Factors that contribute to the pathogenesis of dengue in adult patients in Vietnam

Dengue fever and dengue hemorrhagic fever (DF /DHF) are caused by the dengue viruses, which belong to family Flaviviridae. DHF incidence has been increasing globally in the last 40 years. Over half the world's population lives in areas potentially at risk for dengue transmission, making dengue the most important human viral disease transmitted by arthropod vectors in terms of morbidity and mortality. Recently, the age distribution of DHF cases in Asia has changed. The number of adults with DHF has increased since the 1990s in Southeast Asian countries including Viet Nam. A series of studies were conducted in the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam on clinical manifestations, cytokine production in acute infection and T cell responses in adult dengue patients

Can Visual Effects be the future direction of Origami?

Origami - the art of paper folding - is popularly applied in the design industry, especially architecture, because it creates aesthetic and technical forms. Its forms are highly applicable so that people overlook the other aspects of it, including the visual effects (light & shadow art, optical illusion...). My research focuses on this knowledge gap – Origami and visual effects. (1) First, I researched more than 70 techniques of paper folding by Jackson [2], learned from Origami design software named TreeMaker, created specific design products, and then adjusted the folding technique to design my own Origami forms. (2) I studied to create the silhouette of the horse. I was inspired by the Centaur - a combination of the silhouette of a human and a horse. This also reminded me of the finger shadow puppets. Therefore, I combined these ideas to create a projection of a horse on my Origami. I successfully created the silhouette of a horse by projecting my hand onto the Origami. But the unexpected was the visual effect gained from the experiment. During the shadow projection experiment, I noticed that when moving an object on the Origami, the object's projection changes depending on the Origami surface. The projection also creates an optical illusion because its direction is bent while the object moves only horizontally. (More explanation with a poster and a short clip) This can be a new inspiration for designers when studying Origami. Because besides the aesthetics of the structural form, Origami can also be studied in the application of visual effects

Balanced scorecard and hoshin kanri: dynamic capabilities for managing strategic fit

Purpose - The paper seeks to combine the uses of the balanced scorecard and hoshin kanri as integrative dynamic capabilities for the entire strategic management process. It aims to posit a model for the combination of these long- and short-term organisational activities as a framework for a senior level to manage a firm's strategic fit as an integrated organisation-wide system that links top management goals to daily management. Design/rnethodology/approach - The resource-based view of strategy is explored for its relevance to how a combined balanced scorecard and hoshin kanri approach serves as a high-order dynamic capability. Examples are given from Canon, Toyota and Nissan, of how core capabilities are managed to show how strategy is executed cross-functionally across a firm's functional hierarchy. Findings - The study finds that strategic management of the organisation should consider the long-term strategy as well as the short-term capability. Important to this are core capabilities and core competences, cross-functional management, and top executive audits, which, when managed properly, explicate a new view of strategic fit, as a form of nested hierarchies of dynamic capabilities. Originality/value - The paper is the first exposition of how balanced scorecard and hoshin kanri practices may usefully complement each other in strategic management. It is a useful framework for dynamically managing sustained competitive advantage

BLENDED LEARNING IN BADMINTON TRAINING FOR PROFESSIONALS: STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS AND PERFORMANCE IMPACTS

As with other subject areas, badminton instruction for practitioners is experiencing a lot of changes under the impact of technology. Recently there has been the possibility of moving badminton training classes to the online platform but there is no consensus on its efficacy. This study is conducted to study the effects of blended learning activities on the perceptions and performance of students in physical education. Forty students in physical education are selected and divided into two groups: an experimental group, and a control group. All groups in face-to-face learning sessions have the same curriculum, course-book, equipment and teaching method. The questionnaire and interview data show that students in blended class sessions had positive perceptions of learning activities.  Article visualizations

Dengue human infection models supporting drug development.

Dengue is a arboviral infection that represents a major global health burden. There is an unmet need for effective dengue therapeutics to reduce symptoms, duration of illness and incidence of severe complications. Here, we consider the merits of a dengue human infection model (DHIM) for drug development. A DHIM could allow experimentally controlled studies of candidate therapeutics in preselected susceptible volunteers, potentially using smaller sample sizes than trials that recruited patients with dengue in an endemic country. In addition, the DHIM would assist the conduct of intensive pharmacokinetic and basic research investigations and aid in determining optimal drug dosage. Furthermore, a DHIM could help establish proof of concept that chemoprophylaxis against dengue is feasible. The key challenge in developing the DHIM for drug development is to ensure the model reliably replicates the typical clinical and laboratory features of naturally acquired, symptomatic dengue

Proliferation and Propagation of Breakthrough Performance Management Theories and Praxes

The articles included in this special issue look broadly at the proliferation (widespread) and propagation (deliberate attempt to implant in other disciplines/contexts) of breakthrough (significant, high impact, renowned) performance management theories and praxes (cf. practices, for its acceptability and custom use)

Back to the Future of Women in Technology: Insights from Understanding the Shortage of Women in Innovation Sectors for Managing Corporate Foresight

This paper investigates why there is a shortage of women in innovation, such as science, particularly technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) sectors and offers insights for managing corporate foresight. It acknowledges that traditional corporate foresight methodologies have their own inherent problems, but argues that greater inclusion of women brings in new dimensions not previously recognised within the predominantly male-dominated technology sector. While extant feminist research may look at the general disadvantages women have in the workplace, few have examined the genesis and constitution of femininity to understand what new input can be brought innovation management, and how these different views can change the conduct of corporate foresight in the technology sector. Interviews from five senior personnel in the technology sector were conducted, and responses to a concise questionnaire involving 365 participants were obtained. Three case-rich narratives are presented as a summary on the future of women in technology

Do Intangible Assets Help SMEs in Underdeveloped Markets Gain Access to External Finance? – The Case of Vietnam

The credit frictions encountered by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have been widely examined in the entrepreneurship literature. Although theory suggests that asset tangibility helps increase firms' borrowing capacity because it allows creditors to take possession of a firm's assets more easily, this paper provides new evidence about the role of intangible assets in reducing credit frictions for SMEs. Using an extensive dataset of more than 155,852 SMEs in Vietnam and a multivariate probit model, we find that identifiable intangible assets improve firm access to debt and equity finance. Interestingly, it is found that the friction-reducing effect of intangibles is stronger on debt finance than on equity finance, suggesting non-equivalent distributional effects of intangible assets on firm capital structure. Moreover, firm age and size can moderate the association between intangibles and access to the two sources of external finance

Temporal fluctuation of multidrug resistant salmonella typhi haplotypes in the mekong river delta region of Vietnam.

BACKGROUND: typhoid fever remains a public health problem in Vietnam, with a significant burden in the Mekong River delta region. Typhoid fever is caused by the bacterial pathogen Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi (S. Typhi), which is frequently multidrug resistant with reduced susceptibility to fluoroquinolone-based drugs, the first choice for the treatment of typhoid fever. We used a GoldenGate (Illumina) assay to type 1,500 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and analyse the genetic variation of S. Typhi isolated from 267 typhoid fever patients in the Mekong delta region participating in a randomized trial conducted between 2004 and 2005. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: the population of S. Typhi circulating during the study was highly clonal, with 91% of isolates belonging to a single clonal complex of the S. Typhi H58 haplogroup. The patterns of disease were consistent with the presence of an endemic haplotype H58-C and a localised outbreak of S. Typhi haplotype H58-E2 in 2004. H58-E2-associated typhoid fever cases exhibited evidence of significant geo-spatial clustering along the Sông H u branch of the Mekong River. Multidrug resistance was common in the established clone H58-C but not in the outbreak clone H58-E2, however all H58 S. Typhi were nalidixic acid resistant and carried a Ser83Phe amino acid substitution in the gyrA gene. SIGNIFICANCE: the H58 haplogroup dominates S. Typhi populations in other endemic areas, but the population described here was more homogeneous than previously examined populations, and the dominant clonal complex (H58-C, -E1, -E2) observed in this study has not been detected outside Vietnam. IncHI1 plasmid-bearing S. Typhi H58-C was endemic during the study period whilst H58-E2, which rarely carried the plasmid, was only transient, suggesting a selective advantage for the plasmid. These data add insight into the outbreak dynamics and local molecular epidemiology of S. Typhi in southern Vietnam

Managing the Survivor Syndrome as Scenario Planning Methodology … and it Matters!

The importance of foresight is discussed in relation to why traditional scenario planning methodology is problematic at achieving it. The ‘survivor syndrome’ is borrowed from the human resources literature and presented as a metaphor for foresight to illustrate how better ‘scenarios’ can be achieved by understanding the syndrome better. A practice perspective is given on the use of a 7-theme framework as a method of interviewing survivors. The article draws from an empirical research that took place during the 2008 global financial crisis to illustrate the richness of the insights that would otherwise not be obtainable through scenario planning methods that do not involve ‘survivors’. In that research, semi-structured interviews were employed with key personnel at multiple levels of one private and one public organization that had undergone a redundancy process at the time of the crisis to explore its effect on the remaining workforce. The ‘survivor syndrome’ itself would be minimized if managers consider the feelings of survivors with more open communication. Survivors in private firms were found generally to experience anxiety, but are more likely to remain more motivated, than their counterparts in the public sector. These detailed insights create more accurate ‘scenarios’ in scenario planning exercises. Organizational performance can be better enhanced if the survivor syndrome can be better managed. In turn, scenario planning, as a form of organizational foresight, is better practiced through managing the survivor syndrome. Scenario planning methodology has proliferated well in the human resource management literature