This book addresses a range of aging intensity functions, which make it possible to measure and compare aging trends for lifetime random variables. Moreover, they can be used for the characterization of lifetime distributions, also with bounded support. Stochastic orders based on the aging intensities, and their connections with some other orders, are also discussed. To demonstrate the applicability of aging intensity in reliability practice, the book analyzes both real and generated data. The estimated, properly chosen, aging intensity function is mainly recommended to identify data’s lifetime distribution, and secondly, to estimate some of the parameters of the identified distribution. Both reliability researchers and practitioners will find the book a valuable guide and source of inspiration.

This book provides an introduction to multistate event history analysis. It is an extension of survival analysis, in which a single terminal event (endpoint) is considered and the time-to-event is studied. Multistate models focus on life histories or trajectories, conceptualized as sequences of states and sequences of transitions between states. Life histories are modeled as realizations of continuous-time Markov processes. The model parameters, transition rates, are estimated from data on event counts and populations at risk, using the statistical theory of counting processes. The Comprehensive R Network Archive (CRAN) includes several packages for multistate modeling. This book is about Biograph. The package is designed to (a) enhance exploratory analysis of life histories and (b) make multistate modeling accessible. The package incorporates utilities that connect to several packages for multistate modeling, including survival, eha, Epi, mvna,, mstate, msm, and TraMineR for sequence analysis. The book is a ‘hands-on’ presentation of Biograph and the packages listed. It is written from the perspective of the user. To help the user master the techniques and the software, a single data set is used to illustrate the methods and software. It is the subsample of the German Life History Survey, which was also used by Blossfeld and Rohwer in their popular textbook on event history modeling. Another data set, the Netherlands Family and Fertility Survey, is used to illustrate how Biograph can assist in answering questions on life paths of cohorts and individuals. The book is suitable as a textbook for graduate courses on event history analysis and introductory courses on competing risks and multistate models. It may also be used as a self-study book. The R code used in the book is available online. Frans Willekens is affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) in Rostock, Germany. He is Emeritus Professor of Demography at the University of Groningen, a Honorary Fellow of the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI) in the Hague, and a Research Associate of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria. He is a member of Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). He has contributed to the modeling and simulation of life histories, mainly in the context of population forecasting.

Healthy ageing has long been a neglected area of epidemiological research as the traditional focus has been on specific chronic diseases of older life. There is a growing consensus from scientists, research funders and policy makers that ageing itself needs to be studied from an interdisciplinary and life course perspective, to inform strategies for reducing the societal and individual costs of an ageing population. A Life Course Approach to Healthy Ageing is a synthesis of life course perspectives in epidemiology and interdisciplinary perspectives in ageing research. It brings together expert investigators of maturing birth cohort and ageing studies, cross-cutting methodologists, and authorities in ageing research and knowledge transfer from across the world in one wide-ranging volume. Contributors discuss how aspects of healthy ageing are conceptualised, defined and measured; relate to each other; change across life; and are influenced by biological, psychological and social factors operating from early life onwards. They identify research gaps, and suggest how evidence from observational studies can be strengthened through improved study design and longitudinal analysis, thereby increasing the research contribution to practice or policy change. The book considers how we might delay or slow down the progressive, generalised impairment of function that occurs at the individual, body system and cellular levels, as people grow older. It also considers the determinants of wellbeing in older people, including personal fulfilment, positive emotions and social relationships. Broad in scope, discussing topics from genetics to psychological and social wellbeing, A Life Course Approach to Healthy Ageing is a key resource for epidemiologists, social scientists, clinicians, public health physicians, policy makers and practitioners with a research interest in healthy ageing.

This book provides a fresh approach to reliability theory, an area that has gained increasing relevance in fields from statistics and engineering to demography and insurance. Its innovative use of quantile functions gives an analysis of lifetime data that is generally simpler, more robust, and more accurate than the traditional methods, and opens the door for further research in a wide variety of fields involving statistical analysis. In addition, the book can be used to good effect in the classroom as a text for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in Reliability and Statistics.

During the past two decades, there has been an increasing appreciation of the significant value that lifetime-based techniques can add to biomedical studies and applications of fluorescence. Bringing together perspectives of different research communities, Fluorescence Lifetime Spectroscopy and Imaging: Principles and Applications in Biomedical Dia