The institutional context influencing rural-urban migration choices and strategies for young married women and men in Vietnam

This report draws together secondary data and informed opinion relating to the wider context in which young married rural-urban migrants must craft strategies for managing their reproductive and family lives. In contrast to long standing patterns of male migration, the increasing numbers of migrants and the emergence of new forms of migration mean that young married women are increasingly moving for work too. The report outlines the wider situation in which these dynamics are occurring: the growing inequalities in the context of doi moi, the declining barrier that household registration poses to mobility, and the changing opportunities for work in the city. It also reviews changing gender relations in Vietnam with particular attention to changes in marriage and marital relations, in sexuality and fertility and in parenting. Finally it explores how changes in social entitlements in Vietnam may affect these migrants with special attention to maternal health, child health and children’s education. The report concludes that migrants with young families and new marriages face a plethora of barriers and opportunities that they must negotiate and that the strategies they formulate are dynamic and involve complex trade-offs

Examining peak height ratios in low template DNA samples with and without sampling using a single-tube extraction protocol

The developments of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and the short tandem repeat multiplex kits increased the ease and lowered the time and sample quantity required for deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) typing compared to previous methods. However the amplification of low mass of DNA can lead to increased stochastic effects, such as allele drop-out (ADO) and heterozygous peak height (PH) imbalance, which make it difficult to determine the true donor profile. These stochastic effects are believed to be due to: 1) pre-PCR sampling from pipetting and sample transferal of dilute samples prior to amplification resulting in unbalanced heterozygous allele templates in the amplification reaction, and 2) the kinetics of the PCR process where, when few target templates are available, there is uneven amplification of heterozygous alleles during early PCR cycles. This study looks to examine the contribution of PCR chemistry and pre-PCR sampling errors on stochastic effects by utilizing a single-tube DNA extraction and direct amplification method. Cells were collected into tubes using the McCrone and Associates, Inc. cell transfer method, which allowed for approximation of DNA mass without quantification. The forensicGEM® Saliva Kit was used to lyse the cells and inactivate nucleases without inhibiting downstream amplification. The samples were then directly amplified with the AmpFLSTR® Identifiler® Plus PCR Amplification Kit. These samples should only show the effects of PCR chemistry since pipetting and tube transferal steps prior to amplification were removed with the expectation that equal numbers of heterozygous alleles are present in the sample pre-amplification. Comparisons of PH imbalance were made to samples extracted with forensicGEM® but had one or more pipetting and tube transferal steps prior to amplification. These samples were either created through the dilution of stock DNA or from the cell transfer method where aliquots were then taken for amplification; thus these samples would exhibit the effects of both pre-PCR sampling and PCR chemistry errors and inefficiencies. The use of carrier ribonucleic acid (cRNA) was also added to cell transfer samples prior to the amplification of samples to see if it assisted with amplification and increased signal. Results show that the samples with only PCR chemistry generally have significantly higher mean peak height ratios (PHRs) than samples with both pre-PCR sampling and PCR chemistry except in cases where there were large numbers of ADOs. When compared to the diluted samples, the cell transfer samples had significantly higher mean PHR at 0.0625 ng and 0.125 ng, and higher mean PHR at 0.0375 ng when PHs from ADOs are included. Average peak heights (APHs) in the cell transfer samples were also significantly higher in these comparisons. When compared to aliquots taken from cell transfer samples, mean PHR was significantly higher at 0.0625 ng in cell transfer samples with only PCR chemistry than cell transfer samples with both pre-PCR sampling and PCR chemistry; however APH for the samples with only PCR chemistry was also significantly higher in one experiment and not significantly different in another. In a third experiment, the difference in mean PHR was not significant while APH was significantly higher in the samples with pre-PCR sampling and PCR chemistry; however there were also a large numbers of ADOs. Our results also found quantification of dilute samples unreliable but cell counting through the cell transfer method is an appropriate alternative for DNA mass approximation. Also there were no significant changes in PHR or APH in the presence or absence of cRNA

Games and the art of agency

Games may seem like a waste of time, where we struggle under artificial rules for arbitrary goals. The author suggests that the rules and goals of games are not arbitrary at all. They are a way of specifying particular modes of agency. This is what make games a distinctive art form. Game designers designate goals and abilities for the player; they shape the agential skeleton which the player will inhabit during the game. Game designers work in the medium of agency. Game-playing, then, illuminates a distinctive human capacity. We can take on ends temporarily for the sake of the experience of pursuing them. Game play shows that our agency is significantly more modular and more fluid than we might have thought. It also demonstrates our capacity to take on an inverted motivational structure. Sometimes we can take on an end for the sake of the activity of pursuing that end

Games: Agency as Art

Games occupy a unique and valuable place in our lives. Game designers do not simply create worlds; they design temporary selves. Game designers set what our motivations are in the game and what our abilities will be. Thus: games are the art form of agency. By working in the artistic medium of agency, games can offer a distinctive aesthetic value. They support aesthetic experiences of deciding and doing. And the fact that we play games shows something remarkable about us. Our agency is more fluid than we might have thought. In playing a game, we take on temporary ends; we submerge ourselves temporarily in an alternate agency. Games turn out to be a vessel for communicating different modes of agency, for writing them down and storing them. Games create an archive of agencies. And playing games is how we familiarize ourselves with different modes of agency, which helps us develop our capacity to fluidly change our own style of agency

Blow-up Profile of Neutron Stars in the Chandrasekhar theory

We study the Chandrasekhar variational model for neutron stars, with or without an external potential. We prove the existence of minimizers when the attractive interaction strength $\tau$ is strictly smaller than the Chandrasekhar limit $\tau_c$ and investigate the blow-up phenomenon in the limit $\tau\uparrow \tau_{c}$. We show that the blow-up profile of the minimizer(s) is given by the Lane-Emden solution

Differential Stability of Convex Discrete Optimal Control Problems

Differential stability of convex discrete optimal control problems in Banach spaces is studied in this paper. By using some recent results of An and Yen [Appl. Anal. 94, 108--128 (2015)] on differential stability of parametric convex optimization problems under inclusion constraints, we obtain an upper estimate for the subdifferential of the optimal value function of a parametric convex discrete optimal control problem, where the objective function may be nondifferentiable. If the objective function is differentiable, the obtained upper estimate becomes an equality. It is shown that the singular subdifferential of the just mentioned optimal value function always consists of the origin of the dual space.Comment: accepted for publication in Acta Mathematica Vietnamic