李明恂. / Thesis (M.A.)--香港中文大學. / Reprint. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 115-123). / Li Mingxun. / Thesis (M.A.)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue. / 嗚謝 --- p.I / 英文摘要 --- p.II / 附圖目錄 --- p.III / 附表目錄 --- p.VII / Chapter 第一章 --- 前言 --- p.1 / Chapter 1. --- 硏究動機 --- p.2 / Chapter 2. --- 硏究問題 --- p.4 / Chapter 3. --- 硏究對象 --- p.5 / Chapter 4. --- 本硏究的效果 --- p.8 / Chapter 第二章 --- 人口年齡結構 --- p.11 / Chapter 第三章 --- 香港人口的年齡結構 --- p.19 / Chapter 1. --- 香港人口的年齡結構 --- p.19 / Chapter 2. --- 香港各大統計區人口年齡結構 --- p.23 / Chapter 3. --- 香港各統計區人口年齡結構 --- p.28 / Chapter 第四章 --- 研究方法 --- p.40 / Chapter 1. --- 引言 --- p.40 / Chapter 2. --- 年齡結搆指數 --- p.40 / Chapter 3. --- 統計方法 --- p.47 / Chapter 4. --- 資料處理 --- p.48 / Chapter 5. --- 硏究假設 --- p.58 / Chapter 6. --- 總結 --- p.59 / Chapter 第五章 --- 年齡結構指數 --- p.60 / Chapter 1. --- 年齡結構指數數字 --- p.60 / Chapter "2," --- 年齡結構指數的空間分佈 --- p.70 / Chapter 第六章 --- 年齡結構指數與人口、社會及家庭變數 --- p.82 / Chapter 1. --- 簡單相關 --- p.83 / Chapter 2. --- 複迴歸 --- p.87 / Chapter 3. --- 逐步迴歸 --- p.88 / Chapter 4. --- 殘差分析 --- p.91 / Chapter 5. --- 總結 --- p.95 / Chapter 第七章 --- 總結 --- p.98 / Chapter 1. --- 硏究總結 --- p.98 / Chapter 2. --- 建議 --- p.100 / Chapter 3. --- 進一步的硏究方向 --- p.103 / 註釋 --- p.109 / 參考書目 --- p.115

Thesis (MPA) --University of Limpopo, 2011 / The study investigates the challenges facing Statistics South Africa in conducting population census project in the Limpopo Province. A special focus is on the Capricorn District Municipality. Literature has been reviewed as secondary sources and primary information was collected from a sample of 70 respondents. The study used both qualitative and quantitative approaches in both data collection and analysis. The results from the study indicate that the major challenges facing Statistics South Africa in conducting population census projects include; lack of proper planning, insufficient budget, under count, over count, refusals, and lack of monitoring strategies. Based on the results, strategic recommendations were made.

Civil registration (CR) is a continuous recording of births, deaths, causes of death, marriages, divorces, and migrations, and is fundamental to the socioeconomic development in every country. It establishes the legal identity of individuals and produces vital statistics (VS) of a population. Identity documents, including a birth certificate, signifies an individual's citizenship. They preset access to basic services, legal protection, and economic opportunities. Statistics produced from the civil registry are key to inform the planning and monitoring of development programs, including health. Birth registration is fundamental to the CRVS system because at-birth records provide the basic information needed by other sectors in order to plan and deliver their services. Also, they create a documentation path over individuals’ lifecycle. Poor birth registration performance, therefore, epitomizes a weak CRVS system. This study focuses on birth registration in Indonesia, one of the countries with the largest number of unregistered under-five years old children. It aims to identify factors that generate stronger birth registration in other lower middle-income countries and to examine the current state of birth registration in Indonesia. Based on the review of the global and regional practices and the analysis of the empirical evidence, this study proposes comprehensive solutions to engender an effective birth registration system in Indonesia. This study is presented in three papers, each of which addresses specific aims and research questions and together offer conceptual coherence on birth registration system in Indonesia. Paper 1 titled “Enablers to Stronger Birth Registration Systems in Developing Countries: A Qualitative Systematic Review” synthesizes experiences from birth registration strengthening programs. Paper 2 titled “Barriers and Opportunities of Birth Registration: Evidence from Indonesia” quantitatively analyzes the current state and the factors that affect the access to birth registration services in Indonesia. Paper 3 titled “Ending Invisibility Since Birth: Solutions for Birth Registration Policy in Indonesia and the Global Practice” discusses strategic changes that are required to improve the birth registration performance in Indonesia and potentially beyond. It is hoped that this study can contribute to the literature about Indonesia and birth registration systems while offering applicable ways to improve the situation.

How fast and how far China’s fertility declined in the 1990s has long been a matter of considerable debate, despite very low fertility consistently being reported in a number of statistical investigations over time. Most demographers interpreted this as a result of serious underreporting of births in population statistics, due to the family planning program, especially the program strengthening after 1991. Consequently, they suggested that fertility fell only moderately below-replacement level, around 1.8 children per woman from the early 1990s. But some demographers argued that surveys and census may have reflected a real decline of fertility even allowing for some underreporting of births, given the consistency between data sources and over time. They believed that fertility declined substantially in the 1990s, very likely in the range between 1.5 and 1.6 by the year 2000.¶ The controversy over fertility is primarily related to the problem of underreporting of births, in particular the different estimations of the extent of underreporting. However, a correct interpretation of fertility data goes far beyond the pure numbers, which calls for a thorough understanding of different data sources, the programmatic and societal changes that occurred in the 1990s, and their effects on both fertility changes and data collection efforts. This thesis aims to address the question whether the reported far-below-replacement level fertility was a reality of substantial fertility decline or just an illusion arising from underreporting of births. Given the nature of the controversy, it devotes most efforts in assessing data quality, through examining the patterns, causes and extent of underreporting of births in each data source; reconstructing the decline of fertility in the 1990s; and searching corroborating evidence for the decline.¶ After reviewing programmatic changes in the 1990s, this thesis suggests that the program efforts were greatly strengthened, which would help to bring fertility down, but the birth control policy and program target were not tightened as generally believed. The program does affect individual reporting of births, but the completeness of births in each data source is greatly dependent on who collects fertility data and how the data are collected. The thesis then carefully examines the data collection operations and underreporting of births in five sets of fertility data: the hukou statistics, the family planning statistics, population census, annual survey and retrospective survey. The analysis does not find convincing evidence that fertility data deteriorated more seriously in the 1990s than the preceding decade. Rather, it finds that surveys and censuses have a far more complete reporting of births than the registration-based statistics, because they directly obtain information from respondents, largely avoiding intermediate interference from local program workers. In addition, the detailed examination suggests that less than 10 percent births may have been unreported in surveys and censuses. The annual surveys, which included many higher-order our-of-plan births being misreported as first-order births, have more complete reporting of births than censuses, which were affected by the increasing population mobility and field enumeration difficulties, and retrospective surveys, which suffered from underreporting of higher-order births.¶ Using the unadjusted data of annual surveys from 1991 to 1999, 1995 sample census and 2000 census, this research shows that fertility first dropped from 2.3 to 1.7 in the first half of the 1990s, and further declined to a lower level around 1.5-1.6 in the second half of the decade. The comparison with other independent sources corroborates the reliability of this estimation. Putting China’s fertility decline in international perspective, comparison with the experiences of Thailand and Korea also supports such a rapid decline. Subsequently, the thesis reveals an increasingly narrow gap between state demands and popular fertility preferences, and great contributions from delayed marriage and nearly universal contraception. It is concluded that the fertility declined substantially over the course of the 1990s and dropped to a very low level by the end of last century. It is very likely that the combination of a government-enforced birth control program and rapid societal changes quickly moved China into the group of very low-fertility countries earlier than that might have been anticipated, as almost all the others are developed countries.

No description available.

A dissertation ... giving details of problems and methods of obtaining statistics of the more important demographic aspects of the African Negroid populations, that is the size of a population, its sex and age distribution, migration movements, deaths and rates of increase.

Master of Science

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Demography and Population Studies, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa 2016 / Census taking dates back to the era of the Roman Empire as can be drawn from the gospel of Luke Chapter 2, Verses 1-5. Under the Roman rule censuses were conducted to keep records for individuals that were eligible for conscription into the army. Later during the colonial era, censuses were conducted to capture individuals that were eligible to pay tax. Currently censuses are widely used in guiding efficient planning and fair resource allocation. Content error, which refers to recording inaccurate information on captured individuals, and coverage error, i.e. either undercounting or over counting of people in a census, presents challenges in achieving these goals. Coverage error is frequent in censuses, especially undercount, which is of interest in this study. In countries that have a well-documented history of census taking like the United States of America, Canada, and China, there are indications that respective censuses recorded substantial numbers of people that were missed. Nigeria and South Africa are some of the countries in Africa where high undercounts have been recorded in censuses. The latter country, which is the focus of this study, recorded undercount estimates of 10.6%, 17%, and 14.6% in the last three censuses of 1996, 2001, and 2011 respectively. These high undercount estimates were the source of controversies that have been associated with the three censuses. The controversies centred on the accuracy of the Post-enumeration Survey (PES). Critiques argue that the PES has been inaccurate in estimating and adjusting the undercount in the respective censuses. For this reason, the accuracy of both the undercount estimates and adjusted counts drawn from this method has also been contested. [Abbreviated abstract. Open document to view full version] / GR2017

This thesis defines a novel and intuitive method to visually represent attribute uncertainty, and spatial boundary uncertainty generated from choropleth maps. Like all data, it is not possible to know exactly how far from the truth spatial data used for choropleth mapping is. When spatial data is used in a decision-making context a visual representation of data correctness may become a valuable addition. As an example, the visualisation of uncertainty is illustrated using choropleth mapping techniques superimposed on New Zealand 2001 census data, but other spatial datasets could have been employed. Both attribute and spatial uncertainty are considered, with Monte Carlo statistical simulations being used to model attribute uncertainty. A visualisation technique to manage certain choropleth spatial boundary issues (i.e. the modifiable areal unit problem - MAUP) and uncertainty in attribute data is introduced, especially catering for attribute and choropleth spatial boundary uncertainty simultaneously. The new uncertainty visualisation method uses the quadtree spatial data model (SDM) in a novel manner. It is shown that by adapting the quadtree SDM to divide according to uncertainty levels possessed by attributes (associated with areal units), rather than divide on the basis of homogeneous regions (as the original quadtree design was intended), a measure of attribute and choropleth spatial boundary uncertainty can be exhibited. The variable cell size of the structure expresses uncertainty, with larger cell size indicating large uncertainty, and vice versa. The new quadtree SDM was termed the trustree. A software suite called TRUST v1.0 (The Representation of Uncertainty using Scale-unspecific Tessellations) was developed to create square trustree visualisations. The visual appeal and representational accuracy of the trustree was investigated. Representative accuracy and visual appeal increased when using hexagonal tessellations instead of the quadtree�s traditional square tessellation. In particular, the Hexagonal or Rhombus (HoR) quadtree designed by Bell et al. (1989) was used to programme TRUST v1.1. Using the HoR quadtree in rhombic mode (TRUST v1.1.1) produced Orbison�s optical illusion, so it was disregarded. However, the HoR trustree (the hexagonal tessellation produced by TRUST v1.1.2) was adopted for further research and user assessment. When assessed using an Internet survey, the HoR trustree adequately displayed choropleth spatial boundary uncertainty, but not attribute uncertainty. New trustree visualisations, the value-by-area (VBA) trustree and adjacent HoR trustree were developed to help increase the expression of attribute uncertainty. Upon reassessment, the new trustree visualisations were deemed usable to express attribute uncertainty and choropleth spatial boundary uncertainty at a modest 58% usable (HoR trustree), 80% usable (VBA trustree) and 85% usable (adjacent HoR trustree). A usability test (where participants were asked to spot different levels of uncertainty) validated these results, whereby the HoR trustree achieved a 65% accuracy level and the VBA trustree achieved an 80% accuracy level. The user assessments helped to highlight that the trustree could be used in two ways, to express detail within or clutter over areal units. The HoR trustree showed (1) a level of detail (or resolution) metaphor, where more detail represented more accuracy and/or the reverse, (2) a metaphor of clutter, where the data structure output was sufficiently dense as to cover spatial information, in effect hiding uncertain areas. Further Internet survey testing showed the trustree tessellation works better when representing a metaphor of detail. Attribute and spatial uncertainty can be effectively expressed depending on the tessellation level used. Overall, the new TRUST suite visualisations compare favourably with existing uncertainty visualisation techniques. Some uncertainty visualisation methods consistently performed better than the TRUST visualisations such as blinking areas, adjacent value and non-continuous cartograms. Other methods like colour saturation, image sharpness and a three-dimensional surface frequently performed with less usability. Therefore, the TRUST visualisations have found their place amongst other uncertainty visualisation methods. However, survey results showed that TRUST is a viable option for visualising two forms of uncertainty - attribute and spatial uncertainty. No other visualisation method has these capabilities. Further research could include a laboratory assessment of TRUST and also incorporating vagueness and temporal uncertainty concepts. Additionally, end-user testing could provide a valuable insight into uncertainty visualisation for everyday use. Adopting uncertainty methods to uncertainty, such as the technique presented here, into the mainstream decision making environment could be considered a fundamental objective for future investigation in spatial studies.

Microbubble ultrasound (US) contrast agents have been used to monitor the progression of anti-angiogenic chemotherapies. However, US backscatter measurements used in contrast imaging are inherently variable, given the presence of many microbubbles of random position and size. A model was developed to investigate the influence of US scanner and microbubble characteristics on these variable measurements. The Coefficient of Variation was used to measure variability. It was found that an optimum excitation frequency exists that minimizes this variability. In the case of DefinityTM, a 2.25 MHz centre-frequency pulse yielded a less variable measurement than at 5 MHz. Conversely, decreasing microbubbble concentration was found to significantly increase variability. Evidence suggests that microbubbles are no longer Rayleigh scatterers at sufficient low concentrations. Post-processing was found to aid in reducing measurement variability by averaging samples where microbubble positions are uncorrelated. As well, reduction can be achieved by averaging about a region-of-interest of uniform perfusion.