Evaluative Thinking Amid Disaster

Evaluation and emergency medicine have appreciable parallels and are likely to intertwine as they each evolve, especially in response to disasters or other pervasive problems that can worsen into the future. Evaluative thinking—which largely involves critical thinking, valuing, and other dynamic processes—may be ubiquitously useful to practitioners, scholars, and others from both these fields of practice. In this dissertation, I referenced the dual systems theory of the human mind to conceptualize evaluative thinking as paradoxically fast (automatic) and slow (deliberate), and I characterized the COVID-19 pandemic as a disaster laden with societal games. Derived from game theory, societal games range from the formal ones played by disciplines and fields of practice to the informal and diffuse games of social movements and special interests. I sought to answer two research questions. First, what are the manifestations of evaluative thinking within and between evaluation and emergency medicine amid disaster? Second, what linguistic patterns emerge from evaluative thinking amid disaster? My research design was multimethod, involving Q-methodology and function word analysis. I used purposive sampling to obtain two samples—one representing the context of evaluation ( n = 32) and another representing the context of emergency medicine ( n = 31). All research participants were professionals working in settings related to health and disasters, emergencies, and/or crises. Amid disaster, I found six styles of evaluative thinking in the evaluation context ( clarere, justificare, movere, verificare, informare, ponderare ) and three styles in the emergency medicine context ( cernere, librare, delineare ). Using intuition to render judgments is the most automatic process in the verificare, cernere , and delineare styles. Considering the availability of resources is the most deliberate process in the ponderare and delineare styles, while challenging personal beliefs and opinions is the most deliberate process in the clarere and librare styles. Whereas reflecting specifically on closing the gap between current and desired states is most deliberate in the cernere style, it is most automatic in the ponderare style. Lastly, broad reflection is most deliberate in movere and informare , deliberate in justificare and librare , automatic in clarere and ponderare , and circumstantial in the remaining styles. Function words in the English language may be divided into eight categories. On average across evaluative thinking styles, rates of personal pronouns, impersonal pronouns, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs , and non-referential adverbs were higher during the speaking mode than writing mode, while the rates of articles, prepositions, and negations were similar between modes. There were significant mode x style interaction effects for prepositions and articles, though the mean rates of these function words were similar between modes for most styles. There were also significant interaction effects for conjunctions and auxiliary verbs , though the mean rates of these function words were higher during speaking than writing for most styles. Furthermore, the relatively higher rates of spoken (compared to written) pronouns, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs, and non-referential adverbs with the relatively similar rates of spoken and written articles, prepositions , and negations suggest that even with different styles of evaluative thinking and societal games at play, professionals working in disaster, emergency, or crisis settings gravitate toward talking with others in an accessible manner while maintaining a sense of authority that is inherent in their written work. In conclusion, this dissertation contributes to the empirical evaluative thinking literature by providing insights into the nature of evaluative thinking amid disaster, and it also comprises an initial foundation upon which to further probe linguistic signals that help evaluators and other professionals recognize and express different styles of evaluative thinking

Contribution to the study on chemical constituents of Hedyotis auricularia L., (Rubiaceae)

From the whole plant of Hedyotis auricularia L., a new glycoside, 1’-deoxy-6’-O-(1-hydroxymethyl-2-hydroxy-1-methoxy)ethylglucopyranoside (1) was isolated along with 1’-O-ethyl-β-D-galactopyranoside (2), 2-formyl-5-hydroxymethylfuran (3), stigmasta-5,22-diene-3-O-β-D-glucopyranoside (4), ursolic acid (5) and oleanolic acid (6). Among them (1), (2), (3), (4)were the first time known to be present in this plant

Energy cost optimization in microgrids using model predictive control and mixed integer linear programming

© 2019 IEEE. This paper presents a model predictive control (MPC) approach based on the mixed integer linear programming (MILP) to develop an optimal power management strategy (PMS) for minimizing the electricity bill of commercial buildings in a domestic on-grid system. The optimal PMS is first formulated as a MILP-MPC with time-varying constraints. The constraints are then linearized at each sampling time so that a receding horizon principle can be used to determine the control input applied to the plant and update the model. The time-varying efficiency of power electronic converters is evaluated for each time interval and assumed to be persistent for the prediction time horizon. The numerical results show that the proposed MILP-MPC strategy with variable efficiency is effective in utilizing photovoltaic power generation to save the cost on electricity for buildings

Observations on multiple mating flights of Apis dorsata queens

This observation is aimed at providing information for a reasonable comparative study on reproductive biology among the honeybee species. The research was carried out in 1996 in the submerged Melaleuca forest of southern Vietnam, where low-nesting colonies on man-made supports, rafters, allowed us to make detailed observations on the queens. Flights of six newly emerged queens were observed and after their final mating flights, queens were dissected to count the sperm number. The five investigated queens took their first flights 6 ± 1 (mean ± SD) days after emergence. Four queens took orientation flights of less than 3 min. One queen flew to mate without any orientation flight. Mating flights happened around sunset and lasted 15.4 ± 4.3 (n = 14) min. A queen undertook two to four mating flights and after fully mating, she had 5.5 ± 0.9 (n = 5) million sperm in her spermatheca. This study indicated the extreme polyandry in A. dorsata. © Inra/DIB/AGIB/Elsevier, Pari

Trends in incidence and histological pattern of thyroid cancer in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (1996–2015): a population-based study

Background The burden and trend of thyroid cancer in Vietnam have not been well documented. This study aimed to investigate the trends in incidence and histological pattern of thyroid cancer in Ho Chi Minh City from 1996 to 2015. Methods A population-based study retrieved data from the Ho Chi Minh City Cancer Registry during 1996–2015. Trends in the incidence of thyroid cancer were investigated based on age, gender, and histology for each 5-year period. Annual percentage change (APC) in incidence rates was estimated using Joinpoint regression analysis. Results In the study period, there were 5953 thyroid cancer cases (men-to-women ratio 1:4.5) newly diagnosed in Ho Chi Minh City with the mean age of 42.9 years (±14.9 years). The age-standardized incidence rate of thyroid cancer increased from 2.4 per 100,000 during 1996–2000 (95% confidence interval [95% CI]: 2.2–2.6) to 7.5 per 100,000 during 2011–2015 (95% CI: 7.3–7.9), corresponded to an overall APC of 8.7 (95% CI 7.6–9.9). The APC in men and women was 6.2 (95% CI: 4.2–8.2) and 9.2 (95% CI: 8.0–10.4), respectively. The incidence rate in the < 45 years age group was the highest diagnosed overall and increased significantly in both men (APC 11.0) and women (APC 10.1). Both genders shared similar distribution of subtype incidences, with papillary thyroid cancer constituted the most diagnosed (73.3% in men and 85.2% in women). The papillary thyroid cancer observed a markedly increase overall (APC of 10.7 (95% CI 9.3–12.0)). Conclusions There were appreciable increases in the age-standardized incidence rate of thyroid cancer in both genders, mainly contributed by the papillary subtype. The age of patients at diagnosis decreased gradually. The widespread utilization of advanced diagnostic techniques and healthcare accessibility improvement might play a potential role in these trends. Further investigations are needed to comprehend the risk factors and trends fully

Vitali's theorem without uniform boundedness

Let {fm}m≥1 be a sequence of holomorphic functions defined on a bounded domain D ⊂ Cn or a sequence of rational functions (1 ≤ deg rm ≤ m) defined on Cn. We are interested infinding sufficient conditions to ensure the convergence of {fm}m≥1 on a large set provided the convergence holds pointwise on a not too small set. This type of result is inspired from a theorem of Vitali which gives a positive answer for uniformly bounded sequence

Deployment of UAVs for Optimal Multihop Ad-hoc Networks Using Particle Swarm Optimization and Behavior-based Control

This study proposes an approach for establishing an optimal multihop ad-hoc network using multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to provide emergency communication in disaster areas. The approach includes two stages, one uses particle swarm optimization (PSO) to find optimal positions to deploy UAVs, and the other uses a behavior-based controller to navigate the UAVs to their assigned positions without colliding with obstacles in an unknown environment. Several constraints related to the UAVs' sensing and communication ranges have been imposed to ensure the applicability of the proposed approach in real-world scenarios. A number of simulation experiments with data loaded from real environments have been conducted. The results show that our proposed approach is not only successful in establishing multihop ad-hoc routes but also meets the requirements for real-time deployment of UAVs.Comment: In the 11th International Conference on Control, Automation and Information Sciences (ICCAIS 2022), Hanoi, Vietna

Risk factors for Entamoeba histolytica infection in an agricultural community in Hanam province, Vietnam

BACKGROUND: Entamoeba histolytica is an important protozoan intestinal infection in resource-poor settings, including Vietnam. The study objective was to assess risk factors of E. histolytica infection in a community in Vietnam, where wastewater and human excreta are used in agriculture. A case-control study was conducted among residents of Hanam province, Northern Vietnam. Cases (n=46) infected with E. histolytica and non-infected controls (n=138) were identified in a cross-sectional survey among 794 randomly selected individuals and matched for age, sex and place of residence. Potential risk factors including exposure to human and animal excreta and household wastewater were assessed with a questionnaire. RESULTS: People from households with an average socio-economic status had a 4.3 times higher risk of E. histolytica infection (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.3-14.0) compared with those from households with a good socioeconomic status. Those individuals who never or rarely used soap for hand washing had a 3.4 times higher risk for infection (95% CI 1.1-10.0), compared to those who used always soap. In contrast, none of the factors related to use of human or animal excreta was statistically significant associated with E. histolytica infection. People having close contact with domestic animals presented a greater risk of E. histolytica infection (odds ratio [OR]=5.9, 95% CI 1.8-19.0) than those without animal contact. E. histolytica infection was not associated with direct contact with Nhue river water, pond water and household's sanitary conditions, type of latrine or water source used. CONCLUSIONS: Our study suggests that in settings where human and animal excreta and Nhue River water are intensively used in agriculture, socio-economic and personal hygiene factors determine infection with E. histolytica, rather than exposure to human and animal excreta in agricultural activitie