Liver Involvement Associated with Dengue Infection in Adults in Vietnam

Globally, the number of adults hospitalized with dengue has increased markedly in recent years. It has been suggested that hepatic dysfunction is more significant in this group than among children. We describe the spectrum and evolution of disease manifestations among 644 adults with dengue who were prospectively recruited on admission to a major infectious disease hospital in southern Vietnam and compare them with a group of patients with similar illnesses not caused by dengue. Transaminase levels increased in virtually all dengue patients and correlated with other markers of disease severity. However, peak enzyme values usually occurred later than other complications. Clinically severe liver involvement was infrequent and idiosyncratic, but usually resulted in severe bleeding. Chronic co-infection with hepatitis B was associated with modestly but significantly increased levels of alanine aminotransferase, but did not otherwise impact the clinical picture

PROVISION CAPACITY OF SERVICE DELIVERY FACILITIES FOR CHILDREN WITH HEARING LOSS IN HAI PHONG, VIETNAM

Objective: Hearing loss is a commonly occurring disability that affects 466 million people worldwide. This study aimed at determining the actual situations of early intervention delivery facilities for children with hearing loss. Out of this affected population, 7% are children (34 million) who, along with their families, grapple with the serious lifelong problems that accompany the disease. Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted with facilities investigated consisting of a school for the deaf, hospitals, an audiology center, and a social agency in Hai Phong province from January 2013 to December 2014. A sample composed of 353 children was also recruited. Results: The examined facilities suffer from shortcomings in provision capacity, which manifest in deficient materials, supplies and equipment, and human resources; the lack of interdisciplinary coordination of activities; inadequate community awareness; and the unaddressed need for early detection and intervention. The conditions of most of the children (98%) were detected by their families, and among those who were clinically diagnosed, the majority (76.8%) received such diagnosis at central hospitals. Hearing impairment among the children were detected, diagnosed, and subjected to intervention at a very late stage (on average, at ages 22.3, 34, and 32.5 months, respectively), thereby compelling up to 63.6% of the families to struggle with their children’s hearing loss. Conclusion: Solutions to current interventions are needed to enhance service delivery systems and guarantee early detection as well as timely and appropriate treatment

Eliciting patients’ health concerns in consulting rooms and wards in Vietnamese public hospitals

This article examines the doctor’s elicitation of the patient’s presenting health concern in two clinical settings in the Vietnamese public hospital system: the consulting room and the ward. The data were taken from 66 audio-recorded consultations. Our analysis shows that the elicitors used by the doctor in the consulting room often communicate a weak epistemic stance towards the patient’s health issue, while those used in the ward tend to signal a strong epistemic stance. In addition, this contrast between the elicitors employed in the consulting room and the ward is evident in our data regardless of whether the consultation is a first visit or a same follow-up (in which the doctor is the same one that treated the patient on their last visit), though the contrast is less clear for different follow-ups (in which the doctor has not treated the patient before). An additional finding is that the clinical setting has some bearing on the use of inappropriate elicitation formats (in which the doctor opens the visit with an elicitor which is more appropriate for another type of visit). The precise way in which each of the consulting room and the ward operates is, of course, a feature of the Vietnamese public hospital system itself. Hence, the overall contrast between the elicitors and elicitation formats used in these two settings illustrates how, on a more general level, the institutional context can have an impact on doctor-patient communication

Neural Collapse in Deep Linear Networks: From Balanced to Imbalanced Data

Modern deep neural networks have achieved impressive performance on tasks from image classification to natural language processing. Surprisingly, these complex systems with massive amounts of parameters exhibit the same structural properties in their last-layer features and classifiers across canonical datasets when training until convergence. In particular, it has been observed that the last-layer features collapse to their class-means, and those class-means are the vertices of a simplex Equiangular Tight Frame (ETF). This phenomenon is known as Neural Collapse ($\mathcal{NC}$). Recent papers have theoretically shown that $\mathcal{NC}$ emerges in the global minimizers of training problems with the simplified ``unconstrained feature model''. In this context, we take a step further and prove the $\mathcal{NC}$ occurrences in deep linear networks for the popular mean squared error (MSE) and cross entropy (CE) losses, showing that global solutions exhibit $\mathcal{NC}$ properties across the linear layers. Furthermore, we extend our study to imbalanced data for MSE loss and present the first geometric analysis of $\mathcal{NC}$ under bias-free setting. Our results demonstrate the convergence of the last-layer features and classifiers to a geometry consisting of orthogonal vectors, whose lengths depend on the amount of data in their corresponding classes. Finally, we empirically validate our theoretical analyses on synthetic and practical network architectures with both balanced and imbalanced scenarios.Comment: 93 pages, 20 figures, 4 tables. Hien Dang and Tho Tran contributed equally to this wor

Organizational Culture Factors Affect Employees’ Organizational Commitment: A Research in Ho Chi Minh City Logistics Enterprises, Vietnam

Research aims: The research aims to evaluate several factors of organizational culture affecting the organizational commitment of employees in logistics enterprises in Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam).Design/Methodology/Approach: The data were collected based on a survey of respondents who were employees working at logistics enterprises in Ho Chi Minh City. The collected data, consisting of 227 survey questionnaires, were described through statistical analysis, checking Cronbach’s Alpha reliability assessment, employing Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), and testing the fit of the research model. Research findings: The results showcased that five components had a statistically significant impact on an employee’s organizational commitment, including (from high to low impact in order) consistency in governance policy, communication within the organization, training and development, rewards and recognition, and teamwork.Theoretical contribution/Originality: The study contributes to and supplements the array of organizational culture topics related to the commitment of employees at companies.Practitioner/Policy implication: The research contributes to the logistics companies' understanding of how to improve the organizational culture to maintain the loyalty of employees in the organization.Research limitation/Implication: The research limitation is that only Ho Chi Minh City logistics enterprises were chosen for the survey. However, there are many cities in Vietnam where logistics companies are located. Thus, the other research can be implemented in other regions in Vietnam and other countries for future studies

Status of acute hepatopancreatic necrosis disease (AHPND) and other emerging diseases of penaeid shrimps in Viet Nam

Acute hepatopancreatic necrosis disease (AHPND), formerly called early mortality syndrome (EMS), was first reported in 2010 among penaeid shrimps cultivated in the Mekong Delta Region of Viet Nam albeit without any laboratory confirmation. The disease subsequently spread to a wide range of shrimp production areas in the same region (Soc Trang: 1,719 ha; Bac Lieu: 346 ha; and Ca Mau: 3,493 ha), so that the Government of Viet Nam requested for technical assistance from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations in 2011. In 2012, FAO supported Viet Nam through the project TCP/VIE/3304 Emergency assistance to control the spread of an unknown disease affecting shrimps in Viet Nam, under which the Department of Animal Health of Viet Nam (DAH) collaborated with the University of Arizona and FAO experts to carry out indepth studies to identify the etiologic agent of the disease. As a result, unique isolates of Vibrio parahaemolyticus was identified as the causative agent of AHPND in 2013. Viet Nam has been vigilant and transparent with regard to aquatic animal diseases through official notifications to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and the Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific (NACA). AHPND outbreaks have no clear temporal pattern with black tiger (Penaeus monodon) and whiteleg (P. vannamei) shrimps showing similar incidence risk. The disease occurs at any stage of shrimp cultivation, i.e. on average about 35 days after stocking. To date, unwarranted outbreaks of AHPND in major shrimp-producing provinces in Viet Nam have been apparently regulated. Aside from AHPND, white spot disease (WSD) has also been a persistent problem responsible for serious economic losses in many shrimp-producing areas in Viet Nam. To prevent and control the further spread of infectious diseases of shrimps including AHPND and WSD, multiple control measures have been implemented including guidance of farmers to improve production conditions, facilities and biosecurity application, active surveillance of shrimp production areas for early warning, screening of broodstock and postlarvae for any OIE listed diseases, regulation on movement of stocks, and collaboration with regional and international organizations in carrying out in-depth epidemiological studies that will be needed in the formulation of pragmatic and holistic disease interventions

Influence of biofertilizer produced using drumstick (Moringa oleifera L.) unused parts on the growth performance of two leafy vegetables

The non-edible parts of Moringa oleifera, such as stems, branches or leaf petioles, have often been discarded while the leaves are consumed as a vegetable or are used to produce organic fertilizer. This study aimed to determine the optimal conditions for producing Moringa organic fertilizer (MOF) from previously unused parts and to compare these fertilizers with cow manure and bio-organic fertilizer. Seventy kilograms of the unused Moringa parts were blended with fifty kilograms of manure, 0.2 kilogram of Trichoderma-based product and two kilograms of superphosphate. The mixture was incubated at different intervals, including 5, 7 or 9 weeks. Next, the effects of MOF on the growth, yield, ascorbic acid content and Brix of lettuce and mustard spinach were also determined and compared with other organic fertilizers (cow manure and bio-organic fertilizer). Results of the study revealed that 25 tons per ha of MOF were significantly superior to those treated with cow manure and bio-organic fertilizer in the case of vegetable yields. Further, 7 weeks of MOF incubation was found suitable to produce an optimal yield during the various incubation period. These results suggested that the Moringa non-edible parts can make organic fertilizer and enhance growth, yield, and leafy vegetable production