Developing a plant virus-based expression system for the expression of vaccines against Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus

Virus-based expression systems have been widely exploited for the production of recombinant proteins in plants during the last three decades. Advances in technology have boosted scale-up manufacturing of plant-made pharmaceuticals to high levels, via the complementation of transient expression and viral vectors. This combination allows proteins of interest to be produced in plants within a matter of days and thus, is well suited for the development of plant-made vaccines or therapeutics against emerging infectious diseases and potential bioterrorism agents. Several plant-based products are currently in varying stages of clinical development. To investigate the viability of virus-based expression systems for plant-made subunit vaccines against Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV), I have developed several viral vectors which express partial PRRSV glycoprotein 5 (GP5). In this thesis, I demonstrated that viral vectors can increase the expression of proteins for vaccine development in a variety of host plants. Green fluorescent protein (GFP) and the C-terminus of GP5 fused with GFP (GP5C-GFP) were expressed at up to 37.29 mg/kg and 4.36 mg/kg fresh weight of leaf tissue, respectively, in soybean plants via biolistic bombardment, using viral vectors derived from Bean pod mottle virus (BPMV). A Cucumber green mottle mosaic virus (CGMMV)-based vector was employed to display chimeric virus particles, presenting the neutralizing epitope (NE) of GP5, at levels as high as 35.84 mg/kg of cucumber leaf fresh weight, via agroinfiltration. In addition, GFP and the ectodomain of GP5 fused with GFP (GP5e-GFP) were successfully produced at up to 2.03 g/kg and 36.53 mg/kg fresh weight of leaf tissue, respectively, in Nicotiana benthamiana using transient expression of Pepino mosaic virus (PepMV)-based vectors. Co-infiltration of viral vectors with p19, a silencing suppressor, can help to mitigate the toxicity of GP5e to plant tissue and enhance the accumulation of this protein. These plant-made products may be tested as oral subunit vaccines against PRRSV in pigs during future experimental trials. Overall, the results demonstrate that viral systems can produce low-cost, versatile and robust vaccines that have a great impact in the fight against viral diseases, especially in developing countries

Testing edible oil authenticity by using smartphone based spectrometer

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the classification of edible vegetable oils, examining authenticity and in detecting possible adulteration of high quality, expensive extra virgin olive oils with low-cost edible oils. Classical methods such as gas chromatography, liquid chromatography, Fourier transform infrared and nuclear magnetic resonance, mass spectrometry, and Raman spectroscopy have been widely applied to examine the authenticity of edible oils. Despite of their high sensitivity and accuracy, these methods are significantly expensive for daily life testing, especially in resource-poor regions. Furthermore, they are time-consuming as samples have to be analyzed in dedicated laboratories. In this paper, we propose a compact, low-cost, portable smartphone-based spectrometer for testing edible oil authenticity. Using simple laboratory optical components and a smartphone, we developed a compact spectrometer which can function in the wavelength range of 400–700 nm with the spectrum/pixel resolution of 0.334 nm/pixel. The images captured by the smartphone were converted into intensity distribution plots versus wavelength. As a proof of concept, the smartphone based spectrometer was utilized to measure the variations in fluorescent intensity of the mixed oils of expensive extra virgin olive oil and low-cost rice oil with different percentages. The results obtained the spectrometer were in good agreement with that from a laboratory spectrometer, thus, confirmed its adequate sensitivity and accuracy. Due to the cost effectiveness, the adequate sensitivity, and the portability, the smartphone based spectrometer can be applied in numerous applications such as in-field testing, lifestyle monitoring, and home diagnostics.This research was supported by the International Foundation for Science (IFS), Stockholm, Sweden, and by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), through a grant to Dr. Hanh Hong Mai. Grant NO. I-2-W-6258-1

Health impact of exposure to arsenic-contaminated drinking water in Vietnam

The public health situation of the population of Hanam Province in Vietnam is of great concern, as it is exposed daily to arsenic-contaminated drinking water. Optimising arsenic (As) removal efficiency of current sand filters at household level or switching to cleaner or As-free water sources is crucial to prevent or reduce community health risks

On how religions could accidentally incite lies and violence: folktales as a cultural transmitter

Folklore has a critical role as a cultural transmitter, all the while being a socially accepted medium for the expressions of culturally contradicting wishes and conducts. In this study of Vietnamese folktales, through the use of Bayesian multilevel modeling and the Markov chain Monte Carlo technique, we offer empirical evidence for how the interplay between religious teachings (Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism) and deviant behaviors (lying and violence) could affect a folktale’s outcome. The findings indicate that characters who lie and/or commit violent acts tend to have bad endings, as intuition would dictate, but when they are associated with any of the above Three Teachings, the final endings may vary. Positive outcomes are seen in cases where characters associated with Confucianism lie and characters associated with Buddhism act violently. The results supplement the worldwide literature on discrepancies between folklore and real-life conduct, as well as on the contradictory human behaviors vis-à-vis religious teachings. Overall, the study highlights the complexity of human decision-making, especially beyond the folklore realm

Determinants Influencing Accounting Quality of Transportation Service Firms

The study aimed to determine what determinants influencing the accounting of transportation service firms working the area of Da Nang of Vietnam. A study model was developed, investigated and analyzed with the involvement of 250 transportation service firms in Da Nang. The results show five determinants influencing the accounting works including industry characteristics; legal guidance; material facilities for accounting; interest in accounting of business owners; accountants’ qualifications. Among them, the two most important determinants influencing the quality of the accounting were legal guidance and interest in accounting of business owners. Based on the findings, some recommendations were made to improve the quality of accounting of transportation service firms. Keywords: Determinants, accounting, transportation services DOI: 10.7176/RJFA/11-4-08 Publication date: February 29th 202

Enantioselective separation of ofloxacin by ligand exchange chromatography

A ligand exchange HPLC method for enantioseparation of ofloxacin enantiomers was developed by a using C8 stationary phase. Chromatographic separation was performed on a Zorbax-300SB-C8 column eluted with the mobile phase consisting of 15 % methanol in water containing 10mM phenylalanin and 5 mM CuSO4 at flow rate of 0.8 mL/min. The method was simple, rapid and suitable for routine analytical studies of ofloxacin enantiomers

INVESTIGATION OF ARSENIC RELEASE FROM SEDIMENT MINERALS TO WATER PHASES -MOTIVATION FOR ARSENIC MITIGATION TECHNOLOGY

Joint Research on Environmental Science and Technology for the Eart

Damage detection for a large-scale truss bridge using Tranmissibility and ANNAOA

In this paper, we propose an efficient approach to enhance the capacity of Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to deal with Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) problems.  Over the last decades, ANN has been extensively utilized for damage detection in structures. In order to identify damages, ANN frequently utilizes input information that is based on dynamic features such as mode shapes or natural frequencies. However, this type of data may not be able to detect minor damages if the structural defects are insignificant. To transcend these limitations, in this work, we propose utilizing transmissibility to create input data for the input layer of ANN. Moreover, to deal with local minimum problems of ANN, a combination between the Arithmetic Optimization Algorithm (AOA) and ANN is proposed. The global search capacity of AOA is employed to remedy the local minima of ANN. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, a numerical model with different damage scenarios is considered. The suggested approach detects damage location precisely and with higher severity detection precision than the conventional ANN method