Civilized Borders: A Study of Israel's New Crossing Administration

Abstract: At Israel's new border crossings with the West Bank, modernization has become the buzz‐word: not only referring to modernized mechanical means—a Wall, newly designed crossings, and micro‐mechanics such as turnstiles, signs, and fences—but also to new and sophisticated scientific technologies, such as sensor machines and scanners, and to modernized means of identification, such as advanced computer systems and biometric cards. This paper considers the transformation of the Israel–West Bank border to be a result of four major processes: reterritorialization, bureaucratization, neoliberalization, and de‐humanization. I utilize in‐depth interviews with top military and state officials and with human rights activists as well as a series of participatory observations to explore the on‐the‐ground implications of the borders’ transformation.     

Reducing Errors in Rainfall Estimates through Rain Gauge Location

Facility location models are examined as a framework for generating rain gauge networks designed to reduce errors in mean areal precipitation (MAP) estimation. Errors in estimating MAP may be divided into two types: (i) capture error, not observing a storm which occurs in a gauged area, and (ii) extrapolation error, using a rain gauge measurement to represent a heterogeneous area. In this paper, five rain gauge location models are developed to minimize these errors. The models include adaptations of the maximal covering location problem, the p-median model, and three models derived from multicriteria cluster analysis. The models are tested using precipitation data from an experimental watershed maintained by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Arizona. Analysis of the results reveals, for the particular watershed, that (1) in sparse networks, location of rain gauges can play a larger role than number of rain gauges in reducing errors in MAP estimates; (2) models based on mean hydrologic data provide nearly as good networks as models based on spatially correlated data; and (3) models yielding the best networks for estimating precipitation for flood predictions are different from the models providing the best precipitation estimates for low flow forecasts.     

Biometric variables predict stone tool functional performance more effectively than tool‐form attributes: a case study in handaxe loading capabilities

Both the form of a stone tool and the anatomy of the individual using it have potential to influence its cutting performance. To date, however, the selective pressures acting on stone‐tool form and hominin biometric/biomechanical attributes have been investigated in isolation and their relative influence on performance have never been compared directly. This paper examines the influence of both tool‐form attributes and biometric variation on the functional performance of Acheulean handaxes. Specifically, it investigates the impact of 13 tool attributes and eight biometric traits on the working forces applied through the edge of 457 replica tools. The relative contribution of tool‐form and biometric attributes to handaxe loading levels were examined statistically. Results identify that both tool‐form attributes and biometric traits are significantly related to loading; however, tool–user biometric variation has a substantially greater impact relative to tool‐form attributes. This difference was demonstrated by up to a factor of 10. These results bear directly on the co‐evolutionary relationships of stone tools and hominin anatomy, and the comparative strength of selective pressure acting on each. They also underline why handaxe forms may have been free to vary in form across time and space without necessarily incurring critical impacts on their functional capabilities.     

Entangled temporalities: Ghana's national biometric identity registration project

Biometric identity registration technologies are spreading throughout the world. Developing countries in particular, have recently been seen to construct biometric population registers in partnership with international donor organizations. This article traces the temporal entanglements produced by transnational policy mobilities in the inception and implementation of Ghana's national biometric identity registration project. In 2008, Ghana famously introduced the first biometric banking system in Africa. Yet, the e‐zwich payment system marked only the first step towards the current ‘craze’ for biometric identity registration in the West African country. Among the numerous biometric identity documents circulating in Ghana's national and subnational institutions, the national Ghanacard is the most interesting identity registration project in the country, both in terms of its population‐wide reach and the complex constellation of institutions, actors and ideas competing within the project. With a focus on the temporalities of policymaking, the article examines the project's fundamental future orientation, the temporal context of its production with its specific possibilities of imagining and acting upon certain matters, and the rhythms and schedules of project implementation. By doing so, it draws attention to some of the ways in which competing sets of ideas shape large‐scale investments in technology and infrastructure in Africa.     

统购统销初期的粮食票证制度探析--以1953～1957年的河南为个案

1953～1957年的河南在统购统销初期实施粮食票证制度,经历了初创时期、基本成型时期、确立时期三个不同的发展阶段。粮食票证制度的形成,对于保证粮食统购统销政策的贯彻实施提供了有力的保障,并成为粮食统购统销制度的一个重要组成部分。     

Forecasting in a Small and Unstable Regional Economy Using Regime Shifting Models: The Case of Extremadura

We consider forecasting in a small and unstable regional economy subject to structural breaks. In this context, we work with two types of regime‐shifting databased models using cointegration theory. The objective of the present work is to analyze the out‐of‐sample forecasting performance of the two approaches used to construct a short‐term regional econometric model: stochastic and deterministic time varying parameters models. The forecasting experiments will be illustrated by specifying, and estimating an econometric model for Extremadura, a small and unstable region in southwestern Spain.     

The birth of biometric security

We are currently witnessing a rapid rise in biometric security. Borders are apparently becoming 'smart'; passports are becoming e-passports, and when you set out on your travels your data double is already at your destination. Access to airports and even continents will increasingly be determined not by your national citizenship but by the security of your identity. Biometric security has received little anthropological attention despite historical associations with the discipline. Here I wish to outline a brief genealogy of biometric security in order to argue that, beyond the apparent newness of the technology, key biometric technologies owe their origins to 19th-entury deployments and then as now they may be understood as a form of bio-governmentality in which the security of identity opens possibilities for population control.     

Investigating interrelationships between Lower Palaeolithic stone tool effectiveness and tool user biometric variation: implications for technological and evolutionary changes

Lower Palaeolithic hominins are thought to have been dependent upon stone tools during the acquisition and processing of food resources. Hence, it is hypothesized that the evolutionary advantages provided by efficient stone tool use may have selected for anatomical changes observed in the hand during this period. Similarly, hominin manipulative capabilities are suggested to have been of consequence to Lower Palaeolithic technological choices and tool use capabilities. The extent and character of these relationships are not, however, fully understood and it is not known whether these hypothesized co-evolutionary and co-dependent relationships are consistent across varying technological and task-type conditions. Here, six key biometric parameters of the hand are investigated in terms of their statistical relationship with cutting efficiency using both flakes and handaxes over extended periods of use and in multiple types of cutting task. Results indicate that (1) both handaxe and flake cutting efficiencies are significantly related with biometric variation of individual tool users, (2) relationships between biometric parameters and efficiency are consistent across extended durations but vary dependent upon task-type conditions, (3) manipulative strength is the most significant biometric trait in terms of predicting flake efficiency, while (4) hand size is the strongest predictor of handaxe cutting efficiency. These results demonstrate the long-term impact that stone tool use likely had on the evolution of hominin biometric variation during the Lower Palaeolithic, while also highlighting the variable influence of different tool use contexts. Most notably, results indicate that the onset of the Acheulean may have been dependent, a priori, upon hand dimensions that are close to the modern human range, and that prior to the appearance of this anatomy, handaxe use would have been an impractical (i.e. inefficient) tool use behaviour compared to the use of flakes.     

Chokepoint: Regulating US student mobility through biometrics

Many US public schools, struggling with perceived issues of safety and security, have installed a host of different biometric devices – vein scanners, automated fingerprint identification systems, iris scanners, GPS-enabled identification badges, and facial recognition software. Schools turn to these devices in hopes of securing school space by sorting and tracking students, visitors, and school staff based on their pre-determined risk profiles. As such, this article proposes that tracing these new forms of school security provides insight into how the politics and practices of biometric technologies are fundamentally geographical in nature. That is, biometric devices not only verify identity according to risk assessments, they also work to manage mobility by regulating where school bodies can go, when, and for what purposes. Moreover, this article analyzes how these risk profiling tactics, widely adopted by schools across the United States, necessarily borrow from the strategies used in sites of colonial occupation. Looking at schools in this way can help us plot how biometric bordering and resultant security decisions unfold at other sites of mobility beyond state (smart) borders, highways, toll booths, and ports of entry in order to formulate new “spaces of enclosure” (Amoore, Marmura, & Salter, 2008) and “dividing practices” (Nevins, 2002), thus bringing students into “closer proximity” to military relations of force through these “war-like architectures” (Amoore, 2009).     

Population Estimation Using Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Imagery

An assessment of two groups of approaches for estimating urban population with remote-sensing information is presented in this article. These approaches, zonal and pixel-based models, are applied to Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper images of a portion of Columbus, Ohio , to generate population estimates. The zonal approach uses impervious surface fraction, spectral radiance, and land-use/land-cover classification to derive population estimates. The pixel-based approach uses impervious surface fraction and spectral radiance to estimate the population of residential areas. To assess robustness, these models were applied to Dayton, Ohio . A comparative study indicates that the models generated promising results in estimating regional population counts. However, zonal regression with spectral radiance produced large errors (76%) for census block groups, whereas other models gave significantly better estimation accuracy. Comparing the performance of the indicators, impervious surface fraction is competitive, and slightly but consistently better than land-use classification. In comparison with traditional zonal approaches, pixel-based models give somewhat better estimation accuracy.     

ON FRONTIER SPECIFICATIONS FOR DISCRETE BINARY CHOICE ANALYSIS

ABSTRACT. In estimating a discrete choice model one is actually estimating the parameters of a conditional indirect utility function. I explore the consequences of recognizing that this function is a maximum-value (frontier) function. I formulate several frontier choice models and, using a pilot empirical study of transportation mode choice, compare the resulting estimates with those of the conventional logit specification. Most strikingly, it appears that the values of time implied by the frontier models are substantially below those of the logit model. This implies that policies designed to improve travel times may be of less value to consumers than is conventionally believed.     

Biometric borders: Governing mobilities in the war on terror

This article proposes the concept of the biometric border in order to signal a dual-faced phenomenon in the contemporary war on terror: the turn to scientific technologies and managerial expertise in the politics of border management; and the exercise of biopower such that the bodies of migrants and travellers themselves become sites of multiple encoded boundaries. Drawing on the US VISIT programme of border controls (United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology), the article proposes three central themes of the politics of the biometric border. First, the use of risk profiling as a means of governing mobility within the war on terror, segregating ‘legitimate’ mobilities such as leisure and business, from ‘illegitimate’ mobilities such as terrorism and illegal immigration. Second, the representation of biometrics and the body, such that identity is assumed to be anchored as a source of prediction and prevention. Finally, the techniques of authorization that allow the surveillance of mobility to be practiced by private security firms and homeland security citizens alike. Throughout the article, I argue that, though the biometric border is becoming an almost ubiquitous frontier in the war on terror, it also contains ambivalent, antagonistic and undecidable moments that make it contestable.     

Profiling the profiloscope: facialization of race technologies and the rise of biometric nationalism in inter-war British India

Abstract

The history of race and technology in British India has avoided engaging with the way in which this played out amongst nationalists. The history of biometrics too has similarly overlooked the role of anti-colonial nationalists. The history of the now-forgotten profiloscope allows us to address both oversights. But the history of the profiloscope is more than just a history of a technological apparatus. It is also the trace of a forgotten political imaginary, viz. biometric nationalism. Biometric nationalism sought to deploy biometrics in developing a dynamically anti-essentialist and non-individualistic conception of nationhood at a time when the nation-form had come to largely monopolize mainstream of anti-colonial political discourse.     

Policing mobilities through bio-spatial profiling in New York City

In 2003, the Bloomberg administration launched Operation Impact, a hot-spots policing program which identified high-crime areas in New York City and flooded them with high concentrations of new police officers. These hot-spots, labeled Impact Zones, are sites of mobility constrained and structured by biometric and spatial technologies borrowed from the military. This article analyzes the city's advanced police profiling technologies as they play out within Impact Zones. The profiling is racial, social, biometric, bio-political, and spatial, and works to demarcate dangerous people and places. Because this profiling technology is enacted spatially and governs residents' mobility, I argue for a new conceptual apparatus, which I call bio-spatial profiling. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in police hot-spots, policy analysis, and textual analysis of media articles, I argue that the lived experience of biospatial profiling is one of pervasive fear which governs mobilities in Impact Zones. Next, I trace the experiences of Northeast Brooklyn residents back to their sources, and find three bio-spatial practices: both biometric and spatial data collection, and police street-stops. These symbiotic practices inform and strengthen each other, congealing to produce fear and immobility for those they target. The article concludes with a discussion of the conflicting understandings of (in)security in Impact Zones that connects the practices with the experiences of bio-spatial profiling, to illuminate the human costs of militarized securitization of domestic urban life.     

A Wavelet‐Based Extension of Generalized Linear Models to Remove the Effect of Spatial Autocorrelation. 基于小波扩展广义线性模型消除空间自相关的影响

Biogeographical studies are often based on a statistical analysis of data sampled in a spatial context. However, in many cases standard analyses such as regression models violate the assumption of independently and identically distributed errors. In this article, we show that the theory of wavelets provides a method to remove autocorrelation in generalized linear models (GLMs). Autocorrelation can be described by smooth wavelet coefficients at small scales. Therefore, data can be decomposed into uncorrelated and correlated parts. Using an appropriate linear transformation, we are able to extend GLMs to autocorrelated data. We illustrate our new method, called the wavelet‐revised model (WRM), by applying it to multiple regression with response variables conforming to various distributions. Results are presented for simulated data and real biogeographical data (species counts of the plant genus Utricularia [bladderworts] in grid cells throughout Germany). The results of our WRM are compared with those of GLMs and models based on generalized estimating equations. We recommend WRMs, especially as a method that allows for spatial nonstationarity. The technique developed for lattice data is applicable without any prior knowledge of the real autocorrelation structure.     

Bayesian Estimation of Limited Dependent Variable Spatial Autoregressive Models

A Gibbs sampling (Markov chain Monte Carlo) method for estimating spatial autoregressive limited dependent variable models is presented. The method can accommodate data sets containing spatial outliers and general forms of non‐constant variance. It is argued that there are several advantages to the method proposed here relative to that proposed and illustrated in McMillen (1992) for spatial probit models.     

The Local Implications of Major Job Transformations in the City: A Spatial Microsimulation Approach

The changing dynamics of regional and local labor markets during the last decades have led to an increasing labor market segmentation and socioeconomic polarization and to a rise of income inequalities at the regional, urban, and intraurban level. These problems call for effective social and local labor market policies. However, there is also a growing need for methods and techniques capable of efficiently estimating the likely impact of social and economic change at the local level. For example, the common methodologies for estimating the impacts of large firm openings or closures operate at the regional level. The best of these models disaggregate the region to the city (Armstrong 1993; Batey and Madden 1983). This paper demonstrates how spatial microsimulation modeling techniques can be used for local labor market analysis and policy evaluation to assess these impacts (and their multiplier effects) at the local level‐to measure the effects on individuals and their neighborhood services. First, we review these traditional macroscale and mesoscale regional modeling approaches to urban and regional policy analysis and we illustrate their merits and limitations. Then, we examine the potential of spatial microsimulation modeling to create a new framework for the formulation, analysis and evaluation of social and local labor market policies at the individual or household level. Outputs from a local labor market microsimulation model for Leeds are presented. We show how first it is possible to investigate the interdependencies between individual's or households labor market attributes at the microscale and to model their accessibilities to job opportunities in different localities. From this base we show how detailed what‐if microspatial analysis can be performed to estimate the impact of major changes in the local labor market through job losses or gains, including local multiplier effects.     

Demographic Modeling of the Geography of Migration and Population: A Multiregional Perspective

This article focuses on the development and evolution of migration and population redistribution modeling within the spatial context of multiregional demography. It begins in 1965, when the state-of-the-art consisted largely of ideas and techniques imported from other disciplines (regression analysis, gravity models, Markov chains, and matrix cohort-survival population projection models) and then continues on to tell the story of multiregional demography, its evolution and emergence as a fully developed paradigm for studying the spatial dynamics of migration and population redistribution and, more recently, its approach for estimating the necessary migration input measures from inadequate data.     

Technology based evolution? A biometric test of the effects of handsize versus tool form on efficiency in an experimental cutting task

The use of stone cutting tools opened a novel adaptive niche for hominins. Hence, it has been hypothesised that biomechanical adaptations evolved to maximise efficiency when using such tools. Here, we test experimentally whether biometric variation influences the efficiency of simple cutting tools (n = 60 participants). Grip strength and handsize were measured in each participant. 30 participants used flint flakes, while the other 30 used small (unhafted) steel blades. Variations in basic parameters of tool form (length, width, thickness, cutting edge length) were recorded for the 30 flint flakes. It was ensured that mean handsize and strength in each participant group were not significantly different to investigate the effect of tool variation. The experimental task required cutting through a 10 mm-diameter hessian rope. Cutting efficiency was measured using both ‘Number of cutting strokes required’ and ‘Total time taken’. Results show that both efficiency measures were significantly correlated with handsize using all 60 participants. However, no significant differences were found between the flake and blade groups in terms of mean efficiency. Nor was any significant relationship found between tool form parameters and efficiency in the flint flake group. We stress that our results do not imply that tool form has no impact on tool efficiency, but rather that – all other things being equal – biometric variation has a statistically significant influence on efficiency variation when using simple cutting tools. These results demonstrate that biomechanical parameters related directly to efficiency of use, may plausibly have been subject to selection in the earliest stone tool-using hominins.