James W Wood
Biographic Data
| ID | 120660 |
|---|---|
| NAME | James W Wood |
| GIVEN NAMES | James W |
| FAMILY NAME | Wood |
| SIGNATURE | WOOD J W |
| AFFILIATIONS | Pennsylvania State University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 42 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 994 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 42 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1967 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
William Tell Militarism: The Swiss Model for Canada’s ‘Citizen Army’
Following Confederation in 1867, Canadians needed to move forward from their dependence on British imperial defence. Canadian militiaman Richard John Wicksteed was first to recommend adopting the model of the Swiss Army, a multi-ethnic, rifle-wielding citizen force powerful enough to ensure Swiss neutrality although surrounded by militaristic European powers. General Officer Commanding Edward Thomas Henry Hutton later proposed the Swiss model for…
Drought and Its Demographic Effects in the Maya Lowlands
Increasing evidence supports the role of climate change in the disintegration of regional polities in the Maya lowlands at the end of the Classic Period (750-1000 CE). However, the demographic effects of drought remain largely unknown in the absence of Classic Period textual evidence indicating declines in agricultural productivity and population over this broad geographic area. To understand the relationship between climate change and demography…
Household ecology and out-migration among ethnic Karen along the Thai-Myanmar border
Local migration in developing-world settings, particularly among rural populations, is an important yet understudied demographic process. Research on migration in such populations can help us test and inform anthropological and demographic theory. Furtherm
Infant mortality and intra‐household competition in the Northern Islands of Orkney, Scotland, 1855–2001
This study applies principles from the theory of household life cycles to the study of early childhood mortality in the population of the Northern Orkney Islands, Scotland. The primary hypothesis is that unfavorable household economic conditions resulting from changes in household demographic composition increase the risk of death for children under the age of 5 years because of limited resources and intra‐household competition. We apply Cox prop…
Demography Part 1: Mortality and Migration
This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Demographic Rates and their Estimation Mortality Migration Chapter Summary Acknowledgments References Cited Recommended Readings
Using event-history analysis to examine the causes of semi-sedentism among shifting cultivators: A case study of the Haudenosaunee, AD 1500–1700
A draft genome of Yersinia pestis from victims of the Black Death
The latest DNA recovery and sequencing technologies have been used to reconstruct the genome of the Yersinia pestis bacterium responsible for the Black Death pandemic of bubonic plague that spread across Europe in the fourteenth century. The genome was pieced together from total DNA extracted from the skeletal remains of four individuals excavated from a large cemetery on the site of the Royal Mint in East Smithfield in London, where more than 2,…
Household-level predictors of the presence of servants in Northern Orkney, Scotland, 1851–1901
Servants were an important part of the northwestern European household economy in the preindustrial past. This study examines household-level characteristics that are predictive of the presence of rural servants using data from Orkney, Scotland. The number of servants present in a household is related to household composition, landholding size, and the marital status of the household head. In addition, the sex of the particular servant hired reve…
Selectivity of Black Death mortality with respect to preexisting health
Was the mortality associated with the deadliest known epidemic in human history, the Black Death of 1347–1351, selective with respect to preexisting health conditions (“frailty”)? Many researchers have assumed that the Black Death was so virulent, and the European population so immunologically naïve, that the epidemic killed indiscriminately, irrespective of age, sex, or frailty. If this were true, Black Death cemeteries would provide unbiased cr…
Native Americans and Alcohol: Past, Present, and Future
Native Americans have higher rates of alcohol use, frequency of use, and increased rates of fetal alcohol syndrome, compared with other ethnic groups (J. Hisnanick, 1992; P. A. May, 1996; J. M. Wallace et al., 2003). High prevalence rates of alcohol misuse among Native Americans must be understood in light of their unique history, which has resulted in trauma and exposure to many risk factors for problem alcohol use. Many risk factors have been i…
Catherine Wheel
N: (For Melissa Jobson)
The Temporal Dynamics of the Fourteenth-Century Black Death: New Evidence from English Ecclesiastical Records
Recent research has questioned whether the European Black Death of 1347-1351 could possibly have been caused by the bubonic plague bacillus Yersinia pestis, as has been assumed for over a century. Central to the arguments both for and against involvement of Y. pestis has been a comparison of the temporal dynamics observed in confirmed outbreaks of bubonic plague in early-20th-century India, versus those reconstructed for the Black Death from Engl…
Mortality models for paleodemography
Introduction Population scientists concerned with long-term trends in human mortality ought to be interested in skeletal samples from extinct communities. Such samples are, in principle, the only possible source of information for most pre-industrial populations lacking written records – by far the most common kind of human community that has ever existed. Samples of skeletons provide two broad classes of information of potential interest to demo…
Transition analysis: A new method for estimating age from skeletons
Introduction Estimating the ages of skeletons is an essential part of any osteologist's job, regardless of whether the skeletons come from forensic or archaeological contexts. The ages of juvenile skeletons can usually be estimated with minimal bias and an acceptable range of error, although even this endeavor is not entirely free from problems. But the situation is far worse when one is dealing with the skeletons of adults. Here a number of seri…
Menstrual cycle variability and the perimenopause
Menopause, the final cessation of menstrual cycling, occurs when the pool of ovarian follicles is depleted. The one to five years just prior to the menopause are usually marked by increasing variability in menstrual cycle length, frequency of ovulation, and levels of reproductive hormones. Little is known about the mechanisms that account for these characteristics of ovarian cycles as the menopause approaches. Some evidence suggests that the dwin…
A Concise History of World Population
Concise History of World Population. 2nd edition. Massimo Livi-Bacci. Maiden, MA: Blackwell, 1997.250 pp
A Theory of Preindustrial Population Dynamics Demography, Economy, and Well-Being in Malthusian Systems
This paper presents a simple model of preindustrial population dynamics, one that brings together the theoretical insights of Thomas Robert Malthus and Ester Boserup. Central to the model is the concept of well-being, which refers to those aspects of physical condition that influence an individual's capacity to survive and reproduce. Changes in the mean and variance in well-being are modeled, first, under a fixed system of food production and, se…
A Multistate Model of Fecundability and Sterility
This paper develops a multistate hazards model for estimating fecundability and sterility from data on waiting times to conception. Important features of the model include separate sterile and nonsterile states, a distinction between preexisting sterility and sterility that begins after initiation of exposure, and log-normally distributed fecundability among nonsterile couples. Application of the model to data on first birth intervals from Taiwan…
The Osteological Paradox Reconsidered
How does variation in fetal loss affect the distribution of waiting times to conception
Unmeasured variation has long been a concern in analyses of the waiting time to conception. Recent work by Heckman and Walker (1991) and Trussell and Rodriguez (1990) has underscored the fact that statistical considerations alone cannot discriminate among likely models describing the distribution. Here, we specify a single theoretically important source of heterogeneity, namely variability in intrauterine mortality, and assess its effects on the …
Hazards models for human population biology
Population biologists are often interested in examining the effects of continuous biological variables such as measures of growth, body size, nutritional status, and exposure to environmental risk factors, on discerte vital events such as brith, onset of disease, and death. Traditional statistical analyses are unable to cope with several complexities that arise in the study of such effects, including censoring of observations and explanatory vari…
The Osteological Paradox: Problems of Inferring Prehistoric Health from Skeletal Samples [and Comments and Reply]
Biological Anthropology: Modelling Biological Populations in Space and Time. Eric Renshaw
Birth spacing patterns in humans and apes
Comparative studies of birth interval dynamics in wild primates suffer from several problems of analysis and interpretation: (1) the data are always right‐censored, (2) sample sizes are usually small, (3) the distribution of birth intervals is expected to be non‐normal, (4) early offspring mortality is a confounding variable, and (5) differences in life history (e.g., presence or absence of menopause) can complicate interpretation of the results.…
The Osteological Paradox: Problems of Inferring Prehistoric Health from Skeletal Samples [and Comments and Reply]
A Theory of Preindustrial Population Dynamics Demography, Economy, and Well-Being in Malthusian Systems
This paper presents a simple model of preindustrial population dynamics, one that brings together the theoretical insights of Thomas Robert Malthus and Ester Boserup. Central to the model is the concept of well-being, which refers to those aspects of physical condition that influence an individual's capacity to survive and reproduce. Changes in the mean and variance in well-being are modeled, first, under a fixed system of food production and, se…
Fertility in Anthropological Populations
In this review I draw upon statistical demography and, to a lesser extent, reproductive endocrinology to formulate a coherent strategy for investigating fertility and reproduction in anthropological populations. The object, it must be emphasized, is not to reduce anthropology to demography or endocrinology, but rather to acquaint anthropologists with a powerful set of tools with which they can address issues of anthropological interest." The auth…
Birth spacing patterns in humans and apes
Comparative studies of birth interval dynamics in wild primates suffer from several problems of analysis and interpretation: (1) the data are always right‐censored, (2) sample sizes are usually small, (3) the distribution of birth intervals is expected to be non‐normal, (4) early offspring mortality is a confounding variable, and (5) differences in life history (e.g., presence or absence of menopause) can complicate interpretation of the results.…
Drought and Its Demographic Effects in the Maya Lowlands
Increasing evidence supports the role of climate change in the disintegration of regional polities in the Maya lowlands at the end of the Classic Period (750-1000 CE). However, the demographic effects of drought remain largely unknown in the absence of Classic Period textual evidence indicating declines in agricultural productivity and population over this broad geographic area. To understand the relationship between climate change and demography…
The Osteological Paradox Reconsidered
A Model of Age-specific Fecundability
A new model of the behavioural and physiological causes of age-specific variation in marital fecundability is presented. Total fecundability is decomposed into a series of susceptibility factors (the length of ovarian cycles, the length of the fertile period within each cycle, the probability that a cycle is ovulatory, and the likelihood that an act of unprotected intercourse within the fertile period results in conception) and an exposure factor…
Using event-history analysis to examine the causes of semi-sedentism among shifting cultivators: A case study of the Haudenosaunee, AD 1500–1700
Acculturation and Health in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea: Dissent on Diversity, Diets, and Development [and Comments and Reply]
Hazards models for human population biology
Population biologists are often interested in examining the effects of continuous biological variables such as measures of growth, body size, nutritional status, and exposure to environmental risk factors, on discerte vital events such as brith, onset of disease, and death. Traditional statistical analyses are unable to cope with several complexities that arise in the study of such effects, including censoring of observations and explanatory vari…
Components of Age-Specific Fecundability
Fecundability – the monthly probability of conception – incorporates both physiological and behavioural elements that vary across a woman's reproductive life span. How much of the variation in fecundability during the reproductive period can be attributed to age-related changes in physiology, and how much to variation in coital frequency? We use a mathematical model of fecundability to consider this question. Intra-uterine mortality has an import…
A method of analyzing density‐dependent vital rates with an application to the Gainj of Papua New Guinea
A method of estimating age‐specific coefficients of density‐dependent variation in fertility and mortality is developed; the method is applicable to longitudinal data on population size and the number of births and deaths classified by age. Given a sufficiently large data set, it is possible to estimate both the sensitivity of each age class to density‐dependent damping and the density effect of each age class on every age class in the population…
The Temporal Dynamics of the Fourteenth-Century Black Death: New Evidence from English Ecclesiastical Records
Recent research has questioned whether the European Black Death of 1347-1351 could possibly have been caused by the bubonic plague bacillus Yersinia pestis, as has been assumed for over a century. Central to the arguments both for and against involvement of Y. pestis has been a comparison of the temporal dynamics observed in confirmed outbreaks of bubonic plague in early-20th-century India, versus those reconstructed for the Black Death from Engl…
A Multistate Model of Fecundability and Sterility
This paper develops a multistate hazards model for estimating fecundability and sterility from data on waiting times to conception. Important features of the model include separate sterile and nonsterile states, a distinction between preexisting sterility and sterility that begins after initiation of exposure, and log-normally distributed fecundability among nonsterile couples. Application of the model to data on first birth intervals from Taiwan…
Convergence of genetic distances in a migration matrix model
A recurring problem with the use of migration matrix models of genetic differentiation has to do with their convergence properties. In practice, predictions can be drawn from these models only at equilibrium; but in the case of the standard predictors (most of which are modifications of Wright's F ST ), it can take an unrealistically large number of generations to approach equilibrium. An alternative set of predictors, the set of all pairwise gen…
Genetic characterization of Gainj‐ and Kalam‐Speaking peoples of Papua New Guinea
The research presented focuses on genetic variation in the Gainj‐ and Kalam‐speaking peoples of highland Papua New Guinea. The primary data are typings at 51 genetic loci observed on 600 individuals who reside in 21 census units, called parishes. These data are augmented by cultural and demographic information that has also been collected. Parish sizes are small, ranging from 20 to about 200 individuals. Direct Western contact with these people h…
The genetic demography of the Gainj of Papua New Guinea. I. Local differentiation of blood group, red cell enzyme, and serum protein allele frequencies
Allele frequencies are reported for 19 blood group, red cell enzyme, and serum protein loci (ABO, Rh, MN, Hb‐A, LDH‐A, LDH‐B, SOD, PGM‐1, PGM‐2, 6PGD, GPT, ESD, ADA, ACP, PGK, MDH, Alb, Hp, and Tf) determined from 310 blood samples collected among the Gainj, a small population of tribal horticulturalists from highland Papua New Guinea. Fourteen of these loci display genetic variants, and ten of them are sufficiently polymorphic to permit a prelim…
Household-level predictors of the presence of servants in Northern Orkney, Scotland, 1851–1901
Servants were an important part of the northwestern European household economy in the preindustrial past. This study examines household-level characteristics that are predictive of the presence of rural servants using data from Orkney, Scotland. The number of servants present in a household is related to household composition, landholding size, and the marital status of the household head. In addition, the sex of the particular servant hired reve…
Native Americans and Alcohol: Past, Present, and Future
Native Americans have higher rates of alcohol use, frequency of use, and increased rates of fetal alcohol syndrome, compared with other ethnic groups (J. Hisnanick, 1992; P. A. May, 1996; J. M. Wallace et al., 2003). High prevalence rates of alcohol misuse among Native Americans must be understood in light of their unique history, which has resulted in trauma and exposure to many risk factors for problem alcohol use. Many risk factors have been i…
Infant mortality and intra‐household competition in the Northern Islands of Orkney, Scotland, 1855–2001
This study applies principles from the theory of household life cycles to the study of early childhood mortality in the population of the Northern Orkney Islands, Scotland. The primary hypothesis is that unfavorable household economic conditions resulting from changes in household demographic composition increase the risk of death for children under the age of 5 years because of limited resources and intra‐household competition. We apply Cox prop…
Population structure and genetic heterogeneity in the Upper Markham valley of New Guinea
An analysis is presented of the standardized Wahlund's variances ( f ) in gene frequencies of the ABO, Rh and MNS blood group systems among 19 villages of the Atsera isolate of the upper Markham Valley, Papua New Guinea. In the past, there has been some disagreement over the relative importance of population structure and natural selection in the determination of these variances. The Lewontin‐Krakauer test is presented as a means of resolving thi…
The growth and development of children exposed in utero to the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The growth and development of children exposed in utero to the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. J W Wood, R J Keehn, S Kawamoto, and K G JohnsonCopyRight https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.57.8.1374 Published Online: August 29, 2011
Mental retardation in children exposed in utero to the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Mental retardation in children exposed in utero to the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. J W Wood, K G Johnson, Y Omori, S Kawamoto, and R J KeehnCopyRight https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.57.8.1381 Published Online: August 29, 2011
Population structure and genetic heterogeneity in the Upper Markham valley of New Guinea
An analysis is presented of the standardized Wahlund's variances ( f ) in gene frequencies of the ABO, Rh and MNS blood group systems among 19 villages of the Atsera isolate of the upper Markham Valley, Papua New Guinea. In the past, there has been some disagreement over the relative importance of population structure and natural selection in the determination of these variances. The Lewontin‐Krakauer test is presented as a means of resolving thi…
The People of Murapin . Peter F. Sinnett
A method of analyzing density‐dependent vital rates with an application to the Gainj of Papua New Guinea
A method of estimating age‐specific coefficients of density‐dependent variation in fertility and mortality is developed; the method is applicable to longitudinal data on population size and the number of births and deaths classified by age. Given a sufficiently large data set, it is possible to estimate both the sensitivity of each age class to density‐dependent damping and the density effect of each age class on every age class in the population…
The genetic demography of the Gainj of Papua New Guinea. I. Local differentiation of blood group, red cell enzyme, and serum protein allele frequencies
Allele frequencies are reported for 19 blood group, red cell enzyme, and serum protein loci (ABO, Rh, MN, Hb‐A, LDH‐A, LDH‐B, SOD, PGM‐1, PGM‐2, 6PGD, GPT, ESD, ADA, ACP, PGK, MDH, Alb, Hp, and Tf) determined from 310 blood samples collected among the Gainj, a small population of tribal horticulturalists from highland Papua New Guinea. Fourteen of these loci display genetic variants, and ten of them are sufficiently polymorphic to permit a prelim…
Demographic and endocrinological aspects of low natural fertility in highland New Guinea
The Gainj of highland Papua New Guinea do not use contraception but have a total fertility rate of only 4·3 live births per woman, one of the lowest ever recorded in a natural fertility setting. From an analysis of cross-sectional demographic and endocrinological data, the causes of low reproductive output have been identified in women of this population as: late menarche and marriage, a long interval between marriage and first birth, a high prob…
Lactation and birth spacing in highland New Guinea
The effects of infant suckling patterns on the post-partum resumption of ovulation and on birth-spacing are investigated among the Gainj of highland New Guinea. Based on hormonal evidence, the median duration of lactational anovulation is 20·4 months, accounting for about 75% of the median interval between live birth and next successful conception (i.e. resulting in live birth). Throughout lactation, suckling episodes are short and frequent, the …
"More Thoughts on Lactation as "Nature's Contraceptive
Convergence of genetic distances in a migration matrix model
A recurring problem with the use of migration matrix models of genetic differentiation has to do with their convergence properties. In practice, predictions can be drawn from these models only at equilibrium; but in the case of the standard predictors (most of which are modifications of Wright's F ST ), it can take an unrealistically large number of generations to approach equilibrium. An alternative set of predictors, the set of all pairwise gen…
Genetic characterization of Gainj‐ and Kalam‐Speaking peoples of Papua New Guinea
The research presented focuses on genetic variation in the Gainj‐ and Kalam‐speaking peoples of highland Papua New Guinea. The primary data are typings at 51 genetic loci observed on 600 individuals who reside in 21 census units, called parishes. These data are augmented by cultural and demographic information that has also been collected. Parish sizes are small, ranging from 20 to about 200 individuals. Direct Western contact with these people h…
Fertility in Traditional Societies
This chapter is a preliminary attempt to characterise reproductive patterns in traditional, pre-industrial societies, including huntergatherers, tribal horticulturalists and pastoralists and settled peasant agriculturalists. Assertions about the level of fertility in such societies have played a key role in the development of theoretical models in demography and anthropology and, more recently, in reproductive biology. In classic demographic tran…
Acculturation and Health in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea: Dissent on Diversity, Diets, and Development [and Comments and Reply]
A Model of Age-specific Fecundability
A new model of the behavioural and physiological causes of age-specific variation in marital fecundability is presented. Total fecundability is decomposed into a series of susceptibility factors (the length of ovarian cycles, the length of the fertile period within each cycle, the probability that a cycle is ovulatory, and the likelihood that an act of unprotected intercourse within the fertile period results in conception) and an exposure factor…
Birth spacing patterns in humans and apes
Comparative studies of birth interval dynamics in wild primates suffer from several problems of analysis and interpretation: (1) the data are always right‐censored, (2) sample sizes are usually small, (3) the distribution of birth intervals is expected to be non‐normal, (4) early offspring mortality is a confounding variable, and (5) differences in life history (e.g., presence or absence of menopause) can complicate interpretation of the results.…
Female fecundity in highland Papua New Guinea
Demographers often assume that interpopulation variation in birth spacing is attributable primarily to behavioral differences (e.g., in breastfeeding, coital frequency, or contraceptive practice), and that the contribution of physiological factors is negligible. This assumption may be correct, but it should be tested, especially in light of recent evidence that there may be more variation in ovarian function among human populations than was previ…
Components of Age-Specific Fecundability
Fecundability – the monthly probability of conception – incorporates both physiological and behavioural elements that vary across a woman's reproductive life span. How much of the variation in fecundability during the reproductive period can be attributed to age-related changes in physiology, and how much to variation in coital frequency? We use a mathematical model of fecundability to consider this question. Intra-uterine mortality has an import…
Fertility in Anthropological Populations
In this review I draw upon statistical demography and, to a lesser extent, reproductive endocrinology to formulate a coherent strategy for investigating fertility and reproduction in anthropological populations. The object, it must be emphasized, is not to reduce anthropology to demography or endocrinology, but rather to acquaint anthropologists with a powerful set of tools with which they can address issues of anthropological interest." The auth…
Hazards models for human population biology
Population biologists are often interested in examining the effects of continuous biological variables such as measures of growth, body size, nutritional status, and exposure to environmental risk factors, on discerte vital events such as brith, onset of disease, and death. Traditional statistical analyses are unable to cope with several complexities that arise in the study of such effects, including censoring of observations and explanatory vari…
The Osteological Paradox: Problems of Inferring Prehistoric Health from Skeletal Samples [and Comments and Reply]
Biological Anthropology: Modelling Biological Populations in Space and Time. Eric Renshaw
How does variation in fetal loss affect the distribution of waiting times to conception
Unmeasured variation has long been a concern in analyses of the waiting time to conception. Recent work by Heckman and Walker (1991) and Trussell and Rodriguez (1990) has underscored the fact that statistical considerations alone cannot discriminate among likely models describing the distribution. Here, we specify a single theoretically important source of heterogeneity, namely variability in intrauterine mortality, and assess its effects on the …
A Multistate Model of Fecundability and Sterility
This paper develops a multistate hazards model for estimating fecundability and sterility from data on waiting times to conception. Important features of the model include separate sterile and nonsterile states, a distinction between preexisting sterility and sterility that begins after initiation of exposure, and log-normally distributed fecundability among nonsterile couples. Application of the model to data on first birth intervals from Taiwan…
The Osteological Paradox Reconsidered
A Concise History of World Population
Concise History of World Population. 2nd edition. Massimo Livi-Bacci. Maiden, MA: Blackwell, 1997.250 pp
Biology (25 works) · Demography (25 works) · Population (25 works) · Sociology (23 works) · Geography (17 works) · History (14 works) · Medicine (11 works) · Demography (9 works) · Fertility (9 works) · History (8 works)