[Basta-users] Making Death Ages precise

[Cliff Cunningham]

Dear BaSTA,

	The lifetables I produce with BaSTA invariable show no deaths in the first age interval, but this is because the ages are rounded to 1:  

StartAge	EndAge	nx	lx	dx	mx
0	1	1	2826	0	0
1	2	1	2826	2415	0.8545648
2	3	1	411	295	0.7177616
3	4	1	116	91	0.7844828
4	5	1	25	22	0.88
5	6	1	3	3	1


The documentation says that:
DeathAges	A vector of ages at death. These can be precise (e.g. 5.4 yrs) or rounded to the integer year (e.g. 5 yrs).

I don't know if this would change the model fit, but I suspect that precise DeathAges would eliminate the unrealistic "zero" for mx (or qx) during the first time interval.

	I can't find in the BaSTA manual the instruction to produce the DeathAges vector as precise real numbers.  Any help would be appreciated.
		
	All the best!

   	Cliff Cunningham


        Professor
	Biology Department
    	Duke University
        130 Science Drive
	Durham NC 27708
	Phone 919-660-7356

http://www.biology.duke.edu/cunningham




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