Wastewater Management in Industrial Zones of the Vietnamese Mekong Delta : A Socio-spatial Analysis of Environmental Management in a Transition Economy

Industrial zones were introduced to Vietnam in the late 1990s, and have sprouted across the country. The largely agrarian Mekong Delta boasts of hosting about a hundred industrial zones. Although important policy tools in attracting foreign investment, the zones also impact adversely upon the environment. Given their prevalence and policy weight, it is important to understand the workings of environmental management in the industrial zones. The triad of missing capacity- financing-regulation is the common diagnosis for environmental management problems, and the structural features and contradictions of the Vietnamese state and its transition economy, which take centre stage in other analyses of the political economy, have been largely neglected. This work seeks to explore and reintroduce this context into its analysis of wastewater management in the industrial zones of the Vietnam Mekong Delta by employing an institutional analysis and an inductive research strategy. The qualitative empirical data comprises 100 semi-structured interviews with state agencies, companies, consultants, households affected by pollution, provincial documents, as well as media reports in four provinces along the Hau River during the period May 2011 to February 2012. Socio-spatiality was found to offer explanatory power and contextualised insights. The Vietnamese state administration system manifested itself vertically in hierarchical relations, and horizontally with ambiguous operational boundaries between agencies of technically equal standing. Both the operational mandates of the state agencies and even non-state monitoring processes were shaped by this administration structure. The industrial zone itself was vested with social and symbolic meanings accented by the spatial incompatibility between its physical location and management. Law was found to be the medium that expressed and facilitated these multiple dimensions of socio- spatiality of hierarchy, place meanings, and operational territories. The institutional analysis shows itself, retrospectively, to be an implicitly spatial research strategy that does not incline to any one dimension of socio-spatiality. Thus, the rediscovery of multiple dimensions of socio-spatiality underpins this work’s call to better contextualise environmental management analyses through the implicitly spatial institutional analysis

Parameter estimation of underwater propeller based on inverse Radon transform

Aiming at improving the method of underwater target recognition, this paper proposes a method to estimate the micro-Doppler spectrum parameters of propeller by using inverse Radon transform, so as to obtain the characteristic parameters of propeller. This paper firstly analyzes the basic concepts of micro-Doppler and inverse Radon transform, then defines the algorithm steps of inverse Radon transform for propeller parameter estimation and carries out simulation. The simulation results show that this method can effectively estimate the propeller rotational speed, blade number, blade length and initial spatial position

Parameter estimation of underwater propeller based on inverse Radon transform

Aiming at improving the method of underwater target recognition, this paper proposes a method to estimate the micro-Doppler spectrum parameters of propeller by using inverse Radon transform, so as to obtain the characteristic parameters of propeller. This paper firstly analyzes the basic concepts of micro-Doppler and inverse Radon transform, then defines the algorithm steps of inverse Radon transform for propeller parameter estimation and carries out simulation. The simulation results show that this method can effectively estimate the propeller rotational speed, blade number, blade length and initial spatial position

Spatial Distribution and Trends of Waterborne Diseases in Tashkent Province

Introduction: The cumulative effect of limited investment in public water systems, inadequate public health infrastructure, and gaps in infectious disease prevention increased the incidence of waterborne diseases in Uzbekistan. The objectives of this study were: (1) to spatially analyze the distribution of the diseases in Tashkent Province, (2) to identify the intensity of spatial trends in the province, (3) to identify urban-rural characteristics of the disease distribution, and (4) to identify the differences in disease incidence between pediatric and adult populations of the province.Methods: Data on four major waterborne diseases and socio-demographics factors were collected in Tashkent Province from 2011 to 2014. Descriptive epidemiological methods and spatial-temporal methods were used to investigate the distribution and trends, and to identify waterborne diseases hotspots and vulnerable population groups in the province.Results: Hepatitis A and enterobiasis had a high incidence in most of Tashkent Province, with higher incidences in the eastern and western districts. Residents of rural areas, including children, were found to be more vulnerable to the waterborne diseases compared to other populations living in the province.Conclusions: This pilot study calls for more scientific investigations of waterborne diseases and their effect on public health in the region, which could facilitate targeted public health interventions in vulnerable regions of Uzbekistan. 

Quantivine: A Visualization Approach for Large-scale Quantum Circuit Representation and Analysis

Quantum computing is a rapidly evolving field that enables exponential speed-up over classical algorithms. At the heart of this revolutionary technology are quantum circuits, which serve as vital tools for implementing, analyzing, and optimizing quantum algorithms. Recent advancements in quantum computing and the increasing capability of quantum devices have led to the development of more complex quantum circuits. However, traditional quantum circuit diagrams suffer from scalability and readability issues, which limit the efficiency of analysis and optimization processes. In this research, we propose a novel visualization approach for large-scale quantum circuits by adopting semantic analysis to facilitate the comprehension of quantum circuits. We first exploit meta-data and semantic information extracted from the underlying code of quantum circuits to create component segmentations and pattern abstractions, allowing for easier wrangling of massive circuit diagrams. We then develop Quantivine, an interactive system for exploring and understanding quantum circuits. A series of novel circuit visualizations are designed to uncover contextual details such as qubit provenance, parallelism, and entanglement. The effectiveness of Quantivine is demonstrated through two usage scenarios of quantum circuits with up to 100 qubits and a formal user evaluation with quantum experts. A free copy of this paper and all supplemental materials are available at https://osf.io/2m9yh/?view_only=0aa1618c97244f5093cd7ce15f1431f9.Comment: Accepted by IEEE VIS 202

CONVERT:Contrastive Graph Clustering with Reliable Augmentation

Contrastive graph node clustering via learnable data augmentation is a hot research spot in the field of unsupervised graph learning. The existing methods learn the sampling distribution of a pre-defined augmentation to generate data-driven augmentations automatically. Although promising clustering performance has been achieved, we observe that these strategies still rely on pre-defined augmentations, the semantics of the augmented graph can easily drift. The reliability of the augmented view semantics for contrastive learning can not be guaranteed, thus limiting the model performance. To address these problems, we propose a novel CONtrastiVe Graph ClustEring network with Reliable AugmenTation (COVERT). Specifically, in our method, the data augmentations are processed by the proposed reversible perturb-recover network. It distills reliable semantic information by recovering the perturbed latent embeddings. Moreover, to further guarantee the reliability of semantics, a novel semantic loss is presented to constrain the network via quantifying the perturbation and recovery. Lastly, a label-matching mechanism is designed to guide the model by clustering information through aligning the semantic labels and the selected high-confidence clustering pseudo labels. Extensive experimental results on seven datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. We release the code and appendix of CONVERT at https://github.com/xihongyang1999/CONVERT on GitHub

The role of ERK1/2 in colitis through regulation of NADPH oxidase and mitochondrial fission

Objective To investigate the role of extracellular signal regulated kinase 1/2 （ERK1/2） in colitis through the regulation of NADPH oxidase and mitochondrial fission. Methods Mice models of acute colitis were induced by 3% dextran sulfate sodium （DSS）. Thirty C57BL/6J mice were randomly divided into six groups by random number table method： control group， 3%DSS group，1% dimethyl sulfoxide （DMSO） group， ERK1/2 inhibitor（PD98059） group， 3%DSS+1%DMSO group and 3%DSS+PD98059 group， with five mice in each group. The changes of body weight， colonic length， disease activity index and colonic histopathological changes of mice in the control and 3%DSS groups were evaluated， and the expression levels of ERK1/2， p-ERK1/2， Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate oxidase 1 （Nox1） and Nox2 in colonic mucosa of mice were detected. Mice in 1%DMSO and 3%DSS+1%DMSO groups were intraperitoneally injected with 1%DMSO. Mice in the PD98059 and 3%DSS+PD98059 groups were intraperitoneally injected with PD98059. The colonic histopathological changes were evaluated among four groups， and the expression levels of Nox1， Nox2， Dynamin related protein 1 （DRP1）， p-DRP1-S616 and p-DRP1-S637 mitochondrial fission related proteins were detected. Mitochondrial fission of colonic epithelial cells in the control and 3%DSS groups was observed by transmission electron microscopy. The co-localization of Nox2 and mitochondrial outer membrane translocator enzyme TOM complex （TOMM20） in colonic mucosa of mice in two groups was analyzed by double-immunofluorescence staining. The correlation between relative expression levels of DRP1 and Nox2 mRNA in mouse colonic mucosa was analyzed in two groups. Results Compared with the control group， mice in the 3%DSS group exhibited body weight loss， shortened colonic length， increased disease activity index and increased colonic histopathological score. The expression levels of p-ERK1/2， Nox1， Nox2 in colonic mucosa of mice were significantly up-regulated in the 3%DSS group （all P < 0.05）. In mice with colitis， mitochondrial fission in colonic epithelial cells was increased， and the colonic mucosa co-localization of DRP1 and Nox2 was elevated， and the relative mRNA expression levels of both target genes were positively correlated （r = 0.678， P < 0.05）. ERK1/2 inhibitor PD98059 improved colonic histopathological changes in mice with colitis， and down-regulated the expression levels of Nox1， Nox2， DRP1， p-DRP1-S616 in colonic mucosa. Conclusion Inhibition of ERK1/2 may ameliorate colitis by down-regulating NADPH oxidase expression and alleviating mitochondrial fission

Inside-out Ca2+ signalling prompted by STIM1 conformational switch

Store-operated Ca(2+) entry mediated by STIM1 and ORAI1 constitutes one of the major Ca(2+) entry routes in mammalian cells. The molecular choreography of STIM1–ORAI1 coupling is initiated by endoplasmic reticulum (ER) Ca(2+) store depletion with subsequent oligomerization of the STIM1 ER-luminal domain, followed by its redistribution towards the plasma membrane to gate ORAI1 channels. The mechanistic underpinnings of this inside-out Ca(2+) signalling were largely undefined. By taking advantage of a unique gain-of-function mutation within the STIM1 transmembrane domain (STIM1-TM), here we show that local rearrangement, rather than alteration in the oligomeric state of STIM1-TM, prompts conformational changes in the cytosolic juxtamembrane coiled-coil region. Importantly, we further identify critical residues within the cytoplasmic domain of STIM1 (STIM1-CT) that entail autoinhibition. On the basis of these findings, we propose a model in which STIM1-TM reorganization switches STIM1-CT into an extended conformation, thereby projecting the ORAI-activating domain to gate ORAI1 channels