Seed priming with sodium nitroprusside enhances the growth of peanuts (Arachis hypogaea L.) under drought stress

Peanuts are a nutrient-dense legume with high lipid, protein, vitamin and mineral content. Peanut development is harmed by drought stress, particularly during the germination and seedling stages. Finding ways to mitigate the impacts of drought stress will have positive effects on peanut production. Seed priming, a short-gun strategy for modulating the impact of abiotic stressors on agricultural plants, has lately piqued the attention of researchers to instill drought tolerance in important crops. In this study, peanut seeds (VD01-2 cultivar) were used as material to investigate the role of priming with sodium nitroprusside at different concentrations (10, 15, 20 and 25 mg L-1) in preventing the damage of peanuts triggered by drought stress. Morphological, physiological and biochemical changes during the development of peanuts in the drought stress condition were analyzed. The results show that moderate drought stress (60% of field capacity) reduced germination and seedling growth. Drought stress reduced relative water content, photosynthesis, and the content of chlorophyll and starch significantly over the control. Seed priming with 20 mg L-1 sodium nitroprusside was effective in increasing these above mentioned growth parameters. Further, the priming of 20 mg L-1 sodium nitroprusside enhanced respiration rate and carotenoid, soluble sugar and proline content compared to the control

A robust algorithm for detection and classification of traffic signs in video data

—The accurate identification and recognition of the traffic signs is a challenging problem as the developed systems have to address a large number of imaging problems such as motion artifacts, various weather conditions, shadows and partial occlusion, issues that are often encountered in video traffic sequences that are captured from a moving vehicle. These factors substantially degrade the performance of the existing traffic sign recognition (TSR) systems and in this paper we detail the implementation of a new strategy that entails three distinct computational stages. The first component addresses the robust identification of the candidate traffic signs in each frame of the video sequence. The second component discards the traffic sign candidates that do not comply with stringent shape constraints, and the last component implements the classification of the traffic signs using Support Vector Machines (SVMs). The main novel elements of our TSR algorithm are given by the approach that has been developed for traffic sign classification and by the experimental evaluation that was employed to identify the optimal image attributes that are able to maximize the traffic sign classification performance. The TSR algorithm has been validated using video sequences that include the most important categories of signs that are used to regulate the traffic on the Irish and UK roads, and it achieved 87.6% sign detection, 99.2% traffic sign classification accuracy and 86.7% overall traffic sign recognition

Two algorithms for detection of mutually occluding traffic signs

The robust identification of the traffic signs represents the first and one of the most important steps in the development of a traffic sign recognition (TSR) system. Traffic signs detection usually involves a color segmentation process that uses the information related to the chromatic properties of the road signs. Since the traffic video data is captured in diverse road and weather conditions, the problem relating to traffic sign detection is quite challenging. Among several issues that need to be addressed during this processing stage, the problem generated by mutually occluding traffic signs (mutual occlusion occurs when one traffic sign partially occludes the surface of other road signs) that are attached to the same pole require special attention. In these situations the color segmentation process fails to correctly identify the regions that are associated with the traffic signs. These traffic sign detection failures compromise the performance of other stages of the TSR system and in this paper we propose two approaches that address the segmentation of mutually occluding traffic signs. The first approach uses the information associated with the inner parts of the traffic signs, while the second approach applies the watershed transform to identify the signs that have their borders in contact or are mutually occluding

Vietnamese EFL Pre-service Teachers’ Perceptions of Attainments (Achievements) and Difficulties from a Teaching Practicum

This study explored how a teaching practicum prepared pre-service English teachers (PSETs) for their profession and what difficulties they encountered during their practicum. Forty-seven PSETs of the 2019 intake at a Vietnamese university provided information via a questionnaire, and eight participated in follow-up interviews. The PSETs’ perceived gains in teaching competencies were examined with reference to Vietnam’s English Teacher Competency Framework (ETCF), issued in 2012 by the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET). The results indicated that the teaching practicum significantly aided the PSETs’ attainments of most competency domains in the ETCF, particularly those that are associated with a greater appreciation of the values and responsibilities of being a teacher, enhanced knowledge of the curriculum and the English language, as well as the ability to reflect on and improve teaching practices. However, certain competency indicators across the competency domains, including practice with assessment, handling difficult pedagogical incidents, and organizing extracurricular activities to create a supportive and meaningful learning environment, were less clearly obtained than the others. Dealing with time constraints and workload, insufficient preparation for classroom practice, and safety precautions to deal with the post-COVID-19 pandemic were some of the major obstacles the PSETs encountered. The results have important implications for pre-service teacher education programs and the implementation of the ETCF for teacher development

VIETNAMESE STUDENT RESEARCHERS’ EXPECTATIONS OF THEIR SUPERVISOR AND SUPERVISION PROCESS

In Vietnam, scientific research is no longer just the work of scientists, graduate students, scholars, or lecturers; tertiary students are also encouraged to conduct scientific research. Therefore, the scientific research work of students receives more attention from educators. The research on carrying out scientific research of students is also therefore increasing. However, researchers do not seem to have paid enough attention to the role of supervisors during the supervision process. The evidence is that there are few studies on supervisors in Vietnam. Therefore, this study was conducted to learn about the role of supervisors from the student's perspective and expectations. Specifically, this study was conducted quantitatively with the use of a questionnaire consisting of 49 questions with a 5-point Likert scale. A total of 100 English-major students at a university in Southwest Vietnam participated in this study by answering the questionnaire. The results from the questionnaire show that students had high expectations from their supervisors. Specifically, students expect their supervisor to be someone who respects their opinions, has good scientific research knowledge, can give constructive comments, and is always willing to help them when needed. Based on research findings, supervisors are encouraged to participate in professional development training related to scientific research to improve their research knowledge and skills. Along with that, supervisors need to be aware of their role during the process of guiding students to do scientific research.  Article visualizations

LEGION: Harnessing Pre-trained Language Models for GitHub Topic Recommendations with Distribution-Balance Loss

Open-source development has revolutionized the software industry by promoting collaboration, transparency, and community-driven innovation. Today, a vast amount of various kinds of open-source software, which form networks of repositories, is often hosted on GitHub - a popular software development platform. To enhance the discoverability of the repository networks, i.e., groups of similar repositories, GitHub introduced repository topics in 2017 that enable users to more easily explore relevant projects by type, technology, and more. It is thus crucial to accurately assign topics for each GitHub repository. Current methods for automatic topic recommendation rely heavily on TF-IDF for encoding textual data, presenting challenges in understanding semantic nuances. This paper addresses the limitations of existing techniques by proposing Legion, a novel approach that leverages Pre-trained Language Models (PTMs) for recommending topics for GitHub repositories. The key novelty of Legion is three-fold. First, Legion leverages the extensive capabilities of PTMs in language understanding to capture contextual information and semantic meaning in GitHub repositories. Second, Legion overcomes the challenge of long-tailed distribution, which results in a bias toward popular topics in PTMs, by proposing a Distribution-Balanced Loss (DB Loss) to better train the PTMs. Third, Legion employs a filter to eliminate vague recommendations, thereby improving the precision of PTMs. Our empirical evaluation on a benchmark dataset of real-world GitHub repositories shows that Legion can improve vanilla PTMs by up to 26% on recommending GitHubs topics. Legion also can suggest GitHub topics more precisely and effectively than the state-of-the-art baseline with an average improvement of 20% and 5% in terms of Precision and F1-score, respectively.Comment: Accepted to EASE'2

ARSENIC POLLUTION IN TUBE WELL WATER AT HANOI SUBURB VILLAGES

Joint Research on Environmental Science and Technology for the Eart

The responsibility of C-terminal domain in the thermolabile haemolysin activity of Vibrio parahaemolyticus and inhibition treatments by Phellinus sp. extracts

The thermolabile haemolysin (tlh) of Vibrio parahaemolyticus (Vptlh) from V. parahaemolyticus is a multiple-function enzyme, initially describes as a haemolytic factor activated by lecithin and phospholipase A2 enzymatic activity (Shinoda, 1991; Vazquez-Morado, 2021; Yanagase et al., 1970). Until now, the tlh structure has hypothesized including N-terminal and C-terminal domain, but what domain of the Vptlh structure does the haemolytic activity has not been refined yet. In this study, a 450-bp VpTLH nucleotide sequence of the entire Vptlh gene encoded the C-terminal domain cloned firstly to examine its responsibility in the activity of the Vptlh. The C-terminal domain fused with a 6-His-tag named the His-tag-VpC-terminal domain was expressed successfully in soluble form in the BL21 (DE3) PlysS cell. Remarkably, both expression and purification results confirmed a high agreement in the molecular weight of the His-tag-VpC-terminal domain was 47 kDa. This work showed the His-tag-VpC-terminal domain lysed the erythrocyte membranes in the blood agar and the phosphate buffered saline (0.9%) media without adding the lecithin substrate of the phospholipase enzyme. Haemolysis occurred at all tested diluted concentrations of His-tag-VpC-terminal domain (p < 0.05), providing evidence for the independent haemolytic activity of the His-tag-VpC-terminal domain. The content of 100 μg of the His-tag-VpC-terminal domain brought the highest haemolytic activity of 80% compared to that in the three remaining contents. Significantly, the His-tag-VpC-terminal domain demonstrated not to involve the phospholipase activity in Luria-Bertani agar supplemented with 1% (vol/vol) egg yolk emulsion. All results proved the vital responsibility of the His-tag-VpC-terminal domain in causing the haemolytic activity without the required activation by the phospholipase enzyme. Raw extracts of Phellinus igniarus and Phellinus pipi at 10-1 mg/mL inhibited the haemolytic activity of the His-tag-VpC-terminal domain from 67.7% to 87.42%, respectively. Hence applying the His-tag-VpC-terminal domain as a simple biological material to evaluate quickly potential derivatives against the Vptlh in vivo conditions will accessible and more advantageous than using the whole of the Vptlh

A breakthrough dynamic-osmotic membrane bioreactor/nanofiltration hybrid system for real municipal wastewater treatment and reuse.

This study designed a Dynamic-Osmotic membrane bioreactor/nanofiltration (OsMBR/NF) system for municipal wastewater treatment and reuse. Results indicated that a continuously rotating FO module with 60 RPM in Dynamic-OsMBR system could enhance shear stress and reduce cake layer of foulants, leading to higher flux (50%) compared to Traditional-OsMBR during a 40-operation day. A negligible specific reverse salt flux (0.059 G/L) and a water flux of 2.86 LMH were recorded when a mixture of 0.1 M EDTA-2Na/0.1 M Na2CO3/0.9 mM Triton114 functioned as draw solution (DS). It was found that the Dynamic-OsMBR/NF hybrid system could effectively remove pollutants (∼98% COD, ∼99% PO43-P, ∼93% NH4+-N, > 99% suspended solids) from wastewater. In short, this developed system can be considered a breakthrough technology as it successfully minimizes membrane fouling by shear force, and achieves high water quality for reuse by two membrane- barriers

Multivalvular involvement associated with Libman-Sacks endocarditis detected by multimodality imaging: A case report

Libman-Sacks endocarditis accounts for 6–11 percent of systemic lupus erythematosus patients and is associated with varying degrees of valvular dysfunction, increased risk for stroke and transient ischemic attacks, and increased mortality. In previous studies, left-sided valvular Libman-Sacks vegetations were more frequently detected than right sided vegetations; reported cases of bilateral involvement is very rare. A comprehensive clinical assessment and the multimodality imaging is of utmost importance in the management of systemic lupus erythematosus. In this case report, we describe a 31-year-old female patient with uncontrolled systemic lupus erythematosus initially presented with gastrointestinal symptoms but eventually had a vegetation-like structure on the posterior leaflet of the mitral valve which was revealed during routine echocardiography. Two-dimensional/three-dimensional transthoracic and transesophageal echocardiography, cardiac magnetic resonance, and cardiac computed tomography further characterized the mitral valve vegetation and revealed an additional vegetation of the pulmonary valve. Echocardiography remains the cornerstone for the detection of Libman-Sacks vegetations. Cardiac MRI and cardiac CT are useful in characterizing lesion size and effects and may prove particularly helpful in the assessment of right-sided or multivalvular endocarditis. The presence of focal brain lesions on brain MRI prompted antithrombotic therapy