Plastic Waste Generation and Management in Thoi Lai District, Can Tho City, Vietnam

The objective of this study was to assess the current situation of generation and management of plastic waste in Thoi Lai district, Can Tho city, Vietnam through collecting domestic solid waste samples from 30 households and interviewing 150 households using questionaires. The results showed that the average amount of domestic solid waste was 0.3 kg/person/day, in which the plastic waste accounted for 11.7% with generation rate of 0.035 kg/person/day. Shopping bags were dominant accounting for 34.7%, single-use plastic products accounting for 18.5% and food packaging plastic bags accounting for 9.51%. The generation rates of domestic solid waste and plastic waste had positive correlation with household’s size and income. In addition, the rate of plastic waste generation also appeared to have a relationship with the characteristics of the study area. Plastic waste has not been classified but it is mixed with other domestic solid waste. Knowledge of plastic waste impact has not been widely propagated in the community. Therefore, appropriate measures should be implemented to reduce municipal waste and plastic wastes

QUANTUM TELEPORTATION OF ENTANGLED STATES VIA GENERALIZED PHOTON-ADDED PAIR COHERENT STATE

In this paper, we study the quantum teleportation of an unknown atomic state based on the two-photon Jaynes-Cummings model, consisting of an effective two-level atom with a two-mode field in the generalized photon-added pair coherent state (GPAPCS). By applying the detecting method, we use a scheme that includes two two-level atoms and a cavity field to teleport the unknown atomic state from a sender to a receiver. The results show that the number of photons added to the field and the intensity of the initial field influence the average fidelity and success probability of the teleportation process. The time-evolution dependence of the average fidelity is also considered and compared for the field in the pair coherent state and in the GPAPCS

DART: Distribution Aware Retinal Transform for Event-based Cameras

We introduce a generic visual descriptor, termed as distribution aware retinal transform (DART), that encodes the structural context using log-polar grids for event cameras. The DART descriptor is applied to four different problems, namely object classification, tracking, detection and feature matching: (1) The DART features are directly employed as local descriptors in a bag-of-features classification framework and testing is carried out on four standard event-based object datasets (N-MNIST, MNIST-DVS, CIFAR10-DVS, NCaltech-101). (2) Extending the classification system, tracking is demonstrated using two key novelties: (i) For overcoming the low-sample problem for the one-shot learning of a binary classifier, statistical bootstrapping is leveraged with online learning; (ii) To achieve tracker robustness, the scale and rotation equivariance property of the DART descriptors is exploited for the one-shot learning. (3) To solve the long-term object tracking problem, an object detector is designed using the principle of cluster majority voting. The detection scheme is then combined with the tracker to result in a high intersection-over-union score with augmented ground truth annotations on the publicly available event camera dataset. (4) Finally, the event context encoded by DART greatly simplifies the feature correspondence problem, especially for spatio-temporal slices far apart in time, which has not been explicitly tackled in the event-based vision domain.Comment: 12 pages, revision submitted to TPAMI in Nov 201

China's Angel Investment Policy

Purpose: This paper summarized and systematized the case of China's policies applied to attract angel investment which turned this country into a global highlight in angel investment.   Theoretical framework: The authors conducted a literature review on start-up and angel investment to introduce angel investment in China, analyze the role of angel investments in developing start-ups, and factor determinants and policy of angel investment in China.   Design/Methodology/Approach: This paper uses qualitative method to provide overviews on the case of China in attracting angel investment for their start-ups with an updated analysis on their relevant factor determinants and policies that contributed to the success of China.   Findings: It is found that the Chinese Government has actively carried out packages, including tax incentives, built programs, investment cooperation funds, developed networks, and angel investment education systems to boost funding readiness for firms. They also focus on promoting the start-up ecosystem and providing financial support to implement an innovation-driven development strategy to raise the nation's competitiveness.   Research, practical & social implications: This paper provides some suggestions for Chinese government in making policies to enhance the role of angel investments in developing start-ups.   Originality/Value: This paper contributes to the evolvement of research about start- up and angel investment, particularly in China, in the context of high-tech  production and breakthrough technologies, by providing a policy perspective to imply lessons for other countries

Explaining the Organizational Commitment of Banking Employees

This study aims to demonstrate the factors influencing the organizational commitment of banking employees. The study surveyed 232 employees working in the commercial banking system in Vietnam. By combining qualitative and quantitative research methods, the study has shown that employees’ commitment to the organization is influenced by 8 factors, including the work environment, corporate culture, organizational support, job nature, training and development, income and benefits, peer relationships, and leadership style. Among these factors, leadership style is the most significant factor affecting employees’ commitment to the organization. The research results contribute to providing insights for managers to enhance the employees’ commitment to the organization in the banking sector

Density Functional Based Tight Binding Study on Wurzite ZnS Nanowires

We present a semi-abinitio - Density Functional Based Tight Binding (DFTB) study on the atomic and electronic structure of ZnS Nanowire (NW) and examine the dependence of surface stress on nanowire lateral size and shape. The ZnS wurtzite wire size ranges from 10 to 45Å and of various possible shapes - triangular, hexagonal and circular-like. We investigate the role of unsaturated dangling bond state in the region of band gap varying the wire's diameter. We have calculated the surface formation energy and find that it decreases with increasing the wire diameter and a greater stability (lower surface formation energy) comes with hexagonal and circular-like depending on wire's diameter. Other electronics and mechanical properties e.g. density of states (DOS), Young modulus...  also are found to depend on the wire's size and shape. Futher the wire passivation by hydrogen has also investigated

Molecular identification of three Habenaria species from Binh Chau-Phuoc Buu Nature Reserve, Vietnam

The present provides molecular data for species of Habenaria diphylla (Nimmo) Dalzell, H. khasiana Hook.f. and H. rostellifera Rchb.f. collected from Binh Chau-Phuoc Buu Nature Reserve, Vietnam for the first time. Along with other DNA sequences from GenBank database, the phylogenetic trees for Habenaria species from Vietnam have been established

Co-expression of recombinant single chain variable fragment recognizing blood antigen fused with sumo and chaperones in Escherichia coli

Single chain variable fragments (scFv) have widely been used in research, diagnosis and treatment, but the scFv is considered as difficult protein for expression in E. coli. In previous studies, we expressed a construction of recombinant single chain variable fragments again antigen specific for blood type A (antiA-scFv) individually or fused with Trx or SUMO. However, soluble fraction was low abandant and only approximately 40% when fused with Trx, the other cases were expressed in form of inclusion body. Therefore, it was difficult for purification, refolding and activity assesment. In thispaper, we demonstrated a suitable construction for soluble production of antiA-scFv fused with SUMO (SM/antiA-scFv) in presence of chaparones. Under fermentation with 0.1 mM IPTG at 20oC, the SM/antiA-scFv was entirely expressed in soluble form. Importantly, after cleavage from SUMO with SUMOprotease, antiA-scFv was still maintained in the supernatant fraction. Therefore, it can help ensure bioactivity and is useful for purification process. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report showing soluble recombinant scFv fused with SUMO in presence of chaperone for determination of blood group antigens. Thus, this result facilitates the optimal study of soluble expression, purification and bioactivity determination of the antiA-scFv recombinant antibody.

Expression of the recombinant single chain variable fragments recognizing blood antigen fused with thioredoxin in Escherichia coli

The technology of recombinant single chain variable fragments (scFvs) expression has been used in research, diagnosis and treatment of diseases. In the previous study, we studied the expression of a recombinant single chain variable fragment recognizing blood A antigen (antiA-scFv) in E. coli. However, the protein was insoluble form resulting in difficulty for purification, refolding and activity assesment. Here, we present the study on fused expression of the recombinant scFv -specific blood A antigen with thioredoxin (Trx) in the expression vector pET32a (+). The results showed that the Trx/antiA-scFv fusion protein was expressed with molecular weight of 49 kDa in a soluble form reaching 40% of the total recombinant protein. This result facilitates the optimal condition of soluble protein expression, purification and bioactivity determination of the antiA-scFv recombinant antibody.

Habenaria diphylla (Nimmo) Dalzell (Orchidaceae), new record for the flora of Vietnam

Habenaria diphylla (Nimmo) Dalzell is reported for the first time as a new discovery for the flora of Vietnam based on the specimens collected in Binh Chau-Phuoc Buu Nature Reserve, Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province. The present study provided the detailed characteristics of the species including detailed photographs of the morphological characteristics, the cross section of the leaf, inflorescence axis and root. Furthermore, the information about the species, including distribution, habitat, ecology and conservation status were also provided