Genome Sequence of a Virulent African Swine Fever Virus Isolated in 2020 from a Domestic Pig in Northern Vietnam

This study reports the genome sequence of an isolated African swine fever (ASF) virus (VNUA-ASFV-05L1/HaNam) obtained at the fourth passage on pulmonary alveolar macrophages. The virus was isolated during a typical acute ASF outbreak in pigs in a northern province of Vietnam in 2020

Cloning, expression and purification of fructosyl amino acid oxidase (FAOX) in Escherichia Coli

Introduction: The level of serum HbA1c is an indicator of the average blood sugar level in the last three months. HbA1c can be quantified using assays involving the enzyme fructosyl amino acid oxidase (FAOX). This study aims to produce GST-tagged FAOX-TE (GST/FAOX-TE), a thermal stable and specific variant of FAOX, for future application studies. Materials and methods: The E. coli strains DH5α and BL21 (DE3) were used as cloning and expression hosts, respectively. The FAOX-TE sequence was synthesized at IDT (US) and clonned into pGEX-4T3 vector, which was confirmed by Colony PCR. The expression was induced at 16°C, 0.5 mM IPTG in LB media containing 50 µg/ml ampicilin. The protein expression profile was analyzed by SDS-PAGE. The cell pellet was sonicated and purified by Glutathione Sepharose 4 Fast Flow (Cytiva, US). The catalytic activity of GST/FAOX-TE with fructosyl valine was determined using high performance anion exchange chromatography with pulsed amperometry detection (HPAEC-PAD). Results: The fusion protein was successfully expressed in Escherichia coli using the plasmid pGEX-4T3 and purified to high purity 93%. Recombinant GST/FAOX-TE was shown to be active on fructosyl valine. Conclusions: Active GST/FAOX-TE was successfully expressed in E. coli BL21 (DE3) and purified, which will be used for future development of biosensors for fructosyl valine quantification

Synthesis and biological evaluation of shikimic acid derivatives

From shikimic acid, new series of oseltamivir analogues containing either ether sulfur or ether oxygen at C-3 position were prepared and evaluated for their biological activities. This is the first report on synthesis of oseltamivir analogues with ether sulfur at C-3. Except for compounds 4d, 4f, 7c and 7d, the remaining compounds were found to be active against MCF-7, LU-1 and KB cell lines. As oseltamivir had no cytotoxicity against different cell lines such as MCF-7, LU-1, KB, MDCK, MRC-5, VERO, MK and 293, the modification of alkyl groups at C-3 of the oseltamivir ring framework could significantly increase the cytotoxicity for this class of compounds. Loss of neuraminidase inhibition activity of these synthetic oseltamivir analogues suggested that the alkyl ether groups at C-3 should be critical for their anti-neuraminidase activity

The role of eco-innovation, eco-investing, and green bonds in achieving sustainable economic development: evidence from Vietnam

The perpetual upsurge of global economic development and human actions has multiplied the intensity of carbon emissions that signifies the effectiveness eco-innovation, eco-investment and green bonds in order to curb carbon emissions. Thereby, the study attempts to examine the impact of eco-innovation, eco-investment, and green bonds on the achievement of sustainable economic development (S.E.D.) in Vietnamese economy. Secondary data was used and extracted from Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (O.E.C.D.), central bank, and World Development Indicators (W.D.I.) from 1991 to 2020. Techniques such as dynamic Auto-regressive Distributed Lags (D.A.R.D.L.) model and Bayesian Auto-regressive Distributed Lags (B.A.R.D.L.) were employed to evaluate the relationship. Findings echo that that eco-innovation, eco-investment, green bonds, industrialisation, inflation, and employment rate share positive connection with the achievement of S.E.D. in Vietnam. The study guides the policymaking authorities that they should establish the policies related to S.E.D. by using eco-innovation and eco-investment

BM-BronchoLC

This work presents our procedure to build a rich bronchoscopy dataset named BM-BronchoLC from 106 lung cancer and 102 non-lung cancer patients. The dataset contains annotations for anatomical landmarks and lesions, which are conducted by senior doctors of the Bach Mai hospital, Vietnam. To validate the dataset quality, we investigate two typical AI backbone models for the image segmentation and classification task, i.e., Unet++ and ESFPNet, using both unitask and multitask settings. Preliminary results show the significant potential of the data in building AI models or real-time diagnostic accuracy. Further research will validate these promising developments and explore broader clinical applications in this evolving field.</p

Disturbance Observer Based on Fixed Time Sliding Mode Control and Optimal State Observer for Three-Phase Three-Level T-Type Inverters

This paper presents the advanced control method together with the disturbance rejection method with the aims to obtain the low of total harmonic distortion (THD). The expectation of the paper is that the output voltage is satisfied the requirements of the EN 62040 with the THD is less than 5&#x0025;. Therefore, this paper proposes a new disturbance observer (DOB) without the requirement of the information of the first derivative disturbance for the three phase three level (TPTL) T-type inverter system. The proposed DOB is based on the information of the measurable states, which are used such an inversed model of T-type inverter to find the information of real disturbance. First, the DOB was designed based on the given measured and estimated states. However, to design the DOB, the state observer is required. Therefore, second, the state observer (SOB) was designed based on linear matrix inequality (LMI) to identify the optimal poles of the state-tracking error function. Third, the estimated states were used to construct the fixed time (FT) sliding mode control (SMC) to control the T-type inverter system. Fourth, the Lyapunov condition was used to verify the correction of the proposed method. The performance of the proposed control strategy is validated by simulations and experiments during steady-state, transients caused by load change, and unbalanced grid conditions. The estimated states precisely tracked the measured states. The output signals precisely converged to the predefined trajectories in a predefined time and the tracking errors are small. The obtained results showed that the proposed control method provided excellent steady-state and good performances with low THD in the line currents, zero steady-state error in the output voltage, and a very fast dynamic response

Application of Artificial Intelligence to Determined Unconfined Compressive Strength of Cement-Stabilized Soil in Vietnam

Cement stabilized soil is one of the commonly used as ground reinforcement solutions in geotechnical engineering. In this study, the main object was to apply three machine learning (ML) methods namely gradient boosting (GB), artificial neural network (ANN) and support vector machine (SVM) to predict unconfined compressive strength (UCS) of cement stabilized soil. Soil samples were collected at Hai Duong city, Vietnam. A total of 216 soil–cement samples were mixed in the laboratory and compressed to determine the UCS. This data set is divided into two parts of the training data set (80%) and testing set (20%) to build and test the model, respectively. To verify the performance of ML model, various criteria named correlation coefficient (R), mean absolute error (MAE) and root mean square error (RMSE) were used. The results show that all three ML models were effective methods to predict the UCS of cement-stabilized soil. Amongst three model used in this study, optimized ANN model provided superior performance compare to two others models with performance indicator R = 0.925, RMSE = 419.82 and MAE = 292.2 for testing part. This study can provide an effective tool to quickly predict the UCS of cement stabilized soil with high accuracy

Latent and active tuberculosis development in patients with rheumatoid arthritis receiving biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs: A single-center prospective study.

Biologics have revolutionized the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in recent years. However, data from clinical trials and actual clinical practice have shown that biologics currently in use may constitute a risk factor for reactivation of tuberculosis (TB) in patients with latent TB infection. Therefore, screening for latent and active TB infection is mandatory before initiating biologic therapy in patients with RA. This prospective study aimed to analyze the clinical characteristics of patients with RA receiving biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs at Bach Mai Hospital, Vietnam, between 2017 and 2022, and to identify factors affecting the occurrence of active and latent TB infection among these patients. Over a 12-month follow-up period, latent TB infection was confirmed in 20% of the total 180 included patients, while 3 (1.7%) patients developed active TB (one case of pulmonary, pleural, and gluteal TB each). History of TB risk factor exposure and lack of education were significantly associated with the occurrence of active and latent TB infection, with odds ratios (95% confidence intervals [CIs]) of 1.98 (1.78; 2.2) and 1.45 (1.31; 1.6), respectively. Follow-up duration and number of X-ray, computed tomography, bronchoscopy, and sputum acid-fast bacteria examinations were identified as factors that can aid in the early diagnosis of latent TB, with odds ratios (95% CIs) of 1.00 (1; 1.01), 1.02 (1; 1.05), 1.12 (1.11; 1.2), 1.11 (1.09; 1.2), and 1.13 (1.09; 1.17), respectively. Our study showed that, in countries with high TB burden like Vietnam, latent TB infection has high prevalence among patients with RA. We also provide useful information for the screening, monitoring, and treatment of latent and active TB infection in patients with RA

INVESTIGATION OF COUPLED EFFECTS OF TEMPERATURE AND RELATIVE HUMIDITY ON DYNAMIC PERFORMANCE OF MEMS CANTILEVER RESONATORS IN GAS RAREFACTION

The modified molecular gas lubrication (MMGL) equation with the effective viscosity of moist air is utilized to solve for the squeeze film damping (SFD) problem on the dynamic performance of MEMS cantilever resonators. Thus, the coupled effects of temperature and relative humidity are discussed on the Q-factors of MEMS cantilever resonators in a wide range of gas rarefaction (pressure, p and accommodation coefficients, ACs) and resonant mode of vibration. The results showed that the Q-factor of moist air decreases more significantly as temperature and relative humidity increase at higher gas rarefaction (lower p, and ACs) conditions.

Medication Adherence Assessment and Cost Analysis of COPD Treatment Under Out-Patient Clinic in Vietnam

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) out-patient clinic is for stable patients but it requires patient’s adherence to medicine and medical checkups. Our study aimed to assess COPD out-patient clinics management efficacy with respect to medication adherence and treatment costs at 3 out-patient clinics. Data were collected through 514 patient interviews and from medical records for statistical analysis. The most common comorbidity was hypertension (28.8%), and 52.9% of patients had experienced exacerbations in the past year requiring 75.7% of them to be hospitalized. According to the Morisky scale, 78.8% had high adherence and 82.9% were using inhaled corticosteroids regimens. The mean cost per year among different cohorts varied, with the out-patient cohort at $305.93, the acute exacerbations of COPD non-hospital cohort at$247.39, the standard admission cohort at $1275.3, and the emergency department cohort at$2132.5. Patients with low medication adherence had significantly lower annual costs ($238.25 vs$325.04, P  = .001). In Vietnam, economic constraints have made Inhaled corticosteroids/ Long-acting β-2 agonists the main mode of treatment. However, the exclusion of Long-acting β-2 agonists/Long-acting anti-muscarinic antagonists drugs from health insurance coverage poses a challenge to Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease-based prescription practices and increases the importance of monitoring medication adherence, particularly in patients with higher COPD Assessment Test scores