One-pot preparation of alumina-modified polysulfone-graphene oxide nanocomposite membrane for separation of emulsion-oil from wastewater

In recent years, polysulfone-based nanocomposite membranes have been widely used for contaminated water treatment because they comprise properties such as high thermal stability and chemical resistance. In this study, a polysulfone (PSf) nanocomposite membrane was fabricated using the wet-phase inversion method with the fusion of graphene oxide (GO) and alumina (Al2O3) nanoparticles. We also showed that GO-Al2O3 nanoparticles were synthesised successfully by using a one-pot hydrothermal method. The nanocomposite membranes were characterised by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherms, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and water contact angle. The loading of GO and Al2O3 was investigated to improve the hydrophilic and oil rejection of the matrix membrane. It was shown that by using 1.5 wt.% GO-Al2O3 loaded in polysulfone, ~74% volume of oil was separated from the oil/water emulsion at 0.87 bar and 30 min. This figure was higher than that of the process using the unmodified membrane (PSf/GO) at the same conditions, in which only ~60% volume of oil was separated. The pH, oil/water emulsion concentration, separation time, and irreversible fouling coefficient (FRw) were also investigated. The obtained results suggested that the GO-Al2O3 nanoparticles loaded in the polysulfone membrane might have potential use in oily wastewater treatment applications

Enhancing students' digital skills through promotion relationship between business and university to digital era integration

The rapid changes in the technology and labour market requires actions in education throughout the world. Currently, the Ministry of Education and Training in Vietnam provides guidelines and encourages universities and colleges to have direct interaction with industry partners to close skill gaps, especially in the digital era when universities lack updated resources for training. To prepare well essential skills for students at 8 higher education institutions in Vietnam, collaboration between industry partners and university is a must. This paper will explore how to develop a sustainable university-industry linkage at Phu Xuan University to enhance the digital capacity of students in the digital era. Reviewing existing university-industry linkages and proposing new activities and solutions for sustainable collaboration based on current practices will be presented in this paper

Spatial distribution of Culex mosquito abundance and associated risk factors in Hanoi, Vietnam

Japanese encephalitis (JE) is the major cause of viral encephalitis (VE) in most AsianPacific countries. In Vietnam, there is no nationwide surveillance system for JE due to lack of medical facilities and diagnoses. Culex tritaeniorhynchus, Culex vishnui, and Culex quin-quefasciatus have been identified as the major JE vectors in Vietnam. The main objective of this study was to forecast a risk map of Culex mosquitoes in Hanoi, which is one of the most densely populated cities in Vietnam. A total of 10,775 female adult Culex mosquitoes were collected from 513 trapping locations. We collected temperature and precipitation information during the study period and its preceding month. In addition, the other predictor variables (e.g., normalized difference vegetation index [NDVI], land use/land cover and human population density), were collected for our analysis. The final model selected for estimating the Culex mosquito abundance included centered rainfall, quadratic term rainfall, rice cover ratio, forest cover ratio, and human population density variables. The estimated spatial distribution of Culex mosquito abundance ranged from 0 to more than 200 mosquitoes per 900m2. Our model estimated that 87% of the Hanoi area had an abundance of mosquitoes from 0 to 50, whereas approximately 1.2% of the area showed more than 150 mosquitoes, which was mostly in the rural/peri-urban districts. Our findings provide better insight into understanding the spatial distribution of Culex mosquitoes and its associated environmental risk factors. Such information can assist local clinicians and public health policymakers to identify potential areas of risk for JE virus. Risk maps can be an efficient way of raising public awareness about the virus and further preventive measures need to be considered in order to prevent outbreaks and onwards transmission of JE virus

Multichannel Photon Counting Lidar Measurements Using USB-based Digital Storage Oscilloscope

We present a simple method of making multichannel photon counting measurements of weak lidar signal from large ranges, using commonly available USB-based digital storage oscilloscopes. The single photon pulses from compact photomultiplier tubes are amplified and stretched so that the pulses are large and broad enough to be sampled efficiently by the USB oscilloscopes. A software interface written in Labview is then used to count the number of photon pulses in each of the prescribed time bins to form the histogram of LIDAR signal. This method presents a flexible alternative to the modular multichannel scalers and facilitate the development of sensitive lidar systems

Class based Influence Functions for Error Detection

Influence functions (IFs) are a powerful tool for detecting anomalous examples in large scale datasets. However, they are unstable when applied to deep networks. In this paper, we provide an explanation for the instability of IFs and develop a solution to this problem. We show that IFs are unreliable when the two data points belong to two different classes. Our solution leverages class information to improve the stability of IFs. Extensive experiments show that our modification significantly improves the performance and stability of IFs while incurring no additional computational cost.Comment: Thang Nguyen-Duc, Hoang Thanh-Tung, and Quan Hung Tran are co-first authors of this paper. 12 pages, 12 figures. Accepted to ACL 202

Boundary Layer Transition Protuberance Tests at NASA JSC Arc-Jet Facility

A series of tests conducted recently at the NASA JSC arc -jet test facility demonstrated that a protruding tile material can survive the exposure to the high enthalpy flows characteristic of the Space Shuttle Orbiter re-entry environments. The tests provided temperature data for the protuberance and the surrounding smooth tile surfaces, as well as the tile bond line. The level of heating needed to slump the protuberance material was achieved. Protuberance failure mode was demonstrated

On the performance of NOMA in SWIPT systems with power-splitting relaying

This paper presents a decode-and-forward (DF) relaying protocol, namely power-splitting relaying (PSR), employed at relay nodes in NOMA technique. The PSR is considered for simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) systems. The relaying node is both energy harvesting from the received radio frequency (RF) signal and information forwarding to the destination. The outage performance and ergodic rate of the PSR are analyzed to realize the impacts of energy harvesting time, energy harvesting efficiency, power splitting ratio, source data rate, and the distance between the source and relay nodes. The simulation results show that NOMA schemes have the lower outage probability compared to the that of the conventional orthogonal multiple access (OMA) schemes at the destination node. Numerical results are provided to verify the findings

A Framework for paper submission recommendation system

Nowadays, recommendation systems play an indispensable role in many fields, including e-commerce, finance, economy, and gaming. There is emerging research on publication venue recommendation systems to support researchers when submitting their scientific work. Several publishers such as IEEE, Springer, and Elsevier have implemented their submission recommendation systems only to help researchers choose appropriate conferences or journals for submission. In this work, we present a demo framework to construct an effective recommendation system for paper submission. With the input data (the title, the abstract, and the list of possible keywords) of a given manuscript, the system recommends the list of top relevant journals or conferences to authors. By using state-of-the-art techniques in natural language understanding, we combine the features extracted with other useful handcrafted features. We utilize deep learning models to build an efficient recommendation engine for the proposed system. Finally, we present the User Interface (UI) and the architecture of our paper submission recommendation system for later usage by researchers

Monitoring for Plasmodium falciparum drug resistance to artemisinin and artesunate in Binh Phuoc Province, Vietnam: 1998-2009

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Artemisinin derivatives have been used for malaria treatment in Vietnam since 1989. Reported malaria cases have decreased from 1,672,000 with 4,650 deaths in 1991, to 91,635 with 43 deaths in 2006. Current national guidelines recommend artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT), although artesunate is still available as monotherapy through the private sector. Recent reports suggest that effectiveness of ACT and artesunate monotherapy has declined in western Cambodia. This study examined <it>Plasmodium falciparum </it>resistance patterns over 10 years in southwest Vietnam in infected patients treated with artemisinin compounds.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The study was conducted in two communes in Phuoc Long district, Binh Phuoc province, 100 km west of the Cambodian border. This was chosen as a likely site for emerging artemisinin resistance because of the high prevalence of <it>P. falciparum </it>malaria, and the length of time that artemisinin had been in use. In <it>vivo </it>and <it>in vitro </it>monitoring of <it>P. falciparum </it>susceptibility to anti-malarial drugs was conducted in 1998, 2001, 2004/5, and 2008/9. Patients with confirmed <it>P. falciparum </it>malaria received therapy with 5 or 7 days of artemisinin (1998 and 2001 respectively) or 7 days of artesunate</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In the four surveys, 270 patients were recruited and treated. The mean parasite clearance times differed between 1998, 2001 and 2004/5 (1.8, 2.3 and 2.1 days, P < 0.01) but not between 1998 and 2008/2009. The mean parasite clearance times were correlated with parasite density at day 0 (r = 0.4; P < 0.001). Treatment failure rates after PCR adjustment were 13.8%, 2.9%, 1.2%, and 0% respectively. Susceptibility of <it>P. falciparum </it>to artemisinin in <it>in vitro </it>tests was stable during the period, except for a rise in EC90 and EC99 in 2001.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This study showed stable levels of <it>P. falciparum </it>sensitivity to artemisinin compounds in the two sites over a ten-year period. The introduction of ACT in this area in 2003 may have protected against the development of artemisinin resistance. Adherence to the latest WHO and Vietnamese guidelines, which recommend ACT as first-line therapy in all malarious areas, and continued monitoring along the Vietnam-Cambodia border will be essential to prevent the spread of artemisinin resistance in Vietnam.</p