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This paper studies the design effect of counting rules, for linking deaths to housing units where they are enumerated in the survey, on the sampling variance of dual system and single system estimators of death registration completeness. It investigates estimators based on conventional rules that uniquely link each death to a single housing unit as well as estimators based on multiplicity rules which permit deaths to be linked to more than one housing unit. Sampling variance formulas are derived containing parameters that reflect the efficiency of the counting rule. Estimates of these parameters for different counting rules are compared utilizing information that was collected in a mortality survey experiment. Finally, the design of a national death registration test is considered and the sample size implications of different counting rules are compared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Place-of-birth-by-residence data, tabulated by age and sex for the same areal units in two successive censuses, have been used to estimate intercensal net migration flows. However, a fuller use of the same data permits the estimation of place-to-place flows. This paper describes a method for estimating intercensal migration streams from place-of-birth- by-residence data and illustrates its application with data on the white female native population of the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1965, Warner developed an interviewing procedure designed to eliminate evasive answer bias when questions of a sensitive nature are asked. He called the procedure "randomized response." The authors have been studying the technique for several years and, in this paper, are re- porting some of the estimates of induced abortion in urban North Carolina using randomized response. Estimates of the proportion of women having an abortion during the past year among women 18-44 years of age are reported. For the study population indices were developed relating induced abortion to total conceptions for whites and nonwhites. The illegal abortion rate per 100 conceptions was estimated to be 14.9 for whites and 32.9 for nonwhites. Estimates of the proportion of women having an abortion during their lifetime among women 18 years old or over are also shown, Among ever married women, the proportion having an abortion during their lifetime declined as education increased. Estimates were high for women with 5 or more pregnancies. Most of the respondents stated that they were satisfied that the randomized response approach would not reveal their personal situation. Furthermore, they did not think their friends would truthfully respond to a direct question regarding abortion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper develops systematically the theory of `structural' and `pure' measurement systems falling below the interval and ratio levels. Pure measurement, it is argued, concerns the properties of objects and structural measurement the relationships between objects. The exposition provides the ground-work for a forthcoming second paper on measurement and the structure of sociological theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a meta-logic of decision theory. It utilizes a dialectical formulation [7], [23], [24] as a prescriptive methodology for minimizing statistical decision errors of the third kind; i.e., the error of solving the "wrong" decision problem when one should have solved the "right" problem. The dialectical formulation is chosen because it is the only existent methodological form which both utilizes conflict over value issues in a productive fashion and ensures a minimal sense of completeness in the decision-space of possible problem choice. [25] The result is the development of a meta-theory of decision-making. It is argued that the concept of a Dialectical Inquiring System [24], [25] is to our meta-theory of decision-making as the concept of a lottery [29] is to the ordinary theory of decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New procedures are developed in this article for estimating parameters of the Pearsonian Type I curve which are particularly adaptive to factors influencing the pattern of age-specific fertility rates. It is shown that with this model the number of parameters required for the graduation and simulation of these rates can be reduced to only three--total fertility rate, mean and modal ages of fertility. The reduction in the number of fertility parameters offers considerable operational and analytical advantages, and makes the Pearsonian Type I curve particularly appropriate for the construction of a parametric model for fertility projections. In light of the results of empirical tests based on fertility data for Canada, the model's potential for birth projections appears quite promising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies by Adelman and by Friedlander and Silver, which have investigated whether regression equations derived from cross-section data can be used to predict the impact of socioeconomic development on changing levels of fertility, are reviewed critically. Regression analyses based on data for 57 countries c. 1960 show that fertility (gross reproduction rate) varies cross-sectionally with region as well as with level of development (as measured by per capita income, percent labor force in primary sector, expectation of life, illiteracy rate). Using equations derived from the cross-section study and time-series data for five European countries during the period that their fertility rates fell, it is shown that predictions about past fertility changes are in error. The results suggest caution in the use of cross-section relations to predict the course of fertility in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from the 1970 National Fertility Study, the trend in the initiation of contraception prior to the first pregnancy is examined. This trend is of interest because of its relationship to the tempo of family-building. Using data from a recent marriage cohort, it is shown that use before the first pregnancy is related to age at marriage, age at termination of first pregnancy and the probability of having a premarital conception. For women first married during the decade of the 1960's, there was a substantial increase in the proportion using contraception before the first pregnancy. This trend is found among both white Catholics and white non-Catholics, but not among blacks. An examination of the specific method used by women using contraception before the first pregnancy reveals a shift from reliance on the traditional methods of diaphragm, condom and douche by the earlier birth cohorts to the use of the pill by the more recent cohorts. An appendix examines the reliability of various measures of the interval of first use of contraception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study was made of the factors that affected the casefinding of internal migrations in Liberia using the Chandrasekar-Deming dual enumeration and tabulation methods. The results of this work suggest that the recording and not recording of a migration is not a random occurrence but is associated with a particular enumeration system, origin and destination of the migration, and the migrant's age, sex, and location of current residence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple decrement life table technique is used to analyze the oral contraceptive use in a sample of once married women in Metropolitan Toronto. The overall pattern in the Canadian data is found to be essentially similar to that found in the U. S. Continuation rates show differences by cause of decrement. Two types of rates, net and absolute, are presented, and the relationship between single decrement continuation rates and total continuation rates is examined. Some problems of clinical versus retrospective sample survey data in studies of contraceptive effectiveness are commented on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A method to compare fertility sequences, each of which represents a cyclical fluctuation around an underlying trend, is presented. Each fertility sequence is viewed as composed of a time trend in childspacing pattern and a corresponding trend in terminal fertility rate. The procedure involved in comparing each component of one fertility sequence with the corresponding component of another is described and illustrated. Using hypothetical data it is shown, among other things, that if A and B are two cyclical fluctuations in fertility such that (i) the cycles in both are of the same length, (ii) the terminal fertility components of the two are identical, and (iii) the trend in the mean age at childbirth associated with A is higher than the corresponding trend associated with B, then, replacing B with A need not necessarily result in lowering the long-run rates of increase in the birth sequence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pulmonary embolism was first recognized as an important entity early in the nineteenth century. The evolution of our knowledge of this disorder has been reviewed with particular emphasis on the various diagnostic techniques which have been used to assist in its recognition. These have included physical examination to demonstrate the presence of classical physical signs, electrocardiography, biochemical tests, radiological examinations, pulmonary function tests, ultra-sound and methods employing radionuclides. The wide variety of techniques applied to this problem clearly indicates that no currently available test is entirely satisfactory alone. Probably the most significant advance in recent years has been the development of lung perfusion scanning which has provided at the very least a valuable screening test and a ready method of studying serially the natural history of the perfusion defects produced by thromboembolic disease. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Ekanem has shown that variations in socioeconomic development are associated with differences in birth rates. However, he has made no attempt to determine if his regression equations can be used to predict trends in fertility. This note shows that, using Ekanem's data, the factors he found most significant in explaining differences in fertility play a minor role over time whereas per capita income, which he found to be relatively insignificant in explaining variations cross-sectionally, has a statistically significant impact over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Uriglox screening test was compared with the modified Griess Nitrite test and with standard urine cultures in the detection of significant bacteriuria on 400 ambulant and asymptomatic residents of the Athens Home for the Aged. The modified Nitrite test alone detected 62%, and the Uriglox test 79% of the 103 cases with positive urine cultures in the examined group. There was significant overlap in the positive cases picked up by each screening test separately, the Uriglox test identifying more infections. Since there were no false-positive cases with either one of the employed tests, the cases identified by one the other both screening tests amounted to 95% of the total number of bacteriuric samples. The combination of the moderately sensitive but highly specific test of Nitrite, with the very sensitive test of Uriglox, can effectively substitute for the expensive and time-consuming quantitative bacterial counts with pour-plate techniques in mass screening for bacteriuria. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]