Life story and narrative approaches in the study of family lives

The chapter examines life story and narrative approaches and their application in the study of family lives. It begins with a brief history of some key figures in biographical research followed by an examination of some of the distinctions between the two approaches. The second part of the chapter presents and discusses a case of a grandfather and son drawn from an intergenerational study of fatherhood. The study’s method (the biographic-narrative interpretive method) demonstrates change and continuity in family life by situating lives in historical context and examining the cultural transmissions that are accepted and resisted by the younger generation. The chapter discusses the benefits of paying attention to the narrative form of life stories. In these ways biographical and narrative approaches produce a multi-layered analysis

Uniformity in association schemes and coherent configurations: cometric Q-antipodal schemes and linked systems

Inspired by some intriguing examples, we study uniform association schemes and uniform coherent configurations, including cometric Q-antipodal association schemes. After a review of imprimitivity, we show that an imprimitive association scheme is uniform if and only if it is dismantlable, and we cast these schemes in the broader context of certain --- uniform --- coherent configurations. We also give a third characterization of uniform schemes in terms of the Krein parameters, and derive information on the primitive idempotents of such a scheme. In the second half of the paper, we apply these results to cometric association schemes. We show that each such scheme is uniform if and only if it is Q-antipodal, and derive results on the parameters of the subschemes and dismantled schemes of cometric Q-antipodal schemes. We revisit the correspondence between uniform indecomposable three-class schemes and linked systems of symmetric designs, and show that these are cometric Q-antipodal. We obtain a characterization of cometric Q-antipodal four-class schemes in terms of only a few parameters, and show that any strongly regular graph with a ("non-exceptional") strongly regular decomposition gives rise to such a scheme. Hemisystems in generalized quadrangles provide interesting examples of such decompositions. We finish with a short discussion of five-class schemes as well as a list of all feasible parameter sets for cometric Q-antipodal four-class schemes with at most six fibres and fibre size at most 2000, and describe the known examples. Most of these examples are related to groups, codes, and geometries.Comment: 42 pages, 1 figure, 1 table. Published version, minor revisions, April 201

The construction of identities in narratives about serious leisure occupations

Engagement in occupation contributes to the shaping of identity throughout the human life. The act of telling about such engagement involves interaction based on symbolic meaning; the speaker constructing an identity by conveying how the occupation is personally meaningful. This study explored meaning in narratives told by people who engage in serious leisure occupations. A total of 78 narratives were extracted from interviews with 17 people who invest considerable time and other resources into their leisure. Analysis focused on the content, structure and performance of each narrative in order to explore meaning. The meanings were organised into a framework based around three dimensions: the located self, the active self and the changing self. Each dimension has facets that the individual might emphasise, constructing a unique identity. The framework offers a structured basis for conceptualising how occupation contributes to the shaping of the internalised self and the socially situated identity

A Combined Patch-Clamp and Electrorotation Study of the Voltage- and Frequency-Dependent Membrane Capacitance Caused by Structurally Dissimilar Lipophilic Anions

Interactions of structurally dissimilar anionic compounds with the plasma membrane of HEK293 cells were analyzed by patch clamp and electrorotation. The combined approach provides complementary information on the lipophilicity, preferential affinity of the anions to the inner/outer membrane leaflet, adsorption depth and transmembrane mobility. The anionic species studied here included the well-known lipophilic anions dipicrylamine (DPA−), tetraphenylborate (TPB−) and [W2(CO)10(S2CH)]−, the putative lipophilic anion \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\text{B}}{\left( {{\text{CF}}_{3} } \right)}^{ - }_{4}$$\end{document} and three new heterocyclic W(CO)5 derivatives. All tested anions partitioned strongly into the cell membrane, as indicated by the capacitance increase in patch-clamped cells. The capacitance increment exhibited a bell-shaped dependence on membrane voltage. The midpoint potentials of the maximum capacitance increment were negative, indicating the exclusion of lipophilic anions from the outer membrane leaflet. The adsorption depth of the large organic anions DPA−, TPB− and \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\text{B}}{\left( {{\text{CF}}_{3} } \right)}^{ - }_{4}$$\end{document} increased and that of W(CO)5 derivatives decreased with increasing concentration of mobile charges. In agreement with the patch-clamp data, electrorotation of cells treated with DPA− and W(CO)5 derivatives revealed a large dispersion of membrane capacitance in the kilohertz to megahertz range due to the translocation of mobile charges. In contrast, in the presence of TPB− and \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\text{B}}{\left( {{\text{CF}}_{3} } \right)}^{ - }_{4}$$\end{document} no mobile charges could be detected by electrorotation, despite their strong membrane adsorption. Our data suggest that the presence of oxygen atoms in the outer molecular shell is an important factor for the fast translocation ability of lipophilic anions

Maxwell's theory on a post-Riemannian spacetime and the equivalence principle

The form of Maxwell's theory is well known in the framework of general relativity, a fact that is related to the applicability of the principle of equivalence to electromagnetic phenomena. We pose the question whether this form changes if torsion and/or nonmetricity fields are allowed for in spacetime. Starting from the conservation laws of electric charge and magnetic flux, we recognize that the Maxwell equations themselves remain the same, but the constitutive law must depend on the metric and, additionally, may depend on quantities related to torsion and/or nonmetricity. We illustrate our results by putting an electric charge on top of a spherically symmetric exact solution of the metric-affine gauge theory of gravity (comprising torsion and nonmetricity). All this is compared to the recent results of Vandyck.Comment: 9 pages, REVTeX, no figures; minor changes, version to be published in Class. Quantum Gra

Cutting Ties with Pro-Ana: A Narrative Inquiry Concerning the Experiences of Pro-Ana Disengagement from Six Former Site Users.

Websites advocating the benefits of eating disorders (“Pro-Ana”) tend to reinforce and maintain restrictive eating and purging behaviors. Yet remarkably, no study has explored individual accounts of disengagement from these sites and the associated meanings. Using narrative inquiry, this study sought to address this gap. From the interviews of six women, two overarching storylines emerged. The first closely tied disengagement to recovery with varying positions of personal agency claimed: this ranged from enforced and unwelcomed breaks that ignited change, to a personal choice that became viable through the development of alternative social and personal identities. A strong counternarrative to “disengagement as recovery” also emerged. Here, disengagement from Pro-Ana was storied alongside a need to retain an ED lifestyle. With “recovery” being just one reason for withdrawal from Pro-Ana sites, clinicians must remain curious about the meanings individuals ascribe to this act, without assuming it represents a step toward recovery.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio