RENT: A Python Package for Repeated Elastic Net Feature Selection

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RENT: A Python Package for Repeated Elastic Net Feature Selection

publishedVersio

MOTIVATION TO STUDY ENGLISH OF NON-ENGLISH MAJORED FRESHMEN

Motivation is regarded as an influential factor in the success of any activity. It plays a significant role in reaching the desired goals, including learning English. This research aims to analyze the students' motivation and factors affecting their motivation to learn English. The population of this study was 326 freshmen in nine faculties of natural sciences at Tay Do University. The quantitative data was collected through the questionnaire and analyzed by SPSS software. The results show that the students had motivation to learn English, but their motivation levels were not high. Additionally, the students had both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. However, the latter was higher than the former. Moreover, the results also indicate factors affecting learners’ motivation. The research findings contribute to improving English teaching and learning quality in Vietnam in general and in Tay Do University in particular. Article visualizations

Students’ Perceptions on Blended Synchronous Learning in the Postcrisis Era

With the severe impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, the educational systems have to be reformed and evolved. Blended synchronous learning has become an attractive tendency in education worldwide as the technology has mushroomed recently and attracts a vast number of users and researchers. Therefore, the current study was conducted to investigate students’ overall perceptions of blended synchronous learning as well as its benefits and challenges. 163 participants in the study have experienced ENT courses in a blended synchronous learning environment for 105 hours within 7 weeks. The instrument employed in the quantitative phase was 27 items adapted from studies by Rahman et al. (2015), López-Pérez et al. (2011), and Wu et al. (2010). Additionally, semi-structured interviews were used to have a deeper understanding of the research issues. Results indicate that more than half of participants had good perceptions about the blended synchronous learning environment and perceived various benefits as well as challenges of it. Moreover, these findings are supplemented with illustrative quotes from interview transcripts to compare and contrast with previous findings reported in the literature, and therefore this study contributes to the field by offering the learners\u27 voices

Design of Compact 4 × 4 UWB-MIMO Antenna with WLAN Band Rejection

A compact 4 × 4 UWB-MIMO antenna with rejected WLAN band employing an electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) structure is presented in this paper. The MIMO antenna is electrically small (60 mm × 60 mm), printed on a FR4 epoxy substrate with the dielectric constant of 4.4 and a thickness of 1.6 mm. A mushroom-like EBG structure is used to reject the WLAN frequency at 5.5 GHz. In order to reduce the mutual coupling of the antenna elements, a stub structure acting as a bandstop filter is inserted to suppress the effect of the surface current between elements of the proposed antenna. The final design of the MIMO antenna satisfies the return loss requirement of less than −10 dB in a bandwidth ranging from 2.73 GHz to 10.68 GHz, which entirely covers UWB frequency band, which is allocated from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz. The antenna also exhibits a WLAN band-notched performance at the frequency band of 5.36-6.34 GHz while the values of all isolation coefficients are below −15 dB and the correlation coefficient of MIMO antenna is less than −28 dB over the UWB range. A good agreement between simulation and measurement is shown in this context

Design of Compact 4 × 4 UWB-MIMO Antenna with WLAN Band Rejection

A compact 4 × 4 UWB-MIMO antenna with rejected WLAN band employing an electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) structure is presented in this paper. The MIMO antenna is electrically small (60 mm × 60 mm), printed on a FR4_epoxy substrate with the dielectric constant of 4.4 and a thickness of 1.6 mm. A mushroom-like EBG structure is used to reject the WLAN frequency at 5.5 GHz. In order to reduce the mutual coupling of the antenna elements, a stub structure acting as a bandstop filter is inserted to suppress the effect of the surface current between elements of the proposed antenna. The final design of the MIMO antenna satisfies the return loss requirement of less than −10 dB in a bandwidth ranging from 2.73 GHz to 10.68 GHz, which entirely covers UWB frequency band, which is allocated from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz. The antenna also exhibits a WLAN band-notched performance at the frequency band of 5.36–6.34 GHz while the values of all isolation coefficients are below −15 dB and the correlation coefficient of MIMO antenna is less than −28 dB over the UWB range. A good agreement between simulation and measurement is shown in this context

SURVEY ON VOCABULARY LEARNING STRATEGIES OF HIGH–QUALITY ENGLISH STUDIES PROGRAM STUDENTS, SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, CAN THO UNIVERSITY, VIETNAM

This research study aimed to investigate the usage of vocabulary learning strategies among English Studies students at Can Tho University (CTU), specifically those under the high-quality program at the School of Foreign Languages (SFL). The primary objective of the study was to identify the most commonly used strategies for learning English vocabulary and to compare the similarities and differences in how these strategies were applied among students by academic year. A total of 200 survey responses from SFL, CTU got involved in the study, and 12 of whom joined a semi-structured interview. The data gathered were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistical techniques. The results of this study provided insights into effective vocabulary learning strategies and would facilitate the improvement of English language teaching and learning practices at the university level.  Article visualizations

A SURVEY OF STUDENTS’ ABILITY OF IDENTIFYING ERRORS IN WRONG SOLUTIONS FOR THE MATHEMATICAL PROBLEMS RELATED TO THE MONOTONICITY OF FUNCTIONS

The monotonicity of a function plays an important role in the general mathematics curriculum in Vietnam, because it is considered as an effective tool for solving mathematical problems involved with the monotonic intervals of functions, their extreme, absolute maximum value and absolute minimum value. Normally, students commit errors in solving these problems because of their complexity and difficulty. In addition, specific characteristics of knowledge also make children make mistakes. The sample consisted of 362 students, and they had the task of identifying errors in false assumptions. From the results of the survey, it was found that when dealing with the monotonicity of the functions, students were still misled.  Article visualizations

Automatic gross tumor segmentation of canine head and neck cancer using deep learning and cross-species transfer learning

BackgroundRadiotherapy (RT) is increasingly being used on dogs with spontaneous head and neck cancer (HNC), which account for a large percentage of veterinary patients treated with RT. Accurate definition of the gross tumor volume (GTV) is a vital part of RT planning, ensuring adequate dose coverage of the tumor while limiting the radiation dose to surrounding tissues. Currently the GTV is contoured manually in medical images, which is a time-consuming and challenging task.PurposeThe purpose of this study was to evaluate the applicability of deep learning-based automatic segmentation of the GTV in canine patients with HNC.Materials and methodsContrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT) images and corresponding manual GTV contours of 36 canine HNC patients and 197 human HNC patients were included. A 3D U-Net convolutional neural network (CNN) was trained to automatically segment the GTV in canine patients using two main approaches: (i) training models from scratch based solely on canine CT images, and (ii) using cross-species transfer learning where models were pretrained on CT images of human patients and then fine-tuned on CT images of canine patients. For the canine patients, automatic segmentations were assessed using the Dice similarity coefficient (Dice), the positive predictive value, the true positive rate, and surface distance metrics, calculated from a four-fold cross-validation strategy where each fold was used as a validation set and test set once in independent model runs.ResultsCNN models trained from scratch on canine data or by using transfer learning obtained mean test set Dice scores of 0.55 and 0.52, respectively, indicating acceptable auto-segmentations, similar to the mean Dice performances reported for CT-based automatic segmentation in human HNC studies. Automatic segmentation of nasal cavity tumors appeared particularly promising, resulting in mean test set Dice scores of 0.69 for both approaches.ConclusionIn conclusion, deep learning-based automatic segmentation of the GTV using CNN models based on canine data only or a cross-species transfer learning approach shows promise for future application in RT of canine HNC patients

Antibiotic use and prescription and its effects on Enterobacteriaceae in the gut in children with mild respiratory infections in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. A prospective observational outpatient study.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Treatment guidelines do not recommend antibiotic use for acute respiratory infections (ARI), except for streptococcal pharyngitis/tonsillitis and pneumonia. However, antibiotics are prescribed frequently for children with ARI, often in absence of evidence for bacterial infection. The objectives of this study were 1) to assess the appropriateness of antibiotic prescriptions for mild ARI in paediatric outpatients in relation to available guidelines and detected pathogens, 2) to assess antibiotic use on presentation using questionnaires and detection in urine 3) to assess the carriage rates and proportions of resistant intestinal Enterobacteriaceae before, during and after consultation. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Patients were prospectively enrolled in Children's Hospital 1, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and diagnoses, prescribed therapy and outcome were recorded on first visit and on follow-up after 7 days. Respiratory bacterial and viral pathogens were detected using molecular assays. Antibiotic use before presentation was assessed using questionnaires and urine HPLC. The impact of antibiotic usage on intestinal Enterobacteriaceae was assessed with semi-quantitative culture on agar with and without antibiotics on presentation and after 7 and 28 days. RESULTS: A total of 563 patients were enrolled between February 2009 and February 2010. Antibiotics were prescribed for all except 2 of 563 patients. The majority were 2nd and 3rd generation oral cephalosporins and amoxicillin with or without clavulanic acid. Respiratory viruses were detected in respiratory specimens of 72.5% of patients. Antibiotic use was considered inappropriate in 90.1% and 67.5%, based on guidelines and detected pathogens, respectively. On presentation parents reported antibiotic use for 22% of patients, 41% of parents did not know and 37% denied antibiotic use. Among these three groups, six commonly used antibiotics were detected with HPLC in patients' urine in 49%, 40% and 14%, respectively. Temporary selection of 3rd generation cephalosporin resistant intestinal Enterobacteriaceae during antibiotic use was observed, with co-selection of resistance to aminoglycosides and fluoroquinolones. CONCLUSIONS: We report overuse and overprescription of antibiotics for uncomplicated ARI with selection of resistant intestinal Enterobacteriaceae, posing a risk for community transmission and persistence in a setting of a highly granular healthcare system and unrestricted access to antibiotics through private pharmacies. REGISTRATION: This study was registered at the International Standard Randomised Controlled Trials Number registry under number ISRCTN32862422: http://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN32862422