Advances in Smart Technologies for Structural Health Monitoring of Cable-stayed Bridges

This study deals with the general problem of developing smart technologies for vibration and impedance-based structural health monitoring (SHM) of cable-stayed bridges. The following approaches are implemented to achieve the objective. Firstly, vibration- and impedance-based SHM methods suitable for cable-stayed bridge are briefly outlined. Secondly, smart sensors are designed for vibration- and impedance-based SHM. Thirdly, the practicality of the smart sensor system is evaluated on a real cable-stayed bridge, Hwamyung Bridge in Korea. The system's performance is experimentally analyzed under various cable forces and weather conditions. Finally, the experimental modal parameters are identified by numerical modal analyses of the target bridge. Also, its structural parameters are estimated from the vibration-based structural identification using experimental modal parameters

BUILDING THE TEACHING STAFF OF DEFENSE EDUCATION AND SECURITY IN UNIVERSITIES TO MEET CURRENT DEVELOPMENT REQUIREMENTS IN VIETNAM

In Vietnam today, strengthening defense and security education for all classes of people, especially students at universities, is an essential job. In particular, one of the critical factors contributing to improving the quality of defense and security education for university students is the teaching staff of defense and security education. However, the teaching staff of defense and security education in Vietnamese universities needs more quantity and has certain limitations in quality. The article outlines several requirements posed to the teaching staff of national defense and security education and, on that basis, proposes some solutions to build the contingent of defense and security education lecturers in Vietnamese universities to meet the current development requirements of the country.  Article visualizations

The process of developing professional capacity for teachers

The primary aim of Vietnam's new educational program is to enhance students' knowledge and skills through practical learning experiences, enabling them to tackle academic and real-world challenges. However, teachers in Dong Thap province face limitations in their professional competencies. Thus, this study aims to address these issues by examining different models for developing teachers' professional competencies. 1,116 participants participated in this study (258 managers and 868 teachers from high schools and preschools) who completed two questionnaires assessing their professional competence and the perceived importance of professional development. The findings reveal that teachers lack subject knowledge, interdisciplinary understanding   and skills in teaching design and assessment. Both school managers and teachers recognize the necessity of professional competence development. A three-step process for enhancing teachers' professional competence is proposed for implementing professional development activities based on these findings

The Influence of the Self-focusing Effect on the Optical Force Acting on Dielectric Particle Embedded in Kerr Medium

The influence of the self-focusing effect arised from Kerr effect on the optical force acting on the dielecric particle embedded in the Kerr medium, which is irradiated by the Gaussian beam, is proposed to concern. The expressions of the optical forces with the nonlinear refractive index and nonlinear focal length are derived. Using them, the distribution of the optical forces in the trapping region of the optical tweezer is simulated and discussed for same distinguished case of the Kerr medium with different nonlinear coefficients. The results show that the stabe region of the optical tweezer depends on the nonlinear coefficient of refractive index. Moreover, the stable region could be brokendown with a critical value of the nonlinear coefficient of refractive index of the surrounding medium irradiated by Gaussian laser pulse described by given parameters as  intensity, duration and radius of beam waist.

PRAS40 suppresses atherogenesis through inhibition of mTORC1-dependent pro-inflammatory signaling in endothelial cells

Endothelial pro-inflammatory activation plays a pivotal role in atherosclerosis, and many pro-inflammatory and atherogenic signals converge upon mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR). Inhibitors of mTOR complex 1 (mTORC1) reduced atherosclerosis in preclinical studies, but side effects including insulin resistance and dyslipidemia limit their clinical use in this context. Therefore, we investigated PRAS40, a cell type-specific endogenous modulator of mTORC1, as alternative target. Indeed, we previously found PRAS40 gene therapy to improve metabolic profile; however, its function in endothelial cells and its role in atherosclerosis remain unknown. Here we show that PRAS40 negatively regulates endothelial mTORC1 and pro-inflammatory signaling. Knockdown of PRAS40 in endothelial cells promoted TNFα-induced mTORC1 signaling, proliferation, upregulation of inflammatory markers and monocyte recruitment. In contrast, PRAS40-overexpression blocked mTORC1 and all measures of pro-inflammatory signaling. These effects were mimicked by pharmacological mTORC1-inhibition with torin1. In an in vivo model of atherogenic remodeling, mice with induced endothelium-specific PRAS40 deficiency showed enhanced endothelial pro-inflammatory activation as well as increased neointimal hyperplasia and atherosclerotic lesion formation. These data indicate that PRAS40 suppresses atherosclerosis via inhibition of endothelial mTORC1-mediated pro-inflammatory signaling. In conjunction with its favourable effects on metabolic homeostasis, this renders PRAS40 a potential target for the treatment of atherosclerosis

Efficient inference of large prokaryotic pangenomes with PanTA

Pangenome inference is an indispensable step in bacterial genomics, yet its scalability poses a challenge due to the rapid growth of genomic collections. This paper presents PanTA, a software package designed for constructing pangenomes of large bacterial datasets, showing unprecedented efficiency levels multiple times higher than existing tools. PanTA introduces a novel mechanism to construct the pangenome progressively without rebuilding the accumulated collection from scratch. The progressive mode is shown to consume orders of magnitude less computational resources than existing solutions in managing growing datasets. The software is open source and is publicly available at https://github.com/amromics/panta and at 10.6084/m9.figshare.23724705

AMRomics: a scalable workflow to analyze large microbial genome collections

Whole genome analysis for microbial genomics is critical to studying and monitoring antimicrobial resistance strains. The exponential growth of microbial sequencing data necessitates a fast and scalable computational pipeline to generate the desired outputs in a timely and cost-effective manner. Recent methods have been implemented to integrate individual genomes into large collections of specific bacterial populations and are widely employed for systematic genomic surveillance. However, they do not scale well when the population expands and turnaround time remains the main issue for this type of analysis. Here, we introduce AMRomics, an optimized microbial genomics pipeline that can work efficiently with big datasets. We use different bacterial data collections to compare AMRomics against competitive tools and show that our pipeline can generate similar results of interest but with better performance. The software is open source and is publicly available at https://github.com/amromics/amromics under an MIT license

Evaluation of awake prone positioning effectiveness in moderate to severe COVID-19

Evidence mainly from high income countries suggests that lying in the prone position may be beneficial in patients with COVID-19 even if they are not receiving invasive ventilation. Studies indicate that increased duration of prone position may be associated with improved outcomes, but achieving this requires additional staff time and resources. Our study aims to support prolonged (≥ 8hours/day) awake prone positioning in patients with moderate to severe COVID-19 disease in Vietnam. We use a specialist team to support prone positioning of patients and wearable devices to assist monitoring vital signs and prone position and an electronic data registry to capture routine clinical data

Spatiotemporal evolution of SARS-CoV-2 Alpha and Delta variants during large nationwide outbreak of COVID-19, Vietnam, 2021

We analyzed 1,303 SARS-CoV-2 whole-genome sequences from Vietnam, and found the Alpha and Delta variants were responsible for a large nationwide outbreak of COVID-19 in 2021. The Delta variant was confined to the AY.57 lineage and caused >1.7 million infections and >32,000 deaths. Viral transmission was strongly affected by nonpharmaceutical interventions

CSA: Thực hành nông nghiệp thông minh với khí hậu ở Việt Nam

During the last five years, Vietnam has been one of the countries most affected by climate change. Severe typhoons, flooding, cold spells, salinity intrusion, and drought have affected agriculture production across the country, from upland to lowland regions. Fortunately for Vietnam, continuous work in developing climate-smart agriculture has been occurring in research organizations and among innovative farmers and entrepreneurs. Application of various CSA practices and technologies to adapt to the impact of climate change in agriculture production have been expanding. However, there is a need to accelerate the scaling process of these practices and technologies in order to ensure growth of agriculture production and food security, increase income of farmers, make farming climate resilient, and contribute to global climate change mitigation. This book aims to provide basic information to researchers, managers, and technicians and extentionists at different levels on what CSA practices and technologies can be up scaled in different locations in Vietnam