Vietnam – A general study of the triangulation toward change social movements, economic development, and political changeover

This thesis aims to study the political change taking place in Vietnam. The analysis was based on a thorough systematic review, including the main articles and data on the topic. The analytic perspective adopted was that of polyarchy, which acted as a lens subsequently used to answer two questions. First: What are the points of contact between economic development, political liberalization, and civil society? And second: What political factors lead to the consideration of Vietnam as a polyarchy?

Establishing communication challenges and preferences among clinical trial participants in an under-resourced setting to improve adherence to study visits and participant retention

Background Ensuring protocol visit compliance and maintaining high participant retention remain critical elements of clinical trials. In the HVTN 702 HIV vaccine trial, Setshaba Research Centre in Soshanguve, Tshwane, South Africa, experienced challenges in communicating with participants to remind them about their study visits. In order to improve participants adhering to their study visits, and study retention, we aimed to identify challenges in mobile communication, and to establish preferences in communication methods and interest in receiving study information via cellphones. Methods We conducted a paper-based survey among HVTN 702 HIV vaccine trial participants at Setshaba Research Centre. The survey comprised of dichotomous and scale questions and was completed voluntarily and anonymously. The questions included those on their primary form of communication (calling, SMS and WhatsApp), the best time of day for the site to communicate with them, whether they were interested in receiving regular general study information updates via their cellular phone, how often they changed their cellular phones and/or network, whether they experienced any challenges with their cellular phones and what these challenges were, if any. All participants scheduled to visit the clinic from February to May 2019 were invited to participate. Thus, 90 of 380 (24%) participants enrolled by May 2019 were surveyed. Results The majority (68%) of participants were 26−35 years old and almost three-quarters (73%) were female. Almost all participants (99%) had a personal cellphone. Half of the participants experienced some challenge related to cellphones, these being poor network signal at home (12%), battery running flat frequently (11%), sharing their phone (9%), lack of data (9%), challenges with use of applications (6%) and their cellphones being unreliable (3%). Annually, 20% of participants made a single or multiple network changes. Communication preferences were calls by site staff (80%), SMS (16%) and WhatsApp (3%). Most preferred to be contacted in the morning (49%) or afternoon (31%). Site contact was rated as ‘very helpful’ (87%), and 97% were interested in receiving regular general study information updates via their cellphone. Conclusion Despite participants owning cellphones, there are still technical challenges, for example, network signals, battery-charging and applications. The majority of participants preferred being called rather than communicating by text messages or WhatsApp. Future studies need to include addressing participant challenges in maintaining contact and training of participants on use of cellphone applications to optimise communication. Noting the preferred time of day for participants to be called might improve the likelihood of making contact with them. The willingness to receive updates will aid in keeping participant interest high and enhance retention.

The Politics of Development: A Study of the Structure of Politics from 1870 to 1890

<p>This thesis is the result not of any specific idea gained from a general study of the period under review; rather it is based upon the research and work done on an earlier project, a provincial history of Taranaki, which, concentrating mainly on the eighteen-seventies, culminated in the abolition struggle and the years immediately following. However, the detailed study of the provincial economy, its politics in both the provincial and central government spheres, and the political attitudes of the local press, accompanied by a general coverage of the politics of the central government throughout the decade, led to the conclusion that in one province at least, the politics of the period were economically based - around the focal point of Sir Julius Vogel's 1870 public works and immigration policy. From this gradually evolved the concept that economic development and material progress were the issues of greatest importance in the politics of the seventies; they were the prime cause of provincialist jealousies and parochialism, while, in the sphere of central government, Vogelism became the issue on which newly-formed groupings aligned themselves. To see if this concept had validity, the first thing which had to be done was to extend research to get a wider understanding of colonial and provincial economic and political developments, as well as cover the main provincial newspapers for editorial and public opinion throughout the country.</p>

The Politics of Development: A Study of the Structure of Politics from 1870 to 1890

<p>This thesis is the result not of any specific idea gained from a general study of the period under review; rather it is based upon the research and work done on an earlier project, a provincial history of Taranaki, which, concentrating mainly on the eighteen-seventies, culminated in the abolition struggle and the years immediately following. However, the detailed study of the provincial economy, its politics in both the provincial and central government spheres, and the political attitudes of the local press, accompanied by a general coverage of the politics of the central government throughout the decade, led to the conclusion that in one province at least, the politics of the period were economically based - around the focal point of Sir Julius Vogel's 1870 public works and immigration policy. From this gradually evolved the concept that economic development and material progress were the issues of greatest importance in the politics of the seventies; they were the prime cause of provincialist jealousies and parochialism, while, in the sphere of central government, Vogelism became the issue on which newly-formed groupings aligned themselves. To see if this concept had validity, the first thing which had to be done was to extend research to get a wider understanding of colonial and provincial economic and political developments, as well as cover the main provincial newspapers for editorial and public opinion throughout the country.</p>

Désignation et représentation des éléments topographiques dans les dialectes de France : synthèse générale (relief, cours d’eau, cavernes)

As the second part of a general study about semantic determinism, this article continues to analyze the topographic lexicon of Gallo-Romance dialects. The new concepts (‘river’, ‘brook’, ‘valley’, ‘cave’) that I examine in this paper complete my previous survey about the designations of hills and mountains. Most of all, the new set of data allows me to go beyond isolated concepts and to present for the first time the motivational synthesis of a whole theme. The result is that, whatever the concept, words referring to topography are generally created according to four matrices of designation: such words originally allude to (1) level; (2) concavity/convexity; (3) physical composition; or stem from a (4) conceptual confusion due to adjacency. The method that reduces hundreds of lexical forms to a handful of creative patterns leads to a direct perception of how the lexicon is structured and has a strong heuristic potential.

Numerical Simulation of the Whole Thermal Lensing Process with Z-Scan-Based Methods Using Gaussian Beams

A general study of the diffracted far field due to thermal lens heating using Gaussian beams is presented. The numerical simulation considers the whole system, including both the optical and the thermal parameters. It is shown that the existing simplified relations found in the literature and used up to now only give the order of magnitude of the thermo-optical coefficients. More accurate, simplified formulas are derived to measure the induced thermal phase shift when working with Z-scan-based methods. Temperature estimation in absorbing media turn out to be more reliable whether using time-resolved or steady-state techniques. The extension of the calculation to the image formation in a 4f system is also addressed.

Dihydroxylation Studies of Isoquinolinones: Synthesis of the EF-Ring of Lysolipin I

Inspired by the potent polycyclic xanthone antibiotic Lysolipin I, a general study on asymmetric dihydroxylation reactions of variously substituted isoquinolinones was performed. Different isoquinolinones were efficiently prepared, either by a Pomeranz-Fritsch type condensation or a Curtius rearrangement. Under a broad variety of conventional oxygenation procedures they proved very unreactive. However, either by suitable substitution of the appending aromatic ring or more forcing conditions a dihydroxylation could finally be performed, which allowed for synthesis of the EF-ring of Lysolipin I.

A fast and efficient deep learning procedure for tracking droplet motion in dense microfluidic emulsions

We present a deep learning-based object detection and object tracking algorithm to study droplet motion in dense microfluidic emulsions. The deep learning procedure is shown to correctly predict the droplets’ shape and track their motion at competitive rates as compared to standard clustering algorithms, even in the presence of significant deformations. The deep learning technique and tool developed in this work could be used for the general study of the dynamics of biological agents in fluid systems, such as moving cells and self-propelled microorganisms in complex biological flows. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Progress in mesoscale methods for fluid dynamics simulation’.

Michael Mark Woolfson. 9 January 1927—23 December 2019

Michael Woolfson contributed enormously to the theory and practice of X-ray crystallography for almost 60 years. He extended the theory of ‘direct methods’, which provided a general solution of the crystallographic phase problem from the measured diffraction data alone, and provided tools to exploit this theory. Software developed in his laboratory, such as the computer package MULTAN, was responsible for about half of the structures determined around the world in the 1970s and 1980s. His parallel work on the origin of the Solar System renewed interest in the Capture theory, and he contributed numerous stimulating ideas to the general study of the origin and dynamical evolution of the Solar System. Michael was a great educator and mentor for both undergraduates and young researchers, and many of these went on to make significant scientific contributions.