World demographic processes and their determining factors

This is a general review of the International Conference on Population, which was held in Mexico in August 1984. The focus is on the Soviet viewpoints toward the various issues discussed at the conference.     

Stochastic population models for the analysis of the effects of demographic processes on social security systems

The aim of this paper is to describe several methods for quantifying the amount of uncertainty inherent in population forecasts used to assess the impact of demographic processes on social security systems. Each method is briefly outlined, and its advantages and disadvantages are discussed. The primary emphasis is on stochastic population models, and the geographic focus is on the Federal Republic of Germany.     

Some unique characteristics of the demographic situation in Russia

The authors briefly describe the demographic situation in the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, using data from the 1989 census and current demographic research. Changes in the birth rate and population growth are examined, and migration flows in the various regions of the republic are compared. Factors affecting low birth rates are analyzed, and trends in marriage, divorce, mortality, and life expectancy are explored.     

Statistical graduation in local demographic analysis and projection

"This paper considers parametric graduation for mortality, fertility and migration with particular reference to the development of parameterized local and regional demographic projections. Parametric graduations facilitate comparisons of demographic schedules across many areas and across time points--a feature which can be used to advantage in making forecasts of the three demographic components and thus in setting the assumptions for projections. Particular methodological issues raised are the questions of parsimony in fit and...of overdispersion in relation to binomial or Poisson assumptions. The analysis is illustrated with cross-sectional material for the 32 London boroughs and with time series at the level of Greater London."     

Modeling demographic relationships: an analysis of forecast functions for Australian births

"This paper discusses the problem of modeling demographic variables for the purpose of forecasting." Two empirical model selection procedures, a time series approach and a sequential testing procedure, are applied to suggest final-form forecasting equations for an Australian births series, namely, first nuptial confinements. The models are compared with the method used to construct the Australian government's IMPACT demographic module. Comments by Joseph B. Kadane, Ronald Lee, Roderick J. A. Little, John F. Long, and Kenneth F. Wallis are included, together with a rejoinder by the author.     

Intriguing yet simple skewness: kurtosis relation in economic and demographic data distributions,pointing to preferential attachment processes

In this paper, we propose that relations between high-order moments of data distributions, for example, between the skewness (S) and kurtosis (K), allow to point to theoretical models with understandable structural parameters. The illustrative data concern two cases: (i) the distribution of income taxes and (ii) that of inhabitants, after aggregation over each city in each province of Italy in 2011. Moreover, from the rank-size relationship, for either S or K, in both cases, it is shown that one obtains the parameters of the underlying (hypothetical) modeling distribution: in the present cases, the 2-parameter Beta function, itself related to the Yule–Simon distribution function, whence suggesting a growth model based on the preferential attachment process.     

Space-time generation of high intensity patterns using growth-interaction processes

We describe a novel spatial-temporal algorithm for generating packing structures of disks and spheres, which not only incorporates all the attractive features of existing algorithms but is also more flexible in defining spatial interactions and other control parameters. The advantage of this approach lies in the ability of marks to exploit to best advantage the space available to them by changing their size in response to the interaction pressure of their neighbours. Allowing particles to move in response to such pressure results in high-intensity packing. Indeed, since particles may temporarily overlap, even under hard-packing scenarios, they possess a greater potential for rearranging themselves, and thereby creating even higher packing intensities than exist under other strategies. Non-overlapping pattern structures are achieved simply by allowing the process to ‘burn-out’ at the end of its development period. A variety of different growth-interaction regimes are explored, both symmetric and asymmetric, and the convergence issues that they raise are examined. We conjecture that not only may this algorithm be easily generalised to cover a large variety of situations across a wide range of disciplines, but that appropriately targeted generalisations may well include established packing algorithms as special cases.     

Antilogistic function and possibilities of its application in the analysis of the demographic transformation process

The antilogistic function and method of simple substitution (deduced from projecting trends in technological development) are applied to the analysis of the demographic transition using data concerning Poland and Sweden from the eighteenth century to the present.     

The demographic analysis of human fertility using life history data

"In this contribution we show how the analysis of data from the German Life History Study sheds light on and extends the official statistics on fertility trends in West Germany. First, the data gathered for the three cohorts 1929-31, 1939-41, and 1949-51, are proved for their representativeness. Then birth rates of the first, second, third, and following order for women and men are presented. At last we discuss results of simple survival analyses of the entry into parenthood for different sociostructural groups of men and women in our cohorts." (SUMMARY IN ENG)     

Anticipated demographic development in Poland in the light of the new demographic projections

The authors present the results of revised population projections for Poland for 1985 based on the final results of the 1978 population census. Assumptions made in previous projections are critically reviewed, as are the population estimates on which those projections were based     

Kernel estimation for characteristics of pure jump processes

In most cases wear processes or diagnosis parameters characterizing them can be described by homogeneous processes with independent increments and similar processes. Especially, time dependence of certain diagnosis parameters can be modeled effectively by pure jump processes. In the present paper we consider problems of estimation of the jump density by nonparametric methods.     

Estimation of population coverage in the 1990 United States census based on demographic analysis

"This article presents estimates of net coverage of the national population in the 1990 [U.S.] census, based on the method of demographic analysis. The general techniques of demographic analysis as an analytic tool for coverage measurement are discussed, including use of the demographic accounting equation, data components, and strengths and limitations of the method. Patterns of coverage displayed by the 1990 estimates are described, along with similarities or differences from comparable demographic estimates for previous censuses....A final section presents the results of the first statistical assessment of the uncertainty in the demographic coverage estimates for 1990." Comments by Clifford C. Clogg and Christine L. Himes (pp. 1,072-4) and Jeffrey S. Passel (pp. 1,074-7) and a rejoinder by the authors (pp. 1,077-9) are included.     

Wavelet analysis of uniformly time-modulated processes

Uniformly time-modulated processes (UTMP) offer a simple, though convenient model for many non stationary time series. However, in many applications, dependency is considered as a disturbing factor. For the UTMP using Weierstrass representation of modulating function, we demonstrated that the correlation between coefficients in wavelet domain is a decreasing function of number of wavelet vanishing moments and tends to zero in progressive rate as we move from finer scales to coarser scales.     

Formulas for the second-order analysis of marked point processes

Following Ripley, for the second moment measure of stationary isotropic marked point processes in R^destimators are given. Two examples are considered.     

Anisotropy analysis of pressed point processes

This paper introduces methods for the detection of anisotropies which are caused by compression of regular 3D point patterns. Isotropy tests based on directional summary statistics and estimators for the compression factor are developed. Using simulated data, the dependence of the power of these methods on the intensity, the degree of regularity, and the compression strength is studied. Finally, our methods are applied to the point patterns of centers of air pores extracted from tomographic images of ice cores. This way the presence of anisotropies in the ice caused by the compression of the ice sheet and an increase of their strength with increasing depth are shown.     

Theory and techniques of demographic forecasting

This paper focuses on theories and techniques for forecasting fertility and mortality. Period and cohort analyses of fertility and mortality in Germany over the past century are first discussed. Alternative techniques for forecasting future trends in these variables in the Federal Republic of Germany are then outlined. The economic and social policy consequences of different mortality and fertility assumptions are also briefly noted.