Epidemiology and Clinical Features of Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever in Ho Chi Minh City and the Centre for Tropical Diseases; Viet Nam

Dengue haemorrhagic fever (DHF) is one of the major infectious diseases in Viet Nam. In the south of Viet Nam, DHF occurs all the year round. The number of DHF cases has been recorded as the greatest one among many countries in the world (1983: 77,087 cases and 1,301 deaths; 1987: 83,905 cases and 904 deaths). The DHF morbidity rate in children in south of Viet Nam was high (380.73/100,000 population in the 1983 epidemic and 378.37/100,000 population in the 1987 epidemic). The mortality rate in Ho Chi Minh city (1981-1990) is 1.05 (/100,000 population) and the mean mortality rate (/total of cases) is 0.55%. The majority of confirmed cases were children of 5-9 years old. In the DHF with shock, hepatomegaly relates to the severe grades. In the traetment of DHF without shock, patients were given fluid to drink on the first day to prevent shock

Monitoring Heart Rate Variability Based on Self-powered ECG Sensor Tag

This paper proposes a batteryless sensing and computational device to collect and process electrocardiography (ECG) signals for monitoring heart rate variability (HRV). The proposed system comprises of a passive UHF radio frequency identification (RFID) tag, an extreme low power microcontroller, a low-power ECG circuit, and a radio frequency (RF) energy harvester. The microcontroller and ECG circuits consume less power of only ~30 µA and ~3 mA, respectively. Therefore, the proposed RF harvester operating at frequency band of 902 MHz ~ 928 MHz can sufficiently collect available energy from the RFID reader to supply power to the system within a maximum distance of ~2 m. To extract R-peak of the ECG signal, a robust algorithm that consumes less time processing is also developed. The information of R-peaks is stored into an Electronic Product Code (EPC) Class 1st Generation 1st compliant ID of the tag and read by the reader. This reader is functioned to collected the R-peak data with sampling rate of 100ms; therefore, the user application can monitor fully range of HRV. The performance of the proposed system shows that this study can provide a good solution in paving the way to new classes of healthcare applications

Spatial configuration of traditional houses and apartment unit plans in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: A comparative study

The study aims to investigate the effects of the spatial configuration of traditional Vietnamese houses on the design of apartment buildings in Ho Chi Minh (HCM) City, Vietnam. To achieve the objective, the following approaches were implemented. Firstly, the transformation of the socio-economic structure in HCM City, which is a primary factor affecting the development of apartment buildings was examined. Secondly, the well-known space syntax method for analyzing the spatial structure plan was outlined. Thirdly, a survey of traditional houses and apartment buildings from 1960 to 2010 was conducted. Among the various traditional house styles, the Hue traditional garden house, which has primary effects on the modern housing design in HCM City, was selected as a representative sample to compare with apartment units. Lastly, the space syntax method was employed to analyze the spatial structure of the sample of traditional houses and apartment units. The effects of the Hue traditional house’s spatial configuration on apartment buildings were analyzed. The result shows that the spatial configuration of modern apartment buildings and traditional houses have similar characteristics, including having an adaptable natural environment, and they both reflect Vietnamese culture and society. The findings can be applied when predicting development trends for the unit plans of modern apartments in HCM City, Vietnam. © 2021. All Rights Reserved

Spatial configuration of traditional houses and apartment unit plans in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: A comparative study

The study aims to investigate the effects of the spatial configuration of traditional Vietnamese houses on the design of apartment buildings in Ho Chi Minh (HCM) City, Vietnam. To achieve the objective, the following approaches were implemented. Firstly, the transformation of the socio-economic structure in HCM City, which is a primary factor affecting the development of apartment buildings was examined. Secondly, the well-known space syntax method for analyzing the spatial structure plan was outlined. Thirdly, a survey of traditional houses and apartment buildings from 1960 to 2010 was conducted. Among the various traditional house styles, the Hue traditional garden house, which has primary effects on the modern housing design in HCM City, was selected as a representative sample to compare with apartment units. Lastly, the space syntax method was employed to analyze the spatial structure of the sample of traditional houses and apartment units. The effects of the Hue traditional house’s spatial configuration on apartment buildings were analyzed. The result shows that the spatial configuration of modern apartment buildings and traditional houses have similar characteristics, including having an adaptable natural environment, and they both reflect Vietnamese culture and society. The findings can be applied when predicting development trends for the unit plans of modern apartments in HCM City, Vietnam

Unsupervised Detection of Anomalous Sound for Machine Condition Monitoring using Fully Connected U-Net

Anomaly detection in the sound from machines is an important task in machine monitoring. An autoencoder architecture based on the reconstruction error using a log-Mel spectrogram feature is a conventional approach for this domain. However, because of the non-stationary nature of some sounds from the target machine, such a conventional approach does not perform well in those circumstances. In this paper, we propose a novel approach regarding the choice of used features and a new auto-encoder architecture. We created the Mixed Feature, which is a mixture of different sound representations, and a new deep learning method called Fully-Connected U-Net, a form of autoencoder architecture. With experiments on the same dataset as the baseline system, using the same architecture for all types of machines, the experimental results showed that our methods outperformed the baseline system in terms of the AUC and pAUC evaluation metrics. The optimized model achieved 83.38% AUC and 64.51% pAUC on average overall machine types on the developed dataset and outperformed the published baseline by 13.43% AUC and 8.13% pAUC

Challenges and Lessons Learned in the Development of a Participatory Learning and Action Intervention to Tackle Antibiotic Resistance: Experiences From Northern Vietnam

Antibiotic use in the community for humans and animals is high in Vietnam, driven by easy access to over-the counter medicines and poor understanding of the role of antibiotics. This has contributed to antibiotic resistance levels that are amongst the highest in the world. To address this problem, we developed a participatory learning and action (PLA) intervention. Here we describe challenges and lessons learned while developing and testing this intervention in preparation for a large-scale One Health trial in northern Vietnam. We tested the PLA approach using community-led photography, and then reflected on how this approach worked in practice. We reviewed and discussed implementation documentation and developed and refined themes. Five main themes were identified related to challenges and lessons learned: understanding the local context, stakeholder relationship development, participant recruitment, building trust and motivation, and engagement with the topic of antibiotics and antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Partnerships with national and local authorities provided an important foundation for building relationships with communities, and enhanced visibility and credibility of activities. Partnership development required managing relationships, clarifying roles, and accommodating different management styles. When recruiting participants, we had to balance preferences for top-down and bottom-up approaches. Building trust and motivation took time and was challenged by limited study team presence in the community. Open discussions around expectations and appropriate incentives were re-visited throughout the process. Financial incentives provided initial motivation to participate, while less tangible benefits like collective knowledge, social connections, desire to help the community, and new skills, sustained longer-term motivation. Lack of awareness and perceived importance of the problem of AMR, affected initial motivation. Developing mutual understanding through use of common and simplified language helped when discussing the complexities of this topic. A sense of ownership emerged as the study progressed and participants understood more about AMR, how it related to their own concerns, and incorporated their own ideas into activities. PLA can be a powerful way of stimulating community action and bringing people together to tackle a common problem. Understanding the nuances of local power structures, and allowing time for stakeholder relationship development and consensus-building are important considerations when designing engagement projects

Changes in urban planning and recommendation for future planning in Ho Chi Minh City

In Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) is one of the largest populous cities. This city is also a relatively young city with less than 300 years of history. With a population increasing each year rapidly, a total of 8,837,544 million (2019), along with the rapid pace of economic and urban development, HCMC is facing challenges concerning urban planning that come into direct conflict with conservation efforts of its cultural heritage (Dynamics, World population review, 2020). This study aims to investigate existing urban planning issues and provide planning guidelines for HCMC. In addition to the study of the historical development of the urban planning of HCMC, this study attempts to analyze the existing problems of HCMC and tailor an urban planning design that fits its characteristic urban profile. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

Research on Consumer Behavior of Wine in HoChiMinh City

This study was conducted to find out the factors affecting the consumers’ choice of wine in HoChiMinh City, Vietnam. The multiple regression model was not statistically significant for finding the relationship between the factors and the Money spent on wine, so discriminant analysis method was used to evaluate the contribution of factors to the differentiation between consumers’ group presented by average bottle consumed per month. The Symbolic benefit factor turned out to be the strongest, followed by Enjoyment benefit factor and Utilitarian & Experiental benefit factor. The findings were used to provide suggestions for wine marketers in Ho Chi Minh City market

Đánh giá Chất lượng dịch vụ Ngân hàng điện tử tại Việt Nam

Sự phát triển nhanh chóng của công nghệ thông tin trong suốt những năm 90 đã khiến cho nhiều ngân hàng đã dùng internet như là một kênh thị trường để cung cấp các lọai hình dịch vụ 24 giờ mỗi ngày. Thông qua ngân hàng điện tử, khách hàng có thể kiểm sóat nhiều hơn nhu cầu về ngân hàng của họ thông qua việc tương tác với trang web của ngân hàng (Awad, 2000). Việc các ngân hàng cung cấp cho khách hàng các dịch vụ có chất lượng cao để tồn tại trong ngành ngân hàng điện tử là rất quan trọng (Mefford, 1993). Hiện có rất ít lý thuyết điều tra các nhân tố ảnh hưởng đến chất lượng dịch vụ trong ngành ngân hàng điện tử (Jun & Cai, 2001). Nghiên cứu này nhắm đến đối tượng khách hàng cá nhân đang sử dụng dịch vụ ngân hàng điện tử tại Việt Nam. Phương pháp nghiên cứu định lượng, vận dụng mô hình e-SERVQUAL. Thang đo được đánh giá bằng phương pháp phân tích nhân tố khám phá EFA và hệ số tin cậy Cronbach alpha, sau đó phân tích hồi qui bội được sử dụng để kiểm định mô hình nghiên cứu