Age reporting among white Americans aged 85+: Results of a record linkage study

This study investigates age reporting on the death certificates of older white Americans. We link a sample of death certificates for native-born whites aged 85+ in 1985 to Social Security Administration records and to records of the U.S. censuses of 1900, 1910, and 1920. When ages in these sources are compared, inconsistencies are found to be minimal, even beyond age 95. Results show little distortion and no systematic biases in the reported age distribution of deaths. To explore the effect of age misreporting on old-age mortality, we estimate "corrected" age-specific death rates by the extinct-generation method for the U.S. white cohort born in 1885. With few exceptions, corrected and uncorrected rates in single years differ by less than 3% and are not systematically biased. When we compare corrected rates with those for the same birth cohort in France, Japan, and Sweden, we find that white American mortality at older ages is exceptionally low.     

Prospects for the Soviet economy to the year 2000

This article reviews the current state of the Soviet economy, and, after placing it within the broader context of the world economy, provides a number of alternative projections of its future course up to the year 2000. For this purpose an updated structural matrix of the Soviet economy was incorporated into a global structure of the world economy built for the United Nations and described in Leontief, Carter and Petri (The Future of the World Economy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977). Several important modifications in the structural formulation of the model were carried out in order to account for the projected increased production and export of Soviet natural gas to the end of the century and to incorporate current estimates of Soviet agricultural and military-goods production.     

Size of place in relation to community attachment and satisfaction with community services

A general problem in the area of urban studies has been the determination of factors significantly related to community attachment. Louis Wirth had argued that with increasing community size the level of community attachment diminishes. However, Kasarda and Janowitz employed British data and found that the length of residence in the community was a more important determinant of community attachment. Buttel et al. re-examined the question and found that the size of the community was the most important determiner of community attachment. This study analyzes the question employing national survey data collected in 1971 in the Quality of American Life study. Employing variables comparable to those of the Buttel et al. study, similar results are obtained, except that race, a variable not included in the previous study, is found to be quite significant for determining levels of community attachment. However, when urban density is introduced as a variable for the urban areas in the sample, it is found to be the most important determiner of community attachment.     

University-assisted community school program of West Philadelphia: democratic partnerships that make a difference

The university-assisted community school model is showing results for children and youth in West Philadelphia. The University of Pennsylvania's (Penn's) Center for Community Partnerships has coordinated universitywide efforts, in partnership with the community, in order to create and develop community school programs. The Sayre program aims to become a university-assisted community school, with a comprehensive community problem-solving curriculum and communitywide program that is fully integrated across both the Sayre curriculum and the curriculum of a number of Penn's schools. The Penn-Sayre project demonstrates that higher education can be a permanent anchor for revitalizing schools and communities if the vast resources it possesses, particularly its faculty, students, and staff, are brought to bear in a coordinated fashion.     

Efficient frontiers for electricity procurement by an LDC with multiple purchase options

In meeting its retail sales obligations, management of a local distribution company (LDC) must determine the extent to which it should rely on spot markets, forward contracts, and the increasingly popular long-term tolling agreements under which it pays a fee to reserve generator capacity. We address these issues by solving a mathematical programming model to derive the efficient frontier that summarizes the optimal tradeoffs available to the LDC between procurement risk and expected cost. To illustrate the approach, we estimate the expected procurement costs and associated variances that proxy for risk through a spot-price regression for the spot-purchase alternative and a variable-cost regression for the tolling-agreement alternative. The estimated regressions yield the estimates required to determine the efficient frontier. We develop several such frontiers under alternative assumptions as to the forward-contract price and the tolling agreement's capacity payment, and discuss the implications of our results for LDC management.     

A note on new estimates of the mortality of the extreme aged

This note reports on the utilization of the “extinct generation” method, a procedure that permits a reconstruction of “extinct” population cohorts from the death statistics for a series of years and provides alternative estimates of the mortality of the extreme aged population (persons 85 years of age and over) in the United States during the period 1951–1965. Remarkably close correspondence was found between the annual mortality rates thus derived and figures published by the National Center for Health Statistics. It was concluded that the quality of the mortality rates produced was superior to the official figures but not markedly so. An advantage of the method is the ability to produce rates in detail, such as for five-year age groups, not ordinarily published for the 85 and over population.     

Ergonomic assessment among radiology technologists: a survey in a hospital

This article is the result of an Ergonomic Diagnosis in a study for a Specialization Course in Ergonomics. The research is being done in a public hospital in the city of Rio de Janeiro, where the target system is the radiology sector. For diagnosis purposes, subjective techniques were used, such as an open-ended survey, Corlett questionnaire and techniques for evaluating ergonomic risk such as Owas and Rula. Systematic observation was emphasized using photos and films. Preliminary observations made to the radiographers found that these professionals suffer risks of physical and verbal harassment, as well as sexual harassment. Most of them feel discriminated against in terms of race and accumulate activities demanding a lot of attention, as the medical diagnosis and subsequent procedures will depend on the outcome of this task. They accumulate tension due to the weight of responsibility, since there are cases where the patient has risk of death.     

Does IO Economics Really Make the Case for Investments in IT: Comment on West and Courtney

West and Courtney [18] rely on industrial organization economics in general, and the economics of uncertainty in particular, for insights into the benefits of overcoming information constraints through information systems (IS) and improved information technologies (IT). This Comment argues that the IS researcher who looks to the economics of uncertainty to make a case for improved IT will only find support from a selective reading of a constantly expanding literature whose aims and inferences are easily misunderstood.     

Modeling Competing Infectious Pathogens from a Bayesian Perspective: Application to Influenza Studies with Incomplete Laboratory Results

In seasonal influenza epidemics, pathogens such as respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) often co-circulate with influenza and cause influenza-like illness (ILI) in human hosts. However, it is often impractical to test for each potential pathogen or to collect specimens for each observed ILI episode, making inference about influenza transmission difficult. In the setting of infectious diseases, missing outcomes impose a particular challenge because of the dependence among individuals. We propose a Bayesian competing-risk model for multiple co-circulating pathogens for inference on transmissibility and intervention efficacies under the assumption that missingness in the biological confirmation of the pathogen is ignorable. Simulation studies indicate a reasonable performance of the proposed model even if the number of potential pathogens is misspecified. They also show that a moderate amount of missing laboratory test results has only a small impact on inference about key parameters in the setting of close contact groups. Using the proposed model, we found that a non-pharmaceutical intervention is marginally protective against transmission of influenza A in a study conducted in elementary schools.