“In Principle” versus “In Reality”: Assessing the potential of adaptive urban governance toward urban flooding in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 7

Flooding has become the new normal in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). During the rainy season, many areas of the city experience severe inundation that seriously impacts infrastructure, traffic, and economic transactions. As the effects of climate change unpredictably and rapidly manifest in Southern Vietnam, the frequency and impact of urban floods are projected to increase. In addition, within the last few decades, HCMC has rapidly developed and urbanized, transforming itself into the economic center of Southern Vietnam. However, previous studies and international experts have determined that rapid, poor development may be exacerbating urban flood issues. In recent years, city authorities and land planners have recognized the threat of urban flooding and climate change, calling for sustainable development and investing in flood adaptation infrastructure. Despite these efforts, many local people and experts agree that measures have been largely ineffective. Furthermore, based on the Master Plan extending into 2025, the city does not appear to be slowing development any time soon. With plans to further develop into the low-lying floodplains south of Saigon, including District 7, HCMC is likely to create new flood-prone areas while increasingly vulnerability to climate change and poor development. To better understand the issue of urban flooding and adaptation in HCMC, this paper selects District 7 as a site of study. Through a case-study approach, this research intends to explore the issue of urban flooding in District 7 within the context of climate change and rapid urbanization to determine whether the city could effectively implement a more coordinated form of flood adaptation considerate of climate change, socio-economic inequities, and community-based adaptation – otherwise known as “adaptive urban governance”. Based on interviews with 10 individuals, and observational data, and a “desk review”, relevant analysis includes an assessment of current formal efforts (i.e. programs and legislation), stakeholder analysis, and an assessment of the socio-economic and spatial inequities resulting from uneven development in District 7. This case-study of District 7 determined that, in principle, HCMC’s potential for adaptive urban governance toward urban flooding appears strong; however, in reality, current efforts are weak and insufficient, thereby minimizing the potential for adaptive urban governance

MADE BY CHILDREN: THE EXPLOITATION OF CHILD LABOUR IN AGRICULTURE, INDUSTRY AND THE SERVICE SECTOR IN MAINLAND CHINA

This research essay examines the exploitation of child labour in agriculture, industry and the service sector in Mainland China. Child productivity in China has historically been essential to the survival of the family. However, the globalized environment has drawn emphasis to the reality that children are exploited and subject to dangerous work conditions. The aim of this research is to analyse the international legal framework and human rights conventions safeguarding the rights of the child. This involved the primary analysis of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Minimum Age Convention, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention. The Procedure of the Conclusion of Treaties, Minors Protection Law, Provisions on the Prohibition of Using Child Labour, Regulations Banning Child Labour and Compulsory Education Law were critiqued to determine the effectiveness of China’s domestic legislation. The results demonstrated that child labour is currently not prohibited under China’s domestic law, a consequence of ineffective implementation of international treaties. To support this legal analysis, it evaluated academic research exploring the economic and cultural circumstances of China. It was found that globalization, rapid economic growth, a lack of education and social and cultural constructions of ‘child’ and ‘childhood’ further contributed to the existence of child labour. The significance of these findings is that it highlights the difficulty involved in changing legislation when the economic and cultural forces strongly dictate against it. Children are ultimately unable to access justice as effectively as their adult counterparts do within China’s legal framewor

Diffusion in the Dark: A Diffusion Model for Low-Light Text Recognition

Capturing images is a key part of automation for high-level tasks such as scene text recognition. Low-light conditions pose a challenge for high-level perception stacks, which are often optimized on well-lit, artifact-free images. Reconstruction methods for low-light images can produce well-lit counterparts, but typically at the cost of high-frequency details critical for downstream tasks. We propose Diffusion in the Dark (DiD), a diffusion model for low-light image reconstruction for text recognition. DiD provides qualitatively competitive reconstructions with that of state-of-the-art (SOTA), while preserving high-frequency details even in extremely noisy, dark conditions. We demonstrate that DiD, without any task-specific optimization, can outperform SOTA low-light methods in low-light text recognition on real images, bolstering the potential of diffusion models to solve ill-posed inverse problems.Comment: WACV 2024. Project website: https://ccnguyen.github.io/diffusion-in-the-dark

Characterization of seed nuclei in glucagon aggregation using light scattering methods and field-flow fractionation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Glucagon is a peptide hormone with many uses as a therapeutic agent, including the emergency treatment of hypoglycemia. Physical instability of glucagon in solution leads to problems with the manufacture, formulation, and delivery of this pharmaceutical product. Glucagon has been shown to aggregate and form fibrils and gels <it>in vitro</it>. Small oligomeric precursors serve to initiate and nucleate the aggregation process. In this study, these initial aggregates, or seed nuclei, are characterized in bulk solution using light scattering methods and field-flow fractionation.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>High molecular weight aggregates of glucagon were detected in otherwise monomeric solutions using light scattering techniques. These aggregates were detected upon initial mixing of glucagon powder in dilute HCl and NaOH. In the pharmaceutically relevant case of acidic glucagon, the removal of aggregates by filtration significantly slowed the aggregation process. Field-flow fractionation was used to separate aggregates from monomeric glucagon and determine relative mass. The molar mass of the large aggregates was shown to grow appreciably over time as the glucagon solutions gelled.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The results of this study indicate that initial glucagon solutions are predominantly monomeric, but contain small quantities of large aggregates. These results suggest that the initial aggregates are seed nuclei, or intermediates which catalyze the aggregation process, even at low concentrations.</p

The Use of the Modified Vestibular Activities of Daily Living Scale in the Examination of Older Adults

•30-60% community dwelling older adults fall each year, which is the leading cause of injury, death, and traumatic hospital admissions in the elderly.1 This costs the U.S. health care system $20-30 billion per year.2 Currently used older adult self-report measures demonstrate poor responsiveness3, thus failing to detect a decline in function on early enough for preventative physical therapy intervention. •The Vestibular Activities of Daily Living Scale (VADL) is a self-report measure developed to determine activity & participation restrictions in patients with vestbular dysfunction. This scale clearly delineates important tasks and categories of independence, which would be applicable to the assessment of older adult fall risk and functional decline. •Assessing some basic psychometric properties of a modified version of the VADL (mVADL) to the examination of older adult balance is required before this tool can be used confidently in the clinic. •In regards to statistical calculations for outcome measures, typically the mean is used to determine the average value to represent the participant scores, however, the mVADL is scored using the median. Using the median score reduces the amount of outliers from the normative data

Interdisciplinary Fall Risk Screening and Assessment: An Evidence-Based Practice Project

This project sought to answer the following Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) question: What occupational therapy and interdisciplinary assessments have the best psychometric characteristics and are most effective for screening or evaluating person and environment fall risk factors and measuring the outcomes of fall prevention programs

Feasibility of Using a Commercial Fitness Tracker as an Adjunct to Family-Based Weight Management Treatment: Pilot Randomized Trial.

BACKGROUND: Fitness trackers can engage users through automated self-monitoring of physical activity. Studies evaluating the utility of fitness trackers are limited among adolescents, who are often difficult to engage in weight management treatment and are heavy technology users. OBJECTIVE: We conducted a pilot randomized trial to describe the impact of providing adolescents and caregivers with fitness trackers as an adjunct to treatment in a tertiary care weight management clinic on adolescent fitness tracker satisfaction, fitness tracker utilization patterns, and physical activity levels. METHODS: Adolescents were randomized to 1 of 2 groups (adolescent or dyad) at their initial weight management clinic visit. Adolescents received a fitness tracker and counseling around activity data in addition to standard treatment. A caregiver of adolescents in the dyad group also received a fitness tracker. Satisfaction with the fitness tracker, fitness tracker utilization patterns, and physical activity patterns were evaluated over 3 months. RESULTS: A total of 88 adolescents were enrolled, with 69% (61/88) being female, 36% (32/88) black, 23% (20/88) Hispanic, and 63% (55/88) with severe obesity. Most adolescents reported that the fitness tracker was helping them meet their healthy lifestyle goals (69%) and be more motivated to achieve a healthy weight (66%). Despite this, 68% discontinued use of the fitness tracker by the end of the study. There were no significant differences between the adolescent and the dyad group in outcomes, but adolescents in the dyad group were 12.2 times more likely to discontinue using their fitness tracker if their caregiver also discontinued use of their fitness tracker (95% CI 2.4-61.6). Compared with adolescents who discontinued use of the fitness tracker during the study, adolescents who continued to use the fitness tracker recorded a higher number of daily steps in months 2 and 3 of the study (mean 5760 vs 4148 in month 2, P=.005, and mean 5942 vs 3487 in month 3, P=.002). CONCLUSIONS: Despite high levels of satisfaction with the fitness trackers, fitness tracker discontinuation rates were high, especially among adolescents whose caregivers also discontinued use of their fitness tracker. More studies are needed to determine how to sustain the use of fitness trackers among adolescents with obesity and engage caregivers in adolescent weight management interventions

Vision impossible

Vision Impossible was designed to help promote vision awareness to the general public as well as to help bring various health professions together and educate them as to the different visual demands that each profession may experience. Vision Impossible was also intended to be a fundraising event to help raise money for the renovation of Jefferson Hall. Ninety-four subjects, consisting mainly of optometry students, took part in two trial runs of a ten-event course, designed to challenge the visual system in various ways. The trial runs were conducted at Pacific University and were used to assess the efficiency of the event design and data was collected for normative purposes. However, Vision Impossible was unable to implement the originally designed fundraising event. Factors which contributed to this included flaws with some of the event designs as well as unavailability of equipment, inability to obtain donations for prize incentives, and logistical problems concerning the event location and timing. However, Vision Impossible did succeed in developing a final course design as well as obtaining normative results for these course events should this endeavor be attempted in the future