Factors Affecting Academic Staff’s Research Performance in Vietnam’s Universities

This research study aims to determine the factors affecting the academic staff’s research performance in Vietnam’s higher education context. An online survey was conducted, achieving responses from 207 respondents who were lecturers of different scientific fields in Vietnamese universities. The SAS system was used to process both descriptive and inferential statistics. The study’s results indicated that research competency was the main factor affecting Vietnamese university teachers’ domestic and international research achievements. Meanwhile, English proficiency only had a significant impact at the international level. Additionally, social science academics were less skillful in researching and less productive in international research than other sciences. As a result, some implications for improving academic research performance are discussed in this paper

The Importance of Experiential Activities for Students: A case of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Experiential learning is a process that begins with practice, experimentation, and then the learner analyzes and reflects on the experience and the results of that experience. This process helps students consolidate knowledge, form and develop new competencies, skills, behaviors, and even new ways of thinking. This approach is considered to have many advantages compared to the traditional educational method. This research is completed based on analysis and assessment from survey activities and understanding the study habits of students, and the teaching methods of elementary, middle and high school teachers in Ho Chi Minh City. Through research, some schools in the city are still teaching and learning by traditional methods, the experiential activities alternating with classroom lessons are still rather new. Most of the students feel quite boring and monotonous when every day when they come to class, they listen to lectures, copy lessons, return lessons without any experiential activities. The inclusion of practical activities in the above lessons is very necessary to change the atmosphere in the classroom as well as help students to absorb knowledge in an intuitive and vivid way. And this research shows the benefits of practical experiences for learning and teaching in schools today. Methods of face-to-face interviews and questionnaires were used and then analyzed using a fivepoint Likert scale. The research results confirm the role of experiential teaching and clarify the question of how to help improve the quality of teaching in today's smart and modern society

ĐÁNH GIÁ MỨC ĐỘ ẢNH HƯỞNG CỦA CÁC NGUỒN NƯỚC CHẢY VÀO HỒ ĐAN KIA VÀ ÁP DỤNG MÔ HÌNH AQUATOX QUẢN LÝ CHẤT LƯỢNG

The parameters used for measuring water quality of Dan Kia reservoir were temperature, pH, conductivity, secchi disk depth, dissolved oxygen (DO), chlorophyll a,  nutrients: nitrogen (ammonia, nitrate) and phosphate. There are five influents for the reservoir, therefore the water quality of Dan Kia reservoir depends on activities around these channels. S1 stream has the highest flow into the reservoir (8.2×106m3/year) but most of the nutrients were discharged from S4 and S5 stream. Concentration of ammonia, nitrate and phosphate from these channels is accounting for 89.82, 58.15 and  57.16% into the lake, respectively. The study constructed three scenarios and run them using AQUATOX model. The first scenario, all existing inflows are discharging into the lake, present situation. The second scenario, none is discharging. The third scenario, all are discharging except S4 stream and S5 stream. The result from the first scenario showed that the concentrations from the model consistent with measurements in the reservoir. In case the second and third scenarios happened the concentrations considerably decreased.Các thông số chất lượng nước hồ Đan Kia được khảo sát hàng tháng trong năm 2014 gồm có nhiệt độ, pH, độ dẫn diện, độ sâu secchi, oxy hòa tan, các hợp chất chứa nitơ (amoni, nitrat),  phốt pho (PO43-) và chlorophyll-a. Có 5 nhánh suối dẫn nước vào hồ vì vậy chất lượng nước hồ phụ thuộc vào các hoạt động trên lưu vực hồ và 5 nhánh suối này. Trong đó, nhánh suối S1 có lưu lượng nước chảy vào hồ cao nhất (8.2×106m3/năm) nhưng phần lớn chất dinh dưỡng được đưa vào hồ từ nhánh suối S4 và S5. Nồng độ amoni, nitrat và phốt phát từ hai nhánh suối này lần lượt chiếm đến 89.82, 58.15 và 57.16% tổng tải lượng dinh dưỡng vào hồ. Nghiên cứu đã xây dựng ba kịch bản và mô phỏng ba kịch bản này bằng mô hình AQUATOX. Kịch bản thứ nhất, tất cả các con suối vẫn được dẫn nước vào hồ như hiện tại. Kịch bản thứ hai, không cho bất kỳ con suối nào đổ nước vào hồ. Kịch bản thứ ba, tất cả các nguồn trên vẫn được đưa vào hồ trừ suối S4 và S5. Kết quả từ mô hình AQUATOX cho thấy với kịch bản đầu tiên, nồng độ các chất dinh dưỡng từ mô hình phù hợp với nồng độ đo đạc và đều vượt ngưỡng cho phép. Ở kịch bản thứ 2 và 3, nồng độ các chất dinh dưỡng giảm đáng kể, hầu hết các giá trị đều nằm dưới tiêu chuẩn cho phép đới với nước mặt. Từ kết quả này, nghiên cứu đề nghị các cơ quan chức năng cần tập trung quản lý tình trạng canh tác nông nghiệp trên lưu vực hồ Đan Kia, đặc biệt là khu vực phía Đông Nam hồ. Nghiên cứu cũng đã mô phỏng xu hướng phát triển và thành phần động thực vật phù trong hồ Đan Kia

Academic Anxiety of Vietnamese Secondary School Students as a Reason for Applying Online Learning

Academic anxiety is one of the major problems in student psychology across the world. It applies equally to students of all ages, from elementary school to college and university students. Research shows that learning online is an effective way to defuse feelings of academic anxiety. Elimination of anxiety is clearly visible regardless of age, gender, or prior online learning experience. The study aims to identify academic anxiety as one of the most important reasons for moving to online learning or blended learning in secondary school. The study investigated academic anxiety among secondary school students in Vietnam. After surveying 677 students in classroom learning, the results showed that 13.7% of secondary students suffered from frequent anxiety, and 3.0% of them suffered from very frequent anxiety. Lower anxiety was observed among students actively participated in-class activities, and students with excellent academic performance. These factors can be optimally enhanced through blended and online learning. There were no differences in academic anxiety among male and female students, urban and rural students. There was a moderate correlation between a student's anxiety level and pressure of the school, parental expectations, students' motivation for high performance, and especially, among students who have the melancholic temperament. And the influence of these negative factors can also be optimally reduced with the help of online learning. Regression model could provide useful suggestions for parents, teachers and students in reducing academic anxiety for students, including the use of full or blended online learning

Lovastatin for adult patients with dengue: protocol for a randomised controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Dengue is the most important vector-borne viral infection of man, with approximately 2 billion people living in areas at risk. Infection results in a range of manifestations from asymptomatic infection through to life-threatening shock and haemorrhage. One of the hallmarks of severe dengue is vascular endothelial disruption. There is currently no specific therapy and clinical management is limited to supportive care. Statins are a class of drug initially developed for lipid lowering. There has been considerable recent interest in their effects beyond lipid lowering. These include anti-inflammatory effects at the endothelium. In addition, it is possible that lovastatin may have an anti-viral effect against dengue. Observational data suggest that the use of statins may improve outcomes for such conditions as sepsis and pneumonia. This paper describes the protocol for a randomised controlled trial investigating a short course of lovastatin therapy in adult patients with dengue. METHODS/DESIGN: A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial will investigate the effects of lovastatin therapy in the treatment of dengue. The trial will be conducted in two phases with an escalation of dose between phases if an interim safety review is satisfactory. This is an exploratory study focusing on safety and there are no data on which to base a sample size calculation. A target sample size of 300 patients in the second phase, enrolled over two dengue seasons, was chosen based on clinical judgement and feasibility considerations. In a previous randomised trial in dengue, about 10% and 30% of patients experienced at least one serious adverse event or adverse event, respectively. With 300 patients, we will have 80% power to detect an increase of 12% (from 10% to 22%) or 16% (from 30% to 46%) in the frequency of adverse events. Furthermore, this sample size ensures some power to explore the efficacy of statins. DISCUSSION: The development of a dengue therapeutic that can attenuate disease would be an enormous advance in global health. The favourable effects of statins on the endothelium, their good safety profile and their low cost make lovastatin an attractive therapeutic candidate. TRIAL REGISTRATION: International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number ISRCTN03147572

Dexamethasone and long-term outcome of tuberculous meningitis in Vietnamese adults and adolescents.

BACKGROUND: Dexamethasone has been shown to reduce mortality in patients with tuberculous meningitis but the long-term outcome of the disease is unknown. METHODS: Vietnamese adults and adolescents with tuberculous meningitis recruited to a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of adjunctive dexamethasone were followed-up at five years, to determine the effect of dexamethasone on long-term survival and neurological disability. RESULTS: 545 patients were randomised to receive either dexamethasone (274 patients) or placebo (271 patients). 50 patients (9.2%) were lost to follow-up at five years. In all patients two-year survival, probabilities tended to be higher in the dexamethasone arm (0.63 versus 0.55; p = 0.07) but five-year survival rates were similar (0.54 versus 0.51, p = 0.51) in both groups. In patients with grade 1 TBM, but not with grade 2 or grade 3 TBM, the benefit of dexamethasone treatment tended to persist over time (five-year survival probabilities 0.69 versus 0.55, p = 0.07) but there was no conclusive evidence of treatment effect heterogeneity by TBM grade (p = 0.36). The dexamethasone group had a similar proportion of severely disabled patients among survivors at five years as the placebo group (17/128, 13.2% vs. 17/116, 14.7%) and there was no significant association between dexamethasone treatment and disability status at five years (p = 0.32). CONCLUSIONS: Adjunctive dexamethasone appears to improve the probability of survival in patients with TBM, until at least two years of follow-up. We could not demonstrate a five-year survival benefit of dexamethasone treatment which may be confined to patients with grade 1 TBM. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01317654

Phenomenology of the Reduced Minimal 3-3-1 Model

The detailed analysis of the gauge model based on $\mathrm{SU}(3)_C\otimes \mathrm{SU}(3)_L \otimes \mathrm{U}(1)_X$ group with minimal content of lepton and Higgs is presented. It is shown that with just two Higgs triplets, all fermions and gauge bosons can get correct   masses. The advantage of the model under consideration is that a huge number of free parameters is reduced, and the model's predictiveness is much improved