Preparing for the Next Global Threat: A Call for Targeted, Immediate Decisive Action in Southeast Asia to Prevent the Next Pandemic in Africa

Global investments have had great impact on malaria—these are now at risk of being reversed. Cambodia is where drug resistance historically emerges and spreads globally to drive resulting pandemics—we are currently watching history repeat itself. Despite large investments and recent success in driving down overall rates of malaria, high levels of resistance to nearly all antimalarial drugs are now widespread in Cambodia. Malaria cases are again rising in both Cambodia and Vietnam. Nearly incurable malaria in this region is a real and present threat. Critical actions to prevent further spread of the emerging incurable parasites are: (1) Commitment and real sense of urgency through declaration of a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern” or a similar set of directives; (2) Establish leadership with sufficient authority, respect, expertise and operational funding; (3) Engage affected security forces to stop disease transmission and support elimination operations; (4) Utilize surveillance as a core intervention with result-based funding targeting malaria transmission foci with rapid and effective action. Immediate decisive action is needed in Southeast Asia to prevent the next malaria pandemic. This chapter highlights persistent gaps in the region with methods to address them. In 2015–2016, our collaboration with NIMPE pilot tested tools to intervene in actual forest transmission foci. Our study district saw a 96% decrease in malaria from 2014 to 2017, with the entire province seeing the largest decrease in Central Vietnam in this same timeframe. We describe methods to tackle transmission foci, with both an integrated prevention and treatment package. We call on all stakeholders to make changes to current investments to address this critical challenge

AMMONIA REMOVAL FROM SWINE WASTEWATER USING AN AEROBIC, ANOXIC FILTER AT A PILOT-SCALE IN THANH LOC BIOSTATION

Joint Research on Environmental Science and Technology for the Eart

A Literature Review of the Project-based Teaching Method in the Education of Vietnam

The teaching method is one of the main aspects to make a huge contribution to the success of any education system, and project-based teaching (PBL) is an important aspect to contribute to the success of education also. This research was conducted through a review of project-based teaching that has been used in the education system of Vietnam, including a sample, and setting that included imperial and theoretical literature selected from the fields of education. Findings show that this method has been applied to various sectors of education, from kindergarten education to higher education, in many disciplines and subjects, in schools and educational settings, and has become more widely popular than ever. This method, however, has its drawbacks because it takes time to master and teachers need more skills to manage the learning atmosphere. This method has been commonly accepted as one that can help teachers and learners understand more and get more benefits in the learning and teaching process

Sub-optimal Deep Pipelined Implementation of MIMO Sphere Detector on FPGA

Sphere detector (SD) is an effective signal detection approach for the wireless multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system since it can achieve near-optimal performance while reducing significant computational complexity. In this work, we proposed a novel SD architecture that is suitable for implementation on the hardware accelerator. We first perform a statistical analysis to examine the distribution of valid paths in the SD search tree. Using the analysis result, we then proposed an enhanced hybrid SD (EHSD) architecture that achieves quasi-ML performance and high throughput with a reasonable cost in hardware. The fine-grained pipeline designs of 4 × 4 and 8 × 8 MIMO system with 16-QAM modulation delivers throughput of 7.04 Gbps and 14.08 Gbps on the Xilinx Virtex Ultrascale+ FPGA, respectively

High Complexity of Plasmodium vivax Infections in Symptomatic Patients from a Rural Community in Central Vietnam Detected by Microsatellite Genotyping

Fourteen published and three newly identified polymorphic microsatellites were used to genotype 69 Plasmodium vivax samples obtained from 39 patients detected over a period of two years who lived in a rural community of central Vietnam. All samples were polyclonal with an average expected heterozygosity of 0.86. Among the 39 patients, 16 experienced 1–5 recurrent episodes of P. vivax malaria, most of them (83%) with a different genotype profile compared with previous infections. The minimal set of microsatellites required for differentiating the genotype profiles of the recurrent infections compared with the full set of 17 microsatellites was explored. A combination of five markers was sufficient to identify all recurrent infections with an unrelated or different genotype profile compared with all previous episodes

Malaria in central Vietnam: analysis of risk factors by multivariate analysis and classification tree models

BACKGROUND: In Central Vietnam, forest malaria remains difficult to control due to the complex interactions between human, vector and environmental factors. METHODS: Prior to a community-based intervention to assess the efficacy of long-lasting insecticidal hammocks, a complete census (18,646 individuals) and a baseline cross-sectional survey for determining malaria prevalence and related risk factors were carried out. Multivariate analysis using survey logistic regression was combined to a classification tree model (CART) to better define the relative importance and inter-relations between the different risk factors. RESULTS: The study population was mostly from the Ra-glai ethnic group (88%), with both low education and socio-economic status and engaged mainly in forest activities (58%). The multivariate analysis confirmed forest activity, bed net use, ethnicity, age and education as risk factors for malaria infections, but could not handle multiple interactions. The CART analysis showed that the most important risk factor for malaria was the wealth category, the wealthiest group being much less infected (8.9%) than the lower and medium wealth category (16.6%). In the former, forest activity and bed net use were the most determinant risk factors for malaria, while in the lower and medium wealth category, insecticide treated nets were most important, although the latter were less protective among Ra-glai people. CONCLUSION: The combination of CART and multivariate analysis constitute a novel analytical approach, providing an accurate and dynamic picture of the main risk factors for malaria infection. Results show that the control of forest malaria remains an extremely complex task that has to address poverty-related risk factors such as education, ethnicity and housing conditions

Low perception of malaria risk among the Ra-glai ethnic minority in south-central Vietnam: implications for forest malaria control

BACKGROUND: Despite Vietnam's success in reducing malaria mortality and morbidity over the last decade, malaria persists in the forested and mountainous areas of the central and southern provinces, where more than 50% of the clinical cases and 90% of severe cases and malaria deaths occur. METHODS: Between July 2005 and September 2006, a multi-method study, triangulating a malariometric cross-sectional survey and qualitative data from focused ethnography, was carried out among the Ra-glai ethnic minority in the hilly forested areas of south-central Vietnam. RESULTS: Despite the relatively high malaria burden among the Ra-glai and their general awareness that mosquitoes can transmit an unspecific kind of fever (84.2%), the use of bed nets, distributed free of charge by the national malaria control programme, remains low at the farmers' forest fields where the malaria risk is the highest. However, to meet work requirements during the labour intensive malaria transmission and rainy season, Ra-glai farmers combine living in government supported villages along the road with a second home or shelter at their slash and burn fields located in the forest. Bed net use was 84.6% in the villages but only 52.9% at the forest fields; 20.6% of the respondents slept unprotected in both places. Such low use may be explained by the low perception of the risk for malaria, decreasing the perceived need to sleep protected. Several reasons may account for this: (1) only 15.6% acknowledged the higher risk of contracting malaria in the forest than in the village; (2) perceived mosquito biting times only partially coincided with Anopheles dirus ss and Anopheles minimus A true biting times; (3) the disease locally identified as 'malaria' was hardly perceived as having an impact on forest farmers' daily lives as they were unaware of the specific kind of fevers from which they had suffered even after being diagnosed with malaria at the health centre (20.9%). CONCLUSIONS: The progressive confinement of malaria to minority groups and settings in the Greater Mekong sub-region implies that further success in malaria control will be linked to research into these specific socio-cultural contexts. Findings highlight the need for context sensitive malaria control policies; not only to reduce the local malaria burden but also to minimize the risk of malaria spreading to other areas where transmission has virtually ceased

Epidemiology of forest malaria in central Vietnam: a large scale cross-sectional survey

In Vietnam, a large proportion of all malaria cases and deaths occurs in the central mountainous and forested part of the country. Indeed, forest malaria, despite intensive control activities, is still a major problem which raises several questions about its dynamics. A large-scale malaria morbidity survey to measure malaria endemicity and identify important risk factors was carried out in 43 villages situated in a forested area of Ninh Thuan province, south central Vietnam. Four thousand three hundred and six randomly selected individuals, aged 10–60 years, participated in the survey. Rag Lays (86%), traditionally living in the forest and practising "slash and burn" cultivation represented the most common ethnic group. The overall parasite rate was 13.3% (range [0–42.3] while Plasmodium falciparum seroprevalence was 25.5% (range [2.1–75.6]). Mapping of these two variables showed a patchy distribution, suggesting that risk factors other than remoteness and forest proximity modulated the human-vector interactions. This was confirmed by the results of the multivariate-adjusted analysis, showing that forest work was a significant risk factor for malaria infection, further increased by staying in the forest overnight (OR= 2.86; 95%CI [1.62; 5.07]). Rag Lays had a higher risk of malaria infection, which inversely related to education level and socio-economic status. Women were less at risk than men (OR = 0.71; 95%CI [0.59; 0.86]), a possible consequence of different behaviour. This study confirms that malaria endemicity is still relatively high in this area and that the dynamics of transmission is constantly modulated by the behaviour of both humans and vectors. A well-targeted intervention reducing the "vector/forest worker" interaction, based on long-lasting insecticidal material, could be appropriate in this environment

A NOVEL DATASET FOR VIETNAMESE NEW YEAR FOOD CLASSIFICATION

Food classification has always piqued the interest of both domestic and international researchers, but numerous challenges remain. We present the dataset UIT-TASTET21, which contains over 77,000 color images of 18 traditional Vietnamese Lunar New Year dishes. We have experimented with classification using feature vectors from network architectures such as VGG16, Inception-v3, ResNet-50, Xception, and MobileNet-v2 to train support vector machines (SVMs), meeting the dataset’s challenges and laying the groundwork for the development of many optimal methods in the future that promise scientific breakthroughs in the service and commercial industries. At the same time, the authors desire to share a piece of Vietnamese cuisine’s distinctiveness with worldwide friends

THÀNH PHẦN LOÀI VÀ SINH KHỐI CỎ BIỂN TẠI ĐẦM SAM CHUỒN VÀ HÀ TRUNG, TỈNH THỪA THIÊN HUẾ

This research was conducted at Sam Chuon and Ha Trung lagoons, Thua Thien Hue province. The research has identified 5 seagrass species including Halophila beccarii, Zostera japonica, Halodule pinifolia, Halodule uninervis and Ruppia maritima in Sam Chuon and Ha Trung lagoons. The total biomass of seagrass fluctuates seasonally. In the dry season, the total biomass of seagrass at research station S6 is highest at 136.23 g/m2 and lowest at research stations H7 and H8 at 0.64 g/m2. In the rainy season, sampling station S6 also recorded the highest total biomass with a value of 113.20 g/m2, the lowest at two stations H7 and H8 with 0.64 g/m2. Halodule uninervis and Ruppia maritima are the dominant species, which appeared in 11/14 stations in total. While Ruppia maritima is only recognized at 3/14 stations in total.Nghiên cứu này được tiến hành khảo sát tại đầm Sam Chuồn và Hà Trung thuộc hệ đầm phá Tam Giang - Cầu Hai, tỉnh Thừa Thiên Huế. Nghiên cứu đã xác định được năm loài cỏ biển là Halophila beccarii (cỏ Nàn), Zostera japonica (cỏ Lươn nhật), Halodule pinifolia (cỏ Hẹ tròn), Halodule uninervis (cỏ Hẹ ba răng) và loài Ruppia maritima (cỏ Kim biển) phân bố tại đầm Sam Chuồn và Hà Trung. Tổng sinh khối của cỏ biển có sự biến động theo mùa. Vào mùa khô, tổng sinh khối của cỏ biển tại trạm nghiên cứu S6 cao nhất với 136,23 g/m2 và thấp nhất tại trạm nghiên cứu H7 và H8 với 0,64 g/m2. Vào mùa mưa tại trạm thu mẫu S6 cũng ghi nhận tổng sinh khối của cỏ biển cao nhất với giá trị đạt được 113,20 g/m2, thấp nhất tại hai trạm nghiên cứu H7 và H8 với 0,64 g/m2. Loài Halodule uninervis (cỏ Hẹ ba răng) chiếm ưu thế hơn cả với sự ghi nhận tại 11/14 trạm thu mẫu. Và loài Ruppia maritima (cỏ Kim biển) chỉ ghi nhận xuất hiện tại 3/14 trạm thu mẫu