Suspended Sorrow: The Crisis in Understanding the Diagnosis for the Mothers of Children with A Disorder of Sex Development

ABSTRACT.Objectives: We conducted a survey to obtain information concerning how mothers of children with DSD represent the diagnosis. Methods: We examined our findings through IPA methodology. Results: We observed a crisis of meaning, based on the inability to classify their child with a milestone of the social experience: the gender category. That risks of slipping into adempitive adherences to medical knowledge or hasty decisions about the health of the child. Conclusions: It's necessary to structure spaces with medical-psychological teams, for allowing these families to manage the condition in relation to the choices, and the daily context, of their children.     

Education,inequality and electoral participation

In comparative terms, Italian electoral turnout has been very high since 1946. However, during the five elections from 1994 to 2008, turnout dropped more steeply than it did over the previous 12 elections from 1946 to 1992. The difference between maximum turnout in the early 1950s and the 2008 election was about 12%, and most of this decline (8%) occurred in the period 1992–2008. This paper finds robust evidence that individual and contextual social inequalities have been key factors in the recent fall of turnout. In particular our results clearly suggest that contextual social inequality lowers the turnout of less-educated voters and leaves it unaffected among high-educated ones. The recent decline in turnout may therefore be indicative of an important shift towards more unequal political participation. These findings are consistent with data showing that the post-1994 parties performed very poorly as mobilisation agencies compared with the old parties. Indeed, according to Franklin (2004), turnout trends can be effectively explained by changes in institutional rules and by the degree of electoral competitiveness. This paper suggests that, in order to explain turnout trends, the interactive effects of social and individual inequality should also be considered.     

An Assessment of the Psychometric Properties of Italian Version of CPGI

The aim of this study was to adapt to the Italian context a very commonly used international instrument to detect problem gambling, the canadian problem gambling index (CPGI), and assess its psychometric properties. Cross-cultural adaptation of CPGI was performed in several steps and the questionnaire was administered as a survey among Italian general population (n = 5,292). Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient was 0.87 and can be considered to be highly reliable. Construct validity was assessed first by means of a principal component analysis and then by means of confirmatory factor analysis, showing that only one factor, problem gambling, was extracted from the CPGI questionnaire (an eigenvalues of 4,684 with percentage of variance 52 %). As far as convergent validity is concerned, CPGI was compared with Lie/Bet questionnaire, a two-item screening tool for detecting problem gamblers, and with both depression and stress scales. A short form DSM-IV CIDI questionnaire was used for depression and VRS scale, a rating scale, was used for rapid stress evaluation. A strong convergent validity with these instruments was found and these findings are consistent with past research on problem gambling, where another way to confirm the validity is to determine the extent to which it correlates with other qualities or measures known to be directly related to problem gambling. In sum, despite the lack of a direct comparison with a classic gold-standard such as DSM-IV, the Italian version of CPGI exhibits good psychometric properties and can be used among the Italian general population to identify at-risk problem gamblers.     

Reassessing Benzene Cancer Risks Using Internal Doses

Human cancer risks from benzene exposure have previously been estimated by regulatory agencies based primarily on epidemiological data, with supporting evidence provided by animal bioassay data. This paper reexamines the animal-based risk assessments for benzene using physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) models of benzene metabolism in animals and humans. It demonstrates that internal doses (interpreted as total benzene metabolites formed) from oral gavage experiments in mice are well predicted by a PBPK model developed by Travis et al. Both the data and the model outputs can also be accurately described by the simple nonlinear regression model total metabolites = 76.4x/(80.75 + x), where x = administered dose in mg/kg/day. Thus, PBPK modeling validates the use of such nonlinear regression models, previously used by Bailer and Hoel. An important finding is that refitting the linearized multistage (LMS) model family to internal doses and observed responses changes the maximum-likelihood estimate (MLE) dose-response curve for mice from linear-quadratic to cubic, leading to low-dose risk estimates smaller than in previous risk assessments. This is consistent with the conclusion for mice from the Bailer and Hoel analysis. An innovation in this paper is estimation of internal doses for humans based on a PBPK model (and the regression model approximating it) rather than on interspecies dose conversions. Estimates of human risks at low doses are reduced by the use of internal dose estimates when the estimates are obtained from a PBPK model, in contrast to Bailer and Hoel's findings based on interspecies dose conversion. Sensitivity analyses and comparisons with epidemiological data and risk models suggest that our finding of a nonlinear MLE dose-response curve at low doses is robust to changes in assumptions and more consistent with epidemiological data than earlier risk models.     

Persons and Hypotheses: The Use of the Therapist in the Hypothesising Process

Although hypothesising has been strongly criticised by postmodern and narrative theorists, it plays a major role in any therapy. This article aims to investigate the hypothesising process, first revisiting the concept of hypothesis in semiotics and Schön's theory of the professions, then examining some features of hypothesising within systemic therapy. The article takes into account the relationship between hypotheses and therapists' basic theories, to arrive, finally, at an examination of the role of the person (both therapist and client) in shaping hypotheses within the therapeutic interaction.     

Group Buying of Competing Retailers

Under group buying, quantity discounts are offered based on the buyers' aggregated purchasing quantity, instead of individual quantities. As the price decreases with the total quantity, buyers receive lower prices than they otherwise would be able to obtain individually. Previous studies on group buying focus on the benefit buyers receive in reduced acquisition costs or enhanced bargaining power. In this paper, we show that buyers can instead get hurt from such cooperation. Specifically, we consider a two‐level distribution channel with a single manufacturer and two retailers who compete for end customers. We show that, under linear demand curves, group buying is always preferable for symmetric (i.e., identical) retailers. For asymmetric retailers (i.e., differing in market base and/or efficiency), group buying is beneficial to the smaller (or less efficient) player. However, it can be detrimental to the larger (or more efficient) one. Despite the lower wholesale price under group buying, the manufacturer can receive a higher revenue. Interestingly, group buying is more likely to form when retailers are competitive in different dimensions. These insights are shown to be robust under general nonlinear demand curves, except for constant elastic demand with low demand elasticity.     

Financial contagion through space-time point processes

Statistical Methods & Applications - We propose to study the dynamics of financial contagion by means of a class of point process models employed in the modeling of seismic contagion. The...     

A Note on Two-Way ECM Estimation of SUR Systems on Unbalanced Panel Data

This article considers the two-way error components model (ECM) estimation of seemingly unrelated regressions (SUR) on unbalanced panel by generalized least squares (GLS). As suggested by Biørn (2004 Biørn , E. ( 2004 ). Regression systems for unbalanced panel data: a stepwise maximum likelihood procedure . Journal of Econometrics 122 : 281 – 291 . [Google Scholar]) for the one-way case, in order to use the standard results for the balanced case the individuals are arranged in groups according to the number of times they are observed. Thus, the GLS estimator can be interpreted as a matrix weighted average of the group specific GLS estimators with weights equal to the inverse of their respective covariance matrices.     

Homemaking in the public. On the scales and stakes of framing,feeling, and claiming extra-domestic space as “home”

This article reviews the emerging literature on the negotiation of home-related feelings, claims, and practices in the public urban sphere, under the rubric of homemaking in the public. This contributes to a better sociological understanding of home and illuminates long-debated societal questions such as the interaction between majority and minority groups and the shifting boundaries between what is (regarded as) public or private. While home has traditionally been understood as a private and domestic matter, it also has a major public significance. As a category of analysis, it reveals how supposedly domestic attitudes, routines, and practices are scaled up into the public domain. As a category of practice, it is a powerful discursive resource for contentious politics in the extra-domestic domain. Who is entitled and legitimated to claim a public space as “home”, and what this implies for inter-group categorizations and relations, are questions that deserve original and comparative analysis in sociology. Processes of domestication of the public sphere, of mutual interaction between public and private life realms, and of claims-making on various scales can be fruitfully revisited along these lines, by advancing an original research agenda on the ways of framing, feeling and claiming public space as home.