; in lieu of comprehensive answers, the author compiled such a list. For the fours fans taking part, John and Edward are experienced as being close to them in many different situations during their day-to-day lives, in much the same way as a close friend or loved one. The conclusion is that through aiming to portray my own interpretation of fandom, it has been possible to see just how creative and imaginative fans are, an enlightening reflection contrary to those which in many cases have been none too positive.

Syftet med denna studie var att beskriva erfarenheter av socialt stöd bland mellanchefer i hälso- och sjukvården. Bakgrund Mellanchefer i hälso- och sjukvården har ett betydelsefullt och krävande uppdrag. Stöd i olika former kan reducera risken för ohälsa orsakad av stress i arbetet och organisationens stöd är viktigt. Genom att stärka mellancheferna erhålls en positiv effekt för både patienter och medarbetare. Metod Studien baserades på semi-strukturerade intervjuer med nio mellanchefer, vilka arbetade inom slutenvården vid två sjukhus i norra Sverige. Intervjuerna spelades in, skrevs ut ordagrant och analyserades med kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Resultat Analysen resulterade i tre huvudkategorier; Erfarenheter av fungerande stöd inom organisationen, erfarenheter av bristande stöd inom organisationen och andra faktorer av betydelse för erfarenheter av stöd. Sammanfattning De flesta mellanchefer hade goda erfarenheter av stöd i organisationen, men påtalade behovet av en tidig och mer strukturerad introduktion när de påbörjade sitt uppdrag. För att förebygga ohälsa föreslås förbättrad introduktion och tidiga utbildningsinsatser, förbättrad feedback från överordnad, samt utvecklat mentorskap. Implikationer Studiens resultat kan användas i syfte att sträva efter att bibehålla det stöd som fungerar och förbättra bristande stöd för mellanchefer i hälso- och sjukvården.

Published Article / This article reports the findings and results of the Masters study on the causes of poor performance of learners in English in primary schools in Leribe district. A literature study was conducted to explore and to identify the causes of poor performance of learners in English in the literature. The findings of the study were collected by means of in-depth individual interviews the manifestation of the causes of poor performance of learners in English was investigated from the participants. Based on interpretive theory employing qualitative research approach, data collected and analysed from the individual interviews were analysed as emerging and themes. The findings of the study repudiate the argument that existence of the Education policy inevitably leads to sound improvement of learners in English in primary schools and consequently quality education improved.

Published Article / Higher education institutions have a responsibility to produce successful graduates; therefore, teaching, of which assessment is an integral part, must promote quality learning. This paper reports on an evaluation of the quality of summative assessments. A qualitative research design was used and a document analysis strategy was followed. Examination papers, memoranda and applicable learner guides were the primary data sources. Results showed that the assessment instruments studied mostly complied with the principles for assessment and the NQF level descriptors. However, it was found that only 10% of the marks allocated in the papers were allotted for items requiring higher order cognitive activity, and only 50% were aligned with outcomes and criteria found in the learner guides. It is therefore concluded that an improvement in the quality of summative assessment instruments is required.