Finding Larger Transnational Media Markets : Media Practices of the Vietnamese Diasporic Community

Addressing a concern about the absence of Vietnamese migrants in the Czech media landscape, this chapter first reviews various life contexts of the different Vietnamese populations in the Czech Republic (CR) and then discusses how they have generally lacked participation in the Czech media landscape because of their adoption of transnational media practices. This study also demonstrates how the diasporic community has failed to establish a conventional form of diasporic media but instead has found new translocal information outlets on social media. While the old and new first generations have relied more on media outlets from their country of origin, young migrant children have explored media markets beyond the binational border. However, Vietnamese migrants have recently begun to use social media platforms as networked information outlets, reaching a variety of communities and media outlets located in the CR, Vietnam and their own diasporic community

Hair Trace Element and Electrolyte Content in Women with Natural and In Vitro Fertilization-Induced Pregnancy

The objective of the present study was to perform comparative analysis of hair trace element content in women with natural and in vitro fertilization (IVF)-induced pregnancy. Hair trace element content in 33 women with IVF-induced pregnancy and 99 age- and body mass index-matched control pregnant women (natural pregnancy) was assessed using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. The results demonstrated that IVF-pregnant women are characterized by significantly lower hair levels of Cu, Fe, Si, Zn, Ca, Mg, and Ba at p < 0.05 or lower. Comparison of the individual levels with the national reference values demonstrated higher incidence of Fe and Cu deficiency in IVF-pregnant women in comparison to that of the controls. IVF pregnancy was also associated with higher hair As levels (p < 0.05). Multiple regression analysis revealed a significant interrelation between IVF pregnancy and hair Cu, Fe, Si, and As content. Hair Cu levels were also influenced by vitamin/mineral supplementation and the number of pregnancies, whereas hair Zn content was dependent on prepregnancy anthropometric parameters. In turn, planning of pregnancy had a significant impact on Mg levels in scalp hair. Generally, the obtained data demonstrate an elevated risk of copper, iron, zinc, calcium, and magnesium deficiency and arsenic overload in women with IVF-induced pregnancy. The obtained data indicate the necessity of regular monitoring of micronutrient status in IVF-pregnant women in order to prevent potential deleterious effects of altered mineral homeostasis

Socio-economic Assessment of the Philippine Agrarian Reform

This paper, using qualitative research methods, aims to assess the challenges faced by the Philippine Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program and its extension on the selected cases from five Philippine provinces. In 27 years of its implementation, the agrarian reform has achieved land redistribution of around 7.7 million hectares despite the periodical lack of political will and opposition from landlords, sometimes violent or through protracted legal battles. Support services focus almost exclusively on Agrarian Reform Communities, in which such services are funded mostly through the official development assistance from abroad rather than government’s budget. Limited availability of support services to those agrarian reform beneficiaries located outside of Agrarian Reform Communities prevents them from becoming economically viable producers and seriously taints whatever land distribution may have accomplished. Some reform beneficiaries may have been awarded their land on paper but were not able to take possession of the land or must have abdicated control of it

Study of the decomposition of the CuFe solid solution

Original language unknowm (Paper from the 1. Int. Conf. on Mechanochemistry, Kosice, Slovakia, 1993)SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:9023.190(VR-Trans--7671)T / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Origin of soft-mode stiffening and reduced dielectric response in SrTiO3 thin films

The problem of the reduced dielectric response in thin films of high-permittivity materials is analyzed by studying the soft-mode response in several SrTiO3 thin films by means of Fourier transform far infrared, monochromatic submillimeter, and micro-Raman spectroscopies. A 300-nm-thick metalorganic chemical vapor deposition film, quasiepitaxially grown on a (0001) sapphire substrate with a perfect orientation, displays a ferroelectric transition near 125 K induced by a tensile residual stress, appearing apparently simultaneously with the antiferrodistortive transition. On the other hand, polycrystalline chemical solution deposition films grown on (0001) sapphire, and also tensile stressed, show a harder soft mode response without the appearance of macroscopic ferroelectricity. This effect, which increases with the film thickness, is explained by a strong depolarizing field induced by the percolated porosity and cracks (in the 10-nm scale) along the boundaries of columnar grains (normal to the probe field direction). Brick-wall model calculations showed that 0.2 vol. % of such a porosity type reduces the permittivity from 30000 to less than 1000. The activation of the forbidden IR modes in the Raman spectra in the whole 80-300-K temperature range studied is explained by the effect of polar grain boundaries, in analogy with the bulk ceramics