Differentiation Effect of Two Alkaloid Fractions from Vietnamese Lycopodiaceae on Mouse Neural Stem Cells

Various Lycopodium alkaloids have been studied for their various biological activities including anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, immunomodulatory, and neuroprotective activities. Moreover, these alkaloid compounds have high potential in the treatment of neuron degenerative disease. This study has been carried out to test the effect of Huperzia serrata (Thunb.) Trevis, and Lycopodium clavatum L alkaloid fractions on the mouse neural stem cells (NSCs). Firstly, the alkaloid fractions were used to verify its toxicity on NSCs. The multiple concentrations of alkaloid fractions from H. serrata (0.044; 0.088; 0.175; 0.35; 0.7; 1.4 mg/ml) and L. clavatum (0.031; 0.063; 0.125; 0.25; 0.50; 1.0; 2.0 mg/ml) have been used for the treatment of NSCs at period of 48h incubation. Results of the study suggested that the IC50 value of H. serrata and L. clavatum was 0.56 mg/ml and 0.50 mg/ml, respectively. Then, the NSCs were differentiated in the presence of 5 and 10 µg/ml of alkaloid fraction from H. serrata; 0.625 and 1.25 µg/ml of alkaloid fraction from L. clavatum for 6 days. Here, we observed the primary NSCs treated with alkaloid fraction extract from H. serrata showed the increased gene expression level of early neuron TUBB3 and neuron-specific cytoskeleton MAP2. On the other hand, the L. clavatum alkaloid fraction increased the expression of neural stem cell marker genes (Nestin and PAX6) and decreased neuron marker genes. In conclusion, these results established that alkaloid fraction from H. serrata promoted differentiation of the mouse NSCs to neuron cells, and L. clavatum extract had a capacity for stemness maintenance

Impacts of Economic Development on the Living Conditions of Ethnic Minority People in the Border Region of Northern Vietnam

Purpose:   In this study, we examine the effects of the economic development policies of the Vietnamese government on the living conditions of ethnic minority people in the border region of Northern Vietnam.   Theoretical framework: We examine the impact of economic changes, societal changes, and environmental improvements on the living conditions of ethnic minority people in the border region of Northern Vietnam.   Design/Methodology/Approach: The collected data was subsequently cleaned and analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) with the aid of SPSS 20 software.     Findings: The results show that the current Vietnamese government’s policies on developing agriculture, industry, trade, and service for ethnic minority people have a diverse impact on their living conditions. In general, agriculture, trade, and service are major fields that benefit the living conditions of ethnic minorities. In contrast, the industry seems to have no effects on improving the standard of living of ethnic minority people in Northern Vietnam.   Research, practical & social implications: The results of this study provide suggestion to Vietnamese government on promoting living conditions of ethnic minority people in the border region of Northern Vietnam.   Originality/Value: This is the first paper evaluates the impact of the economic development policies of the Vietnamese government on the living conditions of ethnic minority people in the border region of Northern Vietnam

Survey on Mutation-based Test Data Generation

The critical activity of testing is the systematic selection of suitable test cases, which be able to reveal highly the faults. Therefore, mutation coverage is an effective criterion for generating test data. Since the test data generation process is very labor intensive, time-consuming and error-prone when done manually, the automation of this process is highly aspired. The researches about automatic test data generation contributed a set of tools, approaches, development and empirical results. In this paper, we will analyse and conduct a comprehensive survey on generating test data based on mutation. The paper also analyses the trends in this field

Preparation and characterization of magnesium hydroxyapatite coatings on 316L stainless steel

Magnesium hydroxyapatite coatings (MgHAp) were deposited on the surface of 316L stainless steel (316L SS) substrates by electrodeposition technique. Different concentrations of Mg2+ ion were incorporated into the apatite structure by adding Mg(NO3)2 into electrolyte solution containing 3×10-2 M Ca(NO3)2, 1.8×10-2 M NH4H2PO4 and   6×10-2 M NaNO3. With Mg2+ concentration 1×10-3 M, the obtained coatings have 0.2 wt% Mg2+. The influences of scanning potential ranges, scanning times to deposit MgHAp coatings were researched. The analytical results FTIR, SEM, X-ray, EDX, thickness and adhension strength showed that MgHAp coatings were single phase of HAp, fibrous shapes, thickness 8.1 µm and adhesion strength 7.20 MPa at the scanning potential ranges of 0÷-1.7 V/SCE and scanning times of 5 scans. Keywords. 316L SS, Electrodeposition, MgHAp

Parallel Mutant Execution Techniques in Mutation Testing Process for Simulink Models, Journal of Telecommunications and Information Technology, 2017, nr 4

Mutation testing – a fault-based technique for software testing – is a computationally expensive approach. One of the powerful methods to improve the performance of mutation without reducing effectiveness is to employ parallel processing, where mutants and tests are executed in parallel. This approach reduces the total time needed to accomplish the mutation analysis. This paper proposes three strategies for parallel execution of mutants on multicore machines using the Parallel Computing Toolbox (PCT) with the Matlab Distributed Computing Server. It aims to demonstrate that the computationally intensive software testing schemes, such as mutation, can be facilitated by using parallel processing. The experiments were carried out on eight different Simulink models. The results represented the efficiency of the proposed approaches in terms of execution time during the testing process

APPLICATION OF DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS FOR MEASURING SERVICE QUALITY FROM DISTRIBUTORS’ PERSPECTIVE IN SUPPLY CHAIN

Abstract: Vietnam’s textile and apparel sector has achieved fast and sustainable growth over the past years and played an important role in national socio-economic development. The export value of textile and garment products in recent years has ranked number two in the country’s total export revenue. In this scenario, an attempt was made to examine the service quality at the manufacturer – distributor interface of the textile supply chain and provide clear guidelines for benchmarking of service quality in multi-unit services. A sample of 144 distributors from Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in major regions of South Vietnam was selected. Exploratory Factor Analysis was used to identify the critical factors of service quality. This research applies the data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach to the computation of a measure of overall service quality and benchmarking when measuring service quality with the Service Performance model. Dealing with the five dimensions of Service Performance (SERVPERF) as outputs, the proposed approach uses DEA as a tool for multiple criteria decision making (MCDM), in particular, the pure output DEA model without inputs. Data envelopment analysis measures the relative efficiency of decision-making units (DMUs) and identifies a set of corresponding efficient DMUs that can be used as benchmarks for the improvement of inefficient DMUs. The findings shed valuable insights on measures and critical underlying dimensions of service quality in the context of the supply chain in the textile industry, specifically from the distributor perspective. The results also give the best performer in textile SMEs and set the benchmarking guideline within each group among SEMsKeywords: service quality, data envelopment analysis, SERVPER

Antibacterial Nanocomposites Based on Fe 3

For the vulcanized natural rubber (NR), incorporation of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) into the NR matrix did not exhibit the bactericidal property against Escherichia coli (E. coli). However, incorporation of AgNPs into polyethylene (PE) matrix showed good antibacterial activities to both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria. In the present work, NR/PE (85/15) blends have been prepared by melt blending with presence of compatibilizer in an internal mixer. To possess antibacterial property, AgNPs (5–10 nm) or Fe3O4–Ag hybrid nanoparticles (FAgNPs, 8 nm/16 nm) were added into PE matrix before its blending with NR component. The tensile test indicated that the presence of compatibilizer in NR/PE blend significantly enhanced the tensile strength and elongation at break (up to 35% and 38% increases, resp.). The antibacterial activity test was performed by monitoring of the bacterial lag-log growth phases with the presence of nanocomposites in the E. coli cell culture reactor. The antibacterial test showed that the presence of FAgNPs in NR/PE blend had a better antibacterial activity than that obtained with the lone AgNPs. Two similar reasons were proposed: (i) the faster Ag+ release rate from the Fe3O4–Ag hybrid nanoparticles due to the electron transfer from AgNP to Fe3O4 nanoparticle and (ii) the fact that the ionization of AgNPs in hybrid nanostructure might be accelerated by Fe3+ ions

Improved Color Uniformity In White Light-Emitting Diodes Using LiLu(MoO4)2:Sm3+ Combined SiO2 Composite

The research herein concerns the composite of red phosphor of LiLu(MoO4)2:Sm3+ (LMOS), yellow phosphor YAG:Ce3+, SiO2 particles, and silicone gel. The LMOS phosphor is created via the sol-gel procedure and supposed to yields significant heat consistency. The concentration of this LMOS phosphor is fixed at around 10 wt.%  and the concentration of SiO2 particles is modifed. This is to influence the scattering performance of the composite to achieve the better color distribution. After sample creation, we analyzed the luminescence of the LMOS in the composite and the effects of the composite with different SiO2 dosages on the commercial light-emitting diode (LED). When excited via 405-nm ultraviolet, the samples generate red ray under 648 nm matching the shift between 4G5/2 and 6H9/2 for the ion of Sm3+. With high SiO2 amounts, the color difference is reduced, and the luminosity is enhanced. The correlated color temperature is also lower, resulting in a warmer white light for the packed LED. However, the color rendering index declines, which could be attributed to the green and blue color deficiency while the red color is dominant. From the tested outcomes, LiLu(MoO4)2:Sm3+@SiO2­ composite is validated to be effective at improving chromatic uniformity for white-ray diodes

ELECTRODEPOSITION OF CO-DOPED HYDROXYAPATITE COATING ON 316L STAINLESS STEEL

Hydroxyapatite (HAp) co-doped by magnesium (Mg), strontium (Sr), sodium (Na) and fluorine (F) were deposited on the 316L stainless steel (316L SS) substrate by electrodeposition method. The influences of scanning potential ranges, scanning times, scanning rates to form MgSrFNaHAp coating were investigated. The analytical results FTIR, SEM, Xray, EDX, thickness and adhension of the obtained coating at scanning potential ranges of 0 ÷ -1.7 V/SCE; scaning times of 5, scanning rate of 5 mV/s showed that MgSrFNaHAp coatings were single phase crystals of HAp, rod shape with the thickness 8.9 µm and the adhesion strength reached 8.38 MPa

CAUSE-EFFECT RELATIONS AND OPTIMIZATION OF TABLET CONTAINING EUCOMMIA ULMOIDES AND GARDENIA JASMINOIDES SPRAY-DRIED EXTRACTS

Objective: The E. ulmoides and G. jasminoides (EG) tablets containing 67 mg E. ulmoides spray-dried extract (ESE) and 173 mg G. jasminoides spray-dried extract (GSE) were prepared by employing the direct compression method. Due to the poor flowability and compressibility of the two spray-dried extracts, various excipients were added at different ratios so that the blends can be compressed into tablets with the required standards. This study aimed at the cause-effect relations and optimization of the EG tablet formulation.Methods: Different diluents including dibasic calcium phosphate anhydrous (DCPA), silicified microcrystalline cellulose (SMCC), spray-dried lactose (SDL) and the active ingredients (blend of ESE and GSE at the ratio of 67:173, w/w) were separately investigated their own physical properties. The binary mixtures of the active ingredients with different ratios of DCPA, SMCC, and SDL were evaluated their flowability. D-optimal design based on three independent variables (% DCPA, % croscarmellose sodium (CCS) and % SMCC) was applied to evaluate the cause-effect relations and optimize the EG tablet formulation. The weight variation, disintegration time, hardness and friability were investigated as four dependent variables.Results: The flowability of the powders was found to be affected by the particle size distribution, particle shape and density. The three diluents could significantly improve the flowability of the active ingredients. All independent variables had significant effects on the dependent variables. An increase in % SMCC reduced the weight variation, hardness and increased the friability of tablets. Disintegration time was found to be in the negative relations with % CCS. The tablet hardness was in positive relations with % DCPA. The optimized EG tablet formulation composed of 9 % DCPA (w/w), 35 % SMCC (w/w), and 14 % CCS (w/w) of the excipient blend. The weight variation, disintegration time, hardness and friability of the optimized EG tablets were found to be 1.8 %, 11.7 min, 61.4 N, and 0.5 %, respectively.Conclusion: The ESE and GSE could be formulated into tablet by using direct compression method. The cause-effect relations and optimization of EG tablet formulation were studied and reported for the first time