Primary Evaluation on Growth Performances of Stress Negative Piétrain Pigs Raised in Hai Phong Province of Vietnam

peer reviewedThe present study was carried out on 19 stress negative Piétrain pigs (Pietrain ReHal), consisting of 13 gilts and 6 young boars imported from Belgium, raised in the livestock farm of Dong Hiep (Hai Phong) in order to evaluate growth performances and their adaptability in the North of Vietnam. Results showed that the average body weight of the whole herd at 2, 4, 5.5, and 8.5 months old was 19.05, 51.05, 85.82, and 119.47 kg, respectively. During the growing periods, except the first stage, the male grew faster than the female and the pigs of the CT genotype grew faster than those of CC genotype although the difference was not significant (P>0.05). The average daily gain (ADG) was 528.56 grams for the whole herd. The ADG was higher for the male (546.48 grams) than for the female (520.29 grams), and its was higher for the CT than the CC, but the difference was not statistically significant (P>0.05). The feed conversion ratio (FCR) was 2.69 kg. The estimated lean percentage at 8.5 months old was 64.08%. The results indicate that Piétrain stress negative pigs could develop well on the farm conditions in Hai Phong, Vietnam

Variational and Strong Variational Convexity in Infinite-Dimensional Variational Analysis

This paper is devoted to a systematic study and characterizations of the fundamental notions of variational and strong variational convexity for lower semicontinuous functions. While these notions have been quite recently introduced by Rockafellar, the importance of them has been already recognized and documented in finite-dimensional variational analysis and optimization. Here we address general infinite-dimensional settings and derive comprehensive characterizations of both variational and strong variational convexity notions by developing novel techniques, which are essentially different from finite-dimensional counterparts. As a consequence of the obtained characterizations, we establish new quantitative and qualitative relationships between strong variational convexity and tilt stability of local minimizers in appropriate frameworks of Banach spaces

Local Minimizers of Nonconvex Functions in Banach Spaces via Moreau Envelopes

This paper investigates the preservation of local minimizers and strong minimizers of extended-real-valued lower semicontinuous functions under taking their Moreau envelopes. We address a general setting of Banach spaces, while all the obtained results are new even for functions in finite dimensions. Our main motivation came from applications to numerical methods in nonsmooth optimization dealing with broad classes of nondifferentiable and nonconvex functions. The paper also formulates and discusses some open questions stemming from this study

Prevalence and impact of myocardial injury among patients hospitalized with COVID-19

BackgroundMyocardial injury is a prevalent complication observed in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 and is strongly associated with severe illness and in-hospital mortality. However, the long-term consequences of myocardial injury on clinical outcomes remain poorly understood. This study aimed to assess the impact of myocardial injury on both acute-phase and long-term prognosis in COVID-19 patients.MethodsA retrospective, observational study was conducted on all patients who received treatment at the Intensive Care Center for COVID-19 patient, University Medical Center Ho Chi Minh City (UCICC), from August 3rd, 2021, to October 28th, 2021.ResultsA total of 582 patients were enrolled in the study, of which 55.3% were female. The mean age of participants was 63.3 ± 16.2. Out of these patients, 330 cases (56.8%) showed myocardial injury. Compared to patients without myocardial injury, those with myocardial injury were older and had a higher incidence of chronic diseases including hypertension, ischemic heart disease, atrial fibrillation, heart failure, diabetes mellitus, chronic kidney disease. They also presented with more severe respiratory failure upon admission and showed a more pronounced abnormality in inflammation and kidney function tests. Furthermore, the in-hospital mortality rate was significantly higher in the group with myocardial injury (49.7% vs 14.3%, p < 0.001). After adjusting for age, gender, comorbidities, renal function, and disease severity at admission, myocardial injury emerged as an independent risk factor for in-hospital mortality (OR = 3.758, 95% CI 1.854–7.678, p < 0.001). Among successfully discharged COVID-19 patients, the all-cause mortality rate after a median follow-up of 18.4 months was 7.9%. Patients with myocardial injury had a significantly higher long-term mortality rate compared to those without myocardial injury (14.0% vs. 3.2%, p < 0.001). However, multivariable Cox regression analysis did not find myocardial injury to be a significant predictor of long-term mortality (HR = 2.128, 95% CI 0.792–5.712, p = 0.134).ConclusionsMyocardial injury is a common and serious complication in hospitalized COVID-19 patients, associated with increased in-hospital mortality. However, it does not significantly impact long-term mortality in successfully discharged COVID-19 patients

The use of metaverse in maritime sector – a combination of social communication, hands on experiencing and digital twins

COVID-19 has caused challenges in traveling, sales activities, and teleconferencing is at the moment the main communication tool in industry. Various technologies have been introduced during the last a couple of years to increase the immersion of remote presence. Technologies, that can be called as a virtual reality social platform (VRSP) such as Glue, MootUp, Breakroom, LearnBrite, Virtway Events, Engage, AltspaceVR, and VirBELA are robust solutions for a small group of people to participate in the same event. In July 2021, both Microsoft CEO and Facebook CEO published their visions for remote presence, teleconferencing, and much more. Microsoft plans to build an enterprise metaverse (combining technologies such as AltspaceVR, Mesh, Teams, and HoloLens). Facebook in turn intends to transit their business from social media platform to metaverse provider. In February 2021, much before the metaverse enhancement of the big tech giants, Turku University of Applied Sciences started the development of its own metaverse technology. According to Nevelsteen (2018) metaverse is a virtual universe shared amongst its users allowing them to interact with each other within the boundaries of the platform. For TUAS the metaverse concept is a combination of social communication, hands on experiencing and digital twin integration. None of the mentioned VRSP technologies include all these three features neither Microsoft or Facebook have this type of vision. Moreover existing VRSP technologies typically have challenges such as update management, number of simultaneous users, usability, user experience, license policies, customization but also limited user interaction and user data gathering. In this paper, we will introduce our own metaverse technology. Research conducted at TUAS tested existing VRSPs, compared Unity and Unreal game engines in metaverse development and based on industry trend analysis revealed that Epic Games intends to focus on metaverse software development tools. On the other hand the use of Unreal limits user groups for VR and PC users. This research approach presented in this paper provides metaverse experiences to be used with various ways from VR/AR/XR to PCs and mobile phones. This way, users who have limited resources available are able to participate in metaverse applications where the user experience will vary based the available device. This paper introduces the TUAS metaverse technology, the first experiences of developing it and how the first prototype version of this technology has been used in various maritime sector projects. To demonstrate the technology a harbor area has been selected as a test environment. In the first test, AltspaceVR technology was used to develop the environment itself with features needed in virtual exhibition called Match XR. This will be followed by an experiment where the harbor environment with same functionalities will be moved to the TUAS metaverse technology. Finally, the paper reports how multiplayer concepts such as MarISOT command bridge training scenarios can be developed utilizing the TUAS metaverse technology

The acceptance of mobile applications for accommodation booking in Vietnam: Case of gen Z

The development of technology and smart mobile devices such as phones and tablets has changed the behavior of tourists when booking tourism services. Based on the technology acceptance model, this study aims to explore the factors influencing the intention to use mobile applications for accommodation booking among GENZ in Vietnam. The analysis of 218 users revealed that four factors influence the behavior of using mobile applications for booking: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and hedonic motivation. In addition to identifying the factors affecting usage intention, this study also proposes implications to assist developers and providers in improving their applications and developing suitable product strategies for the future