Deciphering infant mortality

Berrut, Sylvie; Pouillard, Violette; Richmond, Peter; Roehner, Bertrand M.

doi:10.1016/j.physa.2016.07.031

Cited by 16 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…For humans, the force of mortality typically is of the so-called 'bath-tub' form, shown in figure 1. The mortality rate is high at/after birth (infant mortality), but then rapidly decreases with an inverse power law until it reaches a minimum in the teenage years, see for example [Berrut et al 2016]. Beyond this point it levels off for a short period and then begins to rise exponentially.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can soap films be used as models for mortality studies?

Haffner

Lalieu

Richmond

et al. 2018

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications

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We report studies of the life expectancy of sets of parallel liquid films made from surfactant solution and contained in cylindrical perspex tubes. The tubes are sealed at the bottom and vertically placed. From our analysis of the lifetime data of over 2200 such films we find that this synthetic system shows characteristics of the statistics of human mortality. An infant or wearin phase with decreasing mortality is succeeded by an ageing phase that broadly follows the law of Gompertz. Ensembles of soap films thus offer themselves as a unique and easily accessible experimental system for the study of failure/mortality statistics with applications to human data.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can soap films be used as models for mortality studies?

Haffner

Lalieu

Richmond

et al. 2018

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications

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“…The results of applying eqn. (12) are shown in Figures 6 (b) and 7 (b), which display the computed distributions f L (L) for respectively one and two stopper data. Conversion of the time-axis into a length-axis is via L = ( T − T 0 )/c.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…figure5 (b)). (b) Reconstruction of the distribution of tube lengths using the methodology described in the main text, Eqns (11) and(12). There is a sharp peak at L 2 cm and a broad peak between about 8cm and 22cm.…”

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confidence: 99%

Physical models of infant mortality: implications for defects in biological systems

et al. 2020

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Reliability engineering concerned with failure of technical inanimate systems usually uses vocabulary and notions of human mortality, e.g. infant mortality vs. senescence mortality. Yet few data are available to support such a parallel description. Here we focus on early stage (infant) mortality for two inanimate systems, incandescent light bulbs and soap films, and show the parallel description is clearly valid. Theoretical considerations of the thermoelectrical properties of electrical conductors allows us to link bulb failure to inherent mechanical defects. We then demonstrate the converse, that is, knowing the failure rate for an ensemble of light bulbs, it is possible to deduce the distribution of defects in wire thickness in the ensemble. Using measurements of lifetimes for soap films we show how this methodology links failure rate to geometry of the system; in the case presented this is the length of the tube containing the films. In a similar manner, for a third example, the time-dependent death rate due to congenital aortic valve stenosis is related to the distribution of degrees of severity of this condition, as a function of time. The results not only validate clearly the parallel description noted above, but point firmly to application of the methodology to humans, with the consequent ability to gain more insight into the role of abnormalities in infant mortality.

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“… Survival probabilities for US start-up companies over the period 1947–1954 and 1994–2021. Data sources: McIntyre [ 2 ] and Steindl [ 3 ]. …”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a series of recent papers [ 1 , 2 , 3 ] the present authors have studied human mortality demonstrating how the shape of the mortality function has a bathtub type of shape where the infant mortality decreases with age whereas in old age it increases ( Figure 1 ). In medical terminology infancy refers to new born under one year of age.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Mortality of Companies

Richmond

Roehner

2022

Entropy

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Using data from both the US and UK we examine the survival and mortality of companies in both the early stage or start-up and mature phases. The shape of the mortality curve is broadly similar to that of humans. Even small single cellular organisms such as rotifers have a similar shape. The mortality falls in the early stages in a hyperbolic manner until around 20–30 years when it begins to rise broadly according to the Gompertz exponential law. To explain in simple terms these features we adapt the MinMax model introduced by the authors elsewhere to explain the shape of the human mortality curve.

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Deciphering infant mortality

Cited by 16 publications

References 26 publications

Can soap films be used as models for mortality studies?

Can soap films be used as models for mortality studies?

Physical models of infant mortality: implications for defects in biological systems

On the Mortality of Companies

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