DETERMINATION THE PRIORITY OF FACTORS INFLUENCING OVERSEAS INVESTMENT DESTINATIONS OF BUSINESSES USING AN ANALYTIC HIERARCHY PROCESS METHOD

Because of the great benefits overseas investment brings, countries and businesses are increasingly concerned with the question of an ideal investment destination. Many studies have shown that, factors of the consumption market, the infrastructure and resources, economic and political environment have a significant impact on the decision to choose an investment location, however the priority order of these factors are different for various research spaces. By studying the specific case of Viettel Group - one of the largest telecommunications groups in Vietnam that is having many international investment activities in recent years, the study has been verified the priority order of factors influencing the decision to choose an overseas investment location of this corporation. The research outcomes show that the group of factors that have the most influence on investment decisions is the group "Consumption market", more specifically, the sub-factor "Market Size" is considered more than the others.    Keywords: Investment Destinations, Foreign Investment Decision, Analytic Hierarchy Process

Comparing Pediatric Index of Mortality 3, Pediatric Logistic Organ Dysfunction 2 (PELOD-2), and Modified PELOD-2 scores for Mortality Prognosis in Vietnamese Children with Multiple Organ Dysfunction Syndrome

Objective: To evaluate the performance of three scores, the Pediatric Index of Mortality 3 (PIM-3), the Pediatric Logistic Organ Dysfunction 2 (PELOD-2), and the modified PELOD-2 scores, in predicting mortality in multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) children in Vietnam. Material and Methods: This cross-sectional study of MODS children admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) of a central children’s hospital in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam, was undertaken from April 2019 to June 2021. All three scores were evaluated using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves for discrimination and the Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness-of-fit test for calibration. Results: Of eighty-four subjects, the median age was 24.5 months and the overall mortality rate was 63.1%. ROC curve analysis showed that the area under the curve of PIM-3, PELOD-2, and modified PELOD-2 for predicting the death of MODS children were 0.77, 0.89, and 0.89, respectively. With individual cut-offs, the PIM-3, PELOD-2, and modified PELOD-2 scores had sensitivities for predicting mortality of 81.1%, 79.2%, and 81.1%, respectively, and specificities of 61.3%, 87.1%, and 80.6%, respectively. All three scores performed well in the Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness-of-fit test, indicating high calibration between predicted and observed mortalities (PIM-3: χ²=4.36, p-value=0.823; PELOD-2: χ²=4.837, p-value=0.775; modified PELOD-2: χ²=6.082, p-value=0.638). Conclusion: The PELOD-2 and modified PELOD-2 scores showed a better mortality prognosis than the PIM-3 score. Compared to the PELOD-2, the modified PELOD-2 with fewer parameters can still predict mortality well in Vietnamese children with MODS when using a cut-off score ≥9

Comparison of the antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli of silver nanoparticle produced by chemical synthesis with biosynthesis

The synthesis of silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) has been carried out using different methods, mainly by biological and chemical methods; however, comparing antibacterial activity of Ag NPs synthesized by these methods has not been conducted before. In this study, silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) were synthesized by methods using reducing agent NaBH4/carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) and fungal strain Trichoderma asperellum (T.asperellum). The formation of silver nanoparticles was observed visually by color change and identified by Ultraviolet-visible (UV – vis) spectroscopy. The transmission electron microscopy (TEM) image illustrated almost nanoparticles with spherical shape and average diameter of 4.1 ± 0.2 nm and 2.1 ± 0.2 nm of samples produced from chemical reduction and biosynthesis respectively. Both samples after 180 days storing have been separated lightly, but the agglomeration and absorbance peak shifting were not observed which proved the high stability of synthesized Ag NPs. Antimicrobial activity against human bacterial pathogen Escherichia coli (E. coli) showed that the inhibition zone produced by “biosynthesis” and “chemical reduction” Ag NPs were 3.17 cm and 2.42 cm respectively. With nanoparticles size smaller than 2 mm, antibacterial activity of “biosynthesis” Ag NPs against E. coli was 31 % higher than “chemical reduction” Ag NPs, although the concentration of Ag NPs produced by biosynthesis was about 10-fold less

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead