Diagnostic Categories in Autobiographical Accounts of Illness.

Working within frameworks drawn from the writings of Immanuel Kant, Alfred Schutz, and Kenneth Burke, this article examines the role that diagnostic categories play in autobiographical accounts of illness, with a special focus on chronic disease. Four lay diagnostic categories, each with different connections to formal medical diagnostic categories, serve as typifications to make sense of the way the lifeworld changes over the course of chronic illness. These diagnostic categories are used in conjunction with another set of typifications: lay epidemiologies, lay etiologies, lay prognostics, and lay therapeutics. Together these serve to construct and reconstruct the self at the center of the lifeworld. Embedded within the lay diagnostic categories are narratives of progression, regression, or stability, forms of typification derived from literary and storytelling genres. These narratives are developed by the self in autobiographical accounts of illness.This is the final version of the article. It was first available from John Hopkins University Press via http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/pbm.2015.000

Conflict Style is not a Label: The Relationship of Age, Education Level, Work Level, Reason for Assessment, and Time Between Assessments to Conflict Style Change

Organizations and research that are only measuring conflict style one time, are treating conflict style as a trait or label. However, conflict style can change over time, and with context. Even the circumstances around the conflict itself may impact how individuals handle conflict. This means that individuals may demonstrate different conflict styles in different circumstances. There is little research that explores the implications of individual conflict style change if measured at different times and in different circumstances. Nor is there much research that explores what factors may have an influence on conflict style change. This study explores whether conflict style significantly changes for individuals who completed the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict MODE Instrument (TKI) assessment two times. The research examined data from 11,821 participants and found a statistically significant relationship between conflict style change and age of participants, the highest level of participant education, and the duration of time between taking the first and second assessment. The results of this study suggested that it may be more appropriate to assess conflict style multiple times if conflict style metrics are contributing to research outcomes or organization training determination and planning. Because conflict style can change for individuals, it may be inappropriate to consider conflict style a trait, or use it as a label. Instead, conflict style may be better suited for the evaluation of organizational conflict learning objectives, and situationally specific individual conflict style state observation

Digital Technologies and Disease Prevention.

This is the accepted manuscript. It is currently embargoed pending publication

Understanding Paranoia: Toward A Social Explanation

In this paper we seek to offer an essentially sociological explanation of paranoia by way of a detailed examination of the case of an unmarried, ex-school-teacher who for the past 30 years has clung stubbornly to the belief that she is the victim of an ill-defined group of conspirators with the power to control her thoughts and actions. Taking as our starting point Lemert\u27s seminal 1962 paper, we argue that paranoia is best understood, not as a disease in the accepted medical sense, but rather as a desperate attempt on the part of the sufferer to protect self from the consequences of a public identity at odds with self-image, and that its origins are to be sought in a combination of frustrated ambition, persistent failure and emotional isolatio

OrthoFiller: utilising data from multiple species to improve the completeness of genome annotations.

Background Complete and accurate annotation of sequenced genomes is of paramount importance to their utility and analysis. Differences in gene prediction pipelines mean that genome annotations for a species can differ considerably in the quality and quantity of their predicted genes. Furthermore, genes that are present in genome sequences sometimes fail to be detected by computational gene prediction methods. Erroneously unannotated genes can lead to oversights and inaccurate assertions in biological investigations, especially for smaller-scale genome projects, which rely heavily on computational prediction. Results Here we present OrthoFiller, a tool designed to address the problem of finding and adding such missing genes to genome annotations. OrthoFiller leverages information from multiple related species to identify those genes whose existence can be verified through comparison with known gene families, but which have not been predicted. By simulating missing gene annotations in real sequence datasets from both plants and fungi we demonstrate the accuracy and utility of OrthoFiller for finding missing genes and improving genome annotations. Furthermore, we show that applying OrthoFiller to existing “complete” genome annotations can identify and correct substantial numbers of erroneously missing genes in these two sets of species. Conclusions We show that significant improvements in the completeness of genome annotations can be made by leveraging information from multiple species

Why is changing health-related behaviour so difficult?

OBJECTIVE: To demonstrate that six common errors made in attempts to change behaviour have prevented the implementation of the scientific evidence base derived from psychology and sociology; to suggest a new approach which incorporates recent developments in the behavioural sciences. STUDY DESIGN: The role of health behaviours in the origin of the current epidemic of non-communicable disease is observed to have driven attempts to change behaviour. It is noted that most efforts to change health behaviours have had limited success. This paper suggests that in policy-making, discussions about behaviour change are subject to six common errors and that these errors have made the business of health-related behaviour change much more difficult than it needs to be. METHODS: Overview of policy and practice attempts to change health-related behaviour. RESULTS: The reasons why knowledge and learning about behaviour have made so little progress in alcohol, dietary and physical inactivity-related disease prevention are considered, and an alternative way of thinking about the behaviours involved is suggested. This model harnesses recent developments in the behavioural sciences. CONCLUSION: It is important to understand the conditions preceding behaviour psychologically and sociologically and to combine psychological ideas about the automatic and reflective systems with sociological ideas about social practice.This is the author accepted manuscript. It is currently under an indefinite embargo pending publication by Elsevier

The modest professor:Interpretive charity and interpretive humility in John Rawls's lectures on the history of political philosophy

Governmen

The judgement process in evidence-based medicine and health technology assessment.

This article describes the judgements used to interpret evidence in evidence-based medicine (EBM) and health technology assessment (HTA). It outlines the methods and processes of EBM and HTA. Respectively, EBM and HTA are approaches to medical clinical decision making and efficient allocation of scarce health resources. At the heart of both is a concern to review and synthesise evidence, especially evidence derived from randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of clinical effectiveness. The driver of the approach of both is a desire to eliminate, or at least reduce, bias. The hierarchy of evidence, which is used as an indicator of the likelihood of bias, features heavily in the process and methods of EBM and HTA. The epistemological underpinnings of EBM and HTA are explored with particular reference to the distinction between rationalism and empiricism, developed by the philosopher David Hume and elaborated by Immanuel Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason. The importance of Humian and Kantian principles for understanding the projects of EBM and HTA is considered and the ways in which decisions are made in both, within a judgemental framework originally outlined by Kant, are explored