memo 4a reviewer

When assessing the work, please consider the following points:

1. Is the question posed by the authors new and well defined?
2. Are the methods appropriate and well described, and are sufficient details provided to replicate the work?
3. Are the data sound and well controlled?
4. Does the manuscript adhere to the relevant standards for reporting and data deposition?
5. Are the discussion and conclusions well balanced and adequately supported by the data?
6. Do the title and abstract accurately convey what has been found?
7. Is the writing acceptable?

AGI again

What is interesting in this pic?
A map.
Performing an abortion in People Republic of China is safer than in Russian Federation. Despite Russia has the longest history of legal abortion (1920-1936+1955-now=74+, and even from 1936 to 1955 abortion was not fully banned) Russian doctors have not learned how to make an abortion.
Albeit I am pretty sure that AGI conclusion is based upon Russian Ministry of Health sources (intimidation in many official materials) and medical community experts comments in media, not on correct data and careful analysis, which are far from real thing -- low quality of service remains apparent.

upg:
above coment remains valid, although my impression of the map was different and incorrect. For more adequate understanding see the WHO definition (Safe abortion: technical and policy guidance for health systems, page 18, pdf):

Unsafe abortion is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a procedure for terminating an unintended pregnancy, carried out either by persons lacking the necessary skills or in an environment that does not conform to minimal medical standards, or both.

Adequacy of abortion statistics in Russia

this is our presentation to this conference

the first RLMS-HSE users' conference

May 17-18, Moscow

left to right: B. Popkin, P. Kozyreva, V. Radayev, M. Kosolapov
conference abstracts

more on menarche and the first coitus

Previous pix are here and here.
Finally, the results with weighted cases. RLMS provides weights as one of the variables.

Menarche:

However the result is the same, median age = 13, i.e., the school's 7th degree. In the 8th degree more than a half of girls are exposed to risk of unwanted pregnancy, since few normal creatures wish a pregnancy at school.

The first sex:

Weighting moves age at the first sex one year greater, 19 rather than 18. But 48.8 per cent of girls starts their sexual life at school. If it starts than it's already late for education, imho.

In other words: the sexuality education must begin at about seventh grade, and instruction in contraception should be a greater part of it.

 

menarche becomes younger

unweighted RLMS data
linear trend: y = -0,0137x + 13,528; R² = 0,53362

above average, btw

in all listed categories ;)
PLoS provided new tool to measure reading (views and downloads) of papers. Our paper is not bad at all:)

see paper

age of sexual debut

These are the RLMS data (round 19, 2010).

Lines belongs to the left vertical axis and represent cumulative number of cases, right vertical axis shows per cents (red/blue).
The age at different personal events is naturally different, median age at menarche is twelve, median age of the sexual debut is seventeen.
Age at which a half of those who had experienced periods, became biologically ready for conception and started their sexual life is nineteen.
These ages are important to consider the beginning of a course of sexuality education: when a school should start it? Imho: fourteen is the latest, or about the seventh grade.

The next important finding is fifteen percent of those who did not start their sexual life by age 35. It is very close to WHO estimates of infertility.

When Dickens met Dostoevsky

by Eric Naiman (the co-editor, with Christina Kiaer, of Everyday Life in Early Soviet Russia: Taking the revolution inside, 2006, and the author, most recently of Nabokov, Perversely, 2010) in TLS:

• Dostoevsky was a prickly, often rude interlocutor. He and Turgenev hated each other
• Tomalin returned to her research notes and soon admitted that she might have been the victim of a hoax
• When Professor Andrews wrote to Ms Harvey, she responded that she had lost her notes, had a poor memory and had moved on to other topics
• So who was Stephanie Harvey, and why had she written her article?
• What was clear was Stephanie Harvey’s penchant for a distinct modus operandi
• Harvey has repeatedly focused his ire on several institutions, most notably the left-tilting British Academy
• This was not, however, the end of the connection between A. D. Harvey and Trevor McGovern
• Chekhov wrote a story where the father of a counterfeiter begins to worry that every coin passing through his hands is a fake
• Even for holders of tenured university positions, scholarship can make for a lonely life
• In other cases Harvey seems to have been operating as something of a vigilante
• The worst thing here, if they are fictitious, is a violation of the trust that remains a constitutive element of the humanities
• The discovery of this text marked the end of my pursuit . . . . Dickens and Dostoevsky were no longer in sight

smth arrived today

the 1st arrival:
Dear Dr. Denisov
Congratulation on your publication "Divergent trends in abortion and birth control practices in belarus, Russia and Ukraine" (PUBMED id: 23349656). It has been included in Labome.Org. see http://www.labome.org//exp/denisov/boris-p-denisov-2206606.html

You can add/edit the list of publications and other information at http://www.labome.org/about/get_involved.html

You can provide us with a PDF copy of the article to display and distribute at Labome.ORG if you have the right to do so.

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Labome.Org is a professional platform where researchers can present their expertise to the public and the public can search for experts on specific topics.

Labome ExactAlert Service

I have followed the first link, the screen asked me to enter e-mail address - I did, and then a message arrived:

Based on publicly available information, the email address for Boris P Denisov is denisov@demography.ru
This contact information may be outdated, Labome visitors have contacted the collaborators or colleagues (experts from the same organization) to seek the updated contact information for other experts.  Contact information for the collaborators or colleagues for Boris P Denisov may be searched at the URL webpage through the 'back' in the browser.

Labome.Org is a professional platform where researchers can present their expertise to the public and the public can search for experts on specific topics.

then, what dies it mean ?

quit from monitoring

For about a quarter I have been monitoring our PLoS paper. Now it have reached one hundred pdf downloads, which is a usual number of printed copies for MSU publications like HIV Demography.
Below: X -- days, Y -- number of views.

Birth count failure in Caucausus

regional flags, one with swastika ?

One of regional president's envoys or (whatever the position might be) Mr A Khloponin recently announced the deficiency of more than 100 thousand children in the region of his responsibility. There are seven federal subjects in the region: six of them national republics (autonomies), including Chechya, and one Russian kray. Since Rosstat data base does nor work for already about a year I used the demoscope's one which is outdated but remains useful for the purpose like this, so the regional total population is about nine million (2005).

About 15-16 per cent of federal total is children (age 0-15), applying this  percentage to regional population I obtain 1.5 mln, and comparing the estimate with said by Khloponin figure--it seems that about 7-8 per cent of children do not exist in reality (at least in this region).

upg: reread Khloponing message, and got that he mentioned republics only, i.e., virtual kids are more localized