Hi,
In "Skew-t fits to mortality data - can a Gaussian-related distribution replace
the Gompertz-Makeham as the basis for mortality studies?" (J Gerontol A Biol
Sci Med Sci 2013 August ;68(8):903-913; doi:10.1093/Gerona/gls239) Clark et al
compares the fit of several distributions to mortality data (using the bbmle
package, among others).
This is not the place to comment on the paper, of course. Just wanted to share
with you the following quote (p. 906) -almost a throwaway remark given the
context of the paper- which may be of interest to the statisticians in the
forum:
"[T]here was a lack of catalogue number referencing for statistical objects.
Attempts at cataloguing are under way (eg the Digital Library of Mathematical
Functions), but the present lack of number referencing could be contrasted
with, for example, that for genes, genomes, single-nucleotide polymorphisms or
proteins. This has, seemingly, led in some cases to poor characterisation: for
example... the AIC is calculated differently in packages bbmle and gamlss". And
then they provide one suggestion for cataloguing.
An obvious question to the forum is how come the AIC is calculated differently
depending on the package, but I wanted to highlight this need for cataloguing
statistical objects akin to genes, proteins, etc.
Kind regards,
José
Prof. José Iparraguirre
Chief Economist
Age UK
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