Gender differences in climate change perception and adaptation strategies: A case study on three provinces in Vietnam’s Mekong River Delta

This brief summarizes the findings of a project output for the Policy Information and Response Platform on Climate Change and Rice in ASEAN and its Member Countries (PIRCCA), being implemented by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). The report focuses on the results of the survey conducted in the first half of 2015 on climate change perception and adaptation strategies of male and female farmers in three selected provinces across the Mekong River Delta (MRD) region in Vietnam: An Giang, Bac Lieu, and Tra Vihn. The survey gathered information on current climate change perceptions and adaptation strategies and gaps between the identified male and female respondents

A Clinical and Epidemiological Investigation of the First Reported Human Infection With the Zoonotic Parasite Trypanosoma evansi in Southeast Asia

Background. Trypanosoma is a genus of unicellular parasitic flagellate protozoa. Trypanosoma brucei species and Trypanosoma cruzi are the major agents of human trypanosomiasis; other Trypanosoma species can cause human disease, but are rare. In March 2015, a 38-year-old woman presented to a healthcare facility in southern Vietnam with fever, headache, and arthralgia. Microscopic examination of blood revealed infection with Trypanosoma. Methods. Microscopic observation, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of blood samples, and serological testing were performed to identify the infecting species. The patient's blood was screened for the trypanocidal protein apolipoprotein L1 (APOL1), and a field investigation was performed to identify the zoonotic source. Results. PCR amplification and serological testing identified the infecting species as Trypanosoma evansi. Despite relapsing 6 weeks after completing amphotericin B therapy, the patient made a complete recovery after 5 weeks of suramin. The patient was found to have 2 wild-type APOL1 alleles and a normal serum APOL1 concentration. After responsive animal sampling in the presumed location of exposure, cattle and/or buffalo were determined to be the most likely source of the infection, with 14 of 30 (47%) animal blood samples testing PCR positive for T. evansi. Conclusions. We report the first laboratory-confirmed case of T. evansi in a previously healthy individual without APOL1 deficiency, potentially contracted via a wound while butchering raw beef, and successfully treated with suramin. A linked epidemiological investigation revealed widespread and previously unidentified burden of T. evansi in local cattle, highlighting the need for surveillance of this infection in animals and the possibility of further human cases

Multiple Imputation Ensembles (MIE) for dealing with missing data

Missing data is a significant issue in many real-world datasets, yet there are no robust methods for dealing with it appropriately. In this paper, we propose a robust approach to dealing with missing data in classification problems: Multiple Imputation Ensembles (MIE). Our method integrates two approaches: multiple imputation and ensemble methods and compares two types of ensembles: bagging and stacking. We also propose a robust experimental set-up using 20 benchmark datasets from the UCI machine learning repository. For each dataset, we introduce increasing amounts of data Missing Completely at Random. Firstly, we use a number of single/multiple imputation methods to recover the missing values and then ensemble a number of different classifiers built on the imputed data. We assess the quality of the imputation by using dissimilarity measures. We also evaluate the MIE performance by comparing classification accuracy on the complete and imputed data. Furthermore, we use the accuracy of simple imputation as a benchmark for comparison. We find that our proposed approach combining multiple imputation with ensemble techniques outperform others, particularly as missing data increases

Dealing with Missing Data and Uncertainty in the Context of Data Mining

Missing data is an issue in many real-world datasets yet robust methods for dealing with missing data appropriately still need development. In this paper we conduct an investigation of how some methods for handling missing data perform when the uncertainty increases. Using benchmark datasets from the UCI Machine Learning repository we generate datasets for our experimentation with increasing amounts of data Missing Completely At Random (MCAR) both at the attribute level and at the record level. We then apply four classification algorithms: C4.5, Random Forest, Naïve Bayes and Support Vector Machines (SVMs). We measure the performance of each classifiers on the basis of complete case analysis, simple imputation and then we study the performance of the algorithms that can handle missing data. We find that complete case analysis has a detrimental effect because it renders many datasets infeasible when missing data increases, particularly for high dimensional data. We find that increasing missing data does have a negative effect on the performance of all the algorithms tested but the different algorithms tested either using preprocessing in the form of simple imputation or handling the missing data do not show a significant difference in performance

Search for direct pair production of the top squark in all-hadronic final states in proton-proton collisions at s√=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The results of a search for direct pair production of the scalar partner to the top quark using an integrated luminosity of 20.1fb−1 of proton–proton collision data at √s = 8 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC are reported. The top squark is assumed to decay via t˜→tχ˜01 or t˜→ bχ˜±1 →bW(∗)χ˜01 , where χ˜01 (χ˜±1 ) denotes the lightest neutralino (chargino) in supersymmetric models. The search targets a fully-hadronic final state in events with four or more jets and large missing transverse momentum. No significant excess over the Standard Model background prediction is observed, and exclusion limits are reported in terms of the top squark and neutralino masses and as a function of the branching fraction of t˜ → tχ˜01 . For a branching fraction of 100%, top squark masses in the range 270–645 GeV are excluded for χ˜01 masses below 30 GeV. For a branching fraction of 50% to either t˜ → tχ˜01 or t˜ → bχ˜±1 , and assuming the χ˜±1 mass to be twice the χ˜01 mass, top squark masses in the range 250–550 GeV are excluded for χ˜01 masses below 60 GeV

Observation of associated near-side and away-side long-range correlations in √sNN=5.02 TeV proton-lead collisions with the ATLAS detector

Two-particle correlations in relative azimuthal angle (Δϕ) and pseudorapidity (Δη) are measured in √sNN=5.02  TeV p+Pb collisions using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements are performed using approximately 1  μb-1 of data as a function of transverse momentum (pT) and the transverse energy (ΣETPb) summed over 3.1<η<4.9 in the direction of the Pb beam. The correlation function, constructed from charged particles, exhibits a long-range (2<|Δη|<5) “near-side” (Δϕ∼0) correlation that grows rapidly with increasing ΣETPb. A long-range “away-side” (Δϕ∼π) correlation, obtained by subtracting the expected contributions from recoiling dijets and other sources estimated using events with small ΣETPb, is found to match the near-side correlation in magnitude, shape (in Δη and Δϕ) and ΣETPb dependence. The resultant Δϕ correlation is approximately symmetric about π/2, and is consistent with a dominant cos⁡2Δϕ modulation for all ΣETPb ranges and particle pT

Measurement of the charge asymmetry in dileptonic Decays of top quark pairs in pp collisions at √ s = 7 TeV using the ATLAS detector

A measurement of the top-antitop (tt) charge asymmetry is presented using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.6 fb −1 of LHC pp collisions at a centre- of-mass energy of 7 TeV collected by the ATLAS detector. Events with two charged leptons, at least two jets and large missing transverse momentum are selected. Two observables are studied: A tt/C, based on the reconstructed tt final state. The asymmetries are measured to be A ll/C = 0.024 +/- 0.015 (stat.) +/- 0.009 (syst.) Att/C = 0.021 +/- 0.025 (stat.) +/- 0.017 (syst.) The measured values are in agreement with the Standard Model predictions

Surface plasmon enhanced light scattering biosensing: Size dependence on the gold nanoparticle tag

© 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Surface plasmon enhanced light scattering (SP-LS) is a powerful new sensing SPR modality that yields excellent sensitivity in sandwich immunoassay using spherical gold nanoparticle (AuNP) tags. Towards further improving the performance of SP-LS, we systematically investigated the AuNP size effect. Simulation results indicated an AuNP size-dependent scattered power, and predicted the optimized AuNPs sizes (i.e., 100 and 130 nm) that afford extremely high signal enhancement in SP-LS. The maximum scattered power from a 130 nm AuNP is about 1700-fold higher than that obtained from a 17 nm AuNP. Experimentally, a bio-conjugation protocol was developed by coating the AuNPs with mixture of low and high molecular weight PEG molecules. Optimal IgG antibody bioconjugation conditions were identified using physicochemical characterization and a model dot-blot assay. Aggregation prevented the use of the larger AuNPs in SP-LS experiments. As predicted by simulation, AuNPs with diameters of 50 and 64 nm yielded significantly higher SP-LS signal enhancement in comparison to the smaller particles. Finally, we demonstrated the feasibility of a two-step SP-LS protocol based on a gold enhancement step, aimed at enlarging 36 nm AuNPs tags. This study provides a blue-print for the further development of SP-LS biosensing and its translation in the bioanalytical field

Phytophthora antagonism of endophytic bacteria isolated from roots of black pepper (Piper nigrum L.).

[[abstract]]Abstract: In this study, 90 root samples were collected from 30 black pepper farms in three provinces in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. A total of 352 endophytic bacteria were isolated and their morphology described. An in vitro assay on the ntifungal activity of these isolates was then conducted and 47 isolates were found to have antagonistic activity on Phytophthora fungi. The antifungal activity of the 47 isolates was evaluated in vivo by shoot assay. Among these 47 isolates, 6 were selected for further investigation. The six isolates were classified and identified by sequencing the 16S RNA gene and phylogeny. The results showed that all six endophytic bacteria belong to the following species of Bacillus genus: B. siamensis, B. amyloliquefaciens, B. velezenis, and B. methylotrophiycus. Enzymatic activity related to the antifungal activity of the six potent isolates was determined; it showed that they possessed high chitinase and protease activities. These isolates were applied for black pepper seedlings in greenhouse. The results showed three promising isolates: B. siamensis EB.CP6, B. velezensis EB.KN12, and B. methylotrophycus EB.KN13. Black pepper seedlings treated with the promising bacteria had the lowest rate of root disease (8.45–11.21%) and lower fatal rate (11.11–15.55%) compared to the control group (24.81% and 24.44%). In addition, the three promising isolates strongly affected the growth of the black pepper seedlings in greenhouse. The plant height, length of roots, and fresh biomass of the seedlings in the treated plots were higher than those in the control plots. Thus, the endophytic bacterial isolates have the potential to act as biocontrol agent for the sustainable production of black pepper.[[sponsorship]]科技部[[notice]]補正完

A review of elliptical and disc galaxy structure, and modern scaling laws

A century ago, in 1911 and 1913, Plummer and then Reynolds introduced their models to describe the radial distribution of stars in `nebulae'. This article reviews the progress since then, providing both an historical perspective and a contemporary review of the stellar structure of bulges, discs and elliptical galaxies. The quantification of galaxy nuclei, such as central mass deficits and excess nuclear light, plus the structure of dark matter halos and cD galaxy envelopes, are discussed. Issues pertaining to spiral galaxies including dust, bulge-to-disc ratios, bulgeless galaxies, bars and the identification of pseudobulges are also reviewed. An array of modern scaling relations involving sizes, luminosities, surface brightnesses and stellar concentrations are presented, many of which are shown to be curved. These 'redshift zero' relations not only quantify the behavior and nature of galaxies in the Universe today, but are the modern benchmark for evolutionary studies of galaxies, whether based on observations, N-body-simulations or semi-analytical modelling. For example, it is shown that some of the recently discovered compact elliptical galaxies at 1.5 < z < 2.5 may be the bulges of modern disc galaxies.Comment: Condensed version (due to Contract) of an invited review article to appear in "Planets, Stars and Stellar Systems"(www.springer.com/astronomy/book/978-90-481-8818-5). 500+ references incl. many somewhat forgotten, pioneer papers. Original submission to Springer: 07-June-201