A NOTE ON THE GENERALIZATION OF WILLIAM BRASS'S MODEL.

The purpose of the present communication is to generalize a model of Brass's (1958), relating to the Probability distribution of births to mothers with completed fertility. A simple method of estimating the parameters of the model, based on successive iterations, has been dealt with. Finally, the improvement obtained by generalizing the Brass model has been tested by fitting the same to the maternity data of 5190 women in the United States in the age sector 45-49. An alternative variant of the model for quick computation of probabilities for higher order of births has been included. The application of the model for obtaining a refined index of fecundability and sterility has also been discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]