Optimism and Physical Health: A Meta-analytic Review

Background—Prior research links optimism to physical health, but the strength of the association has not been systematically evaluated. Purpose—The purpose of this study is to conduct a meta-analytic review to determine the strength of the association between optimism and physical health. Methods—The findings from 83 studies, with 108 effect sizes (ESs), were included in the analyses, using random-effects models. Results—Overall, the mean ES characterizing the relationship between optimism and physical health outcomes was 0.17, p<.001. ESs were larger for studies using subjective (versus objective) measures of physical health. Subsidiary analyses were also conducted grouping studies into those that focused solely on mortality, survival, cardiovascular outcomes, physiological markers (including immune function), immune function only, cancer outcomes, outcomes related to pregnancy, physical symptoms, or pain. In each case, optimism was a significant predictor of health outcomes or markers, all p<.001. Conclusions—Optimism is a significant predictor of positive physical health outcomes

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

The Science Performance of JWST as Characterized in Commissioning

This paper characterizes the actual science performance of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), as determined from the six month commissioning period. We summarize the performance of the spacecraft, telescope, science instruments, and ground system, with an emphasis on differences from pre-launch expectations. Commissioning has made clear that JWST is fully capable of achieving the discoveries for which it was built. Moreover, almost across the board, the science performance of JWST is better than expected; in most cases, JWST will go deeper faster than expected. The telescope and instrument suite have demonstrated the sensitivity, stability, image quality, and spectral range that are necessary to transform our understanding of the cosmos through observations spanning from near-earth asteroids to the most distant galaxies.Comment: 5th version as accepted to PASP; 31 pages, 18 figures; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1538-3873/acb29

On Becoming a Bayesian: Early Correspondences between J Cornfield and LJ Savage

<p>Jerome Cornfield was arguably the leading proponent for the use of Bayesian methods in biostatistics during the 1960s. Prior to 1963, however, Cornfield had no publications in the area of Bayesian statistics. At a time when frequentist methods were the dominant influence on statistical practice, Cornfield went against the mainstream and embraced Bayes. The goal of this paper is (i) to explore how and why this transformation came about and (ii) to provide some sense as to who Cornfield was and the context in which he worked.</p

Two Talks by Samuel W. Greenhouse

The following two papers are written versions of talks given by my father, Samuel W. Greenhouse. The first paper in the series, entitled On Psychiatry, Epidemiology, and Statistics: A View from the 1950's and 60's, was presented in 1999 at the Harvard School of Public Health. The second paper, The Growth and Future of Biostatistics (A View from the 1980's) was the 1982 invited ENAR Presidential address delivered in San Antonio. It is an honor and a privilege to be able to include them as part of this special issue of Statistics in Medicine dedicated to him. Although these talks were not part of the NIH symposium on ``Perspectives on the Biostatistical Sciences: A Symposium in Memory of Samuel W. Greenhouse'' (June 11, 2001) it seems fitting that in the first NIH biostatistics symposium in which my father did not participate, he is still able to contribute to the proceedings. In the introduction that follows, I provide some background and context for these talks.</p

Commentary: Cornfield, Epidemiology and Causality

Throughout the 1950s, attacks on the accumulating evidence for a causal link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer frequently centred on the role of con-founding variables that might explain the apparent association between the putative agent, cigarette smoke, and lung cancer. Because of the lack of con-trol for omitted variables, there was a strong belief by many in the scientific community that evidence from observational studies was of less value than evidence generated by experiments. In two classic, but now mostly forgotten papers, Jerome Cornfield1,2 responded to these attacks ‘by providing a concise, explicit and lucid philosophic basis for the validity of information obtained from non-experimental studies’.3 Cornfield wrote