The Irregular Migrant as Homo Sacer: Migration and Detention in Australia, Malaysia, and Thailand

Abstract This paper looks at aspects of the detention of irregular migrants in Australia, Malaysia, and Thailand. The principle intention of the paper is to study detention of irregular migrants as a means of understanding politics and how notions of political participation and of sovereignty are affected by the detention of certain sorts of individual. What does the identification of certain “forms of life” to be detained say about the political norms of different societies? The conduit for this examination will be the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben's concept of homo sacer. Homo sacer is a term Agamben extrapolates from “ancient Roman law”. It denotes a naked or bare life that is depoliticized. Homo sacer is the excess of processes of political constitution that create a governable form of life. Homo sacer is thus exempt or excluded from the normal limits of the state. At the same time, however, homo sacer is not simply cast out but is held in particular relation to the norm: it is through the exclusion of the depoliticized form of life that the politicized norm exists. This essay seeks to contextualize aspects of Agamben's argument by looking at detention as a form of exclusion in three different contexts.     

Examination and analysis of residuals: A test for detecting a monotonic relation between mean and variance in regression through the origin

This paper presents a simple and exact test for detecting a monotonic relation between the mean and variance in linear regression through the origin. This test resulted from utilizing uncorrelated Theil-residuals and the Goldfeld-Quandt peak test. A numerical example is provided to elucidate the method. A simulation experiment was performed to compare the empirical power of this test with those of the existing tests.     

Improving the quality of life: Prescriptions for change

The main points made in the previous papers are summarized and integrated and the strategies that the authors have recommended for producing an improved QOL are discussed. QOL is also systematically reviewed in relation to matters of definition, assessment, applications, and directions for future research and practice.     

Environmental security and labor migration in Nepal

Do changes in environmental security that result from declining access to forest resources shape labor migration in a context where household production and consumption are intimately dependent on natural resources? Using 1996 household data from the Chitwan Valley of Nepal, we examined if a decrease in access to firewood increased the likelihood of migration of individuals for work. The results of multinomial logistic regression showed that, environmental insecurity was a significant predictor for migration regardless of destination, domestic or international. Labor requirements for household maintenance also played an important role in the decision to migrate. Management of forest resources and poverty alleviation by providing firewood substitutes and economic opportunities at the local level is likely to change the labor migration flow, which could be an important issue for future research.     

Inventory control of spares in a transport corporation — A case study

This paper reports on a study carried out in a transport organisation to find the optimal inventory of recoverable spares in a two-level inventory system consisting of a central depot and a set of 20 depots all over the territory of the organisation, with repair facilities. The problems of the present system are diagnosed and it is observed that the upper echelon's inability to meet the lower echelon's demand has resulted in an ever-increasing shortage. A mathematical model is developed to suit the system structure and a set of optimal inventory policies for recoverable spares at both the echelons is obtained for the case studied.     

Fatalistic Beliefs and Migration Behaviors: A Study of Ideational Demography in Nepal

Population Research and Policy Review - We investigate influences of fatalistic beliefs on domestic and international migration in Nepal, positing that fatalistic beliefs may affect decisions to...     

Strategies for origin-based surveying of international migrants

This paper addresses methodological challenges of investigations of international migration, including difficulties in obtaining information about representative samples of migrants and both their origin and destination location. Our project used an origin-based sample with a destination-focused survey and interviewed 91% of migrants from a community in Nepal to any destination and shares techniques employed. Our procedures and high response rate constitute a significant improvement in survey methods that permit the creation of unbiased data on migrants and allow the study of migration in conjunction with origin communities.     

An Optimal Experimental Design Perspective on Radial Basis Function Regression

This article provides a new look at radial basis function regression that reveals striking similarities with the traditional optimal experimental design framework. We show theoretically and computationally that the so-called relevant vectors derived through the relevance vector machine (RVM) and corresponding to the centers of the radial basis function network, are very similar and often identical to the support points obtained through various optimal experimental design criteria like D-optimality. This allows us to provide a statistical meaning to the relevant centers in the context of radial basis function regression, but also opens the door to a variety of ways of approach optimal experimental design in multivariate settings.     

ESTIMATION OF A DISTRIBUTION FUNCTION DOMINATING STOCHASTICALLY A KNOWN DISTRIBUTION FUNCTION

This paper considers the problem of estimating a cumulative distribution function (cdf), when it is known a priori to dominate a known cdf. The estimator considered is obtained by adjusting the empirical cdf using the prior information. This adjusted estimator is shown to be consistent, its limiting distribution is found, and its mean squared error (MSE) is shown to be smaller than the MSE of the empirical cdf. Its asymptotic efficiency (compared to the empirical cdf) is also found.