THE DIFFICULTIES IN ORAL PRESENTATION OF ENGLISH-MAJORED JUNIORS AT TAY DO UNIVERSITY, VIETNAM

It could be broadly accepted that oral presentations are becoming important for students. It is required in almost every field and in the university environment. To succeed in the university environment and in their future jobs, these students need to improve their oral presentation skills. However, one of the drawbacks of using oral presentations in the language classroom is that students often find oral presentations extremely challenging. Therefore, the researcher conducted this research with the main goal of finding out common problems when giving an oral presentation to English-majored juniors at Tay Do University. Ninety juniors majoring in English at Tay Do University were selected to take part in the study. Data are gathered through questionnaires and interviews. The researcher used quantitative and qualitative methods to do the research. From the collected data, when they give a presentation, students usually make some mistakes such as problems in vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, psychological and background knowledge. Through this study, they would recognize their own problems when giving a presentation. Besides, understanding students' learning difficulties may also enable teachers to help students develop effective learning strategies and ultimately improve their presentation skills. It is hoped that this research can be helpful for not only students but also teachers in learning and teaching English.  Article visualizations

DIFFICULTIES IN STUDYING TOEIC LISTENING COMPREHENSION OF NON–ENGLISH MAJORED FRESHMEN AT TAY DO UNIVERSITY, VIETNAM

TOEIC Certificate is becoming more and more popular all over the world in general and in particular, Vietnam. It is considered as one of the most compulsory demands for graduating university, especially at Tay Do university. Listening seems to be a skill that many students usually face difficulties in learning. Therefore, the survey research “Difficulties in studying TOEIC Listening Comprehension of non – English majored freshmen at Tay Do University” was conducted to figure out common difficulties in studying TOEIC listening of non-English majored students. Freshmen of Bachelor of Tourism and Travel Management class at Tay Do university were chosen as the participants. Questionnaire and interview were used as instruments to collect the data. The findings of the study would point out learners’ difficulties consisting of general difficulties (vocabulary, pronunciation, background knowledge and psychological) and difficulties in each part in the TOEIC listening test. Thanks to the results, some solutions would be suggested for students’ improvement. Article visualizations

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

Fundamental properties of Alkali-intercalated bilayer graphene nanoribbons

Along with the inherent remarkable properties of graphene, adatom-intercalated graphene-related systems are expected to exhibit tunable electronic properties. The metal-based atoms could provide multi-orbital hybridizations with the out-of-plane pi-bondings on the carbon honeycomb lattice, which dominates the fundamental properties of chemisorption systems. In this work, using the first-principles calculations, the feature-rich properties of alkali-metal intercalated graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) are investigated, including edge passivation, stacking configurations, intercalation sites, stability, charge density distribution, magnetic configuration, and electronic properties. There exists a transformation from finite gap semiconducting to metallic behaviors, indicating enhanced electrical conductivity. They arise from the cooperative or competitive relations among the significant chemical bonds, finite-size quantum confinement, edge structure, and stacking order. Moreover, the decoration of edge structures with hydrogen and oxygen atoms is considered to provide more information about the stability and magnetization due to the ribbon' effect. These findings will be helpful for experimental fabrications and measurements for further investigation of GNRs-based materials

Assessment of the results of clinical pharmacists’ interventions on the use of antibiotics at a medical center in Vietnam between 2021 and 2022

Context: The rational use of antibiotics is a priority when antibiotic resistance has become severe. Clinical pharmacists’ interventions can help increase the rate of rational antibiotic use. Aims: To determine the effect of clinical pharmacists’ interventions on the use of antibiotics and factors related to inappropriate antibiotic use in inpatients at the Department of Surgery, Gia Rai Town Medical Center, Vietnam. Methods: An interventional and cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted from January 1, 2021, to June 30, 2022, at the Department of Surgery, Gia Rai Town Medical Center, Vietnam. Results: There were 710 patients (355 patients in pre-intervention and 355 patients in post-intervention) included in this study. The group of antibiotics used the most was beta-lactam (pre- and post-intervention rates were 60.2% and 61.0%, respectively). The parenteral route was the most commonly used (63.9% in pre-intervention and 60.7% in post-intervention). The rationality of the indication increased after the intervention (from 85.7% to 96.2%); the rationality of the dose increased after the intervention (from 90.5% to 95.2%); the rationality of the number of times of use increased after the intervention (from 90.4% to 98.4%); the rationality of the time increased after the intervention (from 94.8% to 95.1%); the general rationality increased after the intervention (from 66.5% to 85.6%). Infections were associated with inappropriate antibiotic use (p<0.05). Conclusions: Effective clinical pharmacists’ interventions helped raise the rate of rational use of antibiotics. Besides, inappropriate antibiotic use was found to be associated with infections, emphasizing the need for targeted interventions in this field

Antibacterial hydrogel containing Piper betle L. extract for acne treatment, an ex vivo investigation

The current treatments of acne vulgaris and acne-like disorders such as gram-negative folliculitis possess lots of unwanted side effects. Thus, alternative approach of utilizing natural plant extracts, specifically Piper betle L., have gained much attention. To this end, this work developed, characterized, and ex vivo evaluated novel antibiotics hydrogels containing P. betle L. leaf extract for acne treatment. Firstly, the design of experiments (DoE) D-optimal method was successfully developed, optimized, and validated, to investigate the relationship between P. betle L. extraction conditions and the extract properties. Secondly, the best extract was encapsulated in the hydrogel formulations composed of carbopol 940, propylene glycol, and cocamidopropyl betaine. Finally, the hydrogel was ex vivo determined its antibacterial activity on bacteria isolated from 15 patient acne samples. The optimal extraction condition being an extraction solvent/plant weight ratio of 4.034:1, an extraction time of 2.147 h, and a water extract volume of 91.4 mL. This condition yielded an extract total phenolic content of 3.337±0.034 g GAE/g, and minimum inhibitory concentrations of 32 µg/mL and 128 µg/mL on Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 25923 and Escherichia coli ATCC 25922, respectively. The hydrogel possessed suitable properties for a topical medication, including a viscosity of 6800 cps, a pH of 7.0, and a good foaming ability, at both 10°C, 25°C, and 40°C. The hydrogel showed higher antibacterial activity than the positive controls in both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. Conclusively, the hydrogel could become a potential pharmaceutical product for acne treatment

Fundamental Properties of Hydrogen-Functionalized GaSe Monolayer

Functionalization reveals potential opportunities for modifying essential properties and designing materials due to the strong interaction between functionalized atoms and the surface. Among them, hydrogenation possesses such a way to control electronic and optical characteristics. In this paper, the stability and transformed electronic, optical properties of H-functionalized GaSe in two cases (single and double sites) were reported that exhibit the effects of hydrogen functionalization via first-principles calculations. Formation energies suggest that H-functionalized GaSe systems are stable for construction. H-GaSe and 2H-GaSe display distinct properties based on the functionalized way (single- or double-site functionalization). Accordingly, H-GaSe is metallic, while 2H-GaSe belongs to a semiconductor. The magnetic configuration with ferro- and anti-ferromagnetic could be found in H- and 2H-functionalized cases through spin distribution, respectively. Especially, the chemical hybridized bonds of Se–H, Ga–Se, and Ga–Ga corresponding to s-sp3 and sp3-sp3 bondings, respectively, are clearly verified in the orbital-projected density of states and charge density. The optical properties of 2H-GaSe could provide the main characteristics of a semiconductor, which is the limited range of transparency by electronic absorption at short and long wavelengths. Moreover, increasing the number of GaSe segments (L) could change the band gap leading to application in the band gap engineering of the 2H-GaSe systems. Thus, hydrogen functionalization could provide the possible manner for adjusting and controlling features of GaSe, promising for the development of electronic devices and applications

Current situation of Bitcoin management and use: perspectives from the world and recommendations for Vietnam

The research aimed to evaluate suitability of Bitcoin and its platform in emerging markets such as Vietnam. We used qualitative analysis combined with data collection method published, statistics, analysis, synthesis, comparison, to generate qualitative comments and discussion; evaluate results, the article analyzed and evaluated the impacts of Bitcoin and virtual currency on society of Vietnam, both positive and negative sides. It was found that virtual currency not accepted in Vietnam as means of payment yet, while many nations in the world accept it. We need to complete the legal framework for virtual currencies in general, Bitcoin in particular. The State should continue to have policies to improve information technology infrastructure, build and improve the capacity of the contingent of financial experts, encryption, and security experts and give warning risks in virtual currency transactions. The scientific value of paper is using experiences from previous studies in other countries to generate recommendations for conditions of Bitcoin development in merging markets. Last but not least, the research was limited to the case of Vietnam; hence, we can expand research to other Asian countries or other emerging markets