IDENTIFICATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF A PURPLE NONSULFUR BACTERIUM ISOLATED FROM COASTAL AREA OF HAI PHONG FOR USING IN PRODUCTION OF UNSATURATED FATTY ACID (OMEGA 6, 7, 9)

Purple nonsulfur bacteria are a group that has so much biotechnological applications, particularly in producing of functional food rich with unsaturated fatty acids. A purple nonsulfur bacterium (named HPB.6) was chosen based on its strong growth, high lipid and synthesis of unsaturated fatty acid (omega 6,7,9). Studying on basic biological characteristics showed that the cells of HPB.6 were observed as ovoid-rod shape, none motility, Gram negative staining. The diameter of single bacterium was about 0.8-1.0 µm. The cells divide by binary fission and had bacteriochlorophyll a (Bchl a). This bacterium grew well on medium with carbon and nitrogen sources such as acetate, succinate, pyruvate, butyrate, glutamate, arginine, leucine, tyrosine, alanine, methionine, threonine, glutamine, yeast extract and NH4Cl. This selected strain grew well on medium with salt concentrations from 1.5 - 6.0% (optimum 3%), pH from 5.0 to 8.0 (optimum at pH 6.5) and could withstand Na2S at 4.0 - 5.2 mM. Based on morphological, physiological properties and 16S rRNA analysis received demonstrated that HPB.6 strain belongs to the species Rhodovulum sulfidophilum

FIELD TEST ON CLEANING OF OIL POLLUTION ON NHATRANG BEACH OF VIETNAM

Joint Research on Environmental Science and Technology for the Eart

Gender Analysis of the Tuna Value Chain's Purchasing Stage in the South Central Provinces of Vietnam-Case Study of Binh Dinh Province

peer reviewedThis study aims to identify the gender disparities between men and women as purchasing actors in the tuna value chain in South Central provinces, thereby suggesting gender-sensitive policies towards gender equity, women’s empowerment, and sustainable tuna fisheries management. The study was conducted with the aid of a set of structured questionnaires executed through personal interview surveys. Tam Quan and Quy Nhon fishing ports in Binh Dinh province were chosen as study sites for conducting gender analysis at the tuna value chain's purchasing stage in the South Central provinces of Vietnam. Forty respondents were directly interviewed at their home or at the fishing ports in Binh Dinh province in May 2020, of which are ten middlemen and nine middlewomen purchasing yellowfin and bigeye tunas at Tam Quan fishing port; and twelve middlewomen and nine female traders purchasing skipjack tuna at Quy Nhon fishing port. This study used gender analysis tools such as the Harvard, Moser, and the USAID's six gender dimensions to identify gender differences between men and women in the tuna purchasing stage in productive, reproductive, and community managing roles. Some policy recommendations for improving gender equity, women's empowerment, and sustainable tuna fisheries management were proposed, including (i) describe the importance of women's reproductive role in gender-responsive strategies; (ii) establish tuna trading management board at the fishing port to collect information on the needs, issues, and interests of purchasing actors; (iii) organize training courses on tuna business and management skills at the fishing ports during the low season for the full participation of middle-actors, especially women; (iv) provide access to savings, credit, and microfinance for female traders to create opportunities for expanding their business; (v) improve facilities at the fishing ports to increase the overall well-being of the fish trading communities; (vi) introduce alternative job opportunities for laborers in the tuna purchasing stage during the low season; (vii) support laborers trading yellowfin and bigeye tuna in seeking other ways to make a living due to the depletion of these tuna resources

The Status of Educational Sciences In Vietnam: A Bibliometric Analysis From Clarivate Web Of Science Database Between 1991 And 2018

Since 2013, Vietnam has implemented a plan to reform the whole education sector. However, there is little understanding on the status of educational research in Vietnam, which may lay the foundation for such plan. Thus, this research aims to analyze the whole picture of educational research from Vietnam, as seen from the Clarivate Web of Science (WOS) database: 215 publications were recorded, ranging from 1991 to 2018. These 215 publications were further analyzed from five perspectives: 1) number of publications by year; 2) research fields and levels of education; 3) top institutions with the highest number of publications; 4) international collaboration; and 5) quality. Some of the most notable results are: 1) the educational sciences in Vietnam have been still under-developed until recently; 2) among different research topics research among educational sciences, some (e.g., Vocational Education and Training or Early Childhood Education) seemed to be overlooked whereas others (e.g., Higher Education and Teaching and Learning) seemed to receive more attention from educational scholars; 3) all the most major education – specialized universities did not appear among the top five institutions with highest number of publications; 4) Australia, Thailand, the USA, New Zealand and China were the countries with the highest number of co-publications with Vietnamese researchers; and 5) The majority of publications belonged to low-ranked journals. Implications would be withdrawn for Vietnamese policymakers, education leaders, educational researchers and teachers in order to adjust their policies and/or action plans; thus, enhancing the performance and impacts of educational research in the future

Phytoplankton community structure and water quality of Red River, Vietnam

This study aimed to describe the distribution and relative abundance of the phytoplankton obtained during the two seasons (rainy and dry seasons) from the Red river system. The water and phytoplankton samples were monthly collected during the year 2012 at four sampling stations along the Red River (Yen Bai, Vu Quang Hoa Binh,and Ha Noi) . Environmental variables (e.g. temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, suspended solids, conductivity, TDS, NO3­-N, NH4­-N, PO4-P, Total Phosphorus; and DOC) and phytoplankton (e.g. cell density and relative abundant species) were analyzed. Six phytoplankton classes were identified with the Bacillariophyceae dominating in the phytoplankton community. A distinct seasonal variation in phytoplankton structure was observed with high cells density in dry season and low values in rainy season. PCA (Principal Component Analysis) showed that suspended solid factor that governed the temporal and spatial distribution of phytoplankton structure in the Red River system.Nghiên cứu này trình bày sự phân bố và độ phong phú tương đối của quần xã thực vật nổi vào mùa mưa và mùa khô trong hệ thống sông Hồng. Các mẫu nước và thực vật nổi được thu hàng tháng trong năm 2012 tại 4 điểm trên sông Hồng (Yên Bái, Vụ Quang, Hòa Bình và Hà Nội). Các thông số môi trường (nhiệt độ, lượng oxy hòa tan, pH, chất rắn lơ lửng, độ dẫn, TDS, NO3-N, NH4-N, PO4-P, T-P và DOC) và thực vật phù du (mật độ tế bào,độ phong phú tương đối ) đã được phân tích. Sáu lớph tảo được được xác định với tảo silíc chiếm ưu thế trong quần xã thực vật phù du. Sinh khối thực vật đạt giá trị cao vào mùa khô trong khi thấp vào mùa mưa. Phân tích hợp phần chính cho thấy yếu tố chất rắn lơ lửng đóng vai trò quan trọng việc xác định biến động thời gian và không gian cấu trúc quần xã thực vật nổi trong hệ thống sông Hồng

EFFECT OF FISH SCALE COLLAGEN ON SOME CHARACTERISTICS AND DRUG RELEASE OF CARRAGEENAN/COLLAGEN/ALLOPURINOL FILM

ABSTRACT - QMFS2019Collagen from fish is attracting a lot of attention thanks to its high absorbance ability, biocompatibility as well as non-religious obstruction and cheap sources. It could be applied in many fields, for example: food, cosmetic, or biomedicine. Using of collagen also helps to reduce the environment pollution from fish scale waste in fish processing. In this study, collagen extracted from Vietnamese fresh-water tilapia fish scales was used in combination with carrageenan for the improvement of drug release control. The influence of fish scale collagen content on morphology, thermal behavior and drug release from carrageenan/collagen/allopurinol composite film was evaluated by methods such as field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), differential scanning calorimetric (DSC) and ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis). From the DSC data, FESEM analysis and drug release of carrageenan/collagen/allopurinol composite films, the most suitable collagen in composite film is 5 wt.%

COMPARISON EFFICACY OF ITS AND 18S rDNA PRIMERS FOR DETECTION OF FUNGAL DIVERSITY IN COMPOST MATERIAL BY PCR-DGGE TECHNIQUE

Through composting process, biosolid wastes are gradually transformed into compost material which can be used as soil fertilizer. Among microorganisms involved in composting process, fungi play important roles because they break down complex substrates, such as ligno-cellulose. Recently, PCR-DGGE technique has been considered as a useful tool for analysis of fungal diversity in environmental samples. Among other factors, primer set selection is necessary for successful of the PCR-DGGE analysis. There are several PCR primer sets targeting fungal variable regions of 18S ribosomal DNA (rDNA) and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) for the use in community analyses, however there exist just few reports on efficacy of these primers in studying fungal communities in compost materials. In this study, four different primer sets were tested, including EF4/Fung5 (followed by EF4/NS2-GC), EF4/ITS4 (followed by ITS1F-GC/ITS2), NS1/GC-Fung, and FF390/FR1-GC. Extracted DNA from compost materials often contains co-extracted humic substances and other PCR inhibitors. Therefore, the primers were tested for (i) tolerance to the PCR inhibitors presenting in the DNA extracted from compost materials, and (ii) efficacy and specificity of the PCR. The results showed that of the four primer sets, only FF390/FR1-GC achieved both criteria tested whereas the other three did not, i.e. primer EF4/ITS4 had low tolerance to PCR inhibitors, primers EF4/Fung5 was low in PCR amplification efficacy, whereas primers EF4/ITS4 created unspecific products. DGGE analyses of PCR products amplified with the primer set FF390/FR1-GC showed single bands for reference pure cultures Penicillium sp., Aspergillus sp., and Trichoderma sp., as well as distinctly separated bands for the fungal communities of three different composting materials. Thus, the primer set FF390/FR1-GC could be suitable for studying structure and dynamic of fungal communities in compost materials

How Digital Natives Learn and Thrive in the Digital Age: Evidence from an Emerging Economy

As a generation of ‘digital natives,’ secondary students who were born from 2002 to 2010 have various approaches to acquiring digital knowledge. Digital literacy and resilience are crucial for them to navigate the digital world as much as the real world; however, these remain under-researched subjects, especially in developing countries. In Vietnam, the education system has put considerable effort into teaching students these skills to promote quality education as part of the United Nations-defined Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4). This issue has proven especially salient amid the COVID−19 pandemic lockdowns, which had obliged most schools to switch to online forms of teaching. This study, which utilizes a dataset of 1061 Vietnamese students taken from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)’s “Digital Kids Asia Pacific (DKAP)” project, employs Bayesian statistics to explore the relationship between the students’ background and their digital abilities. Results show that economic status and parents’ level of education are positively correlated with digital literacy. Students from urban schools have only a slightly higher level of digital literacy than their rural counterparts, suggesting that school location may not be a defining explanatory element in the variation of digital literacy and resilience among Vietnamese students. Students’ digital literacy and, especially resilience, also have associations with their gender. Moreover, as students are digitally literate, they are more likely to be digitally resilient. Following SDG4, i.e., Quality Education, it is advisable for schools, and especially parents, to seriously invest in creating a safe, educational environment to enhance digital literacy among students

The immunogenicity of plant-based COE-GCN4pII protein in pigs against the highly virulent porcine epidemic diarrhea virus strain from genotype 2

Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) is a serious infectious causative agent in swine, especially in neonatal piglets. PEDV genotype 2 (G2) strains, particularly G2a, were the primary causes of porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) outbreaks in Vietnam. Here, we produced a plant-based CO-26K-equivalent epitope (COE) variant from a Vietnamese highly virulent PEDV strain belonging to genotype 2a (COE/G2a) and evaluated the protective efficacy of COE/G2a-GCN4pII protein (COE/G2a-pII) in piglets against the highly virulent PEDV G2a strain following passive immunity. The 5-day-old piglets had high levels of PEDV-specific IgG antibodies, COE-IgA specific antibodies, neutralizing antibodies, and IFN-γ responses. After virulent challenge experiments, all of these piglets survived and had normal clinical symptoms, no watery diarrhea in feces, and an increase in their body weight, while all of the negative control piglets died. These results suggest that the COE/G2a-pII protein produced in plants can be developed as a promising vaccine candidate to protect piglets against PEDV G2a infection in Vietnam

Factors affecting the creativity of high school students

Creativity is a vital personality quality of each individual. Each person has their potential for creativity, and it can be nurtured and developed in an appropriate and safe environment. The purpose of the study was to find out which factors from schools and students themselves affect creativity as well as the association between creativity and age, gender and giftedness of students, which then a basis to adjust and establish appropriate methods from schools, families, and students themselves to develop elements and their creativity. The study was conducted on 108 high school students in three grades from giftedness and non-giftedness schools. The data was collected through a survey method using a self-constructed questionnaire and drawing creativity test TCT-DP to determine students' creativity levels and personal information. The study's finding, which uses mathematical methods and one-way analysis of variance, reveals that factors affecting elements and creativity level are objective factors including education environment from school; behavior of teachers, and subjective factors including interests, perspectives, and thoughts of students. It was also found that there were no significant differences in the components of creativity and creativity among students in different grades, gender, and groups of giftedness schools