Toward a Standardized Strategy of Clinical Metabolomics for the Advancement of Precision Medicine

Despite the tremendous success, pitfalls have been observed in every step of a clinical metabolomics workflow, which impedes the internal validity of the study. Furthermore, the demand for logistics, instrumentations, and computational resources for metabolic phenotyping studies has far exceeded our expectations. In this conceptual review, we will cover inclusive barriers of a metabolomics-based clinical study and suggest potential solutions in the hope of enhancing study robustness, usability, and transferability. The importance of quality assurance and quality control procedures is discussed, followed by a practical rule containing five phases, including two additional "pre-pre-" and "post-post-" analytical steps. Besides, we will elucidate the potential involvement of machine learning and demonstrate that the need for automated data mining algorithms to improve the quality of future research is undeniable. Consequently, we propose a comprehensive metabolomics framework, along with an appropriate checklist refined from current guidelines and our previously published assessment, in the attempt to accurately translate achievements in metabolomics into clinical and epidemiological research. Furthermore, the integration of multifaceted multi-omics approaches with metabolomics as the pillar member is in urgent need. When combining with other social or nutritional factors, we can gather complete omics profiles for a particular disease. Our discussion reflects the current obstacles and potential solutions toward the progressing trend of utilizing metabolomics in clinical research to create the next-generation healthcare system.11Ysciescopu

HIỆN TRẠNG VÀ BIẾN ĐỘNG DIỆN TÍCH CÁC HỆ SINH THÁI BIỂN TIÊU BIỂU TRONG VỊNH NHA TRANG

Assessments of status and temporal changes in distribution of marine habitats in Nha Trang bay were conducted by using interpretation of remote sensing (Orbview 3, SPOT5, ALOS-AVNIR2 and Landsat 8-LCM) and aerial images in combination with ground truthing at 50 key sites representing coral reefs (25 sites), seagrass beds (10 sites), mangroves (5 sites), rocks (5 sites) and sand (5 sites) in 2015. A total of 812 ha of key marine habitats was recorded in 2015 including 754.1 ha of coral reefs, 52.4 ha of seagrass beds and 5.4 ha of mangroves. There was a notable decline in areas of the above marine habitats in the period of 2002 - 2015, in which 64 ha of seagrass beds (equivalent to 45%; mainly at Bai Tien, Phu Quy, Mui Nam and Vung Me, Đam Gia, Song Lo) and 117.4 ha of coral reefs (equivalent to 13.5%; mainly at Dam Gia, Duong De, Song Lo, Bai Tien and Eo Co) have been lost with an exception of increase of 3.1 ha of mangroves by new transplantation project conducted by Nha Trang MPA authority in Dam Bay during the last few years. The decline in the areas of coral reefs and seagrass beds has been caused by expansion and reclaimation of infrastructure for community and tourism development in recent years.Đánh giá hiện trạng phân bố các hệ sinh thái biển tiêu biểu (rừng ngập mặn, thảm cỏ biển và rạn san hô) trong vịnh Nha Trang được thực hiện bằng việc giải đoán ảnh viễn thám Landsat 8-LCM đa phổ, ảnh Google Earth kết hợp với kiểm định thực địa tại 50 điểm chìa khóa (san hô: 25 điểm, cỏ biển: 10 điểm, cây ngập mặn: 5 điểm, đá: 5 điểm và cát: 5 điểm) trong năm 2015. Việc đánh giá sự biến động phân bố các hệ sinh thái nói trên được thực hiện bằng phương pháp phân tích hồi cố dựa trên kết quả giải đoán ảnh viễn thám và ảnh máy bay theo các đợt đánh giá tổng thể đa dạng sinh học tiến hành trong năm 2002 (Orbview 3 và ảnh máy bay), 2005 (SPOT5) và 2007 (ALOS-AVNIR2). Kết quả nghiên cứu xác định có trên 812 ha diện tích các hệ sinh thái tiêu biểu (gồm 754,1 ha rạn san hô, 52,4 ha thảm cỏ biển và 5,4 ha rừng ngập mặn) phân bố trong vịnh Nha Trang vào năm 2015. Nhìn chung, có sự biến động khá lớn diện tích các hệ sinh thái tiêu biểu trong giai đoạn 2002 - 2015, trong đó thảm cỏ biển bị mất 64 ha (tương đương 45%; chủ yếu ở khu vực Bãi Tiên, Phú Quý, Mũi Nam và Vũng Me, Đầm Già, Sông Lô) và rạn san hô bị mất 117,4 ha (tương đương 13,5%, Đầm Già, Đường Đệ, Sông Lô, Bãi Tiên, Eo Cỏ); riêng rừng ngập mặn tăng 3,1 ha do trồng mới ở khu vực Đầm Báy trong giai đoạn nói trên. Nguyên nhân làm mất diện tích các hệ sinh thái là do việc phát triển cơ sở hạ tầng ven bờ và ven đảo để phát triển khu dân cư và cơ sở du lịch trong thời gian qua

BlockGAN: Learning 3D Object-aware Scene Representations from Unlabelled Images

We present BlockGAN, an image generative model that learns object-aware 3D scene representations directly from unlabelled 2D images. Current work on scene representation learning either ignores scene background or treats the whole scene as one object. Meanwhile, work that considers scene compositionality treats scene objects only as image patches or 2D layers with alpha maps. Inspired by the computer graphics pipeline, we design BlockGAN to learn to first generate 3D features of background and foreground objects, then combine them into 3D features for the wholes cene, and finally render them into realistic images. This allows BlockGAN to reason over occlusion and interaction between objects' appearance, such as shadow and lighting, and provides control over each object's 3D pose and identity, while maintaining image realism. BlockGAN is trained end-to-end, using only unlabelled single images, without the need for 3D geometry, pose labels, object masks, or multiple views of the same scene. Our experiments show that using explicit 3D features to represent objects allows BlockGAN to learn disentangled representations both in terms of objects (foreground and background) and their properties (pose and identity).Comment: For project page, see https://www.monkeyoverflow.com/#/blockgan/ Accepted to Conference on Neural Information Processing Systemsm, NeurIPS 202

Outage and bit error probability analysis in energy harvesting wireless cooperative networks

This study focuses on a wireless powered cooperative communication network (WPCCN), which includes a hybrid access point (HAP), a source and a relay. The considered source and relay are installed without embedded energy supply (EES), thus are dependent on energy harvested from signals from the HAP to power their cooperative information transmission (IT). Taking inspiration from this, the author group investigates into a harvest-then-cooperate (HTC) protocol, whereas the source and the relay first harvest the energy from the AP in a downlink (DL) and then collaboratively work in uplink (UL) for IT of the source. For careful evaluation of the system performance, derivations of the approximate closed-form expression of the outage probability (OP) and an average bit error probability ( ABER) for the HTC protocol over Rayleigh fading channels are done. Lastly, the author group performs Monte-Carlo simulations to reassure the numerical results they obtained.Web of Science255746

The perspective of psychology students on the areas of psychology

Perception is defined as the result of an awareness process about phenomena, things (living animals, plants, or humans), connections between objects by activities including noticing, observing, differentiating, and acknowledging. A recent study was conducted to investigate the undergraduate’s perception of areas of psychology. This research used the Vietnamese version of the Scale of Interests by Areas of Psychology (EIAPsi), including ten subscales to survey 252 psychology students (57 males and 195 females) from four universities in Vietnam. The findings showed significant effects of university and major on psychology undergraduate’s perception of areas of psychology. Students majoring in Counseling and Clinical Psychology had more general knowledge about the functions and roles of Clinical and Health Psychology and Neuropsychology than other undergraduates. Industrial and Organizational Psychology students had more general knowledge about Organizational Psychology than students in other majors

Synthesis of microcrystalline cellulose from banana pseudo-stem for adsorption of organics from aqueous solution

In this study, we proposed and tested a green method for producing microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) with high quality from waste banana pseudo-stem (BPS) after fruit harvesting. The MCC was synthesized by treating BPS with sulfuric acid, sodium hydroxide, and H2O2solution.The produced MCC material was then characterized by scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and thermogravimetric analysis to explore its properties. The removal of methylene blue (MB) in aqueous solution was conducted by batch adsorption method to evaluate the applicability of MCC for wastewater treatment. The results showed that the adsorption using MCC reached equilibrium after 15 min. The highest MB adsorption capacity of MCC reached 16.6mg/g at pH 6. The adsorption kinetics data were best described by the pseudo second order rate equation. Equilibrium isotherm data of adsorption were well fitted to the linear Langmuir isotherm model. Affecting factors such as adsorbent dosage, initial concentration of MB, and temperature were also investigated. These results suggest a great potential use of MCC for advanced wastewater treatment

Scientific Productivity on Research in Ethical Issues over the Past Half Century: A JoinPoint Regression Analysis

BACKGROUND: Ethics is one of the main pillars in the development of science. We performed a JoinPoint regression analysis to analyze the trends of ethical issue research over the past half century. The question is whether ethical issues are neglected despite their importance in modern research. METHOD: PubMed electronic library was used to retrieve publications of all fields and ethical issues. JoinPoint regression analysis was used to identify the significant time trends of publications of all fields and ethical issues, as well as the proportion of publications on ethical issues to all fields over the past half century. Annual percent changes (APC) were computed with their 95% confidence intervals, and a p-value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS: We found that publications of ethical issues increased during the period of 1965-1996 but slightly fell in recent years (from 1996 to 2013). When comparing the absolute number of ethics related articles (APEI) to all publications of all fields (APAF) on PubMed, the results showed that the proportion of APEI to APAF statistically increased during the periods of 1965-1974, 1974-1986, and 1986-1993, with APCs of 11.0, 2.1, and 8.8, respectively. However, the trend has gradually dropped since 1993 and shown a marked decrease from 2002 to 2013 with an annual percent change of-7.4%. CONCLUSIONS: Scientific productivity in ethical issues research on over the past half century rapidly increased during the first 30-year period but has recently been in decline. Since ethics is an important aspect of scientific research, we suggest that greater attention is needed in order to emphasize the role of ethics in modern research