Gendering transnational communities: a comparison of Singaporean and British migrants in China

Studies of transnational communities and transnational labour migration have focused almost exclusively on the movement of low-skilled and unskilled workers across international boundaries. While these groups may be numerically dominant, it must be recognised that there are increasing numbers of managers and professionals engaged in work-related migration in association with the intensification of economic globalisation processes. Work which has been conducted on highly skilled migrants has largely been limited to examinations of intra-firm mobility and the workspace. This approach fails to consider the ways in which the migrants' experiences are embedded in the social, economic and political practices of the host country, but also in a specific household context. It is unsurprising, therefore, that the gendered dimensions of the life of these migrants and their accompanying family members has been somewhat under-researched.Flows of expatriates can lead to the constitution of both ‘communities of transnationals', as particular cities become foci of the activities of the ‘transnational capitalist class', as well as ‘transnational communities' which involve regular and sustained contact between individuals across national boundaries. In this paper we examine these social formations using two groups of migrants––British and Singaporean migrants to China (both mainland China and the Hong Kong SAR). We focus on the gender characteristics of these groupings, but also the gender division of labour in the creation and maintenance of these ‘communities'. The paper is based on qualitative research carried out in China, Singapore and the UK 1997–2001.     

Evaluating Proportions of Undetected Geological Events in the Case of Erroneous Identifications

Some geological events occur infrequently but still have a significant impact upon reservoir characteristics. By their very nature, however, it can be difficult to properly estimate the proportions of uncommon events because they may not appear during limited sampling. For example, even with 40 observations and an event proportion of 0.05, there is a 0.13 chance that no events will be observed. We provide some results and guidance concerning methods to estimate proportions when such events are not detected. Two cases are discussed, estimating proportions without errors in identification and estimating proportions when errors may arise. It is well-known that the distribution of possible proportions in the error-free case can be calculated using Bayesian analysis. If one assumes a standard uniform distribution as the prior for the proportion, Bayesian analysis gives a Beta distribution for the posterior. The situation becomes more complicated, however, when detection errors are included; the true proportion has a distribution consisting of several Beta distributions. The difference in results between the error-free and with-error situations can be considerable. For example, when 10 error-free observations are made and no uncommon events are detected, there is a 0.50 chance that the true proportion exceeds 0.06 and a 0.10 chance that it exceeds 0.19. Including the effects of erroneous identifications, however, increases the median proportion to 0.09 and the upper decile to 0.27. We also examine the case where there may be prior geological information, which can be incorporated by amending the prior distribution of the proportion. We find that the use of such a prior makes little difference unless there are very few observations or there are major differences between the anticipated and the observed proportions.     

Multi-technique comparison of tropospheric zenith delays derived during the CONT02 campaign

In October 2002, 15 continuous days of Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) data were observed in the Continuous VLBI 2002 (CONT02) campaign. All eight radio telescopes involved in CONT02 were co-located with at least one other space-geodetic technique, and three of them also with a Water Vapor Radiometer (WVR). The goal of this paper is to compare the tropospheric zenith delays observed during CONT02 by VLBI, Global Positioning System (GPS), Doppler Orbitography Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite (DORIS) and WVR and to compare them also with operational pressure level data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). We show that the tropospheric zenith delays from VLBI and GPS are in good agreement at the 3–7 mm level. However, while only small biases can be found for most of the stations, at Kokee Park (Hawaii, USA) and Westford (Massachusetts, USA) the zenith delays derived by GPS are larger by more than 5 mm than those from VLBI. At three of the four DORIS stations, there is also a fairly good agreement with GPS and VLBI (about 10 mm), but at Kokee Park the agreement is only at about 30 mm standard deviation, probably due to the much older installation and type of DORIS equipment. This comparison also allows testing of different DORIS analysis strategies with respect to their real impact on the precision of the derived tropospheric parameters. Ground truth information about the zenith delays can also be obtained from the ECMWF numerical weather model and at three sites using WVR measurements, allowing for comparisons with results from the space-geodetic techniques. While there is a good agreement (with some problems mentioned above about DORIS) among the space-geodetic techniques, the comparison with WVR and ECMWF is at a lower accuracy level. The complete CONT02 data set is sufficient to derive a good estimate of the actual precision and accuracy of each geodetic technique for applications in meteorology.     

The International DORIS Service: genesis and early achievements

All space-geodetic techniques are now organized as separate services of the International Association of Geodesy (IAG), supporting the first pilot project “Global Geodetic Observing System (GGOS)”. The International DORIS (Détermination d’Orbite et Radiopositionnement Intégrés par Satellite) Service (IDS) was created in mid-2003 to organize a DORIS contribution to this project and to foster a larger international cooperation on this topic. The goal of this paper is to summarize the key steps that were taken to create this structure and to present its current organization and recent results. At present, more than 50 groups from 35 different countries participate in the IDS at various levels, including 43 groups hosting DORIS stations in 32 countries all around the globe. Four Analysis Centres (ACs) provide results, such as estimates of weekly or monthly station coordinates, geocentre variations or Earth polar motion, that will soon be used to generate IDS-combined products for geodesy and geodynamics. As a first test, a preliminary combination was performed for all the 2004 data from these four ACs. Three of them show RMS of weighted station residuals with respect to this combination solution between 1 and 2 cm. The main topic under investigation is a discrepancy in the scale factor of the terrestrial reference frame (TRF) to map the individual solutions into the combination solution, which reaches 6 cm (multiplying the unit-less scale factor by the Earth radius to get convert scale to millimetre in vertical at the Earth’s surface). Finally, foreseen improvements of the DORIS technology are discussed as well as future improvements concerning the service organization itself and the accuracy and reliability of its scientific products.