Factors affecting the fermentation process of Vietnamese traditional wine ("men la" wine) using "Ba Nang" wine starter

“Men la” wine is a traditional wine product of the upland people in Vietnam. The wine is of the cultural essence of the nation, reflecting the current trend of one village one product (OCOP). The "Ba Nang" wine starters are usually made from sticky rice and local herbs. In fact, the use of herbs in traditional wine production has become popular. However, the traditional methods used by the local producers are not standardized. The quality of the wines produced is therefore not stable and wine producers resort to laborious trials and personal experience. The aim of this study was to examine the factors affecting the fermentation process in the production of “Men la” wine using the wine starters of the Van Kieu people in Da Ban, Ba Nang commune, Dakrong district, Quang Tri province, Vietnam. The ratio of yeast to rice, solid fermentation time, temperature, and time of liquid fermentation, as well as some biochemical criteria, were investigated to determine the best parameters for "Men la" wine production. The results showed that the optimal parameters for obtaining the highest quality of wine were: a mixture ratio of wine starter and whole rice of 8g: 1000g; solid fermentation for 4 days at 30 – 32oC; and fermentation for 7 days at 25oC with a ratio of rice ingredients and water of 1:2. The final product contained 4.952% of total sugar, 0.08% of reducing sugar, 0.315% acid, 0.104 g/L amino acid, and 10.61g/100mL of ethanol. The analysis did not detect methanol in the distilled wine products. The finished wine produced on a laboratory scale had a sweet taste equivalent to that of wine, with a flavor that was thought to be superior to the local wine. The alcoholic fermentation time was shortened by 2 days compared with local wine. The resultant "Men la" wine met the National Technical Regulations for alcoholic beverage products (QCVN 6-3:2010/BYT).&nbsp

Equitable, Quality Education for Ethnic Minority Students? A Case of "Positive Deviance" in Vietnam

Vietnam has achieved near-universal access to compulsory schooling over the past two decades. However, inequalities between ethnic majority and minority students are stark at post-compulsory levels, where progression is selective based on academic criteria and ability to pay. In this article, we adopt a mixed-methods approach to examine quality and equity for ethnic minority students in upper secondary education. Across five provinces, we find that ethnic minority students attend “less effective” upper secondary schools than ethnic majority students. However, an in-depth case study of an ethnic minority boarding school in Lao Cai province provides an example of positive deviance. Guided by a targeted affirmative action policy, the provincial government invests a relatively high level of resources to provide fee-free, high-quality schooling for gifted ethnic minority students. We consider the extent to which such policies can redress socioeconomic inequalities in Vietnam, and wider lessons for creating more equitable education systems

Genetic diversity on the tropical rare wood species of Dalbergia in Vietnam revealed by inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers

Genetic diversities of three rare hardwood species of Dalbergia (D. assamica, D. nigrescens and D. tonkinensis) were evaluated for conservation based on inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers. A total of 47 ISSR primers were used for the analysis, but only 31 ISSR primers were successfully amplified for 25 samples from each species. There were 166 fragments across the 75 samples produced, in which 153 were polymorphic with an average of 4.94 polymorphic fragments per primer. The number of amplified fragments ranged from 1 (ISSR13, ISSR54 and ISSR59) to 11 (ISSR14) and their size varied from 200 to 1700 bp. The similarity coefficient ranged from 67.0 to 98.9% in D. assamica; from 71.2 to 98.5% in D. nigrescens and from 68.5 to 95.2% in D. tonkinensis. The estimated value of molecular diversity parameters within species such as the effective number of alleles, Shannon's information index, intralocus gene diversity and Nei’s gene diversity were low among the individuals of the different Dalbergia species (1.227, 0.195, 0.662 and 0.146, respectively in D. assamica; 1.135, 0.111, 0.425 and 0.109, respectively in D. nigrescens; 1.198, 0.166, 0.526 and 0.123, respectively in D. tonkinensis). The analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) of ISSR data indicated that the greater proportion of total genetic variation existed among species rather than within species. The correlation between genetic and geographic distance was also found in the three Dalbergia species.Key words: Dalbergia, endemic species, genetic similarity, ISSR markers

Elintarvikeklusterin laatuselvitys

Elintarvikeklusterin laatuselvityksen tavoitteena on ollut selvittää 1) elintarvikeklusterin toiminnan laadun nykytila, 2) elintarvikeklusterin toiminnan vahvuudet ja heikkoudet ja 3) elintarvikeklusterin laatukulttuurin rakentamisen kehittämisehdotukset. Hankkeen toimeksiantajana on ollut maa- ja metsätalousministeriön yhteydessä työskentelevä elintarvikkeiden laatujohtoryhmä. Hankkeen tutkimusmenetelminä on käytetty haastatteluita, osallistuvaa havainnointia (maatila- ja yritysvierailut) ja laajaa kirjallisen aineiston analyysia

MODELING AND VERIFICATION OF CREEP STRAIN AND EXHAUSTION IN A WELDED STEAM MIXER

ABSTRACT Structures operating in the creep regime will consume their creep life at a greater rate in locations where the stress state is aggravated by triaxiality constraints

Murphy tools: Utilizing extracted gui models for industrial software testing

Abstract-One of the main challenges in adopting modelbased testing (MBT) is the effort and expertise required to produce the formal models. For an existing system, there are various approaches to automate the process of creating the models. In this paper, we share our experiences from a long term industrial evaluation on automatically extracting models of graphical user interface (GUI) applications and utilizing the extracted models to automate and support GUI testing. While model extraction and GUI testing has been recently a popular research topic, most proposed approaches have limitations on what can be modeled and industry adoption has been lacking. We describe the process of using Murphy tools to extract GUI models and utilize these models to automate and support various testing activities. During the evaluation, test engineers of an industrial software company used Murphy tools to support their daily efforts in testing commercial software products during 1 year time period. The results from the evaluation were promising, significantly reducing time and effort required for GUI testing