AN EVIDENCE FOR THE CONTRIBUTION OF ANAMMOX PROCESS IN NITROGEN REMOVAL FROM GROUNDWATER

Joint Research on Environmental Science and Technology for the Eart

Biocontrol of Alternaria alternata YZU, a causal of stem end rot disease on pitaya, with soil phosphate solubilizing bacteria

Stem end rot is the most destructive disease caused by Alternaria alternata YZU in pitaya-growing regions of Vietnam. This study was conducted to characterize antagonistic phosphate-solubilizing bacteria (PSB) from rhizosphere soil for their biocontrol activities against A. alternata YZU and evaluate the effect of temperature, pH, and water activity on that antagonism. Among seven PSB isolated from 45 rhizosphere soil samples, PSB31 (identified as Bacillus sp. strain IMAU61039, Accession number: MF803700.1) exhibited the highest antagonistic activity against A. alternata YZU with an average inhibition diameter of 0.65 ± 0.05 cm. The results also show that the strain PSB31 controlled the mycelial growth of A. alternata YZU by secreting antifungal metabolites. The most potent inhibitory activity was identified under in vitro conditions of 25 °C, pH 7, and aw 1. The isolated PSB31 could be a potential biological control agent against A. alternata YZU

Criblage virtuel sur grille de composés isolés au Vietnam

Criblage virtuel sur grille de composés isolés au Vietna

Socio-Cultural Factors Challenging Development Interventions in Cattle Production in the Remote Areas of Vietnam

The northwest highlands of Vietnam are characterized by high altitude, low infrastructure, and low population densities composed of a wide diversity of different ethnic groups. Their socio-cultural characteristics strongly influence their lifestyle and production systems, including agricultural activities. The majority of these people have suffered from slow economic development, with the highest poverty rate in the country. This is a real need for plausible interventions where behavioral changes of smallholders throughout local value chains would be a critical foundation. Our project implemented in this context of development in the Northwest highlands of Vietnam aims to understand the role of socio-cultural factors in cattle production systems in order to propose and examine feasible technical and marketing interventions to improve local grazing-based cattle production. Data on farmers and other actors (collectors, slaughterhouses, retailers and consumers) in local cattle value chains of two selected provinces (Son La and Dien Bien) were collected at the beginning of the project via a baseline survey. In addition, different group discussions with farmers were conducted until the end of the project to monitor the project’s progress and changes created through its interventions. We found that such behavioral changes cannot be motivated by development interventions per se without integrating an understanding of socio-cultural factors (i.e. ethnicity, geographical location and grazing-practices)

PILOT SCALE STUDY ON AMMONIUM REMOVAL IN PHAP VAN WATER PLANT, HANOI CITY

Joint Research on Environmental Science and Technology for the Eart

Static and free vibration analyses of laminated composite shells by cell-based smoothed discrete shear gap method (CS-DSG3) using three-node triangular elements

A cell-based smoothed discrete shear gap method (CS-DSG3) using three-node triangular elements was recently proposed to improve the performance of the discrete shear gap method (DSG3) for static and free vibration analyses of isotropic Reissner-Mindlin plates and shells. In this paper, the CS-DSG3 is further extended for static and free vibration analyses of laminated composite shells. In the present method, the first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT) is used in the formulation due to the simplicity and computational efficiency. The accuracy and reliability of the proposed method are verified by comparing its numerical solutions with those of others available numerical results

Pregnancy-associated plasma protein Aを悪性胸膜中皮腫細胞の遊走能を促進する遺伝子として同定 : 治療標的としての可能性

Despite recent advances in treatment, malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) remains a deadly disease. Targeted therapy generated broad interests and is highly expected for the treatment of MPM, yet promising preclinical results have not been translated into substantial clinical benefits for the patients. In this study, we tried to identify the genes which play functional roles in cell migration as well as to test whether they can be used as novel targets for molecular targeted therapy for MPM in preclinical model. In our study, pregnancy-associated plasma protein A (PAPPA) was identified as a gene whose expression level is correlated with MPM cell migration by correlation analysis combining MPM cell migration ability and their gene expression profiles. Highly migratory cells were selected from MPM cell lines, MSTO-211H, NCI-H290 and EHMES-1 in vitro and up-regulation of PAPPA in these cells were confirmed. In vitro, PAPPA was demonstrated to stimulate the MPM cell migration via cleavage of insulin-like growth factor-binding protein-4 and subsequent release of IGF-1. Gene silencing of PAPPA in MPM cells led to reduced migration, invasion and proliferation. Furthermore, PAPPA shRNA transfected NCI-H290 when orthotopically inoculated into pleural cavity of severe combined immunodeficiency recipient mice, failed to develop tumors and produce bloody pleural effusion as control shRNA transfected cells did. Our study suggests that PAPPA plays a functional role in promoting MPM cell migration and it might serve as a potential therapeutic target for the treatment of MPM

Influence of ASE Noise on Performance of DWDM Networks Using Low-power Pumped Raman Amplifiers

We present the results of investigation  for  influence of amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise, noise figure (NF) and  chromatic dispersion on the performance of middle-distance Dense-wavelength-division-multiplexing (DWDM) networks using low-power pumped distributed Raman amplifiers (DRAs) in two different pump configurations, i.e., forward and backward pumping. We found that the pumping configurations, ASE noise, and dispersion play an important role for improving network performance by decrease of noise figure and bit error rate (BER) of the system. Simulation results show that the lowest bit error rate and low noise figure were obtained, when using forward pumping configuration. Moreover, we have also compared ASE noise powers of the simulation with these of the experiment. These results conclude that DRA with low pump power  ($1$~W) is the promising key technology for short-- and/or middle-distance DWDM transmission networks

A Multistage System for Automatic Detection of Epileptic Spikes

A multistage automatic detection system for epileptic spikes is introduced as an assistant tool for epileptic analysis and diagnosis based on electroencephalogram (EEG). The system consists of four stages: preprocessing, feature extraction, classifier and expert system. Multiple state-of-the-art signal processing and machine learning techniques including wavelet transform, spectral filtering, artificial neural network are utilized in order to improve the ability of the overall system stage by stage. Compared to other works, our contributions are three-fold: peaks in the EEG recording are categorized into two groups of non-epileptic spikes and possible epileptic spikes by a committee of three perceptrons; appropriate mother wavelet and wavelet scales are selected for the best system performance; and, based on the neurological fact that an epileptic spike is usually followed by a slow wave, a simple expert system is presented to eliminate pseudo-spikes which are closely analogous to true epileptic spikes. Experimental results show that the proposed system is capable of detecting epileptic spikes efficiently