Cost of healthcare services in patients with chronic rhinosinusitis from the public hospital perspective: a retrospective prevalence-based costing approach

Context: Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is a high-incidence health concern and therefore cause a high economic burden. Aim: To evaluate the direct medical cost in CRS treatment. The findings of this research promised as a real evidence on decision-making. Methods: This study was designed as a cost analysis study based on prevalent rate. The electronic database of a public hospital was used to find out the demographic characteristics and costs associated with CRS from healthcare provider (hospital), patient and third-party (health insurance) perspective. Data on 4,894 individuals with CRS treated at the Ear-Nose-Throat Hospital collected from 2015 to 2017 were analyzed. Results: The age of majority was between 33 and 55 years, and the number of patients with insurance increased annually. About 35% of participants came from Ho Chi Minh City, and the median length of stay was 6 days. The direct medical costs per year per episode were 700.13 USD with health insurance and 1066.26 USD without health insurance. Treatment costs were found to be significantly different among years. The factors that directly influenced medical costs were gender, health insurance, and type of CRS. Conclusions: This analysis states for the first time the specific costs for CRS, which would provide public health professionals with estimated the economic burden of CRS. The study provides a baseline treatment cost of CRS that can be used by future studies for comparison

On the Interference Alignment Designs for Secure Multiuser MIMO Systems

In this paper, we propose two secure multiuser multiple-input multiple-output transmission approaches based on interference alignment (IA) in the presence of an eavesdropper. To deal with the information leakage to the eavesdropper as well as the interference signals from undesired transmitters (Txs) at desired receivers (Rxs), our approaches aim to design the transmit precoding and receive subspace matrices to minimize both the total inter-main-link interference and the wiretapped signals (WSs). The first proposed IA scheme focuses on aligning the WSs into proper subspaces while the second one imposes a new structure on the precoding matrices to force the WSs to zero. When the channel state information is perfectly known at all Txs, in each proposed IA scheme, the precoding matrices at Txs and the receive subspaces at Rxs or the eavesdropper are alternatively selected to minimize the cost function of an convex optimization problem for every iteration. We provide the feasible conditions and the proofs of convergence for both IA approaches. The simulation results indicate that our two IA approaches outperform the conventional IA algorithm in terms of average secrecy sum rate.Comment: Updated version, updated author list, accepted to be appear in IEICE Transaction

MARITIME SECURITY POLICY OF INDIA IN EARLY 21ST CENTURY: VIETNAM’S PERCEPTION OF ITS IMPLICATION ON THE ASIA-PACIFIC REGION

Since the early 21st century, the Asia-Pacific has become a dynamic region of development by some powerful countries in the world such as the United States (US), India, China, and Russia. Thus, the issue of ensuring maritime security to develop sea trade plays a central role in the strategies of these countries. From India’s perspective, maritime security in the Indian Ocean – Pacific Ocean is a deciding factor in the development, affirming its position and creating a balance of power in the country in comparison with other countries in the region. Nevertheless, the developed sea trade of India has faced challenges from various countries including the US, and China. Therefore, India has promoted a cooperative relationship with Vietnam to guarantee maritime security for Indian traders in the region. This paper aims to provide general information about maritime security as well as to determine and estimate India’s maritime security strategies. Additionally, it will present the role of Vietnam in India’s maritime security policies. The findings show that both nations, India and Vietnam have adequate backup strategies, which is the foundation for developing sea trade sustainability. Furthermore, India and Vietnam will play an increasingly strong role in the Asia-Pacific in the future.

Exploring knowledge and attitudes toward the hepatitis B virus: an internet-based study among Vietnamese healthcare students

Context: Hepatitis B is a serious global public health problem, especially in developing countries such as Vietnam. Many studies worldwide have focused on health care workers, a population at high risk of infection with the hepatitis B virus (HBV), but there is little research that explores the high levels of risk faced by health care students. Aims: To assess the knowledge and attitudes of Vietnamese undergraduate students toward hepatitis B vaccination. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 1291 Vietnamese healthcare students between November 2017 and March 2018 via social media. Results: The mean score for knowledge was 4.0 ± 0.4, and the mean score for attitude was lower (3.5 ± 0.6). Levels of knowledge were higher (p<0.001) among sixth-year students, students who had been vaccinated, and students attending public universities. Most participants were well-informed about the diseases caused by HBV, with 1128 (87.4%) agreeing that HBV infection can lead to liver cancer. Nevertheless, 259 students believed that HBV cannot be spread by sharing a toothbrush with an infected person, and 18.7% thought that asymptomatic carriers are incapable of transmitting HBV. Conclusions: Although students had adequate knowledge of HBV, their scores for attitude and their rates of vaccination were low. This study therefore recommends improving the knowledge and attitudes of health care students through orientation and sensitization programs and improvements in their educational environment

Assessing the relationship between work-related factors and the quality of working life among nurses: A cross-sectional study in Laos

The quality of working life is crucial for improving work productivity, particularly among nurses, who often experience high levels of stress. This study aims to evaluate the quality of working life among nurses in Laos and identify the factors that influence it. A cross-sectional study was conducted among Laos nurses from August 2021 to July 2022. Data collection was conducted using an anonymous questionnaire distributed via the Internet. The Quality of Working Life version 2 (WRQoL-2) questionnaire, comprising 32 items divided into seven subscales, was employed to assess the quality of working life. Statistical tests such as t-tests, ANOVA, and Spearman correlation were applied to examine differences and correlations. A total of 326 participants were included, with an average age of 32.62±8.21 years. Among the seven subscales, the highest score was observed in the Job Career Satisfaction subscale (3.72±0.56), while the lowest score was found in the Safety at Work subscale (3.22±0.71). The overall mean score was 3.49±0.54. Significant differences in the quality of working life were observed among different groups categorized by age, job position, salary, and working hours. The WRQoL-2 questionnaire was found to be suitable for assessing the quality of working life in this study

Community Pharmacist’ attitudes towards counterfeit medicines in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Counterfeit medicines (CFMs) is a catastrophic public health issue that encompasses all therapeutic classes in Indonesia. It is a consensus that community pharmacists in many countries could contribute to preventing the distribution of CFMs. Information on community pharmacists’ attitudes regarding CFMs is lacking. This study explores the attitudes of community pharmacists in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, regards to CFMs. The specific aim was to identify the perceived reason, the method used to identify CFMs, and complemented with recommendations on what aspects are lacking today. A crosssectional study involving 350 community pharmacists in Yogyakarta province was conducted. A semistructured questionnaire assessed the components of their attitude toward CFMs. The Likert-scale statements were implemented to best describe pharmacists’ attitudes in responding to specific questions. Most community pharmacists perceived a business profit induced by exceeded market demand and a medicine shortage as significant reasons for CFMs in Indonesia. They are confident in identifying CFMs through the medicine’s appearance, packaging, and noticeable price difference. This study captures the need for enforcing regulators to take more responsibility for specific CFMs regulations and build a centralized system for reporting the potential cases of CFMs, allowing for continuous country CFMs surveillance. Community pharmacists could be a crucial supporting function in preventing CFMs from reaching patients. To enhance their role, a robust reporting system is urged to be adopted and socialized in a massive way

Performance of DASH over Multipath TCP

Recently, dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP (DASH) is a dominated traffic in Internet. The client requests a suitable representation depending on the current network condition. On the other hand, multipath transmission control protocols emerges as potential data transmission utilizing multiple network paths concurrently. In this paper, we conduct extensively experiments to evaluate the performance of DASH over MPTCP. Four different performance metrics are investigated, i.e., time on high quality, impactful switches, switch frequency, and average bitrate. The results show that the performance of DASH decreases when the paths of MPTCP have different bandwidths

Enhancement of current-voltage characteristics of multilayer organic light emitting diodes by using nanostructured composite films

With the aim of improving the photonic efficiency of an organic light emitting diode (OLED) and its display duration, both the hole transport layer (HTL) and the emitting layer (EL) were prepared as nanostructured thin films. For the HTL, nanocomposite films were prepared by spin-coating a homogeneous solution of low molecular weight poly(4-styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT-PSS) and surfactant-capped TiO2 nanocrystals onto low resistivity indium tin oxide (ITO) substrates; for the EL, nancrystalline titatium oxide (nc-TiO2)-embedded Poly[2-methoxy-5-(2′-ethyl-hexyloxy)-1,4-phenylene vinylene] (MEH-PPV+nc-TiO2) conjugate polymers were spin-coated onto the HTL. Also, for a shallow contact of Al/LiF/MEH-PPV instead of Al/MEH-PPV a super LiF thin film was deposited onto the EL by vacuum evaporation. The resulting multilayer OLED had the following structure of Al/LiF/MEH-PPV+nc-TiO2/PEDOT-PSS+nc-TiO2/ITO. Characterization of the nanocomposite films showed that both the current-voltage (I-V) characteristics and the photoluminescent properties of the nanocomposite materials were significantly enhanced in comparison with the standard polymers. OLEDs made from these layers would exhibit a large photonic efficiency

Practice skills and compliance of private pharmacies with regulations on the prescription drug: A multi-method study in Vietnam

Professional practice of pharmacists plays a crucial role in the reinforcement of drug retailers’ services to achieve optimal health care provision to customers. To evaluate the professional skills and compliance of retail pharmacy staff with selling prescription drugs by surveying patients’ knowledge of drugs and role-playing the customer buying antibiotics without a prescription. A cross-sectional study was conducted with two kinds of surveys at 480 drug retail establishments using the cluster sample technique among 12 provinces/cities in Vietnam. Clients were interviewed to assess their knowledge about drugs. Moreover, the method of acting as a client was used in two common scenarios in order to evaluate the implementation of professional regulations and professional practice skills of drug sellers: a child acute respiratory infection (ARI) case and an amoxicillin case without a prescription. The data were presented as frequency and percentage. The basic tests were used to compare the ratios and means between the two groups. The total number of interviewed customers was 2389 while the figure for role-playing was 960 cases. When customers buy medications with a prescription, 100% of those were fully aware of the dosage of the drugs they purchased, which was higher than the scenario of buying without a prescription (93.1%). In role-play scenarios, the rate of drug sellers asking patients to explore information was higher in the ARI children case than in the amoxicillin case. Besides, 100% of customers were consulted on treatment in both cases, and the rate of advising was at a low rate in both scenarios 3.8% in the amoxicillin case compared to 15.4% in the ARI case. Drug sellers did not respond well to requirements in professional practice and were influenced by economic concerns in business

Tuberculosis among economic migrants: a cross-sectional study of the risk of poor treatment outcomes and impact of a treatment adherence intervention among temporary residents in an urban district in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam.

BACKGROUND Tuberculosis (TB) remains a major cause of avoidable deaths. Economic migrants represent a vulnerable population due to their exposure to medical and social risk factors. These factors expose them to higher risks for TB incidence and poor treatment outcomes. METHODS This cross-sectional study evaluated WHO-defined TB treatment outcomes among economic migrants in an urban district of Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam. We measured the association of a patient's government-defined residency status with treatment success and loss to follow-up categories at baseline and performed a comparative interrupted time series (ITS) analysis to assess the impact of community-based adherence support on treatment outcomes. Key measures of interest of the ITS were the differences in step change (β) and post-intervention trend (β). RESULTS Short-term, inter-province migrants experienced lower treatment success (aRR = 0.95 [95% CI: 0.92-0.99], p = 0.010) and higher loss to follow-up (aOR = 1.98 [95% CI: 1.44-2.72], p  55 years of age (aRR = 0.93 [95% CI: 0.89-0.96], p < 0.001), relapse patients (aRR = 0.89 [95% CI: 0.84-0.94], p < 0.001), and retreatment patients (aRR = 0.62 [95% CI: 0.52-0.75], p < 0.001) had lower treatment success rates. TB/HIV co-infection was also associated with lower treatment success (aRR = 0.77 [95% CI: 0.73-0.82], p < 0.001) and higher loss to follow-up (aOR = 2.18 [95% CI: 1.55-3.06], p < 0.001). The provision of treatment adherence support increased treatment success (IRR(β) = 1.07 [95% CI: 1.00, 1.15], p = 0.041) and reduced loss to follow-up (IRR(β) = 0.17 [95% CI: 0.04, 0.69], p = 0.013) in the intervention districts. Loss to follow-up continued to decline throughout the post-implementation period (IRR(β) = 0.90 [95% CI: 0.83, 0.98], p = 0.019). CONCLUSIONS Economic migrants, particularly those crossing provincial borders, have higher risk of poor treatment outcomes and should be prioritized for tailored adherence support. In light of accelerating urbanization in many regions of Asia, implementation trials are needed to inform evidence-based design of strategies for this vulnerable population