The Hazard of Being an English Football League Manager: Empirical Estimates from the 2002/3 Season

This paper uses data drawn from the English Football League to model hazard rates for club managers in the 2002/3 season. Nearly one-third of managers involuntarily exited employment status with their club in that season. We model the hazard on the basis of a spell at risk, rather than the individual, using a standard logistic model. The role of neglected heterogeneity is also examined using random and fixed effects logistic models within the discrete-time setting. League position at the start of the spell at risk is found to be the most important determinant of a manager’s exit. A variety of individual specific human capital covariates were found to be unimportant in determining the hazard and no role for unobservable heterogeneity as captured by random effects was detected.econometrics; sports

Mobile Phones and Outdoor Advertising: Measurable Advertising

Television and newspapers sit at the top of many agency marketing plans, while outdoor advertising stays at the bottom. The reason for this is that it’s difficult to account for who views a billboard, so there is no way of consistently determining the effectiveness of outdoor advertising. As a result, agencies do not consider the medium and allocate their money elsewhere. To change this situation, one needs to create new credible audience measurements for the outdoor marketing industry. Here we propose a new way of performing audience measurements that combines mobile phone location estimations with information freely available on the Internet. We show that it is possible to estimate the number of people who drive or walk by a given area in Greater Boston from location estimations of a large fraction of mobile phone users in the region. We also infer the preferences for social events of the users by combing their location estimations with Internet listings of social events. This makes it possible to profile areas based on their residents’ interests and dynamically change displayed advertising based on those assessments.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (Horizon project

A system for coarse-grained location-based synchronisation

This paper describes a system for supporting coarse-grained location-based synchronisation. This type of synchronisation may occur when people need only some awareness about the location of others within the specific context of an on-going activity. We have identified a number of reference scenarios for this type of synchronisation and we have implemented and deployed a prototype to evaluate the type of support provided. The results of the evaluation suggest a good acceptance of the overall concept, indicating that this might be a valuable approach for many of the indicated scenarios, possibly replacing or complementing existing synchronisation practices.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, INForum 2010 - II Simp\'osio de Inform\'atica, Lu\'is S. Barbosa, Miguel P. Correia (eds), 9-10 Setembro, 2010, pp. 367-37

Diaspora and identity in the fiction of K S Maniam

[Introduction]: Emmanuel Nelson has truly observed that the “haunting presence of India” lies at the core of diasporic fiction by writers of Indian descent, together with the “anguish of personal loss” that an awareness of India engenders. (1) In any consideration of diasporic fiction, terms like exile, alienation, nostalgia, despair, dislocation, abandonment, and disintegration come readily to mind. In the case of distinguished Malaysian Indian writer, K S Maniam, the list can be augmented by reference to a profound sense of futility, and the absence of any personal sense of contemporary national identity. In 1984, Maniam poignantly reflected that the life of his particular community in Malaysia was “a straining towards achievement that does not end in fulfillment.” (2) This human gap between what could be and what is constitutes the actual fate of diaspora in Maniam’s fiction. The prospects for diaspora are, in short, very limited. This paper treats Maniam’s novels and short stories as documents of cultural knowledge, both of the South Indian community in Malaysia and of nation-building in Malaysia itself. Maniam’s fiction is also assessed in light of V S Naipaul’s concern that diasporic writers should strive to create a self in their own words, to assert their own voice in the country where they live, and so refuse to accept cultural or personal extinction. (3) The paper outlines the consequences of that refusal, especially Maniam’s inability to relate to a particular Malayo-Muslim definition of the nation. The paper also draws out the writer’s preference for a dynamic and multi-faceted Malaysian culture grounded on metaphysical and humanistic assumptions, as well as a post-colonial state graciously informed by its diverse cultural heritage

Differences in reasons for living between Alaska Native and Euro-American college students

Thesis (M.A.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2003The purpose of this study was to explore the differences in reasons for living between Alaska Native and Euro-American college students, to determine which are important as protective factors against suicide for these two groups. A sample of 106 students at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, matched on age, sex, race, marital status, and recent suicide or suicide attempt by a family member or friend, were surveyed using a demographic instrument, the College Students Reasons for Living Inventory, and the Orthogonal Cultural Identification Scale. Results appear to indicate that Alaska Native college students report more reasons for living than Euro-American students.Introduction -- Suicide -- Reasons for living -- Conclusion -- References