Synthesis and Photocatalytic Activity for Toluene Removal of CDs/TiO2 - Zeolite Y

Hydrothermally synthesized carbon nanodots (CDs) were impregnated on TiO2. The product (CDs/TiO2) was mechanically mixed with zeolite Y for application in toluene photocatalytic oxidation reaction under UV radiation. Material properties of the samples were investigated by different methods. Toluene vapor was chosen as a typical volatile organic compound to investigate the performance of CDs/TiO2 – zeolite Y photocatalyst when these technological parameters were changed: toluene concentration, gas flow rate, humidity and UV light intensity. In each reaction, only one parameter was changed and the remaining conditions were fixed. The toluene concentrations at the beginning and the end of each reaction were analyzed with the use of gas chromatography (GC). The results of different reaction conditions show the trends for toluene treatment of the CDs/TiO2 – zeolite Y catalyst, thereby providing specific explanations for these trends. The experiments also show that toluene removal is highest when the toluene concentration in the inlet gas is 314 ppmv, the flow rate is 3 L/h, the humidity is 60%, and the catalyst (CDs/TiO2 – zeolite Y composite with 70% zeolite in weight) is illuminated by 4 UV lamps. Copyright © 2022 by Authors, Published by BCREC Group. This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0).

Federated Deep Reinforcement Learning-based Bitrate Adaptation for Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP

In video streaming over HTTP, the bitrate adaptation selects the quality of video chunks depending on the current network condition. Some previous works have applied deep reinforcement learning (DRL) algorithms to determine the chunk's bitrate from the observed states to maximize the quality-of-experience (QoE). However, to build an intelligent model that can predict in various environments, such as 3G, 4G, Wifi, \textit{etc.}, the states observed from these environments must be sent to a server for training centrally. In this work, we integrate federated learning (FL) to DRL-based rate adaptation to train a model appropriate for different environments. The clients in the proposed framework train their model locally and only update the weights to the server. The simulations show that our federated DRL-based rate adaptations, called FDRLABR with different DRL algorithms, such as deep Q-learning, advantage actor-critic, and proximal policy optimization, yield better performance than the traditional bitrate adaptation methods in various environments.Comment: 13 pages, 1 colum

Required flows for aquatic ecosystems in Ma River, Vietnam

Ecological flow requirements for the Ma River in dry season were assessed in three reaches of Ma – Buoi, Ma – Len and Ma – Chu. 5 indictor fish species was chosen based on biodiversity survey and roles of those species in aquatic ecosystem as well as local communities. Biological and hydrological data (dry season of 2016- 2017) and 35 year recorded hydrological data were collected and analyzed as input data for a physical habitat model River HYdraulic and HABitat SImulation Model – RHYHABSIM. Model results shown that the optimal flows of the reaches were very much higher compare with the minimum annual low flow - MALF. In this study, MALF7day were applied to calculate the recommended minimum flows of the three reaches. The recommended required minimum flows for Ma – Buoi, Ma – Len and Ma – Chu reaches were 51 m3/s, 49 m3/s and 61 m3/s, respectively. It must be stressed that this study only assessed whether or not there is enough habitat available for the river to sustain a healthy ecosystem

One-loop expressions for h→llˉγh\rightarrow l\bar{l}\gamma in Higgs extensions of the Standard Model

A systematic study of one-loop contributions to the decay channels $h\rightarrow l\bar{l}\gamma$ with $l=\nu_{e,\mu, \tau}, e, \mu$, performed in Higgs extended versions of the Standard Model, is presented in the 't Hooft-Veltman gauge. Analytic formulas for one-loop form factors are expressed in terms of the logarithm and di-logarithmic functions. As a result, these form factors can be reduced to those relating to the loop-induced decay processes $h\rightarrow \gamma\gamma, Z\gamma$, confirming not only previous results using different approaches but also close relations between the three kinds of the loop-induced Higgs decay rates. For phenomenological study, we focus on the two observables, namely the enhancement factors defined as ratios of the decay rates calculated between the Higgs extended versions and the standard model, and the forward-backward asymmetries of fermions, which can be used to search for Higgs extensions of the SM. We show that direct effects of mixing between neutral Higgs bosons and indirect contributions of charged Higg boson exchanges can be probed at future colliders.Comment: 39 pages, 9 Figures, 11 Tables of dat

Supporting User-Defined Functions on Uncertain Data

Uncertain data management has become crucial in many sensing and scientific applications. As user-defined functions (UDFs) become widely used in these applications, an important task is to capture result uncertainty for queries that evaluate UDFs on uncertain data. In this work, we provide a general framework for supporting UDFs on uncertain data. Specifically, we propose a learning approach based on Gaussian processes (GPs) to compute approximate output distributions of a UDF when evaluated on uncertain input, with guaranteed error bounds. We also devise an online algorithm to compute such output distributions, which employs a suite of optimizations to improve accuracy and performance. Our evaluation using both real-world and synthetic functions shows that our proposed GP approach can outperform the state-of-the-art sampling approach with up to two orders of magnitude improvement for a variety of UDFs. 1

Appropriate Antibiotic Use and Associated Factors in Vietnamese Outpatients

Background: Inappropriate antibiotic use among outpatients is recognized as the primary driver of antibiotic resistance. A proper understanding of appropriate antibiotic usage and associated factors helps to determine and limit inappropriateness. We aimed to identify the rate of appropriate use of antibiotics and identify factors associated with the inappropriate prescriptions. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional descriptive study in outpatient antibiotic use at a hospital in Can Tho City, Vietnam, from August 1, 2019, to January 31, 2020. Data were extracted from all outpatient prescriptions at the Medical Examination Department and analyzed by SPSS 18 and Chi-squared tests, with 95% confidence intervals. The rationale for antibiotic use was evaluated through antibiotic selection, dose, dosing frequency, dosing time, interactions between antibiotics and other drugs, and general appropriate usage. Results: A total of 420 prescriptions were 51.7% for females, 61.7% with health insurance, and 44.0% for patients with one comorbid condition. The general appropriate antibiotic usage rate was 86.7%. Prescriptions showed that 11.0% and 9.5% had a higher dosing frequency and dose than recommended, respectively; 10.2% had an inappropriate dosing time; 3.1% had drug interactions; and only 1.7% had been prescribed inappropriate antibiotics. The risk of inappropriate antibiotic use increased in patients with comorbidities and antibiotic treatment lasting >7 days (p < 0.05). Conclusions: The study indicated a need for more consideration when prescribing antibiotics to patients with comorbidities or using more than 7 days of treatment

An inverse problem by boundary element method

Boundary Element Methods (BEM) have been established as useful and powerful tools in a wide range of engineering applications, e.g. Brebbia et al. In this paper, we report a particular three dimensional implementation of a direct boundary integral equation (BIE) formulation and its application to numerical simulations of practical polymer processing operations. In particular, we will focus on the application of the present boundary element technology to simulate an inverse problem in plastics processing.by extrusion. The task is to design profile extrusion dies for plastics. The problem is highly non-linear due to material viscoelastic behaviours as well as unknown free surface conditions. As an example, the technique is shown to be effective in obtaining the die profiles corresponding to a square viscoelastic extrudate under different processing conditions. To further illustrate the capability of the method, examples of other non-trivial extrudate profiles and processing conditions are also given

Burden of injuries in Vietnam: emerging trends from a decade of economic achievement

BACKGROUND: Vietnam has been one of the fastest-growing world economies in the past decade. The burden of injuries can be affected by economic growth given the increased exposure to causes of injury as well as decreased morbidity and mortality of those that experience injury. It is of interest to evaluate the trends in injury burden that occurred alongside Vietnam's economic growth in the past decade. METHODS: Results from Global Burden of Disease 2017 were obtained and reviewed. Estimates of incidence, cause-specific mortality, years lived with disability, years of life lost, disability-adjusted life years were analysed and reported for 30 causes of injury in Vietnam from 2007 to 2017. RESULTS: Between 2007 and 2017, the age-standardised incidence rate of all injuries increased by 14.6% (11.5%-18.2%), while the age-standardised mortality rate decreased by 11.6% (3.0%-20.2%). Interpersonal violence experienced the largest increase in age-standardised incidence (28.3% (17.6%-40.1%)), while exposure to forces of nature had the largest decrease in age-standardised mortality (47.1% (37.9%-54.6%)). The five leading causes of injury in both 2007 and 2017 were road injuries, falls, exposure to mechanical forces, interpersonal violence and other unintentional injuries, all of which increased in incidence from 2007 to 2017. Injury burden varied markedly by age and sex. CONCLUSIONS: The rapid expansions of economic growth in Vietnam as well as improvements in the Sociodemographic Index have occurred alongside dynamic patterns in injury burden. These results should be used to develop and implement prevention and treatment programme