A space for mothers: grief as identity construction on memorial websites created by SIDS parents

In this article we conduct a textual analysis of memorial websites created by mothers who have experienced a loss due to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Using an online Internet ethnographic approach, we reviewed a series of 20 sites in an attempt to analyze the motivations of the site creators as manifested in their online projects. We spent time on the sites, moving through all facets of them, following links, and experiencing them the way a visitor would encounter them. In this virtual exploration we uncovered personal narratives, community building, religious imagery, and numerous examples of social networking. We also analyzed guest books in order to understand who visits these sites and their reasons for doing so. We conclude that development of these sites are a process that helps some mothers in their grief and gives them a focus and activity that is helpful and perhaps healing. More importantly perhaps is the potential for community building and networking that this type of activity allows. As an extension of a real-world memorial such as a gravesite, a virtual mourning space provides more in the way of these types of communications. Our work suggests that memorial websites constructed by SIDS parents help in meaning and identity reconstruction after loss.     

DYNAMIC COMMON AGENCY AND INVESTMENT: THE ECONOMICS OF MOVIE DISTRIBUTION

This article analyzes investment and other strategies in a stationary dynamic common agency model of movie distribution. Contract choices interact with other strategic choices. The model explains several facts; movie distributors avoid head-to-head new hit releases, hits have longer runs than flops, and distributors receive the lion's share of value generated by hits. The model yields testable implications about the effects of vertical integration on inventory turnover, release decisions, run lengths, and allocations, but the results depend on how integration affects relative bargaining power. Vertical integration is privately profitable and may improve social welfare even though it reduces industry profits. (JEL L14 , L22 , L82 , C61 )     

Bayesian sequential inference for nonlinear multivariate diffusions

In this paper, we adapt recently developed simulation-based sequential algorithms to the problem concerning the Bayesian analysis of discretely observed diffusion processes. The estimation framework involves the introduction of m−1 latent data points between every pair of observations. Sequential MCMC methods are then used to sample the posterior distribution of the latent data and the model parameters on-line. The method is applied to the estimation of parameters in a simple stochastic volatility model (SV) of the U.S. short-term interest rate. We also provide a simulation study to validate our method, using synthetic data generated by the SV model with parameters calibrated to match weekly observations of the U.S. short-term interest rate.     

Conditional simulation from highly structured Gaussian systems, with application to blocking-MCMC for the Bayesian analysis of very large linear models

This paper examines strategies for simulating exactly from large Gaussian linear models conditional on some Gaussian observations. Local computation strategies based on the conditional independence structure of the model are developed in order to reduce costs associated with storage and computation. Application of these algorithms to simulation from nested hierarchical linear models is considered, and the construction of efficient MCMC schemes for Bayesian inference in high-dimensional linear models is outlined.     

Unbiased Confidence Intervals

A method is given for generating different data sets for homework exercises in simple regression, such that not only are the estimated slopes, intercepts and correlations the same over all data sets, but so also are the analysis of variance tables, with error mean square that is a perfect square. An example is given. A computer program REGDATA is available for generating data sets of this nature.