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PubMed2007

Predicting continental-scale patterns of bird species richness with spatially explicit models.

The causes of global variation in species richness have been debated for nearly two centuries with no clear resolution in sight. Competing hypotheses have typically been evaluated with correlative models that do not explicitly incorporate the mechanisms responsible for biotic diversity gradients. Here, we employ a fundamentally different approach that uses spatially explicit Monte Carlo models of the placement of cohesive geographical ranges in an environmentally heterogeneous landscape. These models predict species richness of endemic South American birds (2248 species) measured at a continental scale. We demonstrate that the principal single-factor and composite (species-energy, water-energy and temperature-kinetics) models proposed thus far fail to predict (r(2) < or =.05) the richness of species with small to moderately large geographical ranges (first three range-size quartiles). These species constitute the bulk of the avifauna and are primary targets for conservation. Climate-driven models performed reasonably well only for species with the largest geographical ranges (fourth quartile) when range cohesion was enforced. Our analyses suggest that present models inadequately explain the extraordinary diversity of avian species in the montane tropics, the most species-rich region on Earth. Our findings imply that correlative climatic models substantially underestimate the importance of historical factors and small-scale niche-driven assembly processes in shaping contemporary species-richness patterns.

Animals↗
PubMed1981

Suicide in England and Wales: an analysis of 100 years, 1876-1975.

The variations in suicide mortality in England and Wales over a 100-year period (1876-1975) are explained by the development of a descriptive model. The model used in a stepwise linear regression using 5 variables including toxic gas production. The variables give a good description of the observed changes in suicide mortality. The limitations of the method and the data are discussed. Despite the limitations of the method, it can be concluded that toxic gas production affected total suicide mortality.

England↗
PubMed1990

Mortality differentials in France during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

"The very high quality of a set of marriage records for Paris during the 1860s made it possible to apply indirect methods to estimate adult mortality differentials by certain geographical and social criteria of the 19th century. The largest differences between groups were observed to be social, geographical origin apparently having little impact.... It is interesting that social differences in adult mortality are similar in magnitude to those observed today. Perhaps the principal factor of differentiation is then the level of child mortality.... It is by no means necessary to have a set of data as complete as ours. The indirect methods we have used proved largely adequate for estimating mortality differentials."

Demography↗
PubMed1999

Nonmedical doctoral-level scientists in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Epidemic Intelligence Service, 1964-1997.

INTRODUCTION: Although historically a training program in applied epidemiology for physicians, veterinarians, and dentists, CDC's Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) has been attracting an increasing number of other doctoral-level scientists with prior experience and training in advanced analytic methods. METHODS: Using data from alumni records, we studied the participation of these nonmedical scientists in the EIS program and their subsequent employment. RESULTS: 160 nonmedical doctoral level scientists enrolled in EIS from 1964 through 1997; 135 had completed EIS as of July 1997. Of 160 enrolled, 94 (59%) had an advanced degree in epidemiology; other degrees included demography, anthropology, behavioral sciences, statistics, and other health areas; 66% were women. Most (112; 70%) were assigned to work in noninfectious disease areas. After completion of EIS, 113 (84%) of 135 officers continued to work in public health activities: 75 (56%) remained employed at CDC; 17 (13%) in academic institutions; 14 (10%) in local or state health departments; 3 (2%) in international health agencies; 2 (1%) in other federal health agencies; and 2 (1%) in public health foundations. Compared with trainees recruited during 1964-1989, greater proportions of those recruited during 1990-1995 remained employed at CDC (44/74 [59%] versus 31/61 [51%]) or at state or local health departments (10 [14%] versus 4 [7%]). Those training during EIS at a state or local health department (15/20, 75%) or in occupational health (17/24, 71%) were more likely than those in other assignments to work outside CDC following EIS. CONCLUSION: There is increasing participation and collaboration of persons trained in nonmedical sciences with those trained in traditional medical areas in the EIS training program and in careers in public health at all levels: local, state, and federal.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S.↗
PubMed1985

Integration and ethnic spatial concentration: the changing distribution of the Anglo-Jewish community.

"This paper identifies the changing locational patterns of the Jewish community in Britain during the past century. Two major trends are identified. At the national level there has been movement out of many small provincial communities to the large urban centres, particularly Greater London and Manchester. Within the city, there has been movement out of the traditional inner city ghettos to the suburbs, thus reflecting the upward socio-economic mobility and integration of what was an immigrant group. Both these trends closely mirror the general patterns of population movement in Britain during the twentieth century." The lack of reliable data for the Jewish population is noted, and a methodology is suggested for identifying the changing locational patterns and intensity of Jewish community life. The method is applied to the case of Greater London.

Acculturation↗
PubMed2002

Projecting the future of the U.S. carbon sink.

Atmospheric and ground-based methods agree on the presence of a carbon sink in the coterminous United States (the United States minus Alaska and Hawaii), and the primary causes for the sink recently have been identified. Projecting the future behavior of the sink is necessary for projecting future net emissions. Here we use two models, the Ecosystem Demography model and a second simpler empirically based model (Miami Land Use History), to estimate the spatio-temporal patterns of ecosystem carbon stocks and fluxes resulting from land-use changes and fire suppression from 1700 to 2100. Our results are compared with other historical reconstructions of ecosystem carbon fluxes and to a detailed carbon budget for the 1980s. Our projections indicate that the ecosystem recovery processes that are primarily responsible for the contemporary U.S. carbon sink will slow over the next century, resulting in a significant reduction of the sink. The projected rate of decrease depends strongly on scenarios of future land use and the long-term effectiveness of fire suppression.

Agriculture↗
PubMed1987

Partial correlation of distance matrices in studies of population structure.

Anthropological studies of human population structure commonly compare various monogenic and polygenic (metric) distance matrices to distance matrices obtained from measures of geographical dispersion, linguistic differences, and migration patterns in an attempt to infer something about the effects of evolutionary factors (drift and differential selection, in particular). It is, though, commonly recognized that geography, language, and migration patterns may be intercorrelated due to the common effects of historical and social processes. Previous attempts to deal with the problems of assessing relative effects among such sets of intercorrelated factors using partial correlations have resulted in coefficients that are either not well defined or have no known sampling distribution or both. Here, we outline a general approach to partialling distance matrices that results in well-defined coefficients and valid significance testing procedures. Application of the matrix partialling methods to a variety of distance matrices obtained for a sample of eight ethnolinguistic groups from the Harvard Solomon Islands Expedition (Friedlaender et al., 1986) reveals a close association between language dissimilarity and dermatoglyphics controlling for geography, thus reinforcing earlier suggestions that dermatoglyphics, properly used, reflect historical relationships of groups in this region better than do anthropometry, odontometrics, or small batteries of blood polymorphisms.

Anthropology↗
PubMed1991

Late expectations: childbearing patterns of American women for the 1990's.

"This paper will examine the changes in the timing of entry into motherhood among post World War II birth cohorts of women and the childbearing patterns of women after age 30 [in the United States]. The principal data source used in this paper will be the Census Bureau's fertility and birth expectations survey from the Current Population Survey (CPS)....A brief summary of the origins and evolving problems associated with using birth expectations data as a method to predict future fertility swings will first be examined. Next, the usefulness of expectations data as a predictor of the future will be discussed in the context of historical patterns of childbearing....Finally, this paper will examine which socioeconomic groups of women are most likely to be characterized by delays in childbearing and their current prospects for having their first birth at later ages."

Age Factors↗
PubMed1995

Thinking of England and taking care: family building strategies and infant mortality in England and Wales, 1891-1911.

"Debates concerning the origins and development of the late nineteenth- to early twentieth-century declines in marital fertility and infant mortality in England and Wales have been centred largely on the material provided by answers to the ¿special' questions in the 1911 census. In their published form these figures have restricted researchers to an examination of large scale geographic and social class differences in the levels and rates of decline of the two phenomena. This paper outlines research conducted on a sample of individual census returns from the 1911 census. From this data it becomes clear that for Victorian and Edwardian England ¿where one lived' was rather more important than ¿who one was' in determining both family building strategies and the survival of those children born."

Birth Rate↗
PubMed1979

Contraceptive use in Australia.

The purpose of this paper is to trace the pattern of contraceptive use in Australia during the past 50 years, discussing reasons and circumstances related to the changing preference for specific methods, against the background of demographic trends in childbearing and woman's changing role in society. The analysis is based on unique information regarding married couples and young adults in Australia obtained from large-scale demographic surveys carried out in Melbourne during 1971 and 1977 by the Department of Demography at the Australian National University.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Methodological problems in bio-demographic research. A sample study of the age at menopause].

Two methods for the analysis of age at menopause, the longitudinal, or retrospective, method and the transversal, or status quo, method, are compared. The differences between these two methods are emphasized. "The former describes an historically ended situation and estimates the probability that a woman will reach such condition at age x. The latter considers the phenomenon from the viewpoint of its composite actuality and estimates the probability that a woman of age x is undergoing menopause." The different results obtained from the application of the two methods to data sets concerning 767 and 270 women born in Bologna, Italy, between 1920 and 1945 are described (SUMMARY IN ENG AND FRE)

Age Factors↗
PubMed2002

Testing isonymy with paternal and maternal lineages in the early Québec population: the impact of polyphyletism and demographic differentials.

Isonymy is an ingenious and useful approach to studying kinship in human populations. However, it relies on assumptions that are difficult to verify. In this study, we provided a way to assess, in the early Québec population, the impact of factors such as polyphyletism, unbalanced sex-ratio among founders, and age differentials between spouses. All data were taken from the Population Register of Early Québec, which contains births, marriages, and deaths (>712,000) recorded in parish registers from the beginning of colonization (in 1608) to 1800. More specifically, using the 70,869 marriages recorded during that period, we compared kinship estimates given by genealogies, surnames, and paternal and maternal lineages. We also calculated a fifth coefficient of kinship by combining paternal and maternal lineage, thus providing a new way to test the isonymy method. The results show a good agreement between genealogical and isonymous estimates. However, this good correspondence is due to counterbalancing biases. Some of the implications of our results are discussed in the context of colonial America.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1989

Measuring the impact of locational characteristics on migration: interpreting cross-sectional analyses.

Methods that employ cross-sectional data to analyze the impact of locational characteristics on migration decisions may produce seriously biased results because migrant decisions at any one point in time reflect historical as well as contemporaneous forces. A comparison of results based on a typical cross-sectional analysis and those obtained with longitudinal data shows that these issues are of empirical importance. An alternative interpretation of the results of cross-sectional migration analyses is provided.

Choice Behavior↗
PubMed2000

How does POSSLQ measure up? Historical estimates of cohabitation.

We use March Current Population Survey (CPS) data from 1977 to 1997 to produce a new historical series of indirect cohabitation prevalence estimates. We compare our new estimates with those produced by the traditional method and evaluate the new estimates. We then compare the indirect estimates with the new direct estimates to investigate whether biases exist in the indirect estimates. Our findings indicate that the traditional indirect method of estimating cohabitation prevalence underestimates cohabitors in different subpopulations, especially among those with children. We also find that the new indirect measure produces relatively unbiased estimates of cohabitors' characteristics.

Adult↗