A representative sampling plan for auditing health insurance claims

A stratified sampling plan to audit health insurance claims is offered. The stratification is by dollar amount of the claim. The plan is representative in the sense that with high probability for each stratum, the difference in the average dollar amount of the claim in the sample and the average dollar amount in the population, is ``small.'' Several notions of ``small'' are presented. The plan then yields a relatively small total sample size with the property that the overall average dollar amount in the sample is close to the average dollar amount in the population. Three different estimators and corresponding lower confidence bounds for over (under) payments are studied.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/074921707000000094 in the IMS Lecture Notes Monograph Series (http://www.imstat.org/publications/lecnotes.htm) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Emerging Challenges and Opportunities in Infectious Disease Epidemiology.

Much of the intellectual tradition of modern epidemiology stems from efforts to understand and combat chronic diseases persisting through the 20th century epidemiologic transition of countries such as the United States and United Kingdom. After decades of relative obscurity, infectious disease epidemiology has undergone an intellectual rebirth in recent years amid increasing recognition of the threat posed by both new and familiar pathogens. Here, we review the emerging coalescence of infectious disease epidemiology around a core set of study designs and statistical methods bearing little resemblance to the chronic disease epidemiology toolkit. We offer our outlook on challenges and opportunities facing the field, including the integration of novel molecular and digital information sources into disease surveillance, the assimilation of such data into models of pathogen spread, and the increasing contribution of models to public health practice. We next consider emerging paradigms in causal inference for infectious diseases, ranging from approaches to evaluating vaccines and antimicrobial therapies to the task of ascribing clinical syndromes to etiologic microorganisms, an age-old problem transformed by our increasing ability to characterize human-associated microbiota. These areas represent an increasingly important component of epidemiology training programs for future generations of researchers and practitioners

Objective study of the Newton Trade school

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University, 1939. This item was digitized by the Internet Archive

Heidegger\u27s Phenomenology: 1919-1929

In this work, I show Martin Heidegger’s development of the phenomenological method from 1919 to 1929 as his main approach to all philosophical inquiry. In Chapter 1: Phenomenology as the Hermeneutics of Factical Life, I first show how Heidegger begins his philosophical career in 1919 with lectures that describe phenomenology as an ‘original science’ that seeks to study the structural character of life in itself. Through the four sub-sections of Chapter 1, I show how Heidegger continues to formulate distinct stages of phenomenological methodology through these early lectures that aid in his task to continue the explication of life through the specific character of facticity. In this manner, the phenomenological method appears in these early lectures of the 1920’s to progress from the original science of life in itself to what Heidegger calls the hermeneutics of facticity – a critical method of interpretation aimed at exposing the structures of facticity as the being of life and the being of human Dasein. Here, I likewise show how Heidegger’s understanding of phenomenology changes through these lectures, providing radically new shifts and insights to his approach to philosophy that uncover the ontological task of phenomenology. Following these lectures, I then show in what sense Heidegger’s understanding of phenomenology becomes properly thematized in its ontological import in Chapter 2: Phenomenology as the Method of Ontology. Here, I begin with the 1927 publication of Heidegger’s masterwork Sein und Zeit where the question of the meaning of being and the being of Dasein become critical matters of phenomenological investigation. It is here that I show in what sense Sein und Zeit marks a new stage in Heidegger’s phenomenological thinking as developed through his previous lectures. In this manner, through the four sub-sections of Chapter 2, I likewise show how Heidegger proceeds from the analysis of the being of Dasein to the problematization of a purely ontological thinking of being itself through various lectures following Sein und Zeit. Here, through a radicalization of metaphysics as the study ‘beyond beings,’ Heidegger provides a new understanding of phenomenology as the path to the thinking of being in its pure possibility

New England in the fifties

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston Universit

The judgement of God in the person, work and teachings of Jesus: a critical and exegetical study in the synoptic gospels

The topic to which I shall address myself in the forthcoming pages is "The Judgment of God in the Person, Work and Teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics: A Critical and Exegetical Study." This is a vast subject, and lest we lose ourselves in its vastness, it would be well as we begin to delineate the nature of our study, to examine our motives and outline the principles by which we shall be governed.1) This is first of all a study of the judgment of God. Everything that is said will be oriented frankly and deliberately to this great theme. I make no apology for thus limiting my study. It is my conviction that the full understanding of this subject is the greatest single need in the field of modern theology. In the theology of the modern world, especially of America, there is a prevailing tendency to overstress the love of God and to ignore His wrath and the other darker aspects of His nature. In the words of Bishop Temple, "this seems to involve a conception of God as so genially tolerant as to be morally indifferent, and converts the belief in immortality from a moral stiumlant to a moral narcotic." That we have is only half a God, a God stripped of that half of His nature against which His love strikes fire. This is certainly not the God whom I find revealed in scripture. I feel, with Bishop Temple, that there is a great need to completely rethink this subject of the nature of God. With only half a God, there can be only half a Gospel, and with only half a Gospel there can be only partial salvation, which is no salvation at all. The lukewarm theology of partial salvation is the curse of the modern generation. As a remedy for this I have undertaken this study of the judgment of God. I am convinced that here, in the judgment of God, is the very centrality and fulness of the nature of God. Here is the very essence of the Holy Spirit. Here is the very heart of the Incarnation. Here is the very life of a vital theology.2) Secondly, this is a study of the person, work and teaching of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels. I shall make much use of the Old Testament, of extra-Testamental literature and of the various books of the New Testament, but my emphasis will be fully and frankly on the Synoptics. I do so because it is my conviction that Jesus Christ has given the fullest and most authoritative revelation of the nature of God, and it is in the Synoptics that we find the most accurate and detailed account of this revelation.I shall concentrate on the Synoptics for another important reason. I do so because the Synoptics have fallen into great disuse as a source of Christian theology. All too much of modern Christian theology is written from an historic standpoint, After a brief nod is given to the New Testament evidence, the theologian outlines the development of the doctrine through the ages, and often makes no attempt to distinguish between the teaching of Jesus and that of later New Testament writers and theologians. I fully recognìze the value of the historic approach, but I am concerned with the danger of confusing the history of Christian theology with Christian theology itself. Too often historical studies are the history of error, and the more the theologian piles the history of one error on top of another, the more he tends to perpetuate the error. The tendency for the historical theologian is to read into the Synoptics the beliefs of earlier thinkers, or to read back into the mind of Jesus beliefs of later thinkers found in the historical study. The tendency for the reader of historical theology is to become an eclectic and make up his own doctrine out of a combination of what he feels are the best elements of all the various approaches to Christian truth. Thus error is given a semblance of truth, and so perpetuated., The one great corrective of such tendencies is to go to the primary source of Christian theology, the life and words of Jesus Christ.Another unfortunate trend, illustrative of the point I have been making, is the tendency of the modern theologian. to derive his theology entirely or primarily from the writings of the Apostle Paul. A brief glance at the scriptural indexes of some of the greatest and most recent works on theology will indicate the correctness of this observations If there be any truth in the idea that Christianity is the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, then certainly even the Apostle Paul is a secondary source. Out of my study of the Synoptics, there has grown the conviction that one of the reasons for this modern neglect of the Synoptics is the belief, expressed or unexpressed, that the Synoptics are not a scholastically sound basis for any theology. Much of this feeling comes as the result of a generation of Synoptic skepticism, led by the German school Form-Criticsm. Out of my study has also come the conviction that such skepticism is unfounded on clear, honest scholastic grounds. It will therefore be one of the major burdens of this dissertation to demonstrate that a Synoptic theology is critically tenable, and logically inescapable.3) In the third place, this is a critical and exegetical study. My method will be that of the critical exegete. I use this method because it is my conviction that critical scholarship is here to stay. Any scholar who attempts to exegete the Synoptic Gospels without taking into account the discoveries in the fields of textual, source, historic, literary end form criticism is living in a fool's paradise and doing an injustice to the very scripture he claims to revere. In operating upon the word of God, he is deliberately choosing blunt, time-worn tools instead of the keen, sharp tools, the latest methods, which God has placed in his hands. only result can be less than the best.I shall take full cognizance of the successes and failures of the Farm-Critical movement. There is no other movement in modern history that has wielded a greater influence, for good or ill, upon Synoptic exegesis in particular and Christian theology in general. It is my conviction that this movement has spent its force and that the forces of exegetical common sense are bringing us back to a recognition of the authenticity of the Synoptic material. It is also my conviction that this "Form-Critical revolution" has taught us that never again dare we allow the exegetical obscurantism of the "literal word" to dominate the field of Synoptic scholarship. The last generation of extreme critical scholars tore the Synoptics apart. It is the task of this generation to put them together again, but along the new, resiliently strong lines of positive critical scholarship.4) In the fourth and final place, this will be an exhaustive study. It will be long and technical. I do this deliberately for two reasons. I do so because so many of my exegetical positions are new, or at least not adequately developed by competent scholars, that I feel I must Prove my case every step of the way. I do so also as a protest against a generation of exegetical"short-cutting", of exegetical "declamation" that has substituted assertion for evidence, assumption for proof, and has produced a Synoptic chaos that is an affront to the modern Christian intelligence. If the Gospel of Jesus Christ, rather than the opinions of countless scholars, is to survive, then it is the duty of the Christian scholar to base his Synoptic exegesis upon factual evidence, logically and fully demonstrated

Self-esteem and stability of the self-concept in personality adjustment

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [157]-169).It was the purpose of this study to test hypotheses concerning the relationship of the variables of self-esteem and stability of the self-concept to the relative level of personality adjustment, as well as to see how interactions of these variables in combination were related to adjustment. The study stemmed from an investigation by Brownfain which attempted to validate the stability of the self-concept as a predictor of personality adjustment . The variable of self-esteem was mentioned but not controlled in his study. The present study used a self-rating inventory devised by Brownfain in order to measure these independent variables, but examined them in relation to different adjustment criteria