An Investigation of Three Subjective Rating Scales of Mental Workload in Third Level Education

Mental Workload assessment in educational settings is still recognized as an open research problem. Although its application is useful for instructional design, it is still unclear how it can be formally shaped and which factors compose it. This paper is aimed at investigating a set of features believed to shape the construct of mental workload and aggregating them together in models trained with supervised machine learning techniques. In detail, multiple linear regression and decision trees have been chosen for training models with features extracted respectively from the NASA Task Load Index and the Workload Profile, well-known self-reporting instruments for assessing mental workload. Additionally, a third feature set was formed as a combination of the two aforementioned feature sets and a number of other features believed to contribute to mental workload modeling in education. Models were trained with cross-validation due to the limited sample size. On the one hand, results show how the features of the NASA Task Load index are more expressive for a regression problem than the other two feature sets. On the other hand, results show how the newly formed feature set can lead to the development of models of the mental workload with a lower error when compared to models built with the other two feature sets and when employed for a classification task

Factors Affecting Credit Access of Individual Business Households in ho chi Minh City, Vietnam

Purpose: The study studies the factors affecting access to credit of individual business households in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Vietnam. The authors proposed policy implications based on research results that improve access to credit for individual business households.   Theoretical framework: Access to formal credit can be understood in many ways. This article considers that access to proper credit is the ability of a customer to use the capital of a traditional credit institution based on meeting financial obligations - emphasizing the ability to repay both principal and interest.   Design/methodology/approach: The authors chose a mixed method to conduct the study. This is a suitable research method to answer the research questions raised. Mixed methods include both qualitative and quantitative methods. However, this combination is the implementation of interlacing, replacing the two approaches to solve each problem, the research design's specific goal. The authors analyzed Data from May 2022 to December 2022 in HCMC based on the EFA and CFA, using the structural equation model analysis (SEM) method with SPSS 20.0 software and Amos.   Findings: The article's findings showed five factors affecting access to credit of individual business households in HCMC, Vietnam. In particular, the loan procedure factor substantially impacts the five factors affecting credit access.   Research, Practical & Social implications: The study has provided empirical evidence on the factors affecting formal credit access by a linear structural model and provides evidence that factors such as the loan procedure affect traditional credit affecting access to credit.   Originality/value: The authors give some policy implications for state management agencies, credit institutions, customers, and mass organizations, such as increasing the role of local Government and increasing the ability to use banks, E-commerce, design new loan products to help individual business households access more formal capital, and at the same time, reduce black credit

A Fuzzy LQR PID Control for a Two-Legged Wheel Robot with Uncertainties and Variant Height

This paper proposes a fuzzy LQR PID control for a two-legged wheeled balancing robot for keeping stability against uncertainties and variant heights. The proposed control includes the fuzzy supervisor, LQR, PID, and two calibrations. The fuzzy LQR is conducted to control the stability and motion of the robot while its posture changes with respect to time. The fuzzy supervisor is used to adjust the LQR control according to the robotic height. It consists of one input and one output. The input and output have three membership functions, respectively, to three postures of the robot. The PID control is used to control the posture of the robot. The first calibration is used to compensate for the bias value of the tilting angle when the robot changes its posture. The second calibration is applied to compute the robotic height according to the hip angle. In order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control, a practical robot with the variant height is constructed, and the proposed control is embedded in the control board. Finally, two experiments are also conducted to verify the balancing and moving ability of the robot with the variant posture

Heat Stress Affects Seed Set and Grain Quality of Vietnamese Rice Cultivars during Heading and Grain Filling Period

Environmental stress trigger a variety of rice plant response, ranging from alters seed set, grain yield and grain quality during flowering and grain filling stage.  Efforts are required to improve our understanding of the impact of heat stress on rice production, which are essential strategies in rice cultivation. This article investigated the seed set, yield components and grain yield of Vietnamese rice cultivars (Indica germplasm) under high temperature environment during the flowering and grain filling stage. Six rice cultivars, including popular cultivars and new cultivars of Cuu Long Delta Rice Research Institute, and one popular extraneous cultivar with differences in maturing time, were grown in pots at high temperature (HT) and natural temperature condition as control (CT). All rice cultivars were subjected to the high temperature starting from the heading stage to the harvest maturity, applied by greenhouse effect. The greenhouse has about 25 cm window opening on 3 sides for air ventilation. The seed set rate of the heat-sensitive rice genotypes decreased significantly under HT, leading to a significant reduction in grain yield. The lowest seed set was recorded in “OM4900” (44.3%) and “OM18” (39.9%) under high temperature environment. The lower yield in all rice cultivars at an elevated temperature resulted in a dramatic decrease of filled grains and contributed to a loss of 1000-grain weight. ‘“OM892” is a potential rice cultivar for heat tolerant breeding program due to the seed set percentage was above 80% in both HT and CT conditions. High temperature during the grain filling stage resulted in a decreased amylose and increased chalkiness for all OM cultivars

In vitro bioactivities of Codonopsis javanica root extract from Kon Tum province, Vietnam

Dangshen Codonopsis javanica exhibits invaluable medicinal properties in herbal remedies; however, there has currently not been much specific analysis of the phytochemicals and bioactivities of this plant. The root ethanol extract of C. javanica contains substances such as saponins, phenolic acids, terpenoids, and alkaloids. It displays an antibacterial effect against Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, and Bacillus cereus with the IC50 values of 150, 100, 150, and 90 μg/mL, respectively. The antioxidant capacity of the root extract was also observed with an IC50 value of 46.8 ± 6.8 μg/mL. Furthermore, the extract exhibits activity on human cancer cell lines HepG2 (IC50 = 83.6 ± 2.7 μg/mL) and MCF-7 (IC50 = 95.3 ± 2.3 μg/mL). Hence, this study provides the basic data for further research on the bioactivities of natural compounds of Dangshen C. javanica for the first time

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

Aquilaria yunnanensis S.C. Huang (Thymelaeaceae), A New Record for the Flora of Vietnam

Aquilaria yunnanensis S.C. Huang (Thymelaeaceae), known to be endemic to Yunnan, is recorded for the first time from Dong Son Ky Thuong Nature Reserve, Quang Ninh Province, Vietnam. A taxonomic description and DNA analysis based on our Vietnamese collections are presented, together with information on its distribution, habitat and colour photographs

Multilocus sequence typing of Cryptococcus neoformans var. grubii from Laos in a regional and global context.

Cryptococcosis causes approximately 180 000 deaths each year in patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Patients with other forms of immunosuppression are also at risk, and disease is increasingly recognized in apparently immunocompetent individuals. Cryptococcus neoformans var. grubii, responsible for the majority of cases, is distributed globally. We used the consensus ISHAM Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) scheme to define the population structure of clinical C. neoformans var. grubii isolates from Laos (n = 81), which we placed into the global context using published MLST data from other countries (total N = 1047), including a reanalysis of 136 Vietnamese isolates previously reported. We observed a phylogeographical relationship in which the Laotian population was similar to its neighbor Thailand, being dominated (83%) by Sequence Types (ST) 4 and 6. This phylogeographical structure changed moving eastwards, with Vietnam's population consisting of an admixture of isolates dominated by the ST4/ST6 (35%) and ST5 (48%) lineages. The ST5 lineage is the predominant ST reported from China and East Asia, where it accounts for >90% of isolates. Analysis of genetic distance (Fst) between different populations of C. neoformans var. grubii supports this intermediate structure of the Vietnamese population. The pathogen and host diversity reported from Vietnam provide the strongest epidemiological evidence of the association between ST5 and HIV-uninfected patients. Regional anthropological genetic distances suggest diversity in the C. neoformans var. grubii population across Southeast Asia is driven by ecological rather than human host factors. Where the ST5 lineage is present, disease in HIV-uninfected patients is to be expected

Comparative genomics of Cryptococcus neoformans var. grubii associated with meningitis in HIV infected and uninfected patients in Vietnam.

The vast burden of cryptococcal meningitis occurs in immunosuppressed patients, driven by HIV, and is caused by Cryptococcus neoformans var. grubii. We previously reported cryptococcal meningitis in Vietnam arising atypically in HIV uninfected, apparently immunocompetent patients, caused by a single amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) cluster of C. neoformans var. grubii (VNIγ). This variant was less common in HIV infected individuals; it remains unclear why this lineage is associated with apparently immunocompetent patients. To study this host tropism we aimed to further our understanding of clinical phenotype and genomic variation within Vietnamese C. neoformans var. grubii. After performing MLST on C. neoformans clinical isolates we identified 14 sequence types (STs); ST5 correlated with the VNIγ cluster. We next compared clinical phenotype by lineage and found HIV infected patients with cryptococcal meningitis caused by ST5 organisms were significantly more likely to have lymphadenopathy (11% vs. 4%, p = 0.05 Fisher's exact test) and higher blood lymphocyte count (median 0.76 versus 0.55 X109 cells/L, p = 0.001, Kruskal-Wallis test). Furthermore, survivors of ST5 infections had evidence of worse disability outcomes at 70 days (72.7% (40/55) in ST5 infections versus 57.1% (52/91) non-ST5 infections (OR 2.11, 95%CI 1.01 to 4.41), p = 0.046). To further investigate the relationship between strain and disease phenotype we performed genome sequencing on eight Vietnamese C. neoformans var. grubii. Eight genome assemblies exhibited >99% nucleotide sequence identity and we identified 165 kbp of lineage specific to Vietnamese isolates. ST5 genomes harbored several strain specific regions, incorporating 19 annotated coding sequences and eight hypothetical proteins. These regions included a phenolic acid decarboxylase, a DEAD-box ATP-dependent RNA helicase 26, oxoprolinases, a taurine catabolism dioxygenase, a zinc finger protein, membrane transport proteins and various drug transporters. Our work outlines the complexity of genomic pathogenicity in cryptococcal infections and identifies a number of gene candidates that may aid the disaggregation of the pathways associated with the pathogenesis of Cryptococcus neoformans var. grubii

Quantifying antimicrobial access and usage for paediatric diarrhoeal disease in an urban community setting in Asia.

OBJECTIVES: Antimicrobial-resistant infections are a major global health issue. Ease of antimicrobial access in developing countries is proposed to be a key driver of the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) epidemic despite a lack of community antimicrobial usage data. METHODS: Using a mixed-methods approach (geospatial mapping, simulated clients, healthcare utilization, longitudinal cohort) we assessed antimicrobial access in the community and quantified antimicrobial usage for childhood diarrhoea in an urban Vietnamese setting. RESULTS: The study area had a pharmacy density of 15.7 pharmacies/km2 (a pharmacy for every 1316 people). Using a simulated client method at pharmacies within the area, we found that 8% (3/37) and 22% (8/37) of outlets sold antimicrobials for paediatric watery and mucoid diarrhoea, respectively. However, despite ease of pharmacy access, the majority of caregivers would choose to take their child to a healthcare facility, with 81% (319/396) and 88% (347/396) of responders selecting a specialized hospital as one of their top three preferences when seeking treatment for watery and mucoid diarrhoea, respectively. We calculated that at least 19% (2688/14427) of diarrhoea episodes in those aged 1 to <5 years would receive an antimicrobial annually; however, antimicrobial usage was almost 10 times greater in hospitals than in the community. CONCLUSIONS: Our data question the impact of community antimicrobial usage on AMR and highlight the need for better education and guidelines for all professionals with the authority to prescribe antimicrobials