Hearing the message and seeing the messenger: The role of talker information in spoken language comprehension

The acoustic signal consists of various layers of information that we often process unconsciously. Most importantly, they contain both linguistic and indexical information, which are the two fundamental components within the sound input. Even though the meaning of the word does not change when spoken by multiple speakers, the same word never sounds exactly the same. That is because individuals introduce all kinds of variation to the speech input. Hence, through segmental and suprasegmental information, listeners can discern the nativeness (native vs. non-native) of the talker and the age of the talker (adult vs. child). Both non-native talkers and child talkers deviate from the standard norms of pronunciation of native adults and show variation both within and between talkers. The main difference between non-native adults and native children is that, for non-native talkers, variation is driven by their native language, meaning that the phonological structures of their native language interact with their second language; therefore, they maintain a foreign accent. For children, however, variation is driven by development, such that children's competencies in their motor skills depend on their current stage of language development. While there has been extensive research on foreign-accented speech, there is little knowledge about child speech. Especially the processing of child speech has only been investigated by a few studies so far. Hence, the central question of the dissertation is "What is the role of talker information in spoken language comprehension?" This question was investigated from three distinct angles: The first project examined talker information from an auditory-only perspective, the second project investigated talker information from an audio-visual perspective, and the third project studied the impact of talker information on listeners' credibility ratings in the socio-linguistic context

Trust Issues: The Effect of Speaker Age on Credibility

Contribution to Linguistic Evidence 202

What do Vietnamese executives understand corporate social responsibility?

The Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) literature in developing countries is seriously meager. This paper explores CSR in the Vietnamese construction industry which has faced many scandals and directed attention toward the question of the responsibilities of these businesses. The study employs the CSR definition documented by Carroll (1979; 1991) to develop a framework for exploring executives’ perceptions towards CSR. Using Carroll’s CSR pyramid and adopting in-depth interview as a method to collect data, the study critically examines the personal understanding of managers in nine companies in the construction industry. The findings show that although Vietnam is a developing country, managers are aware of the significance of environmental issue as a responsibility that businesses must address. Moreover, the managers also believe that corporate contributions to society, and corporate reputation and prestige, are expectations of society. Despite many breakthroughs in executives’ understanding of CSR, they are not sufficiently and systematically aware of CSR and need a stronger supports, such as issuing appropriate policies, from government in adopting CSR in real business practice

Determinants of organic food purchasing intention: an empirical study of local consumers in Da Nang city, Central Vietnam

With the rapid economic development in the past decades, Vietnamese people are more and more aware of the role of safe food for their health and that of their families. Currently, the trend of organic food consumption is happening faster, especially in urban areas. The study aims to determine the influence of transparent information and knowledge about organic products on consumers' attitudes, trust, and subjective norms affecting their purchase intention of organic products. Data were collected from 420 consumers in Da Nang city, Central Vietnam. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) method and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) were used to evaluate the scale's reliability and identify the impact factors. The results show that attitudes and trust have a positive relationship with the intention to buy organic food. In addition, research shows that trust is a predecessor of attitudes and mediates the relationship between information, knowledge about organic food, and intention to buy organic food. The study's findings are consistent with previous literature and provide implications for food managers, organic food businesses, and the community

Deep heterogeneous ensemble.

In recent years, deep neural networks (DNNs) have emerged as a powerful technique in many areas of machine learning. Although DNNs have achieved great breakthrough in processing images, video, audio and text, it also has some limitations such as needing a large number of labeled data for training and having a large number of parameters. Ensemble learning, meanwhile, provides a learning model by combining many different classifiers such that an ensemble of classifiers is better than using single classifier. In this study, we propose a deep ensemble framework called Deep Heterogeneous Ensemble (DHE) for supervised learning tasks. In each layer of our algorithm, the input data is passed through a feature selection method to remove irrelevant features and prevent overfitting. The cross-validation with K learning algorithms is applied to the selected data, in order to obtain the meta-data and the K base classifiers for the next layer. In this way, one layer will output the meta-data as the input data for the next layer, the base classifiers, and the indices of the selected meta-data. A combining algorithm is then applied on the meta-data of the last layer to obtain the final class prediction. Experiments on 30 datasets confirm that the proposed DHE is better than a number of well-known benchmark algorithms

Tuberculosis among economic migrants: a cross-sectional study of the risk of poor treatment outcomes and impact of a treatment adherence intervention among temporary residents in an urban district in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam.

BACKGROUND Tuberculosis (TB) remains a major cause of avoidable deaths. Economic migrants represent a vulnerable population due to their exposure to medical and social risk factors. These factors expose them to higher risks for TB incidence and poor treatment outcomes. METHODS This cross-sectional study evaluated WHO-defined TB treatment outcomes among economic migrants in an urban district of Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam. We measured the association of a patient's government-defined residency status with treatment success and loss to follow-up categories at baseline and performed a comparative interrupted time series (ITS) analysis to assess the impact of community-based adherence support on treatment outcomes. Key measures of interest of the ITS were the differences in step change (β) and post-intervention trend (β). RESULTS Short-term, inter-province migrants experienced lower treatment success (aRR = 0.95 [95% CI: 0.92-0.99], p = 0.010) and higher loss to follow-up (aOR = 1.98 [95% CI: 1.44-2.72], p  55 years of age (aRR = 0.93 [95% CI: 0.89-0.96], p < 0.001), relapse patients (aRR = 0.89 [95% CI: 0.84-0.94], p < 0.001), and retreatment patients (aRR = 0.62 [95% CI: 0.52-0.75], p < 0.001) had lower treatment success rates. TB/HIV co-infection was also associated with lower treatment success (aRR = 0.77 [95% CI: 0.73-0.82], p < 0.001) and higher loss to follow-up (aOR = 2.18 [95% CI: 1.55-3.06], p < 0.001). The provision of treatment adherence support increased treatment success (IRR(β) = 1.07 [95% CI: 1.00, 1.15], p = 0.041) and reduced loss to follow-up (IRR(β) = 0.17 [95% CI: 0.04, 0.69], p = 0.013) in the intervention districts. Loss to follow-up continued to decline throughout the post-implementation period (IRR(β) = 0.90 [95% CI: 0.83, 0.98], p = 0.019). CONCLUSIONS Economic migrants, particularly those crossing provincial borders, have higher risk of poor treatment outcomes and should be prioritized for tailored adherence support. In light of accelerating urbanization in many regions of Asia, implementation trials are needed to inform evidence-based design of strategies for this vulnerable population

Growth and development of transgenic peanut (Arachis hypogaea) lines containing chitinase 42 kDa gene from Trichoderma asperellum SH16

Peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is vulnerable to many diseases. Vietnam and other regions where peanut is widely cultivated have a high threat of fungal and other plant diseases. Various fungicides are available to control the fungal disease but these have various harmful effects on the natural flora, fauna, and environment. Transgenic peanut lines which possess antifungal activity provide a possible solution in managing fungal diseases apart from the traditional resistance and fungicide usage. Therefore, this study evaluated the probable growth and development of chitinase transgenic peanut lines against Sclerotium rolfsii, a pathogen that causes “southern blight” in plants, under greenhouse conditions. This study provided evidence that through Agrobacterium itumefaciens mediated transformation, 42 kDa chitinase genes from Trichoderma asperellum, which is under the regulation of 35S promoter, were successfully incorporated into the peanut’s (A. hypogaea L.) genome and expressed in their plants. This evidence also demonstrated that transgenic peanut lines were suitable for growing and developing in the greenhouse. Further, it was reported that transgenic peanut lines took approximately 133 to 145 days from planting to maturity. These results also revealed that various growth characteristics of transgenic peanut lines having two synthetic genes (syncod Chi42-2 i.e. S2-2, S2-4, S2-6, and syncod Chi42-1 i.e. S1-1, S1-2, S1-3) were greater than that from the wild-type Chi42 (WT-1, WT-2, and WT-3). In addition, yield-related parameters including the number of mature pods, 100 pods weight and 100 seeds weight for all the transgenic peanut lines were higher than that of the non-transformed plant. Among the transgenic lines, line S2-4 exhibited significantly higher growth and yield than the other transgenic lines. These results demonstrated that 42 kDa chitinase genes overexpressing peanut lines could be a candidate for improvement against plants to phytopathogenic fungus S. rolfsii and high yield.

Chemical composition and antibacterial activities of essential oils from Homalomena pierreana (Araceae)

30-37Homalomena is a genus of the Araceae family which contains several remedies used extensively in traditional Vietnamese medicine. H. pierreana is a rare plant species of Homalomena genus and found only in Phu Quoc National Park, Phu Quoc Island, Kien Giang Province, Vietnam. Therefore, the number of studies about this species is limited and the bioactivity of this species is still unknown. In this study, the chemical composition of essential oils was investigated which was isolated from leaves and rhizomes of H. pierreana at the first time by GC-MS. Eight and twelve compounds were identified from the essential oils of rhizomes and leaves, respectively. The major component from both the rhizomes and the leaves was aromadendrene (44 and 48%, respectively). Furthermore, the antibacterial activity of essential oils collected from leaves and rhizomes of H. pierreana was investigated and it was observed that the essential oil of rhizomes could inhibit the growth of Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, while the essential oil of leaves exhibited an inhibitory effect against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli.</em

A comparative impact evaluation of two human resource models for community-based active tuberculosis case finding in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam

Background: To achieve the WHO End TB Strategy targets, it is necessary to detect and treat more people with active TB early. Scale–up of active case finding (ACF) may be one strategy to achieve that goal. Given human resource constraints in the health systems of most high TB burden countries, volunteer community health workers (CHW) have been widely used to economically scale up TB ACF. However, more evidence is needed on the most cost-effective compensation models for these CHWs and their potential impact on case finding to inform optimal scale-up policies. Methods: We conducted a two-year, controlled intervention study in 12 districts of Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam. We engaged CHWs as salaried employees (3 districts) or incentivized volunteers (3 districts) to conduct ACF among contacts of people with TB and urban priority groups. Eligible persons were asked to attend health services for radiographic screening and rapid molecular diagnosis or smear microscopy. Individuals diagnosed with TB were linked to appropriate care. Six districts providing routine NTP care served as control area. We evaluated additional cases notified and conducted comparative interrupted time series (ITS) analyses to assess the impact of ACF by human resource model on TB case notifications. Results: We verbally screened 321,020 persons in the community, of whom 70,439 were eligible for testing and 1138 of them started TB treatment. ACF activities resulted in a + 15.9% [95% CI: + 15.0%, + 16.7%] rise in All Forms TB notifications in the intervention areas compared to control areas. The ITS analyses detected significant positive post-intervention trend differences in All Forms TB notification rates between the intervention and control areas (p = 0.001), as well as between the employee and volunteer human resource models (p = 0.021). Conclusions: Both salaried and volunteer CHW human resource models demonstrated additionality in case notifications compared to routine case finding by the government TB program. The salaried employee CHW model achieved a greater impact on notifications and should be prioritized for scale-up, given sufficient resources

Chemical composition and antibacterial activities of essential oils from Homalomena pierreana (Araceae)

Homalomena is a genus of the Araceae family which contains several remedies used extensively in traditional Vietnamese medicine. H. pierreana is a rare plant species of Homalomena genus and found only in Phu Quoc National Park, Phu Quoc Island, Kien Giang Province, Vietnam. Therefore, the number of studies about this species is limited and the bioactivity of this species is still unknown. In this study, the chemical composition of essential oils was investigated which was isolated from leaves and rhizomes of H. pierreana at the first time by GC-MS. Eight and twelve compounds were identified from the essential oils of rhizomes and leaves, respectively. The major component from both the rhizomes and the leaves was aromadendrene (44 and 48%, respectively). Furthermore, the antibacterial activity of essential oils collected from leaves and rhizomes of H. pierreana was investigated and it was observed that the essential oil of rhizomes could inhibit the growth of Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, while the essential oil of leaves exhibited an inhibitory effect against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli