Sustainability assessment of Vietnam's electricity planning: Using section 1 of the 2009 hydropower sustainability assessment protocol

The Draft Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol (HSAP) was first introduced in Vietnam at the National Consultant Workshop organized by Vietnam Water Partnership (VNWP) in November 2009. Although the structure of HSAP is relatively complex and new to Vietnam, the participants (from Government agencies, experts, investors, and Vietnamese and international civil society organizations) had the impression that the HSAP has the potential to be a useful tool for participatory assessment of the sustainability of a hydropower project and broader planning. With the assistance of the M-POWER (Mekong Program on Water, Environment and Resilience), a national group of experts in multiple disciplines from government agencies, national organisations and NGOs was mobilized to conduct a rapid sustainability assessment of the energy and hydropower development policy and plan in Vietnam. Section I of the draft HSAP 2009 was used as an assessment tool. The assessment focused on the quality of the process of developing and implementing the strategic development of the electricity sector in general and hydropower development of Vietnam in particular. Even though the rapid assessment framework of HSAP was quite new to the Assessment Team and the assessment subjects are broad, the Team and participants in this trial learned positive and negative lessons that can serve as a basis for future assessment exercises to enable deeper and more comprehensive assessment. The assessment report includes four major parts: 1) Introduction and background, 2) Water and hydropower development in Vietnam; 3) Rapid assessment - process and discussion of results; and 4) Lessons learned from the assessment and recommendations for draft HSAP 2009

ISOLATION AND STRUCTURAL CHARACTERIZATION OF TWO SAPONINS FROM THE ROOTS OF Sansevieria trifasciata ‘Laurentii’

Sansevieria is a genus consisting of about 60 species natively distributed in tropical and subtropical areas. Many Sansevieria species are used for ornamental purposes or in traditional medicine to treat human diseases. Sansevieria trifasciata ‘Laurentii,’ commonly known as snake plant, is an evergreen perennial plant used in traditional medicine. The phytochemical investigation of the roots of S. trifasciata ‘Laurentii’ resulted in the isolation and structural characterization of two previously reported saponins: (24S,25R)-1b-[(β-D-fucopyranosyl)oxy]-3b-hydroxyspirost-5-en-24-yl β-D-glucopyranoside (1) and 26-[(β-D-glucopyranosyl)oxy]-3β,22α-dihydroxyfurosta-5,25(27)-dien-1β-yl-O-α-L-rhamnopyranosyl-(1→2)-α-L-arabinopyranoside (2) by analysis of their 1D and 2D NMR spectra and HR-ESI-MS, together with the comparison to data published in the literature

Recent remarkable records reveal that Phia Oac-Phia Den Nature Reserve is a priority area for bat conservation in Northern Vietnam

AbstractThree short field surveys were conducted in the Phia Oac-Phia Den Nature Reserve to assess the species diversity and endemism of local bat fauna. In combination with data from a previous study, 24 bat species of 5 families, representing > 20% of the national bat diversity, were recorded in the study area. The occurrence of several bat species restricted to montane forests, that is, Murina chrysochaetes, Pipistrellus coromandra, and a potentially new species Rhinolophus cf. macrotis, suggests that Phia Oac is an important area for bat conservation in Vietnam and thus more comprehensive studies need to be performed

Design of Mobile Manipulator for Fire Extinguisher Testing. Part I Key Specifications and Conceptual Design

All flames are extinguished as early as possible, or fire services have to deal with major conflagrations. This leads to the fact that the quality of fire extinguishers has become a very sensitive and important issue in firefighting. Inspired by the development of automatic fire fighting systems, this paper proposes key specifications based on the standard of fire extinguishers that is ISO 7165:2009 and ISO 11601:2008, and feasible solutions to design a mobile manipulator for automatically evaluating the quality or, more specifically, power of fire extinguishers. In addition, a part of the mechanical design is also discussed.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, the 7th International Conference on Advanced Engineering, Theory and Application

Spatiotemporal analysis of historical records (2001-2012) on dengue fever in Vietnam and development of a statistical model for forecasting risk

Background: Dengue fever is the most widespread infectious disease of humans transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes. It is the leading cause of hospitalization and death in children in the Southeast Asia and western Pacific regions. We analyzed surveillance records from health centers in Vietnam collected between 2001–2012 to determine seasonal trends, develop risk maps and an incidence forecasting model. Methods: The data were analyzed using a hierarchical spatial Bayesian model that approximates its posterior parameter distributions using the integrated Laplace approximation algorithm (INLA). Meteorological, altitude and land cover (LC) data were used as predictors. The data were grouped by province (n = 63) and month (n = 144) and divided into training (2001–2009) and validation (2010–2012) sets. Thirteen meteorological variables, 7 land cover data and altitude were considered as predictors. Only significant predictors were kept in the final multivariable model. Eleven dummy variables representing month were also fitted to account for seasonal effects. Spatial and temporal effects were accounted for using Besag-York-Mollie (BYM) and autoregressive (1) models. Their levels of significance were analyzed using deviance information criterion (DIC). The model was validated based on the Theil’s coefficient which compared predicted and observed incidence estimated using the validation data. Dengue incidence predictions for 2010–2012 were also used to generate risk maps. Results: The mean monthly dengue incidence during the period was 6.94 cases (SD 14.49) per 100,000 people. Analyses on the temporal trends of the disease showed regular seasonal epidemics that were interrupted every 3 years (specifically in July 2004, July 2007 and September 2010) by major fluctuations in incidence. Monthly mean minimum temperature, rainfall, area under urban settlement/build-up areas and altitude were significant in the final model. Minimum temperature and rainfall had non-linear effects and lagging them by two months provided a better fitting model compared to using unlagged variables. Forecasts for the validation period closely mirrored the observed data and accurately captured the troughs and peaks of dengue incidence trajectories. A favorable Theil’s coefficient of inequality of 0.22 was generated. Conclusions: The study identified temperature, rainfall, altitude and area under urban settlement as being significant predictors of dengue incidence. The statistical model fitted the data well based on Theil’s coefficient of inequality, and risk maps generated from its predictions identified most of the high-risk provinces throughout the country

Security–reliability analysis of AF full-duplex relay networks using self-energy recycling and deep neural networks

This paper investigates the security-reliability of simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT)-assisted amplify-and-forward (AF) full-duplex (FD) relay networks. In practice, an AF-FD relay harvests energy from the source (S) using the power-splitting (PS) protocol. We propose an analysis of the related reliability and security by deriving closed-form formulas for outage probability (OP) and intercept probability (IP). The next contribution of this research is an asymptotic analysis of OP and IP, which was generated to obtain more insight into important system parameters. We validate the analytical formulas and analyze the impact on the key system parameters using Monte Carlo simulations. Finally, we propose a deep learning network (DNN) with minimal computation complexity and great accuracy for OP and IP predictions. The effects of the system’s primary parameters on OP and IP are examined and described, along with the numerical data.Web of Science2317art. no. 761

Performance analysis of multihop full-duplex NOMA systems with imperfect interference cancellation and near-field path-loss

Outage probability (OP) and potential throughput (PT) of multihop full-duplex (FD) nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA) systems are addressed in the present paper. More precisely, two metrics are derived in the closed-form expressions under the impact of both imperfect successive interference cancellation (SIC) and imperfect self-interference cancellation. Moreover, to model short transmission distance from the transmit and receive antennae at relays, the near-field path-loss is taken into consideration. Additionally, the impact of the total transmit power on the performance of these metrics is rigorously derived. Furthermore, the mathematical framework of the baseline systems is provided too. Computer-based simulations via the Monte Carlo method are given to verify the accuracy of the proposed framework, confirm our findings, and highlight the benefits of the proposed systems compared with the baseline one.Web of Science231art. no. 52

Pollen and seed morphology of cleome species (Cleomaceae) in Vietnam

Cleomaceae is a family that includes 18 genera distributed worldwide in tropical and temperate regions. Cleome L. is the largest genus having 207 species, widely distributed in tropical and subtropical regions (POWO 2019). In Vietnam, the genus is represented by four species Cleome rutidosperma DC., C. houtteana Schltdl., C. viscosa L. and C. gynandra L. The present study documents the pollen and seed characteristics of all four species of Cleome in Vietnam, and the data obtained using light microscope and scanning electron microscope are analyzed considering their importance in taxonomic delimitation and understanding their phylogenetic relationship. The results indicated a close relationship between different pollen and aperture types. The striking differences between the pollen shapes among different species of Cleome could be useful in taxonomic and evolutionary studies. Similarly, seed shape and surface characters provided important clues for their delimitation. Based on the pollen and seed morphological characteristics, a taxonomic key has been provided for easy identification of the Cleome species in Vietnam

Validation and utilization of an internally controlled multiplex Real-time RT-PCR assay for simultaneous detection of enteroviruses and enterovirus A71 associated with hand foot and mouth disease

Background: Hand foot and mouth disease (HFMD) is a disease of public health importance across the Asia-Pacific region. The disease is caused by enteroviruses (EVs), in particular enterovirus A71 (EV-A71). In EV-A71-associated HFMD, the infection is sometimes associated with severe manifestations including neurological involvement and fatal outcome. The availability of a robust diagnostic assay to distinguish EV-A71 from other EVs is important for patient management and outbreak response. Methods: We developed and validated an internally controlled one-step single-tube real-time RT-PCR in terms of sensitivity, linearity, precision, and specificity for simultaneous detection of EVs and EV-A71. Subsequently, the assay was then applied on throat and rectal swabs sampled from 434 HFMD patients. Results: The assay was evaluated using both plasmid DNA and viral RNA and has shown to be reproducible with a maximum assay variation of 4.41 % and sensitive with a limit of detection less than 10 copies of target template per reaction, while cross-reactivity with other EV serotypes was not observed. When compared against a published VP1 nested RT-PCR using 112 diagnostic throat and rectal swabs from 112 children with a clinical diagnosis of HFMD during 2014, the multiplex assay had a higher sensitivity and 100 % concordance with sequencing results which showed EVs in 77/112 (68.8 %) and EV-A71 in 7/112 (6.3 %). When applied to clinical diagnostics for 322 children, the assay detected EVs in throat swabs of 257/322 (79.8 %) of which EV-A71 was detected in 36/322 (11.2 %) children. The detection rate increased to 93.5 % (301/322) and 13.4 % (43/322) for EVs and EV-A71, respectively, when rectal swabs from 65 throat-negative children were further analyzed. Conclusion: We have successfully developed and validated a sensitive internally controlled multiplex assay for rapid detection of EVs and EV-A71, which is useful for clinical management and outbreak control of HFMD. Keywords: Hand foot and mouth disease, Enteroviruses, Enterovirus A71, Real-time RT-PCR, Diagnosi

A generic assay for whole-genome amplification and deep sequencing of enterovirus A71

Enterovirus A71 (EV-A71) has emerged as the most important cause of large outbreaks of severe and sometimes fatal hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) across the Asia-Pacific region. EV-A71 outbreaks have been associated with (sub)genogroup switches, sometimes accompanied by recombination events. Understanding EV-A71 population dynamics is therefore essential for understanding this emerging infection, and may provide pivotal information for vaccine development. Despite the public health burden of EV-A71, relatively few EV-A71 complete-genome sequences are available for analysis and from limited geographical localities. The availability of an efficient procedure for whole-genome sequencing would stimulate effort to generate more viral sequence data. Herein, we report for the first time the development of a next-generation sequencing based protocol for whole-genome sequencing of EV-A71 directly from clinical specimens. We were able to sequence viruses of subgenogroup C4 and B5, while RNA from culture materials of diverse EV-A71 subgenogroups belonging to both genogroup B and C was successfully amplified. The nature of intra-host genetic diversity was explored in 22 clinical samples, revealing 107 positions carrying minor variants (ranging from 0 to 15 variants per sample). Our analysis of EV-A71 strains sampled in 2013 showed that they all belonged to subgenogroup B5, representing the first report of this subgenogroup in Vietnam. In conclusion, we have successfully developed a high-throughput next-generation sequencing-based assay for whole-genome sequencing of EV-A71 from clinical samples