Fluorescent Receptors for Biomolecules

The development of synthetic receptors capable of high-affinity complexation of biologically relevant analytes in competitive solvent systems represents an ongoing challenge in molecular recognition. Anion recognition is particularly problematic, which is significant since numerous biological processes are regulated by anions, such as those resulting from phosphorylation. In this dissertation, we present the design and synthesis of a fluorescent sensor containing two cyclen groups that are preorganized to form a binding cleft for anion complexation. The receptor design includes a rigid acridine backbone, which is also exploited for fluorescence signal transduction. Furthermore, click chemistry is employed to facilitate receptor synthesis, and binding studies with various phosphorylated guest molecules are described. Additionally, the development of boronic acid-based carbohydrate receptors is presented. Carbohydrates play important roles in a large number of biochemical processes such as signal transduction and cell surface recognition events. The receptors will be used to study carbohydrate binding through Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). Another project involves the synthesis of aromatic compounds that can act as auxin herbicides. Auxins are plant hormones that play a major role in the regulation of plant growth and development. A modular synthetic strategy is employed to access a library of small molecules that will be tested for herbicidal activity on a variety of weeds. Finally, the work on the design and synthesis of molecular building blocks to generate covalently-bonded ordered organic frameworks is discussed

Beyond Domain Adaptation: Unseen Domain Encapsulation via Universal Non-volume Preserving Models

Recognition across domains has recently become an active topic in the research community. However, it has been largely overlooked in the problem of recognition in new unseen domains. Under this condition, the delivered deep network models are unable to be updated, adapted or fine-tuned. Therefore, recent deep learning techniques, such as: domain adaptation, feature transferring, and fine-tuning, cannot be applied. This paper presents a novel Universal Non-volume Preserving approach to the problem of domain generalization in the context of deep learning. The proposed method can be easily incorporated with any other ConvNet framework within an end-to-end deep network design to improve the performance. On digit recognition, we benchmark on four popular digit recognition databases, i.e. MNIST, USPS, SVHN and MNIST-M. The proposed method is also experimented on face recognition on Extended Yale-B, CMU-PIE and CMU-MPIE databases and compared against other the state-of-the-art methods. In the problem of pedestrian detection, we empirically observe that the proposed method learns models that improve performance across a priori unknown data distributions

ViCGCN: Graph Convolutional Network with Contextualized Language Models for Social Media Mining in Vietnamese

Social media processing is a fundamental task in natural language processing with numerous applications. As Vietnamese social media and information science have grown rapidly, the necessity of information-based mining on Vietnamese social media has become crucial. However, state-of-the-art research faces several significant drawbacks, including imbalanced data and noisy data on social media platforms. Imbalanced and noisy are two essential issues that need to be addressed in Vietnamese social media texts. Graph Convolutional Networks can address the problems of imbalanced and noisy data in text classification on social media by taking advantage of the graph structure of the data. This study presents a novel approach based on contextualized language model (PhoBERT) and graph-based method (Graph Convolutional Networks). In particular, the proposed approach, ViCGCN, jointly trained the power of Contextualized embeddings with the ability of Graph Convolutional Networks, GCN, to capture more syntactic and semantic dependencies to address those drawbacks. Extensive experiments on various Vietnamese benchmark datasets were conducted to verify our approach. The observation shows that applying GCN to BERTology models as the final layer significantly improves performance. Moreover, the experiments demonstrate that ViCGCN outperforms 13 powerful baseline models, including BERTology models, fusion BERTology and GCN models, other baselines, and SOTA on three benchmark social media datasets. Our proposed ViCGCN approach demonstrates a significant improvement of up to 6.21%, 4.61%, and 2.63% over the best Contextualized Language Models, including multilingual and monolingual, on three benchmark datasets, UIT-VSMEC, UIT-ViCTSD, and UIT-VSFC, respectively. Additionally, our integrated model ViCGCN achieves the best performance compared to other BERTology integrated with GCN models

Development of Daphnia magna under exposure to the xenobiotic octylphenol: Research article

Xenobiotics are of human and environmental concerns due to their potential toxicity. Octylphenol is one of the very common and daily used xenobiotics in door and out door activities of human beings. Toxicity of octylphenol to aquatic organisms, especially to zooplankton (e.g. Daphnia magna) was investigated but not fully understood. In this study we evaluated the chronic effects of octylphenol at the concentrations of 5, 50 and 500 μg L-1 on Daphnia magna over a period of 14 days. The results showed that low concentration of octylphenol (5 μg L-1) stimulated the maturation while high concentrations of the chemical (50 and 500 μg L-1) caused a significant mortality to the Daphnia. Besides, all the tested concentrations of octylphenol had serious impacts on fecundity and growth of the animals. Investigations on the presence, distribution, fate and toxicity of xonobiotics including octylphenol in the developing country environment are suggested for human, environmental and ecological health protection.Những hợp chất tổng hợp đang là mối quan ngại cho con người và môi trường vì khả năng gây độc của chúng. Octylphenol là một trong những hợp chất tổng hợp được sử dụng phổ biến và thường xuyên trong những hoạt động của con người trong nhà và ngoài trời. Độc tính của octylphenol đối với thủy sinh vật, đặc biệt đối với động vật phù du (vd. Daphnia magna) mặc dù đã được nghiên cứu nhưng vẫn chưa được hiểu biết đầy đủ. Trong nghiên cứu này, chúng tôi đánh giá ảnh hưởng mãn tính của octylphenol ở các nồng độ 5, 50 và 500 μg/lít lên Daphnia magna trong thời gian 14 ngày. Kết quả cho thấy ở nồng độ octylphenol thấp (5 μg/lít) kích thích sự thành thục của sinh vật trong khi ở nồng độ cao hơn (50 và 500 μg/lít) gây chết đáng kể Daphnia. Bên cạnh đó, tất cả các nồng độ ocytlphenol dùng trong thí nghiệm gây ảnh hưởng nghiêm trọng lên sức sinh sản và sinh trưởng của sinh vật. Nghiên cứu về sự hiện diện, phân bố, phát tán và độc tính của những chất tổng hợp bao gồm octylphenol ở các nước đang phát triển nên được tiến hành vì mục tiêu bảo vệ sức khỏe con người, môi trường và hệ sinh thái

A Survey on Some Parameters of Beef and Buffalo Meat Quality

A survey was carried out on 13 Vietnamese Yellow cattle, 14 LaiSind cattle and 18 buffalos in Hanoi to estimate the quality of longissimus dorsi in terms of pH, color, drip loss, cooking loss and tenderness at 6 different postmortem intervals. It was found that the pH value of longissimus dorsi was not significantly different among the 3 breeds (P>0.05), being reduced rapidly during the first 36 hours postmortem, and then stayed stable. The value was in the range that was considered to be normal. Conversely, the color values L*, a* and b* tended to increase and also stable at 36 hours postmortem, except that for LaiSind cattle at 48 hours. According to L* scale, the meat of Yellow and LaiSind cattle met the normal quality but the buffalo meat was considered to be dark cutters. The tenderness of longissimus dorsi was significantly different among the breeds (P<0.05). The value was highest at 48 hours and then decreased for LaiSind and buffalo, but for Yellow cattle the value decreased continuously after slaughtering In terms of tenderness buffalo meat and Yellow cattle meat were classified as “intermediate”, while LaiSind meat was out of this interval and classified as “tough”. Drip loss ratio was increased with the time of preservation (P<0.05). The cooking loss ratio was lowest at 12 hours and higher at the next period, but there was no significant difference among the periods after 36 hours postmotem.Peer reviewe

ffect of the Halothane Allele on Growth Performance of Pigs and its Genotype Frequencies in the Progeny

A total of 395 tail samples of stress negative Piétrain new born piglets from the pig farm of Dong Hiep Haiphong were used to determine halothane genotypes (CC, CT and TT) in order to study the effect of mating type (♂CC×♀CC, ♂CC×♀CT, ♂CT×♀CC, and ♂CT×♀CT) on halothane genotype frequencies. Effects of genotype on live weight (174 pigs of 2 month old, 96 pigs of 5.5 month old), back fat thickness, loin muscle thickness and lean percentage (117 pigs), average daily gain (89 pigs) were also studied. Results showed that the mating type affected halothane genotype frequencies in the progeny. For the mating type ♂CC×♀CT and ♂CT×♀CT, the genotype containing allele T was reduced in the next generation; in the rest two genotypes (♂CC×♀CC and ♂CT×♀CC) the halothane allele frequency in the offspring was consistent with the theoretical frequency. The halothane genotypes CC and CT did not affect live weights at 2.0 and 5.5 months of age, average daily gain, backfat thickness, loin muscle thickness and lean percentage.Peer reviewe

X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy of piperidinium ionic liquids: a comparison to the charge delocalised pyridinium analogues

In this study, nine piperidinium-based ionic liquids are analysed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The effect of alkyl substituent length and the nature of the anion on the electronic environment of the cation are investigated. The electronic environment of the hetero carbon and the cationic nitrogen is compared between two structurally similar cations, 1-octyl-1-methylpiperidinium ([C8C1Pip]+) versus 1-octylpyridinium ([C8Py]+). Due to the charge delocalisation, the hetero carbon component within [C8Py]+ is more positively charged, which exhibits much higher binding energy; whilst the cationic nitrogen component is in the similar electronic environment. The impact of the charge delocalisation on the electronic environment of the anion is also compared between [C8C1Pip]+ and [C8Py]+. It is found that for the more basic anion, the cation can significantly affect the electronic environment of the anion; for the less basic anion, such an effect concentrates on the component bearing more negative point charges

Design and simulation of automotive radar for autonomous vehicles

Modern automobile technology is pushing towards maximizing road safety, connected vehicles, autonomous vehicles, etc. Automotive RADAR is core sensor technology used for ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Technology), ACC (Adaptive Cruise Control), AEB (Automatic Emergency Braking System), traffic assistance, parking aid, and obstacle/pedestrian detection. Despite being inexpensive, RADAR technology provides robust results in harsh conditions such as harsh weather, extreme temperature, darkness, etc. However, the performance of these systems depends on the position of the RADAR and its characteristics like frequency, beamwidth, and bandwidths. Moreover, the characterization of varied materials like layers of paint, polish, primer, or layer of rainwater needs to be analyzed. This performance can be predicted through real-time simulation using advanced FEM software like Altair FEKO&amp;WinProp. These simulations can provide valuable insight into the performance of the system, allowing engineers to optimize the system for specific use cases. For example, simulation can be used to determine the optimal parameters of the RADAR system for a given application. This information can then be used to design and build a physical model or prototype that is optimized for the desired performance. These simulations play a prominent role in determining appropriate data collection and sensor fusion, which reduces the cost and time required for the development of a physical model or prototype. The continued growth and demand for advanced safety features in vehicles further highlight the importance of RADAR technology in modern automobile technology. By accurately characterizing the environment and simulating the system's behavior in real time, engineers can optimize RADAR systems for specific use cases, contributing to safer and more efficient driving experience

EGG QUALITY COMPARISON OF TWO VIETNAMESE CHICKEN BREEDS (RI AND MIA)

In the context of the valorization of poultry biodiversity, this work represents a step toward a better knowledge of the production abilities of local chicken breeds in Vietnam. Local chicken breeds are indeed particularly well suited for low-input rearing systems, as widely practiced in rural households of Vietnam. The socio-economic importance of these breeds might be underpinned by a market valorization through the mounting of differentiated quality value chains. Such a strategy needs the production potential of these local breeds to be assessed using parameters of egg quality and quantity. This study presents data about egg quality traits in two chicken breeds, the Ri and the Mia. The former is the most widespread breed in Vietnam, while the latter is known to be in danger of extinction. Nineteen parameters of quality of ninety eggs of Ri chickens and sixty eggs of Mia chickens were measured, each for both 40 and 60-weeks old hens to take hens ages into account.Mean egg weight of Mia eggs (44.70g) was significantly (p<0.001) higher than that of Ri eggs (41.68g). The yolk to albumen ratio was not significantly different (p>0.05) between the two breeds at the age of 40 weeks (Ri: 0.55; Mia: 0.58). For 60-weeks old hens, the ratio became significantly (p<0.05) higher in Mia eggs compared to Ri eggs (0.64 vs. 0.57). No significant difference (p>0.05) was recorded between the two breeds for parameters used for egg freshness assessment (Haugh’s units and pH of albumen and yolk) or eggshell resistance (maximal breakage force). Despite the small sample available for the study (due to the low availability of Mia hens and eggs), significant differences in egg quality traits were thus observed between these two breeds.Peer reviewe

Oil Production from Yarrowia lipolytica Po1g Using Rice Bran Hydrolysate

The purpose of this study was to produce microbial oil from Yarrowia lipolytica Po1g grown in defatted rice bran hydrolysate. After removing oil from rice bran by Soxhlet extraction, the bran is subjected to acid hydrolysis with various sulfuric acid concentrations (1–4% v/v), reaction times (1–8 h), and reaction temperatures (60–120°C). The optimal conditions for maximum total sugar production from the hydrolysate were found to be 3% sulfuric acid at 90°C for 6 h. Glucose was the predominant sugar (43.20 ± 0.28 g/L) followed by xylose (4.93 ± 0.03 g/L) and arabinose (2.09 ± 0.01 g/L). The hydrolysate was subsequently detoxified by neutralization to reduce the amount of inhibitors such as 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) and furfural to increase its potential as a medium for culturing Y. lipolytica Po1g. Dry cell mass and lipid content of Y. lipolytica Po1g grown in detoxified defatted rice bran hydrolysate (DRBH) under optimum conditions were 10.75 g/L and 48.02%, respectively