Spatial dependence and heterogeneity in patterns of urban deprivation

Developments in the provision and quality of digital data are creating possibilities for finer resolution spatial and temporal measurement of the properties of socio-economic systems. We suggest that the ?lifestyles? datasets collected by private sector organisations provide one such prospect for better inferring the structure, composition and heterogeneity of urban areas. Clearly, deprivation and hardship are inextricably linked to incomes from earnings and transfer payments. In many countries (e.g. the UK) no small area income measures are collected at all, and this forces reliance upon commercial sources. Yet, the use of such data in academic research is not without considerable problems. In the same spirit as Gordon and Pantazis (1995) we thus think it necessary to retain some linkage to population census data ? but in a way which is much more sensitive to spatial context. A critical issue is thus to understand the scales at which both income, and the variables that are used to predict it, vary (see also Rees, 1998; Harris and Longley, 2002). We address some of these issues in the context of the debate about the intra-urban geography of hardship and social exclusion. Low income fundamentally restricts the abilities of people to participate actively in society (Harris and Longley, 2002), yet reliable, up-to-date income measures at fine spatial scales are rarely available from conventional sources. As a consequence, many indicators of deprivation are reliant upon data sources that are out of date and/or entail use of crude surrogate measures. Some measures bear little clear correspondence with hardship at all. Other widely-used indicators are spatially variable in their operation. The broader issue concerns the scale and extent of ?pockets? of hardship and the scale ranges at which difference is deemed manifests. The problems are further compounded if each of the range of surrogate measures used to specify a concept operates at different scales. Taken together, it remains unclear whether meaningful indicators of social conditions can ever be adequately specified, or whether generalised representations can be sufficiently sensitive to place. Using a case study of Bristol, UK, we compare the patterns of spatial dependence and spatial heterogeneity observed for a small area (?lifestyles?) income measure with those of the census indicators that are commonly used as surrogates for it. This leads to specification of spatial dependence using a spatially autoregressive model, and accommodation of local heterogeneity using geographically weighted regression (GWR). This analysis begins to extend our understanding of the determinants of hardship and poverty in urban areas: urban policy has hitherto used aggregate, outdated or proxy measures of income in a less critical manner; and techniques for measuring spatial dependence and heterogeneity have usually been applied at the regional, rather than intra urban, scales. The consequence is a limited understanding of the geography and dynamics of income variations within urban areas. The advantages and limitations of the data used here are explored in the light of the results of our statistical analysis, and we discuss our results as part of a research agenda for exploring dependence and heterogeneity in spatial distributions.

Participating in the Past: Recording Lives in Digital Environments

The article focuses on the impact of digital media on the recording and presentation of oral history. It discusses some issues such as the finance for oral history research, the problems associated with maintaining and updating digital histories and the demands of interdisciplinary collaboration in Australia. It also looks into some oral history projects to describe the essence and impact of digitalization on oral history. Moreover, it explores the constraints of the digital environment

Molecular Evolution of Vasopressin and Oxytocin Receptor Genes in Owl Monkeys (aotus Azarai) of Northern Argentina

The arginine vasopressin (AVP) and oxytocin (OT) hormone pathways are involved in a multitude of physiological processes, and their receptor genes (AVPR1A and OXTR) have been implicated in increased partner preference and pair bonding behavior in mammalian lineages. This observation is of considerable importance for understanding social monogamy in primates, which is present in only a small subset of primate taxa, including Azara\u27s owl monkeys (Aotus azarai). Thus, it is the goal of this dissertation to examine the molecular evolution of AVPR1A and OXTR in owl monkeys to better understand how the pro-social behaviors related to those loci may have evolved. However, in order to properly contextualize functional neurogenetic variation related to such sociobehavioral pattterns, it is necessary to first establish the range of molecular variation occurring at non-related genetic loci. To address this issue, we sequenced the entire mitochondrial genome of two species of Aotus (A. azarai and A. nancymaae), and analyzed 39 haplotypes of the mitochondrial COII gene from ten different owl monkey taxa. Next, to understand the recent evolutionary history and genetic structure of our focal owl monkey population, we assessed variation of the mtDNA control region (D-loop) in 118 wild individuals. Furthermore, to establish our knowledge of genetic kinship and individual identity within the wild population, we investigated autosomal variation in the form of 24 short tandem repeat (STR) microsatellite loci. In concert with these analyses, we characterized the molecular features of AVPR1A and OXTR in A. azarai and other platyrrhines through direct sequencing, and demonstrated that there are substantial sequence differences at both loci across primate species. These data provide new clues on the possible basis of pair bonding in New World species, and may help to explain the sporadic appearance of monogamy in this infraorder. Specifically, despite a common molecular origin, we argue that the AVP and OT pathways have evolved in markedly different ways, due in part to their chromosomal locations and their relative proximity to regions of molecular instability. This study reinforces the notion that neurogenetic loci in primates have undergone significant evolutionary changes, and suggests that monogamy has arisen multiple times in the primate order through different molecular mechanisms

Geo-temporal Twitter demographics

This paper seeks and uses highly disaggregate social media sources to characterize Greater London in terms of flows of people with modelled individual characteristics, as well as conventional measures of land use morphology and night-time residence. We conduct three analyses. First, we use the Shannon Entropy measure to characterize the geography of information creation across the city. Second, we create a geo-temporal demographic classification of Twitter users in London. Third, we begin to use Twitter data to characterize the links between different locations across the city. We see all three elements as data rich, highly disaggregate geo-temporal analysis of urban form and function, albeit one that pertains to no clearly defined population. Our conclusions reflect upon this severe shortcoming in analysis using social media data, and its implications for progressing our understanding of socio-spatial distributions within cities

An Individual Level Method for Improved Estimation of Ethnic Characteristics

This paper develops an improved method for estimating the ethnicity of individuals based on individual level pairings of given and family names. It builds upon previous research by using a global database of names from c. 1.7 billion living individuals, supplemented by individual level historical census data. In focusing upon Great Britain, these resources enable, respectively, greater precision in estimating probable global origins and better estimation of self-identification amongst long-established family groups such as the Irish Diaspora. We report on geographic issues in adjusting the weighting of groups that are systematically under- or over-predicted using other methods. Our individual level estimates are evaluated using both small area Great Britain census data for 2011 and individual level data for asylum seekers in Canada between 1995 and 2012. Our conclusions assess the value of such estimates in the conduct of social equity audits and in depicting the social mobility outcomes of residential mobility and migration across Great Britain

Consumer Data Research

Big Data collected by customer-facing organisations – such as smartphone logs, store loyalty card transactions, smart travel tickets, social media posts, or smart energy meter readings – account for most of the data collected about citizens today. As a result, they are transforming the practice of social science. Consumer Big Data are distinct from conventional social science data not only in their volume, variety and velocity, but also in terms of their provenance and fitness for ever more research purposes. The contributors to this book, all from the Consumer Data Research Centre, provide a first consolidated statement of the enormous potential of consumer data research in the academic, commercial and government sectors – and a timely appraisal of the ways in which consumer data challenge scientific orthodoxies

Georeferencing historical telephone directories to understand innovation diffusion and social change

This paper explores how historical archives of British telephone directories, recently made available, can be used to revisit historical and geographical questions using a modern, quantitative approach. By geolocating telephone subscribers throughout history, we seek to retrace spatial and temporal changes in demography and the spread of the fixed line telephone network in Britain. We develop a prototypical pipeline for capturing and processing these data using archives from 1881 and demonstrate that, if extended and applied to directories from the subsequent 100 years, this research can provide new insights into wide-ranging aspects of British social and economic history

Geography, ethnicity, genealogy and inter‐generational social inequality in Great Britain

This paper documents population-wide inequalities of outcome in Great Britain amongst and between long-established and more recently arrived family groups. ‘Establishment’ is defined using family group presence in the 1851 Census of Population as a benchmark, and the ethnicity or nationality of more recent migrants is determined through classification of given and family names. Inequalities of outcome are measured using a harmonised indicator of neighbourhood deprivation (hardship). White British individuals tend to live in the best neighbourhoods, but within-group inequalities reflect regional locations in which different family names were first coined 700 or more years ago. The living circumstances of White Irish and Chinese migrants are observed to be in line with long-established White British family lines, but other conventionally defined ethnic groups fare worse, some very markedly so. Disaggregation of conventional ethnic groups used by the Office for National Statistics such as White Other and Other Asian reveals stark within-group inequalities. These findings suggest: (a) regional origins of inter-generational inequalities amongst the White British; (b) comparable neighbourhood environments experienced by the White Irish, Chinese and some White Other groups and (c) significantly worse neighbourhood circumstances within and between other more recently arrived immigrant groups. This work has several implications for understanding economic assimilation of migrants and the existence of inequalities amongst and between populations

Delineating Europe\u27s Cultural Regions: Population Structure and Surname Clustering

Surnames (family names) show distinctive geographical patterning and in many disciplines remain an underutilized source of information about population origins, migration and identity. This paper investigates the geographical structure of surnames, using a unique individual level database assembled from registers and telephone directories from 16 European countries. We develop a novel combination of methods for exhaustively analyzing this multinational data set, based upon the Lasker Distance, consensus clustering and multidimensional scaling. Our analysis is both data rich and computationally intensive, entailing as it does the aggregation, clustering and mapping of 8 million surnames collected from 152 million individuals. The resulting regionalization has applications in developing our understanding of the social and cultural complexion of Europe, and offers potential insights into the long and short-term dynamics of migration and residential mobility. The research also contributes a range of methodological insights for future studies concerning spatial clustering of surnames and population data more widely. In short, this paper further demonstrates the value of surnames in multinational population studies and also the increasing sophistication of techniques available to analyze them