Age-specific mortality rates have been used to illustrate certain aspects of the characteristics of old age. A consideration of the experience of the ageing person in his fifties and early sixties suggests that during this period he comes to recognize death as being an increasingly common characteristic of his age group. Thus the standard procedure for studying old age problems in a sample of people over the age of 65 may miss the period of life when people are making the (...) crucial adjustments to old age and may give a distorted view of some gerontological problems. Certain demographic aspects of old age are considered in detail with regard to the occurrence of, first, widowhood and, second, social isolation. (shrink)

Eric Olsen argues from the fact that we once existed as fetal individuals to the conclusion that the Standard View of personal identity is mistaken. I shall establish that a similar argument focusing upon dead people opposes Olson’s favored Biological View of personal identity.

The paper „F. W. Bessel and Russian science by K. K. Lavrinovich published in NTM-Schriftenreihe contains several errors coming mainly from re-translations of German names and texts from Russian into German. The correct spelling of names and original texts are given here. Beside this, some additional information from sources not mentioned by the author is presented, and the kind of relationship between Bessel and W. Struve is discussed on the basis of their correspondence.