Presence of e-EDCs in surface water and effluents of pollution sources in Sai Gon and Dong Nai river basin

© 2016 This study aimed to assess the presence of estrogenic endocrine disrupting compounds (e-EDCs) including estriol, bisphenol A (BPA), atrazine (ATZ), octylphenol, octylphenol diethoxylate, octylphenol triethoxylate, nonylphenol, Nonylphenol triethoxylate (NPE3), nonylphenol diethoxylate (NPE2) and 17β-estradiol in: (i) Sai Gon and Dong Nai river waters which have been major raw water sources for drinking water supply for Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) and neighbouring provinces, and (ii) water pollution sources located in their catchment basin. NPE3 and NPE2 were detected in most of the surface water samples. Concentrations of NPE3 were in a range of less than 5.9–235 ng L−1, whereas BPA was detected at significantly high concentrations in the dry season in canals in HCMC. In the upstream of Sai Gon and Dong Nai Rivers, ATZ concentrations were observed at water intake of water treatment plants served for HCMC water supply system. Similarly, high potential risk of NPE2 and NPE3 contamination at Phu Cuong Bridge near Hoa Phu water intake was identified. The significant correlation between NPE2, dissolved organic carbon and total nitrogen was found. Estrogenic equivalent or estrogenic activity of Sai Gon and Dong Nai Rivers was lower than those of the previous studies. Compared with other studies, e-EDCs of pollution in Sai Gon river basin were relatively low

Sintering behavior and physical properties of Bi0.5(Na1–xKx)0.5SnO3 lead-free ceramics

In this study, Bi0.5(Na1–xKx)0.5SnO3 (BNKS) ceramics (x = 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, and 0.4) were fabricated via ultrasound wave before milling. The time of ball milling decreased from 20 to 1 h. The X-ray diffraction patterns show that the BNKS has a single-phase structure. When the potassium content increases, the phase structure of the ceramics changes from rhombohedral to tetragonal. When sintered at 1100 °C and x = 0.2, the ceramics’ physical properties are the best with the mass density of 5.59 g/cm3, the electromechanical coupling constants kp of 0,31 and kt of 0.27, the remanent polarization of      11.9 µC/cm; the dielectric constant εr of 1131, and the highest dielectric constant emax of 4800

Hemorrhagic Meningioma With Symptom of Convulsion: A Rare Presentation of Parietal Meningioma

Meningioma is the most common, extra-axial, non-glial intracranial tumor with an incidence of 2.3-5.5/100 000, accounting for 20%-30% of all primary brain tumor diagnoses in adults. Meningiomas associated with intratumoral hemorrhage are very rare occurring in 0.5%-2.4%. of individuals. Herein, we report a rare case of hemorrhagic meningioma with the symptom of convulsion. The case was a 68-year-old woman admitted to the hospital with severe headache and convulsions. Computed tomography revealed an increase in heterogeneous lesion measuring 4 × 3 × 2.5 cm at the right parietal lobe. Brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed a grossly stable homogeneously enhancing extra-axial mass measuring 43 × 33 × 28 mm, small calcified peripheral, intratumoral hemorrhage. Histopathology showed a multi-celled meningioma with bleeding areas (WHO grade I)

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

Safety and efficacy of fluoxetine on functional outcome after acute stroke (AFFINITY): a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial

Background Trials of fluoxetine for recovery after stroke report conflicting results. The Assessment oF FluoxetINe In sTroke recoverY (AFFINITY) trial aimed to show if daily oral fluoxetine for 6 months after stroke improves functional outcome in an ethnically diverse population. Methods AFFINITY was a randomised, parallel-group, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial done in 43 hospital stroke units in Australia (n=29), New Zealand (four), and Vietnam (ten). Eligible patients were adults (aged ≥18 years) with a clinical diagnosis of acute stroke in the previous 2–15 days, brain imaging consistent with ischaemic or haemorrhagic stroke, and a persisting neurological deficit that produced a modified Rankin Scale (mRS) score of 1 or more. Patients were randomly assigned 1:1 via a web-based system using a minimisation algorithm to once daily, oral fluoxetine 20 mg capsules or matching placebo for 6 months. Patients, carers, investigators, and outcome assessors were masked to the treatment allocation. The primary outcome was functional status, measured by the mRS, at 6 months. The primary analysis was an ordinal logistic regression of the mRS at 6 months, adjusted for minimisation variables. Primary and safety analyses were done according to the patient's treatment allocation. The trial is registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry, ACTRN12611000774921. Findings Between Jan 11, 2013, and June 30, 2019, 1280 patients were recruited in Australia (n=532), New Zealand (n=42), and Vietnam (n=706), of whom 642 were randomly assigned to fluoxetine and 638 were randomly assigned to placebo. Mean duration of trial treatment was 167 days (SD 48·1). At 6 months, mRS data were available in 624 (97%) patients in the fluoxetine group and 632 (99%) in the placebo group. The distribution of mRS categories was similar in the fluoxetine and placebo groups (adjusted common odds ratio 0·94, 95% CI 0·76–1·15; p=0·53). Compared with patients in the placebo group, patients in the fluoxetine group had more falls (20 [3%] vs seven [1%]; p=0·018), bone fractures (19 [3%] vs six [1%]; p=0·014), and epileptic seizures (ten [2%] vs two [<1%]; p=0·038) at 6 months. Interpretation Oral fluoxetine 20 mg daily for 6 months after acute stroke did not improve functional outcome and increased the risk of falls, bone fractures, and epileptic seizures. These results do not support the use of fluoxetine to improve functional outcome after stroke

Raising GLO bar : GLO Hotel Art – Kämp Collection Hotels

After the COVID-19 crisis, the GLO bar of the GLO Hotel Art suffered extremely severe financial and quality losses, from which it has not yet recovered to pre-COVID levels. Recognizing this issue, the authors developed a practice-based thesis to outline the pressing issue and provide suggestions for its resolution. The theoretical framework comprises bar theories, marketing concepts, product planning, and human resource management in order to gain a comprehensive understanding of how to raise a bar. The authors collected data through quantitative research by conducting a survey of customers and employees regarding issues that managers and employees at the GLO bar need to improve. In addition, authors communicate directly with managers through staff meetings, which serve as a form of semi-interview in qualitative research. In their studies and experiences, the authors document the recent implementation work performed at the GLO bar, as well as subjective comments from managers and objective customer feedback evaluating the appearance. Since then, the authors have proposed future plans for implementation. Survey results reveal that the authors must develop plans to increase the quantity and quality of services offered at GLO Hotel Art. To raise the bar for the GLO, the authors proposed enhancing food and beverage options, terrace space, and marketing. The authors of this thesis, who have a strong passion for spirits and happiness in the hospitality industry, hope that their work will not only be read as a report but also considered for future implementation of suggested methods. The fact that the raising GLO bar plan is a synthesis of the majority of the academic knowledge and professional experience the authors have acquired while studying and working

Finding important people in large news video databases using multimodal and clustering analysis

The wide availability of large scale databases requires more efficient and scalable tools for data understanding and knowledge discovery. In this paper, we present a method to find important people who have appeared repeatedly in a certain time period from large news video databases. Specifically, we investigate two issues: how to group similar faces to find dominant groups and how to label these groups by the corresponding names for identification. These are challenging problems because firstly people can appear with large appearance variations such as hair styles, illumination conditions and poses that make comparing between similar faces more difficult; secondly, the number of people and their occurrence frequencies that are unknown make finding dominant and useful groups more complicated; and finally, the fact that in news video faces and names usually do not appear together can make troubles in aligning faces and names. To handle above problems, we propose using the relevant set correlation based clustering model which can efficiently handle dataset of millions of objects represented in thousands or even millions of dimensions to find groups of similar faces from the large and noisy face dataset. Then in order to identify faces in clusters, names extracted from the transcripts are filtered and used to find the best correspondences by using methods developed in the statistical machine translation literature. Experiments on large video datasets containing hundreds of hours showed that our system can efficiently find out important people by not only their appearance but also their identification. 1

Three-Level Optical Stark Effect of Excitons in GaAs Cylindrical Quantum Wires

This study looks at the three-level optical Stark effect of excitons in GaAs cylindrical quantum wires, utilizing the renormalized wave function theory. By applying the three-level model consisting of the first two electron levels connected via a powerful pump laser and the first hole level, we observe the appearance of the excitonic optical Stark effect through the appearance of two separated peaks in the exciton absorption spectra. In addition, the strong impact of the pump laser detuning and the wire radius on the optical Stark effect are also put under thorough examination. Finally, a brief guidance for experimental verification is also suggested