Spatial assessment of pollutant loads for surface water quality management: a case study in Lai Chau city, Vietnam

The aim of this study is to present a method for estimating the pollutant load from different sources in an effort to provide improved information regarding water pollution and help control the surface water pollution, using Lai Chau city as a case study. The pollutant load was calculated in accordance with the Vietnam Environment Administration Decree No.154/2019 on the guidance for calculating the total pollutant load of river water. The pollutant sources include point sources (domestic wastewater, animal husbandry, industrial complexes and economic services) and surface sources (run-off from agricultural land uses) that generate wastes that potentially contaminate water bodies. The source locations were mapped and spatially joined with the drainage-basin map delineated from a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) to calculate the loads for the sub-basin units. Multivariate analysis then showed that the farming and domestic sources had the strongest positive loading factors for the sub-basins located in the city center and its fringe areas. Of these waste from animal husbandry account for up to 75.1% of total pollutant load. The main conclusion from the study's results is that the management approach should be changed from the total controlling mode, which is currently applied in the city, to a source specific approach based on the pollutant discharge loads and the allocated capacities

Whole-genome sequencing in diverse subjects identifies genetic correlates of leukocyte traits: The NHLBI TOPMed program

Many common and rare variants associated with hematologic traits have been discovered through imputation on large-scale reference panels. However, the majority of genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have been conducted in Europeans, and determining causal variants has proved challenging. We performed a GWAS of total leukocyte, neutrophil, lymphocyte, monocyte, eosinophil, and basophil counts generated from 109,563,748 variants in the autosomes and the X chromosome in the Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed) program, which included data from 61,802 individuals of diverse ancestry. We discovered and replicated 7 leukocyte trait associations, including (1) the association between a chromosome X, pseudo-autosomal region (PAR), noncoding variant located between cytokine receptor genes (CSF2RA and CLRF2) and lower eosinophil count; and (2) associations between single variants found predominantly among African Americans at the S1PR3 (9q22.1) and HBB (11p15.4) loci and monocyte and lymphocyte counts, respectively. We further provide evidence indicating that the newly discovered eosinophil-lowering chromosome X PAR variant might be associated with reduced susceptibility to common allergic diseases such as atopic dermatitis and asthma. Additionally, we found a burden of very rare FLT3 (13q12.2) variants associated with monocyte counts. Together, these results emphasize the utility of whole-genome sequencing in diverse samples in identifying associations missed by European-ancestry-driven GWASs

Global Retinoblastoma Presentation and Analysis by National Income Level

Importance: Early diagnosis of retinoblastoma, the most common intraocular cancer, can save both a child's life and vision. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that many children across the world are diagnosed late. To our knowledge, the clinical presentation of retinoblastoma has never been assessed on a global scale. Objectives: To report the retinoblastoma stage at diagnosis in patients across the world during a single year, to investigate associations between clinical variables and national income level, and to investigate risk factors for advanced disease at diagnosis. Design, Setting, and Participants: A total of 278 retinoblastoma treatment centers were recruited from June 2017 through December 2018 to participate in a cross-sectional analysis of treatment-naive patients with retinoblastoma who were diagnosed in 2017. Main Outcomes and Measures: Age at presentation, proportion of familial history of retinoblastoma, and tumor stage and metastasis. Results: The cohort included 4351 new patients from 153 countries; the median age at diagnosis was 30.5 (interquartile range, 18.3-45.9) months, and 1976 patients (45.4) were female. Most patients (n = 3685 84.7%) were from low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). Globally, the most common indication for referral was leukocoria (n = 2638 62.8%), followed by strabismus (n = 429 10.2%) and proptosis (n = 309 7.4%). Patients from high-income countries (HICs) were diagnosed at a median age of 14.1 months, with 656 of 666 (98.5%) patients having intraocular retinoblastoma and 2 (0.3%) having metastasis. Patients from low-income countries were diagnosed at a median age of 30.5 months, with 256 of 521 (49.1%) having extraocular retinoblastoma and 94 of 498 (18.9%) having metastasis. Lower national income level was associated with older presentation age, higher proportion of locally advanced disease and distant metastasis, and smaller proportion of familial history of retinoblastoma. Advanced disease at diagnosis was more common in LMICs even after adjusting for age (odds ratio for low-income countries vs upper-middle-income countries and HICs, 17.92 95% CI, 12.94-24.80, and for lower-middle-income countries vs upper-middle-income countries and HICs, 5.74 95% CI, 4.30-7.68). Conclusions and Relevance: This study is estimated to have included more than half of all new retinoblastoma cases worldwide in 2017. Children from LMICs, where the main global retinoblastoma burden lies, presented at an older age with more advanced disease and demonstrated a smaller proportion of familial history of retinoblastoma, likely because many do not reach a childbearing age. Given that retinoblastoma is curable, these data are concerning and mandate intervention at national and international levels. Further studies are needed to investigate factors, other than age at presentation, that may be associated with advanced disease in LMICs. © 2020 American Medical Association. All rights reserved

Process systems engineering and mineral industries: Flexibility analysis in a flotation circuit

The goal of a process design is to produce a plant that is optimal with respect to cost and performance. A good design should also exhibit operability characteristics that allow economic performance to be realisable in a practical operating environment. The aim of this research is to establish an investigation of operability, especially flexibility, of a flotation plant. Several flotation circuits have been considered for this study, which are different in structure. A superstructure that contains all these alternatives is built and an :MINLP program is setup. Using GAMS optimisation package with DICOPT as the solver, the best flowsheet that maximises the recovery of the valuable mineral is found. The next step involves the flexibility analysis of the best four flowsheets using a systematic algorithm. It is found that the most flexible plant is not necessarily the flowsheet found in the synthesis stage, confirming the fact that by including such flexibility at the design phase one can often avoid costly changes needed later to reduce product variability

Calibration and validation of agent-based models of land-cover change

This chapter considers two important issues in the development of agent-based models, i.e. calibration and validation. These terms are defined and framed into a step-by-step process. Each step is then explained in further detail and illustrated using an agent-based model of shifting cultivation developed by Ngo (2009) as part of his PhD research project. Although the process of model validation presented here is applicable to agent-based models in general, some of the finer details are more relevant to agent-based models of land use and land cover change

An agent-based modelling application of shifting cultivation

This paper outlines an agent-based modeling application of shifting cultivation for an upland village in Vietnam, which was developed to improve the management of shifting cultivation and aid forest protection. The model consists of household and land agents situated in a dynamic social, economic and political environment. Adaptation of the agents to changes in policy is incorporated through a trade-off between economic gains and social responsibility, which affect the subsequent decision-making process. The basics of the model are described including the validation process and the results in a business as usual scenario

Combining deep learning and level set for the automated segmentation of the left ventricle of the heart from cardiac cine magnetic resonance

We introduce a new methodology that combines deep learning and level set for the automated segmentation of the left ventricle of the heart from cardiac cine magnetic resonance (MR) data. This combination is relevant for segmentation problems, where the visual object of interest presents large shape and appearance variations, but the annotated training set is small, which is the case for various medical image analysis applications, including the one considered in this paper. In particular, level set methods are based on shape and appearance terms that use small training sets, but present limitations for modelling the visual object variations. Deep learning methods can model such variations using relatively small amounts of annotated training, but they often need to be regularised to produce good generalisation. Therefore, the combination of these methods brings together the advantages of both approaches, producing a methodology that needs small training sets and produces accurate segmentation results. We test our methodology on the MICCAI 2009 left ventricle segmentation challenge database (containing 15 sequences for training, 15 for validation and 15 for testing), where our approach achieves the most accurate results in the semi-automated problem and state-of-the-art results for the fully automated challenge.Tuan Anh Ngo, Zhi Lu, Gustavo Carneir

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Holding the line: Family responses to pregnancy and the desire for a child in the context of HIV in Vietnam

Health services around the world offer many guidelines for HIV-positive women who are pregnant or who want to become pregnant, and for women with HIV infected partners. These guidelines are addressed to women and, increasingly, also to men, but pay little or no attention to the role of other members of the family in fertility decisions. This study looked at factors influencing decisions about fertility in families with an HIV-positive member. In Vietnam, the whole family takes a crucial role in deciding whether a woman should become pregnant and whether she will keep her child. This decision is taken in the context not only of the close family but also under the influence of ancestors and the weight given to them within the culture. Key in this regard is the need for parents and grandparents to have male offspring. Health workers share these ideas about preferred family composition and support men and women in the quest for male offspring. Policies and guidelines should take into account these additional family factors and goals as a basis for the design of appropriate programmes to reduce HIV transmission