MEASURING LEVELS OF PARTY IDENTIFICATION DOES QUESTION ORDER MATTER?

This article examines whether asking the vote question beforeparty identification alters the strength of partisanship andits relationship to vote choice. It employs the 1992 BritishElection Survey, which included a random split half-sample experiment,and the 1992–93 American Election Study Panel, where thequestion order for party identification and the vote were changed.The results show that altering the question ordering had verylittle effect in Britain and no significant effect in the UnitedStates. These results are consistent with the notion that partyidentification is one of the more enduring and stable componentsof mass political behavior in both presidential and parliamentarysystems.     

A wavelet Whittle estimator of generalized long-memory stochastic volatility

We consider a k-GARMA generalization of the long-memory stochastic volatility model, discuss the properties of the model and propose a wavelet-based Whittle estimator for its parameters. Its consistency is shown. Monte Carlo experiments show that the small sample properties are essentially indistinguishable from those of the Whittle estimator, but are favorable with respect to a wavelet-based approximate maximum likelihood estimator. An application is given for the Microsoft Corporation stock, modeling the intraday seasonal patterns of its realized volatility.     

Bayesian Estimation of Age-Specific Mortality and Life Expectancy for Small Areas With Defective Vital Records

High sampling variability complicates estimation of demographic rates in small areas. In addition, many countries have imperfect vital registration systems, with coverage quality that varies significantly between regions. We develop a Bayesian regression model for small-area mortality schedules that simultaneously addresses the problems of small local samples and underreporting of deaths. We combine a relational model for mortality schedules with probabilistic prior information on death registration coverage derived from demographic estimation techniques, such as Death Distribution Methods, and from field audits by public health experts. We test the model on small-area data from Brazil. Incorporating external estimates of vital registration coverage though priors improves small-area mortality estimates by accounting for underregistration and automatically producing measures of uncertainty. Bayesian estimates show that when mortality levels in small areas are compared, noise often dominates signal. Differences in local point estimates of life expectancy are often small relative to uncertainty, even for relatively large areas in a populous country like Brazil.     

Present positions and future prospects in management science

This paper offers some thoughts on the present state of management science as a discipline and a profession, and considers possible developmental strategies. The growth of management science, and the optimism this engendered, was largely premised on the successful use of scientific methodology and quantitative techniques to solve a relatively narrow range of management problems. In the 1970s, however, this positivist/quantitative ‘traditional management science’ became subject to increasing critical assault from those who wanted to broaden the impact of the discipline. Alternative management science approaches were born—soft systems thinking, organisational cybernetics, critical management science—and succeeded in establishing themselves. The existence of these alternative strands of work, alongside traditional management science, raises important questions about the future development of the discipline and profession. In this paper four developmental possibilities are set down and examined to see what future prospects they hold out for management science. It is argued that three of these—the isolationist, imperialist and pragmatist strategies—would lead the discipline into a dead end. A pluralist option, however, offers excellent opportunities for successful, future development.     

The simulation of industrial robot systems

This paper describes the GRASP computer aided design system for modelling and evaluating industrial robot workplaces. GRASP satisfies a range of simulation needs within the context of designing, implementing and operating industrial robotic systems. The GRASP software may be used to investigate robots operating by themselves or, more likely, as part of an integrated cell. Facilities within GRASP assist workplace layout, position and velocity evaluations, clash detection and co-ordination between items. A robot library exists and is being extended, and an embryo off-line programming facility has been used under restricted conditions. GRASP has been used to help solve a wide range of practical industrial robot problems and has proved itself technically, and also as an educational tool, by showing how a proposed system would operate. The paper describes the facilities within GRASP.     

The future for wool

Single dimensional projections are inadequate to determine what the future holds. A wide variety of economic, technological and social changes will influence the future environment for wool and other fibres. In these circumstances, and bearing in mind that, for planning purposes, strategic assumptions are often markedly superior to firm predictions, a set of alternative scenarios is a useful instrument. Consideration of some brief scenarios leads to the conclusion that wool's future depends, in no small measure, upon the actions of the wool-growing industry and governments of wool exporting countries.     

Protective gloves on manual sugar cane cutting are really effective?

Problems related to the use of personal protective equipment (PPE), specially the use of protective gloves for the manual sugar cane cutting, motivated this research, made possible by a tripartite negotiation involving the Ministry of Labor, the Union of Rural Workers and the Employer's Association of sugarcane agribusiness. The main objective was to evaluate, from an ergonomics perspective, the impact of use of the gloves during the manual cane sugar cutting, raising questions on safety, effectiveness and comfort. The research was carried in a sugarcane industry of S?o Paulo for two seasons involving 47 workers who made a qualitative analysis of acceptance of four models of protective gloves. The methodology included the use of semi-structured interviews, questionnaires and field observations and the experimental determination of the coefficient of static friction developed between the gloves and the surfaces of the machete handle. The main results indicate the general inadequacy of the gloves currently used forcing the employees to improvise. Workers found the glove of leather and nylon scraping the best reported for comfort in use. The overall results highlight the problem of detachment of test standards for the manufacture of PPE, ignoring users and the activity to be performed.     

Precarious nostalgia in the tropical smart city: transmedia memory,urban informatics,and the Singapore Golden Jubilee

The memory of loss in Asia's leading global cities has been shaped by recurrent projects of urban renewal, which have sought to deliver economic prosperity and social order at the expense of longstanding spaces and practices. Singapore's Golden Jubilee in 2015, which commemorated its triumphant postcolonial development, was accompanied by the proliferation of public expressions of nostalgia across a variety of media platforms. Amid the rise of the participatory culture of media convergence, this article examines how nostalgic longing is no longer necessarily articulated as an antagonistic critique of the precarious present of neoliberal capitalism, which withdraws into a timeless image of a congenial past. Departing from this conventional understanding of nostalgia in the scholarship of Singapore, it explores how the ruling government since independence has reconfigured its dissemination of historical and cultural knowledge to manage its transition from a global city defined by rapid growth to a smart nation reliant on perpetual adjustment by cultivating a form of citizenship centred on entrepreneurship and innovation. Through immersive spatialization, commissioned mobile video games oblige players to internalize the protocols of knowledge and agency of the Singapore Story, the official narrative of economic success and national progress. Two other state-run interactive digital platforms, the National Library's online archive the Singapore Memory Project and the National Museum's art installation The Story of the Forest, are designed to cultivate a new openness to the inevitability of iterations in urban informatics. Helping to assuage popular anxiety over the constancy of change and the failure of risk-taking, the latter frames perpetual adjustment as a vital component of the cosmic cyclicality of deep time, in which vanished realities are recreated with different permutations.     

The Philippine Male Aging Survey

The aging male is fast becoming a global concern. The problem is predicted to become a major health issue that should be addressed immediately in order to prevent disability, morbidity, and, more importantly, mortality. As part of its commitment to increase awareness and create interest in the care of Filipino aging males, The Philippine Society for the Study of the Aging Male Foundation, Inc. (PhiSSAM), a multi-specialty society established in 2000, embarked on a survey among Filipino physicians to determine their knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding male aging. Results showed that the majority of doctors (about 87%) thought that men may experience andropause. Most would diagnose patients based on symptoms alone, while only 20–30% used testosterone levels to make a diagnosis of andropause. Decreased libido and less strong erections were the symptoms very closely associated with low testosterone. Of those doctors responding, 89% agreed that andropause can affect the quality of a man's life as much as menopause can affect a female; only 38% had already prescribed/instituted treatment for andropause. Of the 62% non-prescribers, 58% said they were either very likely or fairly likely to institute treatment in the future if there were more clinical trials, more medical information, and more information on drugs. Major concerns on testosterone replacement therapy included prostate cancer, benign prostatic hypertrophy, and heart disease. The findings in this pilot survey indicate a need among the doctors in the Philippines for education about andropause and the available treatments.