Mortality estimates for many populations are derived using model life tables, which describe typical age patterns of human mortality. We propose a new system of model life tables as a means of improving the quality and transparency of such estimates. A flexible two-dimensional model was fitted to a collection of life tables from the Human Mortality Database. The model can be used to estimate fu...

As societies transform from a predominantly traditional to a predominantly modem system they tend to experience considerable demographic changes. Ansley Coale (1984) notes that this "transformation is the substitution of slow growth achieved with low fertility and mortality for slow growth maintained with relatively high fertility and mortality rates." Islam is one of the world’s major monothei...

In a paper published in the previous issue of Population Studies , Zhongwei Zhao questions the uniqueness of a mortality pattern first identified by Goldman (1980) and subsequently redefined by the United Nations (1982). As originally formulated by Goldman, the Far Eastern pattern is characterized by ‘excessively high’ death rates among older men relative to death rates among both younger men a...

AT THIS TIME, the cusp of the twenty-first century, age profiles in many countries are being fundamentally reshaped by population ageing or greying, a process apparently unique in world demographic history and one expected to be sustained well into the future.' Most evident in Europe and elsewhere in the developed world, including Japan, ageing is a global trend, with its symptoms appearing in ...

Bruland, K.W., Coale, K.H. and Mart, L., 1985. Analysis of seawater for dissolved cadmium, copper and lead: an intercomparison of voltammetric and atomic absorption methods. Mar. Chem., 17: 285--300. An intercomparison study of voltammetric and atomic absorption spectrometric methods for determining cadmium, lead and copper in seawater samples was conducted. The voltammetric approach utilizes d...

Although several studies have analysed the evolution of European population, as a global aggregate (Bairoch et al., 1988; Champion, 1993; Noin and Woods, 1993), very few have considered the regional distribution of population. Despite some noticeable contributions (e.g. Festy, 1979; Coale, 1986; Watkins, 1991), to date not much has been done in the way of conducting a detailed study of populati...

An important regulator of both primary productivity and respiration is nutrient availability [e.g., Sanudo-Wilhelmy et al., 2001; Bonnet et al., 2008; Mills et al., 2008; Wambeke et al., 2008]. The concentration and ratio of nitrogen, phosphorus, and iron in the surface ocean varies predictably among different oceanic regions. For example, phosphate is often present at very low concentration in...