Determinants of Female’s Employment Outcomes in Vietnam

In the context of reducing female labor demand and restructuring female work in integration, determinants of women\u27s employment are studied using data of 2010 VHLSS with 11,085 women aged 15 and older who were working in the Vietnamese labor market. The economic and care needs, values and opportunities of women working are important. At the region-level, economic development and equality will give women opportunities for better work. Women\u27s education and training clearly take a key position. The analysis shows the effect of education and training are strongest and positive for women with employment in the group of Leaders, managers, and administrators; High and Middle-level technicians and professionals”. The finding suggests an effect of household social-economic status on women\u27s employment achievements. Our results stress the importance of education and training as the major road towards women\u27s empowerment in Vietnam

A Room-Temperature High-Conductivity Metal Printing Paradigm with Visible-Light Projection Lithography

Fabricating electronic devices require integrating metallic conductors and polymeric insulators in complex structures. Current metal-patterning methods such as evaporation and laser sintering require vacuum, multistep processes, and high temperature during sintering or postannealing to achieve desirable electrical conductivity, which damages low-temperature polymer substrates. Here reports a facile ecofriendly room-temperature metal printing paradigm using visible-light projection lithography. With a particle-free reactive silver ink, photoinduced redox reaction occurs to form metallic silver within designed illuminated regions through a digital mask on substrate with insignificant temperature change (<4 °C). The patterns exhibit remarkably high conductivity achievable at room temperature (2.4 × 107 S m−1, ≈40% of bulk silver conductivity) after simple room-temperature chemical annealing for 1–2 s. The finest silver trace produced reaches 15 µm. Neither extra thermal energy input nor physical mask is required for the entire fabrication process. Metal patterns were printed on various substrates, including polyethylene terephthalate, polydimethylsiloxane, polyimide, Scotch tape, print paper, Si wafer, glass coverslip, and polystyrene. By changing inks, this paradigm can be extended to print various metals and metal–polymer hybrid structures. This method greatly simplifies the metal-patterning process and expands printability and substrate materials, showing huge potential in fabricating microelectronics with one system

Nonlinear thermoelectric response of quantum dots: renormalized dual fermions out of equilibrium

The thermoelectric transport properties of nanostructured devices continue to attract attention from theorists and experimentalist alike as the spatial confinement allows for a controlled approach to transport properties of correlated matter. Most of the existing work, however, focuses on thermoelectric transport in the linear regime despite the fact that the nonlinear conductance of correlated quantum dots has been studied in some detail throughout the last decade. Here, we review our recent work on the effect of particle-hole asymmetry on the nonlinear transport properties in the vicinity of the strong coupling limit of Kondo-correlated quantum dots and extend the underlying method, a renormalized superperturbation theory on the Keldysh contour, to the thermal conductance in the nonlinear regime. We determine the charge, energy, and heat current through the nanostructure and study the nonlinear transport coefficients, the entropy production, and the fate of the Wiedemann-Franz law in the non-thermal steady-state. Our approach is based on a renormalized perturbation theory in terms of dual fermions around the particle-hole symmetric strong-coupling limit.Comment: chapter contributed to 'New Materials for Thermoelectric Applications: Theory and Experiment' Springer Series: NATO Science for Peace and Security Series - B: Physics and Biophysics, Veljko Zlatic (Editor), Alex Hewson (Editor). ISBN: 978-9400749863 (2012

Ginger Essential Oil Ameliorates Cisplatin-Induced Nephrotoxicity in Mice

Purpose: To investigate the effect of ginger essential oil (GEO) in an experimental model of cisplatininduced nephrotoxicity.Methods: Male mice were divided into treatment six groups (n = 7), namely: Groups I (saline), II and III (cisplatin, 10 mg/kg, i.p.) euthanized in 3th and 6th days, respectively, and IV, V and IV (GEO, 100, 200 and 400 mg/kg/day, respectively, by gavage 3, 4, 5 and 6 days after cisplatin injection). Creatinine levels and protein/creatinine ratio were determined in plasma and urine, respectively. Bone morphogenic protein (BMP-7) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF-α) levels of kidney tissues were determined while mRNA expression levels were obtained using real-time polymerase chain reaction.Results: GEO treatment reduced significantly creatinine levels to 0.53 ± 0.02; 0.48 ± 0.008 and 0.46 ± 0.02 at 100, 200 and 400 mg/kg, respectively, compared with control (0.70 ± 0.01) [p<0.05] but increased protein : creatinine ratio to 0.21 ± 0.01, 0.22 ± 0.01, 0.24 ± 0.02 compared with control (0.06 ± 0.008) [p<0.05]. Pro-inflammatory TNF-α mRNA expression was decreased to 1.46 ± 0.21, 1.39 ± 0.19 and 1.36 ± 0.09, at GEO doses of 100, 200 and 400 mg/kg, respectively, while anti-fibrotic BMP-7 mRNA expression increased to 2.05 ± 0.26 and 2.44 ± 0.42 at doses of 200 and 400 mg/kg, respectively, compared with control (0.59 ± 0.39, p < 0.05).Conclusion: GEO treatment attenuates cisplatin-induced nephrotoxicity, in part, by modulating some inflammatory cytokines.Keywords: Zingiber officinale, Ginger, Roscoe, Essential oil, Nephrotoxicity, Cisplati

Soft x-ray spectroscopy experiments on the near K-edge of B in MB2 (M=Mg, Al, Ta, and Nb)

Soft X-ray absorption and emission measurements are performed for the K- edge of B in MB$_2$ (M=Mg, Al, Ta and Nb). Unique feature of MgB$_2$ with a high density of B 2$p_{xy}(\sigma)$-state below and above the Fermi edge, which extends to 1 eV above the edge, is confirmed. In contrast, the B 2$p$ density of states in AlB$_2$ and TaB$_2$, both of occupied and unoccupied states, decreased linearly towards the Fermi energy and showed a dip at the Fermi energy. Furthermore, there is a broadening of the peaks with $p\sigma$-character in XES and XAS of AlB$_2$, which is due to the increase of three dimensionality in the $p\sigma$-band in AlB$_2$. The DOS of NbB$_2$ has a dip just below the Fermi energy. The present results indicate that the large DOS of B-2$p\sigma$ states near the Fermi energy are crucial for the superconductivity of MgB$_2$.Comment: 3 pages text and 4 pages figures. accepted for publication to Phys. Rev.

A single residue substitution in the receptor-binding domain of H5N1 hemagglutinin is critical for packaging into pseudotyped lentiviral particles

© 2012 Tang et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Background: Serological studies for influenza infection and vaccine response often involve microneutralization and hemagglutination inhibition assays to evaluate neutralizing antibodies against human and avian influenza viruses, including H5N1. We have previously characterized lentiviral particles pseudotyped with H5-HA (H5pp) and validated an H5pp-based assay as a safe alternative for high-throughput serological studies in BSL-2 facilities. Here we show that H5-HAs from different clades do not always give rise to efficient production of H5pp and the underlying mechanisms are addressed. Methodology/Findings: We have carried out mutational analysis to delineate the molecular determinants responsible for efficient packaging of HA from A/Cambodia/40808/2005 (H5Cam) and A/Anhui/1/2005 (H5Anh) into H5pp. Our results demonstrate that a single A134V mutation in the 130-loop of the receptor binding domain is sufficient to render H5Anh the ability to generate H5Anh-pp efficiently, whereas the reverse V134A mutation greatly hampers production of H5Cam-pp. Although protein expression in total cell lysates is similar for H5Anh and H5Cam, cell surface expression of H5Cam is detected at a significantly higher level than that of H5Anh. We further demonstrate by several independent lines of evidence that the behaviour of H5Anh can be explained by a stronger binding to sialic acid receptors implicating residue 134. Conclusions: We have identified a single A134V mutation as the molecular determinant in H5-HA for efficient incorporation into H5pp envelope and delineated the underlying mechanism. The reduced binding to sialic acid receptors as a result of the A134V mutation not only exerts a critical influence in pseudotyping efficiency of H5-HA, but has also an impact at the whole virus level. Because A134V substitution has been reported as a naturally occurring mutation in human host, our results may have implications for the understanding of human host adaptation of avian influenza H5N1 virusesThis work was supported by grants from the Research Fund for the Control of Infectious Diseases of Hong Kong (RFCID#08070972), the Area of Excellence Scheme of the University Grants Committee (grant AoE/M-12/-06 of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China), the French Ministry of Health, and the RESPARI project of the Institut Pasteur International Network

The incidence of liver injury in Uyghur patients treated for TB in Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region, China, and its association with hepatic enzyme polymorphisms nat2, cyp2e1, gstm1 and gstt1.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Of three first-line anti-tuberculosis (anti-TB) drugs, isoniazid is most commonly associated with hepatotoxicity. Differences in INH-induced toxicity have been attributed to genetic variability at several loci, NAT2, CYP2E1, GSTM1and GSTT1, that code for drug-metabolizing enzymes. This study evaluated whether the polymorphisms in these enzymes were associated with an increased risk of anti-TB drug-induced hepatitis in patients and could potentially be used to identify patients at risk of liver injury. METHODS AND DESIGN: In a cross-sectional study, 2244 tuberculosis patients were assessed two months after the start of treatment. Anti-TB drug-induced liver injury (ATLI) was defined as an ALT, AST or bilirubin value more than twice the upper limit of normal. NAT2, CYP2E1, GSTM1 and GSTT1 genotypes were determined using the PCR/ligase detection reaction assays. RESULTS: 2244 patients were evaluated, there were 89 cases of ATLI, a prevalence of 4% 9 patients (0.4%) had ALT levels more than 5 times the upper limit of normal. The prevalence of ATLI was greater among men than women, and there was a weak association with NAT2*5 genotypes, with ATLI more common among patients with the NAT2*5*CT genotype. The sensitivity of the CT genotype for identifying patients with ATLI was 42% and the positive predictive value 5.9%. CT ATLI was more common among slow acetylators (prevalence ratio 2.0 (95% CI 0.95,4.20) )compared to rapid acetylators. There was no evidence that ATLI was associated with CYP2E1 RsaIc1/c1genotype, CYP2E1 RsaIc1/c2 or c2/c2 genotypes, or GSTM1/GSTT1 null genotypes. CONCLUSIONS: In Xinjiang Uyghur TB patients, liver injury was associated with the genetic variant NAT2*5, however the genetic markers studied are unlikely to be useful for screening patients due to the low sensitivity and low positive predictive values for identifying persons at risk of liver injury