Heart rates estimation using rPPG methods in challenging imaging conditions

Abstract. The cardiovascular system plays a crucial role in maintaining the body’s equilibrium by regulating blood flow and oxygen supply to different organs and tissues. While contact-based techniques like electrocardiography and photoplethysmography are commonly used in healthcare and clinical monitoring, they are not practical for everyday use due to their skin contact requirements. Therefore, non-contact alternatives like remote photoplethysmography (rPPG) have gained significant attention in recent years. However, extracting accurate heart rate information from rPPG signals under challenging imaging conditions, such as image degradation and occlusion, remains a significant challenge. Therefore, this thesis aims to investigate the effectiveness of rPPG methods in extracting heart rate information from rPPG signals in these imaging conditions. It evaluates the effectiveness of both traditional rPPG approaches and rPPG pre-trained deep learning models in the presence of real-world image transformations, such as occlusion of the faces by sunglasses or facemasks, as well as image degradation caused by noise artifacts and motion blur. The study also explores various image restoration techniques to enhance the performance of the selected rPPG methods and experiments with various fine-tuning methods of the best-performing pre-trained model. The research was conducted on three databases, namely UBFC-rPPG, UCLA-rPPG, and UBFC-Phys, and includes comprehensive experiments. The results of this study offer valuable insights into the efficacy of rPPG in practical scenarios and its potential as a non-contact alternative to traditional cardiovascular monitoring techniques

Anti-Chinese Sentiment in Contemporary Vietnam: Constructing Nationalism, New Democracy, and the Use of “the Other”

In the late 2000s, conflict between Vietnam and China over the Spratly and Paracel Islands ignited many street protests in Vietnam. Vietnamese citizens called for aggressive national defense, and engaged in sniping and trolling on the Internet. Even though historical anti-China sentiment in Vietnam has been explored in academic scholarship, no work has yet examined the contemporary anti-China movement in terms of cultural derision, stereotypic labeling, and even small-scale clashes. Moreover, very limited literature has scrutinized the situation through a bottom-up approach that focuses on the roles of unofficial media, social networks, and other factors beyond the state, and how they perpetuate and amplify Vietnamese nationalism and Sinophobia. Based on my two-month fieldwork and archival research with Dr. Alfred Montoya in Ho Chi Minh City and Nha Trang, this paper examines how unofficial media and the interests of young Vietnamese citizens in the globalized economy perpetuate and inflame anti-Chinese sentiment. We challenge the oversimplification that the Vietnamese Communist Party is the only provocative force which manipulates its people against China through historical accounts and political propaganda. Instead, this complex situation involves multiple social actors that engender a surge of anxiety about the Chinese, leading to social tension and consequences in contemporary Vietnam

RESEARCHING GANODERMA RESIDUES APPLYING IN EARTHWORM CULTIVATION PROCESS (PERIONYX EXCAVATUS)

The research of applying Ganoderma residue in earthworm Perionyx excavatus cultivation have promised in reducing environmental pollutions from mushroom farm and brought high economic efficiency. A 9 m square with 9 experimental formulas were applied to investigate the effect of Ganoderma residue to earthworm growth. The results showed that Perionyx excavatus increased mass in all formulas added cultivated Ganoderma residues, in which the largest increased in formula of 75 % cultivated Ganoderma residues treated with Trichoderma, from 0.59 kg/m2 initial to 2.62 kg/m2. In addition, Perionyx excavatus growth and development completely was seen on the medium with 100 % cultivated ganoderma residues, reached 1.89 kg/m2. Although the growth rate of the Perionyx excavatus cultivated with Ganoderma residues was slower as compared to farming entirely by cow manure (2.94 kg/m2), in the long run, this process will bring farmers higher profits (56.500 VN dongs /m2 of culturing). This cultivation process might be promising to be applied in regions with mushrooms farms for economic and environmental reasons

BASIC CHARACTERISTICS OF NGUYEN AN NINH’S POLITICAL IDEOLOGY AND THE MEANING OF THAT IDEOLOGY

The late 19th and early 20th century was a special historical period for the Vietnamese people, a period of transformation that changed the nature of society. Our country was invaded by the French colonialists and became a semi-feudal, colonial country. It can be said that Nguyen An Ninh was a typical thinker of Vietnam in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He introduced political ideas consistent with the reality of the Vietnamese revolution in this historical period. Based on an overview of the basic contents of Nguyen An Ninh’s political ideology, this study aims to clarify the basic characteristics of Nguyen An Ninh’s political ideology such as (i) Deep nationality in Nguyen An Ninh’s political ideology; (ii) Vivid practicality in Nguyen An Ninh’s political ideology; (iii) Nguyen An Ninh’s political ideology represents the transition from bourgeois-democratic ideology to Marxism-Leninism. On that basis, clarify the values of that characteristic in Vietnam’s revolutionary process.  Article visualizations

Immodest Empowerment: Disjunction Between the Development Agenda and Lived Experiences of Women\u27s Land Rights in Southeastern Gujarat

Since the 1990s, giving women land rights has been a part of international development organizations’ agenda to empower the so-called “Third World woman.” Development organizations generalize women’s land rights as a cultural and local/state patriarchy issue, and to have “land rights” mostly means to have a documented titling to their family’s private agricultural land. Based on one month of fieldwork with the Vasava women in southeastern Gujarat, this thesis exposes the limits of this gender-based and property-based narrative in explaining the experiences of tribal women and land issues. It argues that the supranational development organizations’ framework around “women’s land rights” poorly addresses the lived experiences of tribal women, because of two main problems. The first problem pertains to how supranational development organizations represent and talk about the tribal women and land, in a way that neglects their social, cultural, and historical contexts. This narrative purposefully obfuscates the complicity of the same development agents in disrupting tribal livelihoods through capitalist projects and blocking tribal women’s access to many common forms of land for production. The second problem pertains to the missing voices of women in the land rights agenda. By positing a causal relationship between private land ownership and women’s empowerment, development agents provide little space to take into account the tribal women’s sentiments, dilemmas, doubts, and complex personal experiences after they gain land titles. The lack of attendance to the women’s granular and historically embedded experiences in the development work is what this thesis calls “immodest empowerment.

A qualitative study

Objectives The main objective of this study was to explore if there are any variations in how different generations of the educational sector in Vietnam perceive their work-life balance. This main object was achieved by firstly critically reviewing existing literature on cross-generational work-life balance situations, secondly conducting interviews with teachers of the research generations about the concept, and lastly by analyzing and interpreting the collected data. Summary This study examines the effects of factors of generational differences on how people among those generations perceive work-life balance, focusing upon educational sector in Vietnam. The literature review explains and defines work-life balance as well as generational differences in workforces; it also discusses the teaching profession in Vietnam and applies the mentioned work-life balance perceptions on this particular sector. In-depth opinions are introduced by analyzing data conducted from qualitative interviews with Vietnamese teachers. Conclusions A certain level of difference is diagnosed between the two generations Millennials and Baby Boomers in perceiving work-life balance, and the younger generation tends to pay more attention to the concept that the other one. These perceptions are largely influenced by big social events of the country that only the Boomer generation experienced. In addition, it was concluded that Baby Boomers have higher work ethics compared to the young and show more respect towards authorities in the work hierarchy as well as appreciation towards their work. However, Millennials believe that they are working smarter than Baby Boomers, instead of having to work harder