146 research outputs found
Management of hostility in adult males with migraine headache
Thesis (Ph.D)--Boston UniversityThe purpose of this study is to investigate the significance of
suppression of hostility as a personality attribute of individuals who
have a history of migraine headache. Suppression is defined as a psychic
process which functions as an adjustive mechanism in the management
of hostile impulses. For purposes of this study, it is inferred
from the inhibition of the overt, social expression of hostility and the
appearance o:f heightened physiological tension. The overt behavior
expressive of hostility is designated as aggression. Thus, the general.
purpose of this study is an investigation of the management of aggression
ih persons who are prone to migraine.
Migraine as a specific form of headache has been described as a
clinical entity for centuries. Although the disorder was recognized
early, its etiology remains in dispute. Causation has been variously
ascribed to humoral, gastric, neural, constitutional, hereditary, or
emotional factors. The role of emotional factors has received increasing
attention, particularly in relationship to personality features of
persons susceptible to migraine, and has led to a consideration of migraine
as a psychosomatic disorder. Exploratory psychoanalytic case
studies have suggested that a characteristic psychodynamic feature of
persons with migraine is the suppression of rage. Suppression is considered
to be significant in both the personality structure of such
persons and in the precipitation of a migraine attack. These formulations
find support in such sources as: (1) the clinical observations
of analysts, including the observation that a migraine attack may occur
and terminate during a single treatment session, when hostility or rage
is relieved by use of appropriate verbalizations; (2) studies dealing
with the characteristic personality features of migraine-prone individuals;
(3) observations of the events typically antecedent to an attack.[Truncated
Three essays in labor economics: fertility expectations and career choice, specialization and the marriage premium, and estimating risk aversion using labor supply data
Women, on average, are found in systematically different careers than men. The
reason for this phenomenon is not fully understood, in part because expectations play
a vital role in the process of career choice. Different religious groups have different
beliefs on the importance of child bearing, so fertility expectations should differ by
religious group. I include a woman's religious denomination in regressions on mea-
sures of occupational flexibility. Jehovah's Witnesses choose the most flexible careers
followed by Pentecostal, Catholic, Baptist, and Mainline Protestant women. Jewish
women generally choose the least flexible careers. This is consistent with the human
capital notion that women are choosing different careers than men rather than being
forced into different job paths.
If women are choosing jobs that allow them to take responsibility for home pro-
duction, how does this affect their husbands? Male wage regressions that include
marital status dummy variables find a marriage wage premium of 10 to 40%. This
premium may occur because wives are taking responsibility for home production and
husbands are free to focus their attention on productivity at work. It may also be
that factors unobserved to the researcher may make a man more productive and more
likely to marry. I use religious denomination as a proxy for specialization within the
home. Men in more traditional religious denominations enjoy a higher marriage wage
premium, which is evidence that household specialization of labor is an important cause of the wage premium.
The choice of a career, whether to marry, and most other important life decisions
are dependent on one's risk tolerance. The role of risk preferences in such choices is
not fully understood, largely because relative risk aversion (y) is hard to empirically
quantify. Chetty (2006) derives a formula for ° based on the link between utility and
labor supply decisions. I estimate y at the micro level using the 1996 Panel Study
of Income Dynamics. I compare y to an estimate based on hypothetical gambles
and find the measures substantially different. This supports Chetty's claim that ex-
pected utility theory cannot suffciently explain choices under uncertainty in different
domains
Future Foam
We study pocket universes which have zero cosmological constant and
non-trivial boundary topology. These arise from bubble collisions in eternal
inflation. Using a simplified dust model of collisions we find that boundaries
of any genus can occur. Using a radiation shell model we perform analytic
studies in the thin wall limit to show the existence of geometries with a
single toroidal boundary. We give plausibility arguments that higher genus
boundaries can also occur. In geometries with one boundary of any genus a
timelike observer can see the entire boundary. Geometries with multiple
disconnected boundaries can also occur. In the spherical case with two
boundaries the boundaries are separated by a horizon. Our results suggest that
the holographic dual description for eternal inflation, proposed by Freivogel,
Sekino, Susskind and Yeh, should include summation over the genus of the base
space of the dual conformal field theory. We point out peculiarities of this
genus expansion compared to the string perturbation series.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figure
Inflation, quantum fields, and CMB anisotropies
Inflationary cosmology has proved to be the most successful at predicting the
properties of the anisotropies observed in the cosmic microwave background
(CMB). In this essay we show that quantum field renormalization significantly
influences the generation of primordial perturbations and hence the expected
measurable imprint of cosmological inflation on the CMB. However, the new
predictions remain in agreement with observation, and in fact favor the
simplest forms of inflation. In the near future, observations of the influence
of gravitational waves from the early universe on the CMB will test our new
predictions.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure, Awarded with the fourth prize in the Gravity
Research Foundation 2009 Essay Competitio
Revising the observable consequences of slow-roll inflation
We study the generation of primordial perturbations in a (single-field)
slow-roll inflationary universe. In momentum space, these (Gaussian)
perturbations are characterized by a zero mean and a non-zero variance
. However, in position space the variance diverges in the
ultraviolet. The requirement of a finite variance in position space forces one
to regularize . This can (and should) be achieved by proper
renormalization in an expanding universe in a unique way. This affects the
predicted scalar and tensorial power spectra (evaluated when the modes acquire
classical properties) for wavelengths that today are at observable scales. As a
consequence, the imprint of slow-roll inflation on the CMB anisotropies is
significantly altered. We find a non-trivial change in the consistency
condition that relates the tensor-to-scalar ratio to the spectral indices.
For instance, an exact scale-invariant tensorial power spectrum, , is
now compatible with a non-zero ratio , which is forbidden
by the standard prediction (). The influence of relic gravitational
waves on the CMB may soon come within the range of planned measurements,
offering a non-trivial test of the new predictions.Comment: 24 page
Revising the predictions of inflation for the cosmic microwave background anisotropies
We point out that if quantum field renormalization is taken into account, and
the counterterms are evaluated at the Hubble-radius crossing time or few
e-foldings after it, the predictions of slow-roll inflation for both the scalar
and tensorial power spectrum change significantly. This leads to a change in
the consistency condition that relates the tensor-to-scalar amplitude ratio
with spectral indices. A reexamination of the potentials ,
shows that both are compatible with five-year WMAP data. Only when the
counterterms are evaluated at much larger times beyond the end of inflation one
recovers the standard predictions. The alternative predictions presented here
may soon come within the range of measurement of near-future experiments.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure. Expanded version. To appear in Phys. Rev. Let
Stimulated creation of quanta during inflation and the observable universe
Inflation provides a natural mechanism to account for the origin of cosmic
structures. The generation of primordial inhomogeneities during inflation can
be understood via the spontaneous creation of quanta from the vacuum. We show
that when the corresponding {\it stimulated} creation of quanta is considered,
the characteristics of the state of the universe at the onset of inflation are
not diluted by the inflationary expansion and can be imprinted in the spectrum
of primordial inhomogeneities. The non-gaussianities (particularly in the
so-called squeezed configuration) in the cosmic microwave background and galaxy
distribution can then tell us about the state of the universe that existed at
the time when quantum field theory in curved spacetime first emerged as a
plausible effective theory.Comment: Awarded with the First Prize in the Gravity Research Foundation Essay
Competition 201
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