Redemption or contamination: reviewing the illness narratives of the chronically sick and their support systems

Chronically sick individuals deal with pain on a daily basis, which can lower their quality of life and make it more difficult. Illness narratives or “sickness stories” have been known to help people place illness in their lives. Support systems are a factor that could influence individuals’ illness narratives to lead them towards a redemption or contamination sequence. In this study, I interviewed twenty-five women with endometriosis and asked them questions regarding their health status, illness narratives, and support systems. The interviews were reviewed and categorized between redemptive and contamination sequences.The support systems influence on the sequence were also reviewed to determine how helpful they are at helping the sick cope. I argue that support systems are necessary for reaching a redemptive sequence and that the quality of support is more beneficial than the quantity. The individuals that did not utilize their support systems led to contamination sequences. In order for an individual to reach a redemption sequence, they must have at least one form of quality support and utilize the support to benefit from it

Efficient and Convergent Sequential Pseudo-Likelihood Estimation of Dynamic Discrete Games

We propose a new sequential Efficient Pseudo-Likelihood (k-EPL) estimator for dynamic discrete choice games of incomplete information. We show that each iteration in the k-EPL sequence is consistent and asymptotically efficient, so the first-order asymptotic properties do not vary across iterations. Furthermore, we show the sequence achieves higher-order equivalence to the finite-sample maximum likelihood estimator with iteration and that the sequence of estimators converges almost surely to the maximum likelihood estimator at a nearly-superlinear rate when the data are generated by any regular Markov perfect equilibrium, including equilibria that lead to inconsistency of other sequential estimators. When utility is linear in parameters, k-EPL iterations are computationally simple, only requiring that the researcher solve linear systems of equations to generate pseudo-regressors which are used in a static logit/probit regression. Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate the theoretical results and show k-EPL's good performance in finite samples in both small- and large-scale games, even when the game admits spurious equilibria in addition to one that generated the data

Preservation Methods Differ in Fecal Microbiome Stability, Affecting Suitability for Field Studies.

Immediate freezing at -20°C or below has been considered the gold standard for microbiome preservation, yet this approach is not feasible for many field studies, ranging from anthropology to wildlife conservation. Here we tested five methods for preserving human and dog fecal specimens for periods of up to 8 weeks, including such types of variation as freeze-thaw cycles and the high temperature fluctuations often encountered under field conditions. We found that three of the methods-95% ethanol, FTA cards, and the OMNIgene Gut kit-can preserve samples sufficiently well at ambient temperatures such that differences at 8 weeks are comparable to differences among technical replicates. However, even the worst methods, including those with no fixative, were able to reveal microbiome differences between species at 8 weeks and between individuals after a week, allowing meta-analyses of samples collected using various methods when the effect of interest is expected to be larger than interindividual variation (although use of a single method within a study is strongly recommended to reduce batch effects). Encouragingly for FTA cards, the differences caused by this method are systematic and can be detrended. As in other studies, we strongly caution against the use of 70% ethanol. The results, spanning 15 individuals and over 1,200 samples, provide our most comprehensive view to date of storage effects on stool and provide a paradigm for the future studies of other sample types that will be required to provide a global view of microbial diversity and its interaction among humans, animals, and the environment. IMPORTANCE Our study, spanning 15 individuals and over 1,200 samples, provides our most comprehensive view to date of storage and stabilization effects on stool. We tested five methods for preserving human and dog fecal specimens for periods of up to 8 weeks, including the types of variation often encountered under field conditions, such as freeze-thaw cycles and high temperature fluctuations. We show that several cost-effective methods provide excellent microbiome stability out to 8 weeks, opening up a range of field studies with humans and wildlife that would otherwise be cost-prohibitive

Effect of grain interactions on the frequency dependence of magnetic susceptibility

Accepted versio

Bostonia. Volume 3

Founded in 1900, Bostonia magazine is Boston University's main alumni publication, which covers alumni and student life, as well as university activities, events, and programs

A comparison of A-level performance in economics and business studies: how much more difficult is economics?

This paper uses ALIS data to compare academic performance in two subjects often viewed as relatively close substitutes for one another at A-level. The important role of GCSE achievement is confirmed for both subjects. There is evidence of strong gender effects and variation in outcomes across Examination Boards. A counterfactual exercise suggests that if the sample of Business Studies candidates had studied Economics nearly 40% of those who obtained a grade C or better in the former subject would not have done so in the latter. The opposite exercise uggests that 12% more Economics candidates would have achieved a grade C or better if they had taken Business Studies. In order to render a Business Studies A-level grade comparable to an Economics one in terms of relative difficulty, we estimate that a downward adjustment of 1.5 UCAS points should be applied to the former subject. This adjustment is lower than that suggested by correction factors based on conventional subject pair analysis for these two subjects