Measles Outbreak in Pediatric Oncology Patients at Hue Central Hospital

AIM: Measles outbreak in the immunocompromised population is a big challenge to interrupt endemic transmission. This study aimed to investigate of measles in pediatric oncology patients and find the reason behind the outbreak. METHODS: A descriptive study was conducted on 11 pediatric oncology patients with measles. We collected demographic, epidemiological, and clinical data. Most of suspected measles cases were done measles immunoglobulin M test and clinical data were followed up and analyzed by SPSS. RESULTS: From April 20, 2018, to July 10, 2019, a total of 11 patients with malignancies were notified to develop measles in Hue. Of these 11 patients with the median age of 4.0 years (range: 1–9 years), two patients had not received any dose of measles vaccine, five patients received two doses, and four patients had received 1 dose of measles vaccine; all patients had fever with the median fever of 39°C (range: 38.5–39.5), the median fever duration was 7 days. All patients had cough and rash, three patients had pneumonia complication and two patients had elevated liver transaminase levels. All patients had hospital visits or were hospitalized before measles onset, with the median time: 10 days (range: 7–24 days); all patients were likely to expose each other. All 11 patients recovered. CONCLUSIONS: The measles outbreak was occurred among children with cancer, especially for children without prior measles vaccine or without two prior doses. Moreover, even children received two prior dose vaccine, their immunocompromised status caused them to be infected. There was not a different area for outpatient and inpatient in the hospital, so measles transmission occurred

Sterols from stems of Momordica cochinchinesis (Lour.) Spreng.

Three known sterols, polypodine B (1), (22E,24R)-24-methylcholesta-2,22-diene-3β,5α,6β-triol (2) and chondrillasterol (3) were isolated from the stems of Momordica cochinchinesis (Lour.) Spreng. Their chemical structures were successfully determined using NMR and ESI-MS analysis as well as in comparison with the reported data. All compounds were reported from Momordica genus for the first time. Keywords. Momordica cochinchinesis, Cucurbitaceae, steroid

Robust control for a wheeled mobile robot to track a predefined trajectory in the presence of unknown wheel slips

In this paper, a robust controller for a nonholonomic wheeled mobile robot (WMR) is proposed for tracking a predefined trajectory in the presence of unknown wheel slips, bounded external disturbances, and model uncertainties. The whole control system consists of two closed loops. Specifically, the outer one is employed to control the kinematics, and the inner one is used to control the dynamics. The output of kinematic controller is adopted as the input of the inner (dynamic) closed loop. Furthermore, two robust techniques were utilized to assure the robustness. In particular, one is used in the kinematic controller to compensate the harmful effects of the unknown wheel slips, and the other is used in the dynamic controller to overcome the model uncertainties and bounded external disturbances. Thanks to this proposed controller, a desired tracking performance in which tracking errors converge asymptotically to zero is obtained. According to Lyapunov theory and LaSalle extension, the desired tracking performance is guaranteed to be achieved. The results of computer simulation have shown the validity and efficiency of the proposed controller

A Retrospective Cohort Study of Kawasaki Disease in Hue Central Hospital for 10 Years (2010-2019)

INTRODUCTION: Kawasaki disease (KD) is an acute self-limited systemic vasculitis of unknown etiology which affects mainly children <5 years of age. If the disease is left untreated, it can lead to serious complications such as inflammation of the blood vessels. AIM: We aim to evaluate the clinical and laboratory findings and response to therapy of KD at Hue Central Hospital. METHODS: This is a retrospective study of patients with KD at Pediatric Center of Hue Central Hospital between January 2010 and December 2019. Clinical and laboratory examinations as well as the echocardiograms finding were analyzed. RESULTS: All patients were under 5 years old, in which boys were more than girls. Fever lasting over 5 days, changing in the mouth mucosa, and peripheral extremities were seen in all patients. About 73.2% had bilateral conjunctivitis and 78.0% had rash. About 42.3% of patients had cervical lymphadenopathy. Laboratory findings were noted with 84.5% of patients had hyperleukocytosis (>12,000/ mm3), 76.2% of patients had high serum C-reactive protein (CRP) levels (>100 mg/dl), 56% of patients had erythrocyte sediment rate >60 mm in the 1st h, and 34.5% of patients had thrombocytosis (platelet count >500,000/mm3) at the time of diagnosis. About 26.2% of patients had coronary artery lesions. Most patients (84.4%) had good outcome since the first dose of gamma-globulin and 13% of patients needed the second dose. There was a significant correlation between coronary artery abnormalities and no or late treatment of gamma-globulin. CONCLUSION: KD was very common in children under 5 years old with the high rate of coronary artery lesion. Treatment with gamma-globulin on or before 10 days of fever resulted in better coronary outcomes and decreased the total length of time of clinical symptoms

Triterpenes and triterpene-glycoside from the leaves of Lawsonia inermis.

From the leaves of  Lawsonia inermis (syn. L. alba), two triterpenes augustic acid (1) and 1b,2a,3a,19a-tetrahydroxy-12-ursen-28-oic acid (2), and a triterpene-glycoside suavissimoside R1 (3) were isolated by using various chromatoghraphies. Their structures were characterized on the basis of the spectroscopic data (1D-NMR, HSQC, HMBC, ESI-MS) in comparison with the literature. This is the first report of 1 - 3 from Lawsonia species. Keywords: Lawsonia inermis, Lythraceae, Triterpene

Control of robot-camera system with actuator's dynamics to track moving object

This study presents a solution to the control of robot–camera system with actuator's dynamics to track a moving object where many uncertain parameters exist in the system’s dynamics. After modeling and analyzing the system, this paper suggests a new control method using an on-line learning neural network in closed-loop to control the Pan-Tilt platform that moves the Camera to keep track an unknown moving object. The control structure based on the image feature error determines the necessary rotational velocities on the Pan joint and Tilt joint and computes the voltage controlling the DC motor in joints such that the object image should always be at the center point in the image plane. The global asymptotic stability of the closed-loop is proven by the Lyapunov direct stability theory. Simulation results on Matlab show the system tracking fast and stable

Design of Compact 4 × 4 UWB-MIMO Antenna with WLAN Band Rejection

A compact 4 × 4 UWB-MIMO antenna with rejected WLAN band employing an electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) structure is presented in this paper. The MIMO antenna is electrically small (60 mm × 60 mm), printed on a FR4 epoxy substrate with the dielectric constant of 4.4 and a thickness of 1.6 mm. A mushroom-like EBG structure is used to reject the WLAN frequency at 5.5 GHz. In order to reduce the mutual coupling of the antenna elements, a stub structure acting as a bandstop filter is inserted to suppress the effect of the surface current between elements of the proposed antenna. The final design of the MIMO antenna satisfies the return loss requirement of less than −10 dB in a bandwidth ranging from 2.73 GHz to 10.68 GHz, which entirely covers UWB frequency band, which is allocated from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz. The antenna also exhibits a WLAN band-notched performance at the frequency band of 5.36-6.34 GHz while the values of all isolation coefficients are below −15 dB and the correlation coefficient of MIMO antenna is less than −28 dB over the UWB range. A good agreement between simulation and measurement is shown in this context

Design of Compact 4 × 4 UWB-MIMO Antenna with WLAN Band Rejection

A compact 4 × 4 UWB-MIMO antenna with rejected WLAN band employing an electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) structure is presented in this paper. The MIMO antenna is electrically small (60 mm × 60 mm), printed on a FR4_epoxy substrate with the dielectric constant of 4.4 and a thickness of 1.6 mm. A mushroom-like EBG structure is used to reject the WLAN frequency at 5.5 GHz. In order to reduce the mutual coupling of the antenna elements, a stub structure acting as a bandstop filter is inserted to suppress the effect of the surface current between elements of the proposed antenna. The final design of the MIMO antenna satisfies the return loss requirement of less than −10 dB in a bandwidth ranging from 2.73 GHz to 10.68 GHz, which entirely covers UWB frequency band, which is allocated from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz. The antenna also exhibits a WLAN band-notched performance at the frequency band of 5.36–6.34 GHz while the values of all isolation coefficients are below −15 dB and the correlation coefficient of MIMO antenna is less than −28 dB over the UWB range. A good agreement between simulation and measurement is shown in this context

Study on synthesis of some new derivatives of Malloapelta B isolated from Mallotus apelta

Six new benzopyran derivatives were synthesized by reduction reaction and Michael reaction from malloapelta B. Their structures were determined as 8-(1’-oxo-butyl)-5,7-dimethoxy-2,2-dimethyl-2H-1-benzopyran (2), 8-(1’-oxo-3’(R)-methyl-4’-acetyl-5’-oxo-hexyl)-5,7-dimethoxy-2,2-dimethyl-2H-1-benzopyran (3), 8-(1’-oxo-3’(R)-methyl-4’(S/R)-(methyl fomiate)-5’-oxo-hexyl)-5,7-dimethoxy-2,2-dimethyl-2H-1-benzopyran (4,4’), 8-(1’-oxo-3’(R)-methyl-4’(S/R)-(ethyl formiate)-5’-oxo-hexyl)-5,7-dimethoxy-2,2-dimethyl-2H-1-benzopyran (5,5’) by spectroscopic data, including two-dimensional NMR techniques and ESI spectrum.Keywords: Malloapelta B; Michael reaction; reduction reaction; 5,7-dimethoxy-2,2-dimethyl-2H-1-benzopyran