ABSTRACT
In this paper, we provide an overview of the upcoming ImageCLEF campaign. ImageCLEF is part of the CLEF Conference and Labs of the Evaluation Forum since 2003. ImageCLEF, the Multimedia Retrieval task in CLEF, is an ongoing evaluation initiative that promotes the evaluation of technologies for annotation, indexing, and retrieval of multimodal data with the aim of providing information access to large collections of data in various usage scenarios and domains. In its 21st edition, ImageCLEF 2023 will have four main tasks: (i) a Medical task addressing automatic image captioning, synthetic medical images created with GANs, Visual Question Answering for colonoscopy images, and medical dialogue summarization;(ii) an Aware task addressing the prediction of real-life consequences of online photo sharing;(iii) a Fusion task addressing late fusion techniques based on the expertise of a pool of classifiers;and (iv) a Recommending task addressing cultural heritage content-recommendation. In 2022, ImageCLEF received the participation of over 25 groups submitting more than 258 runs. These numbers show the impact of the campaign. With the COVID-19 pandemic now over, we expect that the interest in participating, especially at the physical CLEF sessions, will increase significantly in 2023. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
This article describes the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) preventive measures on the undocumented migrant domestic workers in the Netherlands. Undocumented migrants (UDMs) are likely to experience inequalities due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They rely on the informal market for work and housing and are usually not entitled to a healthcare insurance. However, they are not represented in the COVID-19 registrations or surveys. In order to advise the policymakers and healthcare professionals on how to tailor the preventive activities in handling a pandemic, including vaccination strategy, to the needs of this group, an insight into their experiences is needed. In our qualitative study, two focus group discussions were held with 14 UDMs, recruited through a snowball technique. The UDMs perceived the COVID-19 as a threat. Their precarious position affected their perceived vulnerability, which motivated them to seek information on and comply with preventive measures and testing. However, structural barriers decreased their self-efficacy and opportunity to comply. The COVID-19 measures impacted the lives of UDMs on essential domains, resulting in job, food, and housing insecurity, and increased barriers in access to healthcare. An intersectoral approach addressing health communication, access to healthcare, and social support, as well as legal rights for safe employment, is needed to alleviate the impact of the measures on UDMs. Copyright © 2022 van den Muijsenbergh, Torensma, Skowronek, de Lange and Stronks.
ABSTRACT
As the COVID-19 crisis developed, the International Labor Organization estimated that 4.7 percent of the global labor pool, comprising 164 million people, were migrant workers who were living and working outside their home country. While some were laid off and sent home for the lockdown, others continued working. These others were migrants performing crucial jobs in the front line of the crisis. They help to produce our food, pack our orders, and build or clean our houses, among other tasks. Many COVID-19 infections appear to be labor-related, with many of the crucial sectors exhibiting an extra-high risk of virus transmission. Migrant workers on the frontline can be low-waged, hold a temporary job, lack knowledge of their legal position and the local language, and have a limited social network and high dependency on others - such as recruiters or temporary employment agencies - for work and housing. This essay addresses these migrant vulnerabilities in the labor market and identifies measures that might simultaneously curb the vulnerabilities and account for industrial needs for labor in essential sectors. We argue that the vulnerability of migrant laborers is structural;the COVID-19 crisis has put a magnifying glass on a preexisting vulnerability and clarified the need for solutions. Copyright © Tesseltje de Lange, Sandra Mantu and Paul Minderhoud 2020.