Contributions of Object Oriented Software Design Towards Limiting the Problems Caused by a Lack of Software Engineering

The Radio Science Validation and Processing (RSVP) software suite was created to replace an outdated and disorganized set of legacy software. The development process applied no formal software engineering methods, but the initial phase did employ a rudimentary objectoriented approach. The modules developed during this initial phase were later recognized to be the most stable and easily maintained portion of the resulting software suite. This paper discusses some of the problems frequently caused by a lack of software engineering, and examines how an object-oriented foundation mitigated the effects of these problems on the overall quality of the RSVP project

Information Sources in Relation to Information Quality, Information-seeking, and Uncertainty in the Context of Healthcare Reform

This exploratory study examines information-seeking about the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (i.e. healthcare reform) in relation to the potential barriers of uncertainty,uncertainty discrepancy, and low health self-efficacy. Adult United States participants completed an anonymous online survey about their perceptions and understanding of healthcare reform. Results confirmed recent literature, suggesting a complex relationship between information-seeking and uncertainty. Specifically, for this sample, significant positive relationships were observed between information-seeking about healthcare reform and uncertainty, uncertainty discrepancy, health self-efficacy. Further, uncertainty discrepancy was the potential barrier that accounted for the most variance in predicting information-seeking.Implications of these findings for improving public understanding of healthcare reform are discussed.https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/communication_books/1011/thumbnail.jp

“Some Days Are Much Holier Than Others”: Relational Uncertainty and Partner Influence in Christian Dating Couples\u27 Sexual Intimacy Negotiation

When intrafaith couples\u27 religion strictly prohibits premarital sexual intercourse, negotiating sexual intimacy can become a multilayered process of identity negotiation that compounds the difficulty of sexual communication. Through the lens of relational turbulence theory, this study explored how devout Christian couples negotiate sexual intimacy by reanalyzing qualitative interview data the first author collected in 2017 from 16 self-identified Christians (8 heterosexual couples). Seven themes revealed how relational uncertainty, partner interference, and partner facilitation manifested in the context of sexual intimacy negotiation. Themes of relational uncertainty experience and prevention included assumption of shared values, relationship talk, and sexual behaviors as an uncertainty catalyst. Partner facilitation and interference emerged as themes of sexual escalation and de-escalation including snowball effect, pinpointing underlying motivations for boundary violations, gatekeeping sexual temptation, and drawing from shared values of sacrifice and prayer. These interpretive findings advance the literature on relational turbulence theory and provide Christian dating couples with practical advice for how to negotiate sexual intimacy in committed premarital relationships

Introduction to the Special Issue: Relationships in the Time of COVID-19

This introduction describes the background for the special issue entitled “Relationships in the Time of COVID-19: Examining the Effects of the Global Pandemic on Personal Relationships.” It also examines reasons for conducting interdisciplinary research on COVID-19 and personal relationships, and previews first articles published in the special issue

Romantic Partner Interference and Psychological Reactance in the Context of Caregiving for an Aging Family Member

Negotiating romantic relational dynamics is inherent to family caregiving situations, which continue to be on the rise in the United States. However, despite evidence that family caregiving duties are linked to a variety of negative relational outcomes, limited research examines communication processes that contribute to or alleviate the burden of caregiver duties on romantic relationships. Guided by psychological reactance theory (PRT), this study examined the link between romantic partner interference with family caregiving duties and the reactance process, as well as directness of communication about irritation as a type of freedom restoration behavior associated with reactance. Adults caring for aging family members recruited from MTurk (N = 187) completed an online survey as part of a larger study of romantic partner communication surrounding family caregiving. Results using PROCESS serial mediation indicated that greater partner interference was related to heightened perceptions of freedom threat, which was positively associated with the experience of reactance, which in turn was associated with communication about irritation. However, the association between reactance and directness of communication about irritation was negative, the opposite direction of what was hypothesized. Implications for PRT and interventions with caregivers and their romantic partners are discussed

Collective Re-Excavation and Lost Media from the Last Century of British Prehistoric Studies

There are thousands of forgotten archaeological archives hidden away in repositories all over the world, lost worlds where many scholars have toiled away for years, trying to record every detail and bit of information available about rare and precious archaeological objects in an attempt to bring order and understanding to an almost incomprehensible past. This paper discusses how these archives can be approached through Huhtamo's definition of media archaeology as a 'historically-attuned enterprise' that involves 'excavating forgotten media-cultural phenomena', focusing on the MicroPasts digitization project. It is shown that greater utilization of digital media simply changes and extends the terms of engagement, accessibility, and flow of information from antiquated archaeological archives to the community and back again

How does airway surface liquid composition vary in different pulmonary diseases, and how can we use this knowledge to model microbial infections?

Growth environment greatly alters many facets of pathogen physiology, including pathogenesis and antimicrobial tolerance. The importance of host-mimicking environments for attaining an accurate picture of pathogen behaviour is widely recognised. Whilst this recognition has translated into the extensive development of artificial cystic fibrosis (CF) sputum medium, attempts to mimic the growth environment in other respiratory disease states have been completely neglected. The composition of the airway surface liquid (ASL) in different pulmonary diseases is far less well characterised than CF sputum, making it very difficult for researchers to model these infection environments. In this review, we discuss the components of human ASL, how different lung pathologies affect ASL composition, and how different pathogens interact with these components. This will provide researchers interested in mimicking different respiratory environments with the information necessary to design a host-mimicking medium, allowing for better understanding of how to treat pathogens causing infection in these environments

Disclosures about important life events on Facebook: Relationship with stress and quality of life

a b s t r a c t The current study examined the relationship between general perceived levels of stress, quality of life, social networking usage, and disclosing important life events on Facebook in order to better understand the complex relationship between online disclosure and individual well-being. An online survey was completed by adult Facebook users aged 18-70. Results indicate that the more time spent on and the more social network memberships, the higher stress and lower quality of life; Facebook-specific usage was unrelated to either well-being variable. Together, these findings suggest that the current increase in social media variety and usage may be detrimental to user well-being. Users who shared important, bad health news on Facebook had higher stress and lower quality of life than those who did not, with no significant differences for sharing good health news. The more that users did not share important news on Facebook for self-protection and friend unresponsiveness reasons, the greater their stress. The self-protection reason was also negatively related to quality of life. These inconsistent findings can likely be partially explained by the nature of the information that is shared. These findings are discussed in light of disclosure and relationship patterns on social networks

Crowd-sourced Archaeological Research: The MicroPasts Project

This paper offers a brief introduction to MicroPasts, a web-enabled crowd-sourcing and crowd-funding project whose overall goal is to promote the collection and use of high quality research data via institutional and community collaborations, both on- and off-line. In addition to introducing this initiative, the discussion below is a reflection of its lead author’s core contribution to the project and will dwell in more detail on one particular aspect of MicroPasts: its relevance to research and practice in public archaeology, cultural policy and heritage studies

Citizen Archaeologists. Online Collaborative Research about the Human Past

Archaeology has a long tradition of volunteer involvement but also faces considerable challenges in protecting and understanding a geographically widespread, rapidly dwindling and ever threatened cultural resource. This paper considers a newly launched, multi-application crowdsourcing project called MicroPasts that enables both community-led and massive online contributions to high quality research in archaeology, history and heritage. We reflect on preliminary results from this initiative with a focus on the technical challenges, quality control issues and contributors motivations