Maine Maritime Academy

ABSTRACT The Northern Mountainous Region (NMR) is one of the poorest areas in Vietnam. In rural communities, ethnic minority people tend to subsist on livestock and crops grown locally on a smaller scale. The raising of heritage breeds of chicken for eggs and meat according to sustainable agriculture by women, for example, is a common way of securing a vital source of nutrition and income. It also contributes to the maintenance of genetic diversity and indigenous knowledge systems of production. As more industrial production systems of chicken are rapidly being developed across Vietnam, and in the NMR in particular, rural livelihoods are being considerably affected. This study explores the results of these changes in four districts of Thai Nguyen and Bac Giang Provinces where ethnic minorities dominate the population. Overall, this article provides a realistic view of the impact of industrial chicken production on small-scale female ethnic minority farmers and their communities. Innovative solutions in support of these communities in Vietnam are posited with application to other rural populations in developing countries undergoing a rapid commodification of animal husbandry and the countryside.

Vietnam is rapidly industrializing, and many of the rural agriculturally-based communities in the periphery are no exception. On the flatter lands around Hanoi and more heavily populated areas in some of the provinces to north of the capital for example, the gasoline powered tractor is replacing the labour of the water buffalo. Additionally, as the population demands more meat in its diet, water buffalo are now raised for human consumption, often in pens, rather than for power needed for agricultural cultivation. Indeed, as in the case of Chiem Hoa district in the Tuyen Quang province, what was once the plough has become a marketable and commodified brand of meat. Stated otherwise, an animal that was once common-place, interacted with daily, prized for its intelligence, decried for its stubbornness, and was considered by many across the countryside as another working member of the family, now seems somewhat exotic or has been reduced to simply another source of consumable protein. This chapter centres the water buffalo as a living framework to explore the complex social, cultural, environmental, and economic histories of the people of Chiem Hoa district in the Tuyen Quang province and by inference rural Vietnam. While the trope of economic progression dominates the academic literatures of rural development, this study focuses on structural changes in the economy notwithstanding. This present that agriculture in Vietnam is mechanizing and industrializing, and as it does generations of shared history between rural people and their most valued animal is being altered forever.

Metastasis to the breast from extramammary tumors are rare, and the most common cancer that metastasizes to this site is malignant melanoma (MM). Unfortunately, metastases from malignant melanoma reveal a widespread of the disease and a high likeliness of poor diagnosis. In this study, a case of left breast metastasis of MM in a young pregnant woman, with a fast progression of the mammary and systemic course of pathology and unfortunately poor prognosis is presented. Despite the role of pregnancy in MM has yet to be unraveled, our study encourages the theory that immunosuppression and hormonal changes due to pregnancy may aggravate melanoma prognosis.

The island of Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai (HTHH) in the Kingdom of Tonga was formed by Surtseyan eruptions and persisted for 7 years before being obliterated by a massive volcanic eruption on 15 January 2022. Before it was destroyed, HTHH was an unparalleled natural laboratory to study primary succession on a newly formed landmass. We characterized the microbial communities found on the surface sediments of HTHH using a combination of quantitative PCR, marker gene sequencing, and shotgun metagenomic analyses. Contrary to expectations, photosynthetic cyanobacteria were not detected in these sediments, even though they are typically dominant in the earliest stages of primary succession in other terrestrial environments. Instead, our results suggest that the early sediment communities were composed of a diverse array of bacterial taxa, including trace gas oxidizers, anoxygenic photosynthesizers, and chemolithotrophs capable of metabolizing inorganic sulfur, with these bacteria likely sourced from nearby active geothermal environments. While the destruction of HTHH makes it impossible to revisit the site to conduct in situ metabolic measurements or observe how the microbial communities might have continued to change over time, our results do suggest that the early microbial colonizers have unique origins and metabolic capabilities. IMPORTANCE The volcanic island of Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai in the Kingdom of Tonga represents a very rare example of new island formation and thus a unique opportunity to study how organisms colonize a new landmass. We found that the island was colonized by diverse microbial communities shortly after its formation in 2015, with these microbes likely originating from nearby geothermal environments. Primary succession in this system was distinct from that typically observed in other terrestrial environments, with the early microbial colonizers relying on unique metabolic strategies to survive on the surface of this newly formed island, including the capacity to generate energy via sulfur and trace gas metabolism.

Assuming a two-component, positive and negative mass, superfluid/supersolid for space (the Winterberg model), we model the Higgs field as a condensate made up of a positive and a negative mass, planckion pair. The connection is shown to be consistent (compatible) with the underlying field equations for each field, and the continuity equation is satisfied for both species of planckions, as well as for the Higgs field. An inherent length scale for space (the vacuum) emerges, which we estimate from previous work to be of the order of, l+ (0) = l- (0) = 5.032E-19 meters, for an undisturbed (unperturbed) vacuum. Thus we assume a lattice structure for space, made up of overlapping positive and negative mass wave functions, ψ+, and, ψ-, which together bind to form the Higgs field, giving it its rest mass of 125.35 Gev/c2 with a coherence length equal to its Compton wavelength. If the vacuum experiences an extreme disturbance, such as in a LHC pp collision, it is conjectured that severe dark energy results, on a localized level, with a partial disintegration of the Higgs force field in the surrounding space. The Higgs boson as a quantum excitation in this field results when the vacuum reestablishes itself, within 10-22 seconds, with positive and negative planckion mass number densities equalizing in the disturbed region. Using our fundamental equation relating the Higgs field, φ, to the planckion ψ+ and ψ- wave functions, we calculate the overall vacuum pressure (equal to vacuum energy density), as well as typical ψ+ and ψ- displacements from equilibrium within the vacuum.

Abstract Despite the burgeoning amount of tourism recovery research, there is a dearth of studies that explore communal coping. To address this gap, this study examined the communal coping of a tourism‐reliant community in Indonesia that was destroyed by a tsunami using the Participatory Research Action (PAR) paradigm. It employs Photovoice augmented with mobile data collection using Survey123 from ESRI. The findings identified three phases of communal coping: losing the daily routine, reviving routines, and living with new routines. Each of these was found to be pivotal to destination resilience building. This study offers a novel way to examine disaster experiences.

Based on the latest Planck surveys, the universe is close to being remarkably flat, and yet, within observational error, there is still room for a slight curvature. If the curvature is positive, then this would lead to a closed universe, as well as allow for a big bounce scenario. Working within these assumptions, and using a simple model, we predict that the cosmos may have a positive curvature in the amount, Ω0=1.001802, a value within current observational bounds. For the scaling laws associated with the density parameters in Friedmann’s equations, we will assume a susceptibility model for space, where, , equals the smeared cosmic susceptibility. If we allow the to decrease with increasing cosmic scale parameter, “a”, then we can predict a maximum Hubble volume, with minimum CMB temperature for the voids, before contraction begins, as well as a minimum volume, with maximum CMB temperature, when expansion starts. A specific heat engine model for the cosmos is also entertained for this model of a closed universe.

ABSTRACT Over centuries, ethnic minority communities in the north of Vietnam have developed complex farming systems well-adapted to their environments. Much of this is based on indigenous knowledge concerned with adapting to locally-available resources and more recently enhancing resiliency to climatic risk. This article draws from data gathered with mixed qualitative methods in ten villages in rural Bac Kan Province in the north of the country. It documents specific examples in the production of banana and medicinal plants; maize and red peanut; taro, pachyrhizus, and maize; and green bean as systems that incorporate native crops in ways that provide resistance to drought, improve water-use efficiency, benefit the soil, minimize agrochemical use, preserve culinary traditions, support gender equality, and increase the incomes of farm families living near the poverty line. Overall, this study illustrates unique ways that indigenous knowledge and agroecological farming practices can increase social, economic, and environmental resiliency, mitigate risk, and strengthen livelihoods in marginalized communities. As communities across the Global South seek answers to ever-increasing challenges brought by changes in climate, this paper argues that policymakers should revisit, support, and promote the indigenous knowledge already present in these communities to advance more sustainable futures.

Abstract Human activities have released large quantities of neutral persistent organic pollutants (POPs) that may be biomagnified in food webs and pose health risks to wildlife, particularly top predators. Here we develop a global 3‐D ocean simulation for four polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) spanning a range of molecular weights and volatilities to better understand effects of climate‐driven changes in ocean biogeochemistry on the lifetime and distribution of POPs. Observations are most abundant in the Arctic Ocean. There, model results reproduce spatial patterns and magnitudes of measured PCB concentrations. Sorption of PCBs to suspended particles and subsequent burial in benthic marine sediment is the dominant oceanic loss process globally. Results suggest benthic sediment burial has removed 75% of cumulative PCB releases since the onset of production in 1930. Wind speed, light penetration, and ocean circulation exert a stronger and more variable influence on volatile PCB congeners with lower particle affinity such as chlorinated biphenyl‐28 and chlorinated biphenyl‐101. In the Arctic Ocean between 1992 and 2015, modeled evasion (losses) of the more volatile PCB congeners from the surface ocean increased due to declines in sea ice and changes in ocean circulation. By contrast, net deposition increased slightly for higher molecular weight congeners with stronger partitioning to particles. Our results suggest future climate changes will have the greatest impacts on the chemical lifetimes and distributions of volatile POPs with lower molecular weights.