[Basta-users] Making Death Ages precise

[Fernando Colchero]

Dear Cliff,

    We have fixed the problem in an upcoming version of the package. It had to do with the way BaSTA was calculating the average ages of death from the MCMC output. It has noting to do with the fit of the model or the estimates. 

    As soon as the package is uploaded we will announce it to the BaSTA mailing list. This should happen in the next couple of days.

   Best,

   Fernando



Fernando Colchero
Assistant Professor
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
Max-Planck Odense Center on the Biodemography of Aging

Tlf.               +45 65 50 23 24
Email           colchero at imada.sdu.dk
Web             www.sdu.dk/staff/colchero
Pers. web   www.colchero.com
Adr.              Campusvej 55, 5230, Odense, Dk

University of Southern Denmark





On Oct 30, 2013, at 7:37 PM, Cliff Cunningham <cliff at duke.edu> wrote:

> 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
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Basta-users mailing list
> Basta-users at lists.r-forge.r-project.org
> https://lists.r-forge.r-project.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/basta-users

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.r-forge.r-project.org/pipermail/basta-users/attachments/20131031/bf20d235/attachment.html>