Abstract

this article is to introduce the ideas and methods of reliability theory to a wider audience interested in understanding the mechanisms of aging, mortality, survival, and longevity. It is also important to review and summarize the recent scienti"c literature on reliability approach to the problem of biological aging (Miller, 1989; Gavrilov & Gavrilova, 1991; Abernethy, 1998; Bains, 2000). The main emphasis here is made on the accomplishments of the reliability approach rather than previous occasional mistakes, because some questionable models (Murphy, 1978; Skurnick & Kemeny, 1978; Koltover, 1983, 1997; Witten, 1985) were already reviewed elsewhere (Gavrilov, 1984, 1987; Gavrilov & Gavrilova, 1991). This theoretical review article also elaborates further some results and ideas published in the book on a related topic (Gavrilov & Gavrilova, 1991)

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