UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS: TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS AND PRACTICES IN ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAYS

Research into critical thinking has witnessed its role in students’ foreign language learning, including English. Of components contributing to students’ critical thinking development, teachers are the ones who engage students in thinking about or making judgment of what they are doing in their learning process. As critical thinking and language skills are known as intertwined, argumentative essays allow students to reflect on their own writing. However, research on teachers’ perceptions and practices of the interplay between students’ critical thinking and argumentative essays is still meagre. This paper, therefore, examines this area of interest. Data collected in this study include a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. Participants were 85 teachers at a university in the Mekong delta, and six participated in the interview process. The findings reveal that teachers’ perceptions of students’ critical thinking regarding interpreting, analysing, inferencing, evaluating and self-regulating were at a high level. Debates and group discussions were the two activities teachers used most in writing classes. Recommendations from this study may offer some pedagogical implications for  the implementation of critical thinking to hone students’ argumentative essay writing.  Article visualizations

Chemical examination of Hydrocotyle bonariensis L. (Apiaceae)

Hydrocotyle bonariensis, growing in the Mekong-delta, is used as vegetable and has not yet been chemically studied. From the aerial parts of H. bonariensis, three compounds had been isolated: a triterpene squalene (1) and a mixture of two lignans: hinokinin (2) and α-[3,4-methylendioxy phenylmethylidene]-β-[3,4-methylendioxyphenylmethyl]-γ-butyrolactone (3). The fresh plant was divided into stem-leaf and flower and each part was distilled with steam to afford essential oils. The major components of stem-leaf are: (Z)-3-hexen-1-ol, trans-caryophyllene, α-farnesene, copaene while the major components of flower are: α-pinene, 2-β-pinene, β-myrcene, limonene, α-caryophyllene, epibicyclosesquiphellandrene. The essential oil of the stem-leaf showed cytotoxic activities in vitro on RD and Hep-G2 cancer cells with the IC50 values of 16.1 and 19.9µg/ml, respectively. The study on the plant is being continued

An Extended RFM Model for Customer Behaviour and Demographic Analysis in Retail Industry

Background: Customer segmentation has become one of the most innovative ways which help businesses adopt appropriate marketing campaigns and reach targeted customers. The RFM model and machine learning combination have been widely applied in various areas. Motivations: With the rapid increase of transactional data, the RFM model can accurately segment customers and provide deeper insights into customers’ purchasing behaviour. However, the traditional RFM model is limited to 3 variables, Recency, Frequency and Monetary, without revealing segments based on demographic features. Meanwhile, the contribution of demographic characteristics to marketing strategies is extremely important. Methods/Approach: The article proposed an extended RFMD model (D-Demographic) with a combination of behavioural and demographic variables. Customer segmentation can be performed effectively using the RFMD model, K-Means, and K-Prototype algorithms. Results: The extended model is applied to the retail dataset, and the experimental result shows 5 clusters with different features. The effectiveness of the new model is measured by the Adjusted Rand Index and Adjusted Mutual Information. Furthermore, we use Cohort analysis to analyse customer retention rates and recommend marketing strategies for each segment. Conclusions: According to the evaluation, the proposed RMFD model was deployed with stable results created by two clustering algorithms. Businesses can apply this model to deeply understand customer behaviour with their demographics and launch efficient campaigns

STUDY ON LEARNING AUTONOMY STRATEGIES FOR ENGLISH SPEAKING SKILLS OF HIGH-QUALITY FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS, SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, CAN THO UNIVERSITY, VIETNAM

This study examined the challenges of self-studying English-speaking skills for first-year English studies majors at Can Tho University. The study aimed to answer questions such as: What self-study strategies can first-year students majoring in high-quality English at School of Foreign Languages at Can Tho University apply to develop speaking skills? The target audience was 96 English studies majors who have studied speaking and listening at Can Tho University. A questionnaire and an interview with 13 students were used to collect data for this study. In order to support the quantitative data, a questionnaire was used, while an interview was used for the qualitative data. This study aimed to find out the difficulties encountered by students, thereby proposing solutions to overcome them and improve the quality of their learning autonomy or self-studying English-speaking skills.  Article visualizations

Neutrophil to lymphocyte with monocyte to lymphocyte ratio and white blood cell count in prediction of lung cancer

BackgroundLung cancer is the most common cause of cancer deaths in both sexes, while it is very difficult for screenings and early detection. AimsThis study aims to clarify the role of systematic inflammation markers, including white blood cell (WBC), neutrophil (NEU), monocyte (MONO), platelet (PLT), neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR), monocyte to lymphocyte ratio (MLR) and platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR) in prediction of lung cancer. Methods A case-control study was conducted on 1,315 primary lung cancer patients and 1,315 healthy adults with matched age and gender at Cho Ray hospital. NLR, MLR and PLR were calculated by using neutrophil, lymphocyte, monocyte and platelet count which were recalled from laboratory database. With 600 cases in the derivation set, the logistic regression with univariate analysis was used to identify the impacted marker, then developing the optimal prediction model for lung cancer by logistic regression with multivariate method. The diagnostic values of optimal model consisting of sensitivity (Sen), specificity (Spe), positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV) and the area under the ROC curve (AUC) value were extracted and verified on all data, in validation set. Results The median values of WBC, NEU, MONO, PLT, NLR, MLR and PLR in lung cancer were not significantly difference between histological subtypes and clinical stages (p > 0.05), but higher than the values in control group (p < 0.01). Multivariates analysis shows that NLR, MLR and WBC were three parameters that have the significant impact of the optimal prediction model (p < 0.01). The AUC value, sensitivity and specificity of the optimal model for lung cancer detection were 0.881, 73.5 per cent (95 per cent CI:70.3–76.6) and 87.7 per cent (95 per centCI:85.2–89.9), respectively. Whereas, the PPV and NPV values of prediction model were 85.7 per cent (95 per cent CI:82.8–88.2) and 76.8 (95 per centCI:73.9–79.5), respectively. Among three biomarkers, the AUC values of NLR (0.853) and MLR (0.842) were higher than the value of WBC (0.752) (p < 0.01).ConclusionThe results of this study show that NLR with MLR and WBC in optimal prediction model are promising biomarkers for lung cancer screening that could be applied in clinical practice with the advantage of convenience and low cost

COHERENCE DANS LE DISCOURS ECONOMIQUE. DESCRIPTION ET PERSPECTIVES DIDACTIQUES AU VIETNAM. LE CAS DU PAPIER D'ANALYSE DE LA PRESSE ECRITE.

ROUEN-BU Lettres (764512101) / SudocSudocFranceF

Stratégies d’engagement de professeurs de français du supérieur en Asie du Sud-Est

International audienc

Stratégies d’engagement de professeurs de français du supérieur en Asie du Sud-Est

International audienc

Stratégies d’engagement de professeurs de français du supérieur en Asie du Sud-Est

International audienc