Unconventional approaches to mortality estimation

Most developing countries do not have complete registration of deaths on which to base mortality estimates. Four broad categories of unconventional methods have been developed to provide mortality estimates in such settings. The first consists of approaches for evaluation adjustment of incompletely recorded deaths by comparison with recorded age distributions. The second consists of alternative data collection methodologies collecting information about deaths by age. The third consists of approaches based on asking respondents about the survival or otherwise of close relatives. The fourth estimates mortality from changes in age distributions, interpreting cohort attrition as mortality. Methods in the first two categories offer the greatest potential for contributing information on developing country mortality to the Human Mortality Database. Methods in the first category are illustrated here by application to data from the Republic of Korea for the second half of the 20th century. In populations with good age reporting and little net migration, these methods work well and offer the opportunity to include developing country data in the HMD.adult mortality, developing countries, estimation, Human Mortality Database

Internalizing Outsider Trading

Investing in the United States has become a hobby for many. Individual ownership of equity, moreover, has increased over the past decade due in part to the introduction of internet-based trading. While providing the possibility for greater returns compared with bank savings accounts, among other investment alternatives, the public capital markets also pose greater risks for investors. Many individual investors lack both the resources and the incentive to analyze the value of any particular security in the market. Such investors thus trade at a systematic disadvantage relative to more informed parties. In response, regulators have asserted that certain informational disparities cause uninformed investors to lose confidence in the market, thereby justifying stringent regulation. This Article analyzes the impact of information advantages in the market and proposes a unified approach to regulating such advantages. Informational disparities in the market arise from a number of different sources. An individual investor may contemplate a trade in a particular publicly traded company. Call the company whose securities are being traded the traded firm . In a world without regulatory prohibitions, individual investors first face the possibility that the traded firm itself will provide nonpublic material information to only a subset of investors in the market. Insiders at the traded firm, for example, may enjoy preferential access to confidential information about the company\u27s business prospects and expansion plans, among other things. Insiders may then exploit this information to profit from trades in the market at the expense of outside investors. The traded firm may also provide internal information to outside investors selectively; for example, giving nonpublic material information solely to a group of analysts that regularly follow the firm

Modification of Decay Constants of Superstring Axions: Effects of Flux Compactification and Axion Mixing

We study possibilities for lowering the decay constants of superstring axions. In the heterotic Calabi-Yau compactification, a localized model-dependent axion can appear at a nearly collapsing 2-cycle. The effect of flux can be used for generating warp factor suppression of the axion decay constant. We also point out that the hidden sector instanton potential much higher than the QCD instanton potential picks up the larger effective axion decay constant as that of the QCD axion. We show that this can be converted by introducing many hidden-sector quarks so that the decay constant of the QCD axion turns out to be much smaller than the string scale.Comment: 6 pages with 3 figures, revtex; figure added,section of axion mixing modifie

Gauge Threshold Corrections in Warped Geometry

We discuss the Kaluza-Klein threshold correction to low energy gauge couplings in theories with warped extra-dimension, which might be crucial for the gauge coupling unification when the warping is sizable. Explicit expressions of one-loop thresholds are derived for generic 5D gauge theory on a slice of AdS_5, where some of the bulk gauge symmetries are broken by orbifold boundary conditions and/or by bulk Higgs vacuum values. Effects of the mass mixing between the bulk fields with different orbifold parities are included as such mixing is required in some class of realistic warped unification models.Comment: 33 pages, 1 figure, 6 tables, invited contribution to New Journal of Physics Focus Issue on 'Extra Space Dimensions

String compactification, QCD axion and axion-photon-photon coupling

It is pointed out that there exist a few problems to be overcome toward an observable sub-eV QCD axion in superstring compactification. We give a general expression for the axion decay constant. For a large domain wall number $N_{DW}$, the axion decay constant can be substantially lowered from a generic value of a scalar singlet VEV. The Yukawa coupling structure in the recent $Z_{12-I}$ model is studied completely, including the needed nonrenormalizable terms toward realistic quark and lepton masses. In this model we find an approximate global symmetry and vacuum so that a QCD axion results but its decay constant is at the GUT scale. The axion-photon-photon coupling is calculated for a realistic vacuum satisfying the quark and lepton mass matrix conditions. It is the first time calculation of $c_{a\gamma\gamma}$ in realistic string compactifications: $c_{a\gamma\gamma}={5/3}-1.93\simeq -0.26$.Comment: 33 pages, 2 figures, JHEP format, some errors in the superpotential couplings are corrected and the following discussions are changed correspondingl

Gauge coupling renormalization in orbifold field theories

We investigate the gauge coupling renormalization in orbifold field theories preserving 4-dimensional N=1 supersymmetry in the framework of 4-dimensional effective supergravity. As a concrete example, we consider the 5-dimensional Super-Yang-Mills theory on a slice of AdS_5. In our approach, one-loop gauge couplings can be determined by the loop-induced axion couplings and the tree level properties of 4-dimensional effective supergravity which are much easier to be computed.Comment: 18 pages, JHEP style; 1-loop corrections to gauge kinetic functions are fully computed, references are adde