Antidepressive and anxiolytic effects of ostruthin, a TREK-1 channel activator

We screened a library of botanical compounds purified from plants of Vietnam for modulators of the activity of a two-pore domain K+ channel, TREK-1, and we identified a hydroxycoumarin-related compound, ostruthin, as an activator of this channel. Ostruthin increased whole-cell TREK-1 channel currents in 293T cells at a low concentration (EC50 = 5.3 μM), and also activity of the TREK-2 channel (EC50 = 3.7 mM). In contrast, ostruthin inhibited other K+ channels, e.g. human ether-à-go-go-related gene (HERG1), inward-rectifier (Kir2.1), voltage-gated (Kv1.4), and two-pore domain (TASK-1) at higher concentrations, without affecting voltage-gated potassium channel (KCNQ1 and 3). We tested the effect of this compound on mouse anxiety- and depression-like behaviors and found anxiolytic activity in the open-field, elevated plus maze, and light/dark box tests. Of note, ostruthin also showed antidepressive effects in the forced swim and tail suspension tests, although previous studies reported that inhibition of TREK-1 channels resulted in an antidepressive effect. The anxiolytic and antidepressive effect was diminished by co-administration of a TREK-1 blocker, amlodipine, indicating the involvement of TREK-1 channels. Administration of ostruthin suppressed the stress-induced increase in anti-c-Fos immunoreactivity in the lateral septum, without affecting immunoreactivity in other mood disorder-related nuclei, e.g. the amygdala, paraventricular nuclei, and dorsal raphe nucleus. Ostruthin may exert its anxiolytic and antidepressive effects through a different mechanism from current drugs

Optimal control of switched capacitor banks in Vietnam distribution network using integer genetic algorithm

In distribution network, power and energy losses can be reduced by using switched capacitor banks. The capacitor banks can be switched on or off based on voltage profile or power factor or using timers. Due to variation of load, it is necessary to control the capacitor banks switching in function of load curve. This paper presents the application of an integer genetic algorithm to determine the optimal number of banks corresponding with hourly load to minimize total active power losses of distribution feeders. The problem constraints include voltage profile and heat conditions which are taken into account to the objective function by a penalty function. In this application, the structure of chromosomes is a set of numbers of the capacitor banks hourly connected to the grid. The proposed formulation is validated by a feeder. The result shows that in some cases, the active power losses at maximum compensation are greater than the ones of optimal control compensation, and the voltage reaches a higher level than the maximum voltage limit. The optimal control of switched capacitor banks can reduce power and energy losses as well as ensure maximum voltage profile within the limit

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PUBLIC SERVICE MOTIVATION, WORK ENJOYMENT, AND TASK PERFORMANCE: A PRELIMINARY STUDY OF HEALTHCARE WORKERS IN VIETNAM

This study aimed to examine the impact of health workers' public service motivation during their participation in response to the Covid-19 pandemic at a time of the highest number of infections and deaths in Vietnam. This study was conducted through a cross-sectional survey using an intentional sampling technique (n=200). In addition, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was applied to illustrate the proposed hypotheses. We found that compassion in the workplace, self-sacrifice, and attraction to policy-making impacted work enjoyment positively and significantly. In particular, there was a positive and significant relationship between work enjoyment and task performance but no evidence of the relationship between Commitment to the public interest and work enjoyment. This study further demonstrates the importance of public service motivation of health workers in pandemic response, as previous studies have found. This finding suggests that the government and policymakers in Vietnam should develop policies to promote health workers' public service motivation during their engagement in response to the health crisis.&nbsp

WILL OF PRESIDENT HO CHI MINH CITY FOR THE LEARNING AND ETHICAL TRAINING OF STUDENTS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ADMINISTRATION

Learning the revolutionary ethics of President Ho Chi Minh is learning the struggle and training yourself for noble revolutionaryideals; learning and following the ideology of solidarity; learning the will to fight in the spirit of radical revolution; continuous attack;learning deep sympathy for the people, for each person; learn a burning hatred for wicked, greedy, and selfish people; learn a firmbelief in the power of the masses; learn ideology, spirit, will, motto, method, labor perspective, learn frugality, integrity, impartiality,learn diligence, simplicity, purity and health in life

THE CURRENT SITUATION OF THE INSTRUCTION IN EXTRACURRICULAR SPORTS FOR STUDENTS FROM TRA VINH UNIVERSITY, VIETNAM

This study uses the sociological investigation method and direct interview in order to understand the current situation of the instruction in extracurricular sports at Tra Vinh University. The total area of the playground is 13,700 m2 with the ratio of 1.36 m2/student. There are 11 lecturers and the ratio of student/lecturer is 915.18. There is still no regular program in extracurricular sports for Tra Vinh University students.  Article visualizations

Replacing Face-To-Face Classes by Synchronous Online Technologies: The HOU Experience

AbstractSince 2009, HOU has been providing live virtual classes for various distance learningprograms.This paper will provide an opportunity to look at the issues involved in the use of thesemultimedia-enabled delivery approaches, the technology behind them, the logistics involved,and to provide an HOU perspective of the experiences encountered.The goal of research was to provide a systematic methods to implement the highlyinteractive live session. The additional goals was to design the portable hardware and easy touse software toolset as well as easy to follow guidelines on how to propel the lectures fromthe conventional dull chalk and talk and to minimise the number of staff required to give thelectures.Through a combination of surveys and feedback from lecturers and students, we are ableto better understand the obstacles and to continuously improve on the effectiveness of theseinteractive delivery approaches

Do Corporate Social Responsibilities Support Its Financial Performance? Evidence of the Listed Firms in Vietnam

In the latest decades, corporate social responsibilities (CSR) are incrementally noticed in emerging countries regarding to the surge of globalization and the advance of social concerns. However, there exist opposing arguments on how CSR practices influence a firm’s financial performance (CFP), either in theoretical or empirical perspectives, causing many managers’ hesitation in CSR engagement. This study, therefore, examines the impacts of CSR on CFP, considering the individual effect of each CSR endeavor by using the data from listed firms’ financial statements during the period 2015-2019 and panel regression analysis methods. The findings reveal inconstant effects of different CSR activities on CFP. Specifically, a firm’s fulfillment of shareholders’ and customers’ interests contributes to raise its profitability, while its engagement in the benefits of employees and creditors causes a reduction in financial returns. Interestingly, the correlations between firms’ responsibilies towards regulators and suppliers and CFP are statistically insignificant. Furthermore, we make pairwise marginal comparisons to identify the distinctions of CSR-CFP relations across industries. The results only indicate that listed firms in Utilities sector have the lower level of CSR intensity than those in Consumer Discretionary and Consumer Staples sectors. The implications and limitations are also discussed in this study

Dynamic association between energy transition technologies, renewable energy production, trade openness, green investment, carbon tax, and carbon neutrality: empirical evidences from China

The existing millennium documents the most adverse consequences of global warming which in contrast to pre-industrial era are more devastating. Thus, these prevailing consequences raise numerous concerns regarding the well-being of future and current generation. Scholars, in this regard, are putting efforts punctiliously towards methods that could halt the surging emissions. This paper also attempts to contributes to existing literature by reporting the empirical evidences regarding the role of energy transition technologies, renewable energy production (REP), trade openness, green investment, and carbon taxes in carbon neutrality in Chinse economy covering the time span of 1980–2020. By employing Dynamic Auto-regressive Distributed Lags (DARDL) model to check the association, findings exposed that electricity production from water sources, electricity production from solar sources, REP, trade openness, green investment, and carbon taxes are negatively correlated with CO2 emissions. Study offers policymakers a help in formulating policies related to achieve carbon neutrality using renewable sources of energy production, carbon taxes, and green investmen

Trade facilitation performance influences on ASEAN trade flows

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) considers trade facilitation as a driving force in forming a single market and a single production base. This paper constructs an ASEAN scorecard for measuring the performance of trade facilitation strategic plans by ASEAN member states. Next, a structural gravity model is used in the paper in order to estimate the trade facilitation performance influence on ASEAN trade flows. The fact that the indicator of easing Nontariff Barriers (NTBs) and institutional coordination, on the one hand, and the ASEAN member states’ engagement indicator, on the other, had the highest enforcement scores in ASEAN in the period 2017-2019. Those two indicators also exert the biggest influence on ASEAN trade flows, especially ASEAN extra-regional trade

1M parameters are enough? A lightweight CNN-based model for medical image segmentation

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and Transformer-based models are being widely applied in medical image segmentation thanks to their ability to extract high-level features and capture important aspects of the image. However, there is often a trade-off between the need for high accuracy and the desire for low computational cost. A model with higher parameters can theoretically achieve better performance but also result in more computational complexity and higher memory usage, and thus is not practical to implement. In this paper, we look for a lightweight U-Net-based model which can remain the same or even achieve better performance, namely U-Lite. We design U-Lite based on the principle of Depthwise Separable Convolution so that the model can both leverage the strength of CNNs and reduce a remarkable number of computing parameters. Specifically, we propose Axial Depthwise Convolutions with kernels 7x7 in both the encoder and decoder to enlarge the model receptive field. To further improve the performance, we use several Axial Dilated Depthwise Convolutions with filters 3x3 for the bottleneck as one of our branches. Overall, U-Lite contains only 878K parameters, 35 times less than the traditional U-Net, and much more times less than other modern Transformer-based models. The proposed model cuts down a large amount of computational complexity while attaining an impressive performance on medical segmentation tasks compared to other state-of-the-art architectures. The code will be available at: https://github.com/duong-db/U-Lite.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figure