Investigating the diversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi from Gymnema sylvestre and Curcuma longa in Vietnam

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are soil eukaryotes that belong to phylum Glomeromycota and have symbiosis with the vast majority of higher plants’ roots. AM fungi are believed to be coevolved with terrestrial plants, the abundance and diversity of AM fungal communities as a result are host plant dependent. A survey of AM fungi from the rhizospheres of medicinal plants in Northern Vietnam including gurma Gymnema sylvestre and turmeric Curcuma longa was carried out. From the extracted total DNAs of the medicinal plants’ rhizosphere soil samples, 35 mycorrhizal fungal species were identified by analyzing small subunit rRNA gene sequences. Result revealed that genus Glomus is the most abundant in the AM communities of G. sylvestre and C. longa, followed by Gigaspora and Acaulospora. Besides, AM species belonging to genera Scutellospora, Diversispora and Rhizophagus were observed in almost all rhizosphere soil samples. The spore counting by wet sieving and decanting method uncovered a variation in AM spore density of gurma and turmeric rhizosphere. In general, AM species were found more abundantly and more diverse in collected rhizome soil samples of C. longa (27 species belonging to 10 genera) than of G. sylvestre (17 species found belonging to 7 genera). The observed difference in AM communities of G. sylvestre and C. longa supports evidence for the dependence of AM fungal species on host plants, and indicates that AM fungi may have relation to the host plants’ secondary metabolite production

STUDENTS' PERCEPTION OF THE INFLUENCE OF INTONATION IN ENGLISH ON CONVEYING THE MEANING OF SPEECH IN COMMUNICATION

In communication, intonation plays an important role in conveying the meaning of a speech. In this article, we study students' perception of the influence of intonation in conveying the meaning of speech in communication to propose solutions to help students overcome intonation errors when communicating, as well as, help teachers have appropriate intonation teaching methods. Our data and analysis are based on research documents, surveys, and in-depth interviews with students. According to the study results, most students are well aware of the importance of intonation and of the factors affecting intonation, and they are also aware of the causes of intonation errors. However, students do not apply their knowledge of intonation to speech, they stop at the cognitive level. The study indicates that students often make intonation mistakes in Tag-question, Wh-question, and Imperative sentence in communication.  Article visualizations

Risk Factors for Human Infection with Avian Influenza A H5N1, Vietnam, 2004

TOC Summary: Risk factors include direct or household contact with sick or dead poultry and absence of an indoor water source

VaporSPOT: Parallel Synthesis of Oligosaccharides on Membranes

Automated chemical synthesis has revolutionized synthetic access to biopolymers in terms of simplicity and speed. While automated oligosaccharide synthesis has become faster and more versatile, the parallel synthesis of oligosaccharides is not yet possible. Here, a chemical vapor glycosylation strategy (VaporSPOT) is described that enables the simultaneous synthesis of oligosaccharides on a cellulose membrane solid support. Different linkers allow for flexible and straightforward cleavage, purification, and characterization of the target oligosaccharides. This method is the basis for the development of parallel automated glycan synthesis platforms

TextANIMAR: Text-based 3D Animal Fine-Grained Retrieval

3D object retrieval is an important yet challenging task, which has drawn more and more attention in recent years. While existing approaches have made strides in addressing this issue, they are often limited to restricted settings such as image and sketch queries, which are often unfriendly interactions for common users. In order to overcome these limitations, this paper presents a novel SHREC challenge track focusing on text-based fine-grained retrieval of 3D animal models. Unlike previous SHREC challenge tracks, the proposed task is considerably more challenging, requiring participants to develop innovative approaches to tackle the problem of text-based retrieval. Despite the increased difficulty, we believe that this task has the potential to drive useful applications in practice and facilitate more intuitive interactions with 3D objects. Five groups participated in our competition, submitting a total of 114 runs. While the results obtained in our competition are satisfactory, we note that the challenges presented by this task are far from being fully solved. As such, we provide insights into potential areas for future research and improvements. We believe that we can help push the boundaries of 3D object retrieval and facilitate more user-friendly interactions via vision-language technologies.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2304.0573

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

Micronutrient Deficits Are Still Public Health Issues among Women and Young Children in Vietnam

Background: The 2000 Vietnamese National Nutrition Survey showed that the population’s dietary intake had improved since 1987. However, inequalities were found in food consumption between socioeconomic groups. As no national data exist on the prevalence of micronutrient deficiencies, a survey was conducted in 2010 to assess the micronutrient status of randomly selected 1526 women of reproductive age and 586 children aged 6–75 mo. Principal Findings: In women, according to international thresholds, prevalence of zinc deficiency (ZnD, 67.262.6%) and vitamin B12 deficiency (11.761.7%) represented public health problems, whereas prevalence of anemia (11.661.0%) and iron deficiency (ID, 13.761.1%) were considered low, and folate (,3%) and vitamin A (VAD,,2%) deficiencies were considered negligible. However, many women had marginal folate (25.1%) and vitamin A status (13.6%). Moreover, overweight (BMI$23 kg/m 2 for Asian population) or underweight occurred in 20 % of women respectively highlighting the double burden of malnutrition. In children, a similar pattern was observed for ZnD (51.963.5%), anemia (9.161.4%) and ID (12.961.5%) whereas prevalence of marginal vitamin A status was also high (47.362.2%). There was a significant effect of age on anemia and ID prevalence, with the youngest age group (6–17 mo) having the highest risk for anemia, ID, ZnD and marginal vitamin A status as compared to other groups. Moreover, the poorest groups of population had a higher risk for zinc, anemia and ID

Oleate induces K_ATP channel-dependent hyperpolarisation in mouse hypothalamic glucose-excited neurones without altering cellular energy charge

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.The unsaturated fatty acid, oleate exhibits anorexigenic properties reducing food intake and hepatic glucose output. However, its mechanism of action in the hypothalamus has not been fully determined. This study investigated the effects of oleate and glucose on GT1-7 mouse hypothalamic cells (a model of glucose-excited (GE) neurons) and mouse arcuate nucleus (ARC) neurons. Whole-cell and perforated patch-clamp recordings, immunoblotting and cell energy status measures were used to investigate oleate- and glucose-sensing properties of mouse hypothalamic neurons. Oleate or lowered glucose concentration caused hyperpolarization and inhibition of firing of GT1-7 cells by the activation of ATP-sensitive K(+) channels (KATP). This effect of oleate was not dependent on fatty acid oxidation or raised AMP-activated protein kinase activity or prevented by the presence of the UCP2 inhibitor genipin. Oleate did not alter intracellular calcium, indicating that CD36/fatty acid translocase may not play a role. However, oleate activation of KATP may require ATP metabolism. The short-chain fatty acid octanoate was unable to replicate the actions of oleate on GT1-7 cells. Although oleate decreased GT1-7 cell mitochondrial membrane potential there was no change in total cellular ATP or ATP/ADP ratios. Perforated patch and whole-cell recordings from mouse hypothalamic slices demonstrated that oleate hyperpolarized a subpopulation of ARC GE neurons by KATP activation. Additionally, in a separate small population of ARC neurons, oleate application or lowered glucose concentration caused membrane depolarization. In conclusion, oleate induces KATP-dependent hyperpolarization and inhibition of firing of a subgroup of GE hypothalamic neurons without altering cellular energy charge.This work was supported by: grants from the Wellcome Trust (grant number 068692) to M.L.J. Ashford; from Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) to R.J. McCrimmon and Fellowships to C. Beall (JDRF; 3-576-2010 and Diabetes UK 13/0004647

Prospects for Food Fermentation in South-East Asia, Topics From the Tropical Fermentation and Biotechnology Network at the End of the AsiFood Erasmus+Project

Fermentation has been used for centuries to produce food in South-East Asia and some foods of this region are famous in the whole world. However, in the twenty first century, issues like food safety and quality must be addressed in a world changing from local business to globalization. In Western countries, the answer to these questions has been made through hygienisation, generalization of the use of starters, specialization of agriculture and use of long-distance transportation. This may have resulted in a loss in the taste and typicity of the products, in an extensive use of antibiotics and other chemicals and eventually, in a loss in the confidence of consumers to the products. The challenges awaiting fermentation in South-East Asia are thus to improve safety and quality in a sustainable system producing tasty and typical fermented products and valorising by-products. At the end of the “AsiFood Erasmus+ project” (www.asifood.org), the goal of this paper is to present and discuss these challenges as addressed by the Tropical Fermentation Network, a group of researchers from universities, research centers and companies in Asia and Europe. This paper presents current actions and prospects on hygienic, environmental, sensorial and nutritional qualities of traditional fermented food including screening of functional bacteria and starters, food safety strategies, research for new antimicrobial compounds, development of more sustainable fermentations and valorisation of by-products. A specificity of this network is also the multidisciplinary approach dealing with microbiology, food, chemical, sensorial, and genetic analyses, biotechnology, food supply chain, consumers and ethnology