A profile of the female cycle length

Abstract

This study suggests some point of view about the menstrual cycle length. In the first part aggregate indicators of cycle characteristics are computed for various type of-data aggregations. The evidence of non-normality and positive skewness affects all data, but the choice of indicators based upon average woman-year seems to offer more regularity and bias-reduction advantages without a great loss of information. In the second part, the periodical analysis and the consequent estimated spectral density functions are applied to the basal body temperature series. These instruments are able to detect hidden periodicity's and to evaluate the relative amplitude of harmonic components of the BBT series. Obviously, the periodical analysis is an individual one, and for this reason it doesn't give us information about the overall population from which the woman was drawn, but it definitely produces unequivocal suggestions about the subset of population represented by this woman.