Technology,Gender and Time: A Contribution to the Debate

Using the data collected from research carried out at two Portuguese universities, this article highlights the way university lecturers currently deal with space and time. Their professional activity is not externally subjected to a specific time geometry that defines their working day. Teaching and researching time–spaces are basically task oriented. Furthermore, university lecturers are increasingly requested to perform tasks in very short time periods in order to secure financial support. To a certain extent, this pressure upon their work is facilitated by the use of technology. However, technology also causes a profound reconfiguration of working times and spaces, especially because it allows lecturers to work at any time from anywhere. This not only renders university physical spaces and times virtual, but it also leads to the colonization of several other time–spaces of their social lives. This article analyses the ambivalence and difficulty of managing time–spaces, as described by the lecturers themselves, with the objective of providing a more accurate awareness of the implications of technology on their lives, as well as the hazards of the progressive externalization of academic work, particularly for women.     

Rurality Index for Small Areas in Spain

An operational definition for “rural area” is pivotal if proposals, policies and decisions aimed at optimising the distribution of resources, closing the gap on inequity between areas and raising standards of living for the least advantaged populations are to be put in place. The concept of rurality, however, is often based on alternative and conflicting definitions, requiring clarification of the underlying theoretical model. Traditionally a geographical area has been classified as rural by taking into account either the number of inhabitants or population density. Two kinds of problem are raised with this approach, however, namely: it is inherently difficult to describe such a complex concept as rurality with a single variable; and reducing the concept down to a rural/urban dichotomy by setting a non-universal cut-off point does not usually provide an accurate account of reality. Within the context of the rural–urban continuum, this paper has devised a rurality index for Spanish municipalities based on the 1991 Population, Housing and Household Survey. The index was built on a principal components factor analysis, giving rise to a single factor that is correlated to the aging of the population, economic dependency, farming, livestock or fishing-related employment, habitability of housing and population density. A score to each municipality was allocated. This index can be regularly updated thus enabling the progress of the concept of rurality to be monitored in our setting over time and then compared with other countries using the same methods.     

Modeling Lifetimes by a Stochastic Process Hitting a Critical Point

First hitting times arise naturally in survival analysis where the underlying stochastic counting process represents the strength of the health of an individual. The patient experiences a clinical endpoint when this process reaches a critical point for the first time. We propose a very flexible and unified first hitting time density function in a stochastic carcinogenesis counting process, and its mathematical properties are investigated. The Poisson and negative binomial first hitting time models are addressed and two examples with real data are presented.     

Geographically Weighted Negative Binomial Regression—incorporating overdispersion

Global regression assumes that a single model adequately describes all parts of a study region. However, the heterogeneity in the data may be sufficiently strong that relationships between variables can not be spatially constant. In addition, the factors involved are often sufficiently complex that it is difficult to identify them in the form of explanatory variables. As a result Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) was introduced as a tool for the modeling of non-stationary spatial data. Using kernel functions, the GWR methodology allows the model parameters to vary spatially and produces non-parametric surfaces of their estimates. To model count data with overdispersion, it is more appropriate to use a negative binomial distribution instead of a Poisson distribution. Therefore, we propose the Geographically Weighted Negative Binomial Regression (GWNBR) method for the modeling of data with overdispersion. The results obtained using simulated and real data show the superiority of this method for the modeling of non-stationary count data with overdispersion compared with competing models, such as global regressions, e.g., Poisson and negative binomial and Geographically Weighted Poisson Regression (GWPR). Moreover, we illustrate that these competing models are special cases of the more robust model GWNBR.     

Performance of coefficient of variation estimators in ranked set sampling

In this paper, we propose and evaluate the performance of different parametric and nonparametric estimators for the population coefficient of variation considering Ranked Set Sampling (RSS) under normal distribution. The performance of the proposed estimators was assessed based on the bias and relative efficiency provided by a Monte Carlo simulation study. An application in anthropometric measurements data from a human population is also presented. The results showed that the proposed estimators via RSS present an expressively lower mean squared error when compared to the usual estimator, obtained via Simple Random Sampling. Also, it was verified the superiority of the maximum likelihood estimator, given the necessary assumptions of normality and perfect ranking are met.     

Consuming Youth: Timorese in the Resistance Against Indonesian Occupation

This article explores the role played by risk-seeking Timorese youth, known as the New Generation (Geraçao Foun), in the resistance movement against Indonesian occupation (1975–1999). It discusses the capture, regimentation and marginalisation of youthful radicalism by the national resistance movement. The paper looks at these processes of youth revolutionary involvement sympathetically though the memories of former participants in the clandestine struggle and is representative of a new reflexive phase in young Timorese' post-colonial self-realisation. This phase is decidedly non-triumphalist, one which dwells on the inability to be ‘recompensed’ for the dreams that were captured and lives that were side-tracked in a conflict that consumed youth.     

Being Under Time Pressure: The Case of Workers with Disabilities

This article examines levels of time stress reported by people with and without disabilities. Using data at an individual level from the Time Use Survey for Spain in 2002–2003, we estimate an ordered probit model to investigate the determinants of time stress by disability status. We find that disabled individuals work fewer hours, have more free time and engage in more household labour as compared to the non-disabled. The estimation results show that disabled workers (especially those who are severely or moderately limited in their daily activities) suffer from more stress than their non-disabled counterparts. In addition, longer working hours increase the levels of time stress reported by all individuals, but more intensely so among disabled workers.