Application of hybrid control algorithm for the vehicle active suspension system to reduce the vibration

This research proposes a hybrid control algorithm to enhance smoothness in a vehicle’s motion. The control signal is synthesized from two separate controllers, Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) and Sliding Mode Control (SMC), to achieve superior control performance. The novelty of the proposed control algorithm lies in using a double-loop algorithm to determine the controller parameters. The algorithm proposed in this research involves two computational processes to determine the model's optimal values including the raw value and the acceptable value. The proposed control algorithm has been simulated considering three specific cases corresponding to the three types of road stimuli. The results demonstrate that the values of sprung mass displacement and acceleration dropped considerably with the application of the proposed algorithm. Moreover, the change in vertical force at the wheel is also reduced with the application of the algorithm particularly in the third case where the vertical force at the wheel has reached to zero. The average values of vehicle body displacement are found to be 166.17mm (for passive case), 54.20mm (for PID) and 42.52mm (for SMC). The proposed control algorithm managed to reduce this value to 8.95mm as evidenced by simulation results. Finally, the response of the control system when subjected to an excitation signal from the road surface further demonstrates efficacy of the proposed hybrid control algorithm

A virtualization-based approach for zone migration in distributed virtual environments

Best paper award.</p

A hierarchical architecture for increasing efficiency of large photovoltaic plants under non-homogeneous solar irradiation

Under non-homogeneous solar irradiation, photovoltaic (PV) panels receive different solar irradiance, resulting in a decrease in efficiency of the PV generation system. There are a few technical options to fix this issue that goes under the name of mismatch. One of these is the reconfiguration of the PV generation system, namely changing the connections of the PV panels from the initial configuration to the optimal one. Such technique has been widely considered for small systems, due to the excessive number of required switches. In this paper, the authors propose a new method for increasing the efficiency of large PV systems under non-homogeneous solar irradiation using Series-Parallel (SP) topology. In the first part of the paper, the authors propose a method containing two key points: a switching matrix to change the connection of PV panels based on SP topology and the proof that the SP-based reconfiguration method can increase the efficiency of the photovoltaic system up to 50%. In the second part, the authors propose the extension of the method proposed in the first part to improve the efficiency of large solar generation systems by means of a two-levels architecture to minimize the cost of fabrication of the switching matrix

Mental health and its determinants among adolescents living in families with separated or divorced parents in an urban area of Vietnam

Objectives We assessed the prevalence of stress, anxiety, and depression among adolescents living in families with separated or divorced parents in Hue City, Vietnam and identified factors associated with these conditions. Methods This cross-sectional study enrolled 309 adolescents, aged 12 to 17 years, living in families with separated or divorced parents in Hue City, Vietnam. The depression anxiety stress scale-21 (DASS-21) was used to measure stress, anxiety, and depression. Predictors of overall and individual mental health problems were identified using ordered and binary logistic regression, respectively. Results The DASS-21 scale revealed a 49.2% prevalence of stress, while anxiety and depression had s prevalence rates of 61.5%. Among participants, 42.4% experienced all 3 mental health issues. Several factors were identified as significant predictors of mental health problems, including poor to average economic status (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 2.00; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.21–3.31; p=0.007); being in high school (aOR, 5.02; 95% CI, 2.93–8.60; p<0.001); maternal occupation of teacher, healthcare professional, or official (aOR, 2.39; 95% CI, 1.13–5.03; p=0.022); longer duration of family separation or divorce (aOR, 1.24; 95% CI, 1.05–1.45; p=0.009); living with one’s mother (aOR, 1.69; 95% CI, 1.03–2.76; p=0.04); alcohol consumption (aOR, 1.70; 95% CI, 0.99–2.92; p=0.050); and being bullied (aOR, 5.33; 95% CI, 1.10–25.69; p=0.037). Most of these factors were associated with stress, anxiety, and depression. Additionally, smoking was associated with stress. Conclusion Adolescents with separated or divorced parents were at increased risk of stress, anxiety, and depression. The findings of this study provide important implications for prevention programs

THÀNH PHẦN LOÀI VÀ SINH KHỐI CỎ BIỂN TẠI ĐẦM SAM CHUỒN VÀ HÀ TRUNG, TỈNH THỪA THIÊN HUẾ

This research was conducted at Sam Chuon and Ha Trung lagoons, Thua Thien Hue province. The research has identified 5 seagrass species including Halophila beccarii, Zostera japonica, Halodule pinifolia, Halodule uninervis and Ruppia maritima in Sam Chuon and Ha Trung lagoons. The total biomass of seagrass fluctuates seasonally. In the dry season, the total biomass of seagrass at research station S6 is highest at 136.23 g/m2 and lowest at research stations H7 and H8 at 0.64 g/m2. In the rainy season, sampling station S6 also recorded the highest total biomass with a value of 113.20 g/m2, the lowest at two stations H7 and H8 with 0.64 g/m2. Halodule uninervis and Ruppia maritima are the dominant species, which appeared in 11/14 stations in total. While Ruppia maritima is only recognized at 3/14 stations in total.Nghiên cứu này được tiến hành khảo sát tại đầm Sam Chuồn và Hà Trung thuộc hệ đầm phá Tam Giang - Cầu Hai, tỉnh Thừa Thiên Huế. Nghiên cứu đã xác định được năm loài cỏ biển là Halophila beccarii (cỏ Nàn), Zostera japonica (cỏ Lươn nhật), Halodule pinifolia (cỏ Hẹ tròn), Halodule uninervis (cỏ Hẹ ba răng) và loài Ruppia maritima (cỏ Kim biển) phân bố tại đầm Sam Chuồn và Hà Trung. Tổng sinh khối của cỏ biển có sự biến động theo mùa. Vào mùa khô, tổng sinh khối của cỏ biển tại trạm nghiên cứu S6 cao nhất với 136,23 g/m2 và thấp nhất tại trạm nghiên cứu H7 và H8 với 0,64 g/m2. Vào mùa mưa tại trạm thu mẫu S6 cũng ghi nhận tổng sinh khối của cỏ biển cao nhất với giá trị đạt được 113,20 g/m2, thấp nhất tại hai trạm nghiên cứu H7 và H8 với 0,64 g/m2. Loài Halodule uninervis (cỏ Hẹ ba răng) chiếm ưu thế hơn cả với sự ghi nhận tại 11/14 trạm thu mẫu. Và loài Ruppia maritima (cỏ Kim biển) chỉ ghi nhận xuất hiện tại 3/14 trạm thu mẫu

Risk factors for malaria in high incidence areas of Viet Nam: a case–control study

Background: A key step to advancing the goal of malaria elimination in Viet Nam by 2030 is focusing limited resources for treatment and prevention to groups most at risk for malaria transmission. Methods: To better understand risk factors for malaria transmission in central Viet Nam, a survey of 1000 malaria positive cases and 1000 malaria negative controls was conducted. Cases and controls were matched for age and gender and self-presented at commune health stations (CHS) in Binh Phuoc, Dak Nong and Dak Lak Provinces. Diagnoses were confirmed with microscopy, rapid diagnostic test and PCR. Participants were interviewed about 50 potential risk factors for malaria, which included information about occupation, forest visitation, travel, healthcare-seeking behaviour and prior use of anti-malaria interventions. Participants were enrolled by trained government health workers and the samples were analysed in Vietnamese government laboratories. Data were analysed by univariable, block-wise and multivariable logistic regression. Results: Among cases, 61.8% had Plasmodium falciparum, 35.2% Plasmodium vivax and 3% mixed species infections. Median (IQR) age was 27 (21–36) years and 91.2% were male. Twenty-five risk factors were associated with being a case and eleven with being a control. Multivariable analysis found that malaria cases correlated with forest workers, recent forest visitation, longer duration of illness, having a recorded fever, number of malaria infections in the past year, having had prior malaria treatment and having previously visited a clinic. Conclusions: This study demonstrates the benefits of increased statistical power from matched controls in malaria surveillance studies, which allows identification of additional independent risk factors. It also illustrates an example of research partnership between academia and government to collect high quality data relevant to planning malaria elimination activities. Modifiable risk factors and implications of the findings for malaria elimination strategy are presented

10-Year Cardiovascular Risk in Hypertensive Patients: Insights from Central Vietnam Using WHO 2019 Chart

Background: Assessing the 10-year cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk is crucial for effective prevention and management. Despite its significance, information is limited on CVD risk among hypertensive patients in primary care in Central Vietnam. We conducted this study to estimate 10-year CVD risk in primary care settings and explore its associated risk factors, using the 2019 WHO CVD risk chart. Methods and Results: This cross-sectional study collected socio-demographic and clinical data through a standardized questionnaire. Cardiovascular risk was estimated using the WHO CVD risk charts for Southeast Asia. The prevalence of low, moderate, and high CVD risk was 52.1%, 38.9%, and 9.0%, respectively. Notably, men had significantly higher rates of moderate (48.6%) and high (17.6%) CVD risk than women (31.4 and 2.4%, respectively) (P=0.000). Age was a significant factor, with an increasing prevalence of moderate and high CVR as age advanced. Specifically, the 50-59 age group had a moderate risk of 18.6%, rising to 69.9% in the 70-74 age group. High CVD risk increased from 0.6% to 27.6% in the same age groups. Lower educational levels were associated with a higher proportion of moderate CVD risk. Smoking and excessive alcohol consumption were linked to elevated CVD risks (25.0% and 30.0%, respectively), surpassing those without these behaviors. Similar trends were observed for individuals with diabetes, high total cholesterol, and high blood pressure. Conclusion: Approximately one-tenth of hypertensive patients face a high risk of developing CVDs within the next 10 years. A comprehensive approach, encompassing behavioral changes and the management of metabolic risk factors, is essential to reduce CVD risk effectively

The role of nutritional risk evaluation in predicting adverse outcomes among patients with severe COVID-19 in Vietnam

IntroductionAs sufficient nutrition helps alleviate catabolic stress and modulate the systemic inflammatory response of the body, it plays an indispensable role in the good prognosis of critically ill patients. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the malnutrition of patients with severe COVID-19 and its association with adverse treatment outcomes.MethodsWe conducted a retrospective cross-sectional study in two provincial hospitals in Hanoi from February to April 2022. Participants were patients with severe COVID-19 admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Malnutrition risk were evaluated by Nutritional Risk Screening-2002 (NRS), Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM), Prognostic Nutritional Index (PNI), and the adverse prognosis was assessed by Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II (APACHE II). The multivariate receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve was applied to estimate the predictive ability of those criteria regarding worse treatment results.ResultsThe percentages of malnutrition measured by NRS, GLIM, PNI, and BMI were 62.6, 51.5, 42.9, and 16.6%, respectively. Patients with more severe malnutrition assessed by GLIM, PNI, and having above target fasting blood glucose (FBG) (≥10.0 mmol/L) were more likely to have higher APACHE scores. PNI had a better diagnostic performance than NRS and BMI (AUC = 0.84, 0.81, and 0.82, respectively). In addition, FBG revealed a good prognostic implication (AUC = 0.84).ConclusionA relatively high percentage of patients experienced moderate and severe malnutrition regardless of screening tools. Individuals at higher risk of malnutrition and high FBG were predicted to have more adverse treatment outcomes. It is recommended that nutritional screening should be conducted regularly, and personalizing nutritional care strategies is necessary to meet patients’ nutrient demands and prevent other nutrition-related complications

TextANIMAR: Text-based 3D Animal Fine-Grained Retrieval

3D object retrieval is an important yet challenging task, which has drawn more and more attention in recent years. While existing approaches have made strides in addressing this issue, they are often limited to restricted settings such as image and sketch queries, which are often unfriendly interactions for common users. In order to overcome these limitations, this paper presents a novel SHREC challenge track focusing on text-based fine-grained retrieval of 3D animal models. Unlike previous SHREC challenge tracks, the proposed task is considerably more challenging, requiring participants to develop innovative approaches to tackle the problem of text-based retrieval. Despite the increased difficulty, we believe that this task has the potential to drive useful applications in practice and facilitate more intuitive interactions with 3D objects. Five groups participated in our competition, submitting a total of 114 runs. While the results obtained in our competition are satisfactory, we note that the challenges presented by this task are far from being fully solved. As such, we provide insights into potential areas for future research and improvements. We believe that we can help push the boundaries of 3D object retrieval and facilitate more user-friendly interactions via vision-language technologies.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2304.0573

An Evaluation of Programmatic Community-Based Chest X-ray Screening for Tuberculosis in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Across Asia, a large proportion of people with tuberculosis (TB) do not report symptoms, have mild symptoms or only experience symptoms for a short duration. These individuals may not seek care at health facilities or may be missed by symptom screening, resulting in sustained TB transmission in the community. We evaluated the yields of TB from 114 days of community-based, mobile chest X-ray (CXR) screening. The yields at each step of the TB screening cascade were tabulated and we compared cohorts of participants who reported having a prolonged cough and those reporting no cough or one of short duration. We estimated the marginal yields of TB using different diagnostic algorithms and calculated the relative diagnostic costs and cost per case for each algorithm. A total of 34,529 participants were screened by CXR, detecting 256 people with Xpert-positive TB. Only 50% of those diagnosed with TB were detected among participants reporting a prolonged cough. The study's screening algorithm detected almost 4 times as much TB as the National TB Program's standard diagnostic algorithm. Community-based, mobile chest X-ray screening can be a high yielding strategy which is able to identify people with TB who would likely otherwise have been missed by existing health services