ESSENTIAL SELF-TRAINING SKILLS TO BECOME AN INTERPRETER: ENGLISH-MAJORING STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION

Currently, interpreting has become a profession in high demand. This study surveyed students' perceptions of the essential self-training skills to become an interpreter. The study used a questionnaire to collect data collection tool which was a survey with 12 multiple-choice questions and 4 open-ended questions. 82 English–majoring students of High-quality program Batch 45 – at Can Tho University participated in the survey. The results show that students majoring in High-quality English Language perceive the importance of skills in interpreting: shorthand skills, listening comprehension skills, memorization skills, visualization skills, presentation skills, skills in using search engines, teamwork skills, multi-tasking skills, and pronunciation skills. Students also pointed out a number of skills that they think are equally important if they want to become an interpreter such as reflexes, situational skills, and contextual skills. On that basis, a number of measures of how to support students to develop their own training plans and hone their skills for their future careers are proposed.  Article visualizations

A Measure of Smoothness in Synthesized Speech

The articulators typically move smoothly during speech production. Therefore, speech features of natural speech are generally smooth. However, over-smoothness causes "muffleness" and, hence, reduction in ability to identify emotions/expressions/styles in synthesized speech that can affect the perception of naturalness in synthesized speech. In the literature, statistical variances of static spectral features have been used as a measure of smoothness in synthesized speech but they are not sufficient enough. This paper proposes another measure of smoothness that can be efficiently applied to evaluate the smoothness of synthesized speech. Experiments showed that the proposed measure is reliable and efficient to measure the smoothness of different kinds of synthesized speech

Customer satisfaction and corporate investment policies

This paper examines the effect of satisfaction with firms’ products and services on their capital investment policies. Using data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index from 1994 to 2013, the results of the regression models show that firms with higher customer satisfaction will invest more heavily in capital expenditures in the future. The results further show that this positive effect is more pronounced for firms with less growth opportunities or a high cost of capital. This would include those firms with low market-to-book ratios, young and small firms, or firms in more competitive industries. Overall, this study argues that customer satisfaction is an important factor affecting the firm’s investment policy. The findings provide a better understanding of the role of customer satisfaction which can generate growth opportunities, reduce cost and motivate a firm to invest more in capital

Characteristics of Antibiotic-resistant E. coli Isolated from Perfume River in Hue City, Vietnam

Antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) in aquatic environments is attracting increasing attention. However, the spread of ARB along Perfume River in Hue City is poorly understood. This study aimed to phenotypically and genotypically characterize β-lactam- and fluoroquinolone-resistant Escherichia coli isolates from this river. Water samples were collected from the urban, rural, agricultural, and less-affected areas in March 2020. E. coli susceptibility to seven commonly employed antibiotics was analyzed using the disk diffusion method, and the antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs), qnrA, qnrB, qnrS, TEM, SHV, and CTX-M, were identified using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and DNA sequencing. The antibiotic susceptibility patterns of E. coli revealed that the rate of amoxicillin resistance was the highest (60%). PCR assays and sequencing of 12 β-lactam-resistant E. coli isolates indicated the presence of blaTEM and blaCTX-M-15 in 58.3% and 16.7% of the isolates, respectively. Only one of four fluoroquinolon -resistant E. coli isolates harbored the qnrS, while qnrA or qnrB genes were not detected. These findings suggest that this water may be an essential source of transmissible ARGs in Hue City, which may have a detrimental impact on the people living in this area

The possible function of Flp1 in homologous recombination repair in <em>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</em>

Saccharomyces cerevisiae Mus81 is a structure-selective endonuclease which constitutes an alternative pathway in parallel with the helicase-topoisomerase Sgs1-Top3-Rmi1 complex to resolve a number of DNA intermediates during DNA replication, repair, and homologous recombination. Previously, it was showed that the N-terminal region of Mus81 was required for its in vivo function in a redundant manner with Sgs1; mus81Δ120N mutant that lacks the first 120 amino acid residues at the N-terminus exhibited synthetic lethality in combination with the loss of SGS1. In this study, the physiologically important role of the N-terminal region of Mus81 in processing toxic intermediates was further investigated. We examined the cellular defect of sgs1Δmus81Δ100N cells and observed that although viable, the cells became very sensitive to DNA damaging agents. A single-copy suppressor screening to seek for a factor(s) that could rescue the drug sensitivity of sgs1Δmus81Δ100N cells was performed and revealed that Flp1, a site-specific recombinase 1 encoded on the 2-micron plasmid was a suppressor. Moreover, Flp1 overexpression could partially suppress the drug sensitivity of mus81Δ cells at 37 °C. Our findings suggest a possible function of Flp1 in coordination with Mus81 and Sgs1 to jointly resolve the branched-DNA structures generated in cells attempting to repair DNA damages

Diarrheagenic Escherichia coli and Shigella Strains Isolated from Children in a Hospital Case-Control Study in Hanoi, Vietnam▿

This case-control study detected and characterized Shigella and diarrheagenic Escherichia coli (DEC) types among Vietnamese children less than 5 years old. In 249 children with diarrhea and 124 controls, Shigella spp. was an important cause of diarrhea (P < 0.05). We used multiplex PCR and DNA probes to detect enteroinvasive E. coli (EIEC), enteroaggregative E. coli (EAggEC), enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC), attaching and effacing E. coli (A/EEC), verocytotoxin-producing E. coli (VTEC), and enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC). The prevalences of DEC in the diarrhea and control groups were 25.7 and 10.5%, respectively. In 62 children with diarrhea, 64 DEC strains included 22 EAggEC (8.8%), 2 EIEC (0.8%), 23 A/EEC (9.2%), 7 EPEC (2.8%), and 10 ETEC strains (4.0%). Among controls, 13 DEC strains included 5 EAggEC strains (4.0%), 7 A/EEC strains (5.6%), and 1 EPEC strain. The characterization of DEC by serotypes, antimicrobial susceptibility patterns, virulence genes, and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis showed the occurrence of many different and highly heterogenic DEC subtypes, but common serotypes were found among ETEC, EIEC and EPEC, respectively. Serotyping was used to distinguish between A/EEC and EPEC. However, A/EEC, EPEC, and EAggEC were isolated at high frequency from both cases and controls. Further in-depth studies are needed to better understand important virulence factors of DEC, especially A/EEC, EPEC, and EAggEC

Cancer Stem Cell Target Labeling and Efficient Growth Inhibition of CD133 and PD-L1 Monoclonal Antibodies Double Conjugated with Luminescent Rare-Earth Tb3+ Nanorods

Rare-earth nanomaterials are being widely applied in medicine as cytotoxicity agents, in radiation and photodynamic therapy, as drug carriers, and in biosensing and bioimaging technology. Terbium (Tb), a rare-earth element belonging to the lanthanides, has a long luminescent lifetime, large stock displacement, narrow spectral width, and biofriendly probes. In cancer therapy, cancer stem cell (CSC)-targeted treatment is receiving considerable attention due to these cells&rsquo; harmful characteristics. However, CSCs remain barely understood. Therefore, to effectively label and inhibit the growth of CSCs, we produced a nanocomplex in which TbPO4&middot;H2O nanorods were double conjugated with CD133 and PD-L1 monoclonal antibodies. The Tb3+ nanomaterials were created in the presence of a soft template (polyethylene glycol 2000). The obtained nanomaterial TbPO4&middot;H2O was hexagonal crystal and nanorod in shape, 40&ndash;80 nm in diameter, and 300&ndash;800 nm in length. The nanorods were further surfaced through tetraethyl orthosilicate hydrolysis and functionalized with amino silane. Finally, the glutaraldehyde-activated Tb3+ nanorods were conjugated with CD133 monoclonal antibody and PD-L1 monoclonal antibody on the surface to obtain the nanocomplex TbPO4&middot;H2O@silica-NH2+mAb^CD133+mAb^PD-L1 (TMC). The formed nanocomplex was able to efficiently and specifically label NTERA-2 cells, a highly expressed CD133 and PD-L1 CSC cell line. The conjugate also demonstrated promising anti-CSC activity by significant inhibition (58.50%) of the growth of 3D tumor spheres of NTERA-2 cells (p &lt; 0.05)

Using Response Surface Method to Optimize Conversion Reaction Conditions of Sucrose Into 5-hydroxymethyl-2-fufuraldehyde by A Combination of Heat and HCl as A Catalyst

5-Hydroxymethyl-2-furfuraldehyde is one of intermediate products of caramel reaction and it has a variety of applications in industry. Based on primary results, response surface method is employed to optimize conversion reaction conditions of sucrose into 5-HMF by a combination of heat and HCl as a catalyst and the target function is 5-HMF yield. The optimized conditions of conversion reaction is T = 17.4 (min), C = 1.81 (M), and R = 6.6:1 (mL:g); with the optimized conditions conversion reaction yield reaches the maximal value of 56,229 ± 2,519%. This research has provided important information for further research of 5-HMF and approach to large scale production and industrial production of 5-HMF

Establishing an empirical equation for the relationship between total suspended solids and total phosphorus concentrations in the downstream Red river water

Recently, the Asian rivers have faced the strong reduction of riverine total suspended solids (TSS) flux due to numerous dam/reservoir impoundment. The Red river system is a typical example of the Southeast Asian rivers that has been strongly impacted by reservoir impoundment in both China and Vietnam, especially in the recent period. It is known that the reduction in total suspended solids may lead to the decrease of some associated elements, including nutrients (N, P, Si) which may affect coastal ecosystems. In this paper, we establish the empirical relationship between total suspended solids and total phosphorus concentrations in water environment of the Red river in its downstream section from Hanoi city to the Ba Lat estuary based on the sampling campaigns conducted in the dry and wet seasons in 2017, 2018 and 2019. The results show a clear relationship with significant coefficient between total suspended solids and total phosphorus in the downstream Red river. It is expressed by a simple equation y = 0.0226x0.3867 where x and y stand for total suspended solids and total phosphorus concentrations (mg/l) respectively with the r2 value of 0.757. This equation enables a reasonable prediction of total phosphorus concentrations of the downstream Red river when the observed data of total suspended solids concentrations are available. Thus, this work opens up the way for further studies on the calculation of the total phosphorus over longer timescales using daily available total suspended solids values