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The research on gold in Vietnam has been interesting to many authors. So far, studies on Geology-Minerals on the territory of Vietnam have determined that there are hundreds of gold mineralization. The structures related to primary gold in Vietnam have identified as Truong Son Fold Belt/ East Indochina Block and Sino-Vietnam composit Terran corresponding to Mountain belt internal contents early Paleozoic and Areas with high metamorphism. The magma formations associated with the mineralization zone contain gold mainly in the P3-T1 period, primary gold in Vietnam is closely related to the folding structure. Primary gold in Vietnam is an ore type of quartz-polymetallic sulfide-gold (silver) and quartz-sulfur-gold. Our research results have contributed to orienting the search for primary gold in Vietnam.

Mục tiêu của nghiên cứu này là xác định các tính chất hóa lý và ảnh hưởng của pH đến khả năng hấp phụ ammonium, nitrite và nitrate của than sinh học từ xơ dừa từ đó hướng đến làm vật liệu lọc trong xử lý nước thải. Nghiên cứu sử dụng các phương pháp thường quy trong xác định hiệu suất tạo than, độ tro, khối lượng riêng, pH, EC và phân tích cấu trúc vật liệu bằng SEM, BET, FTIR và XRD. Đồng thời, xác định ảnh hưởng của pH đến khả năng hấp phụ các hợp chất nitrogen trong xơ dừa thông qua hiệu suất hấp phụ. Kết quả cho thấy than sinh học từ xơ dừa có độ giữ nước khá lớn 503.87 ± 36.44%, diện tích bề mặt riêng đạt 378.41 m2/g; trên bề mặt than có nhiều lỗ rỗng, độ xốp cao với kích thước lỗ rỗng hấp phụ và giải hấp phụ trung bình đạt 0.118nm và 0.121nm và có các nhóm chức O-H, C = O, -CH, C = C thuận lợi cho cơ chế hấp phụ hóa học. Than sinh học xơ dừa có pHPZC là 5.2 và có cấu trúc carbon vô định hình. Giá trị pH để hấp phụ tốt ammonium là 8 và nitrite, nitrate là 2 với hiệu suất hấp phụ lần lượt là 40%, 99.78% và 99.11% từ đó hướng đến tối ưu hóa quá trình loại bỏ các hợp chất nitrogen trong môi trường.

IntroductionIt is assumed that host defense systems eliminating the pathogen and regulating tissue damage make a strong impact on the outcome of tuberculosis (TB) disease and that these processes are affected by rifampicin (RIF) resistance–conferring mutations of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). However, the host responses to the pathogen harboring different mutations have not been studied comprehensively in clinical settings. We analyzed clinico-epidemiological factors and blood transcriptomic signatures associated with major rpoB mutations conferring RIF resistance in a cohort study.MethodsDemographic data were collected from 295 active pulmonary TB patients with treatment history in Hanoi, Vietnam. When recruited, drug resistance–conferring mutations and lineage-specific variations were identified using whole-genome sequencing of clinical Mtb isolates. Before starting retreatment, total RNA was extracted from the whole blood of HIV-negative patients infected with Mtb that carried either the rpoB H445Y or rpoB S450L mutation, and the total RNA was subjected to RNA sequencing after age-gender matching. The individual RNA expression levels in the blood sample set were also measured using real-time RT-PCR. Logistic and linear regression models were used to assess possible associations.ResultsIn our cohort, rpoB S450L and rpoB H445Y were major RIF resistance–conferring mutations [32/87 (36.8%) and 15/87 (17.2%), respectively]. H445Y was enriched in the ancient Beijing genotype and was associated with nonsynonymous mutations of Rv1830 that has been reported to regulate antibiotic resilience. H445Y was also more frequently observed in genetically clustered strains and in samples from patients who had received more than one TB treatment episode. According to the RNA sequencing, gene sets involved in the interferon-γ and-α pathways were downregulated in H445Y compared with S450L. The qRT-PCR analysis also confirmed the low expression levels of interferon-inducible genes, including BATF2 and SERPING1, in the H445Y group, particularly in patients with extensive lesions on chest X-ray.DiscussionOur study results showed that rpoB mutations as well as Mtb sublineage with additional genetic variants may have significant effects on host response. These findings strengthen the rationale for investigation of host-pathogen interactions to develop countermeasures against epidemics of drug-resistant TB.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether investor sentiment as measured by technical analysis indicators has an impact on stock returns. The research period is from 2015 to mid-2020. 1-year government bond yields, financial data, transaction data of 57 companies in the VN100 basket, and VNIndex are analyzed. The investor sentiment variable is measured by each technical analysis indicator (Relative Strength Index – RSI, Psychological Line Index – PLI), and the general sentiment variable is established based on extracting the principal component from individual indicators. The paper uses two regression methods – Fama-MacBeth and Generalized Least Square (GLS) – for five different research models. The results show that sentiment plays an important role in stock returns in the Vietnamese stock market. Even controlling the factors such as cash flow per share, firm size, market risk premium, and stock price volatility in the studied models, the impact of sentiment is significant in both the model using individual technical indicators and the model using the general sentiment variable. Furthermore, investor sentiment has a stronger power to explain excess stock returns than their trading behavior. The implication from the results shows that the Vietnamese stock market is inefficient, in which psychology is a very important issue and participants need to pay due attention to this factor. AcknowledgmentThis study was funded by the Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City (IUH), Vietnam (grant number: 21/1TCNH03).

Background: The 2016 IDSA guideline recommends a treatment duration of at least 7 days for hospital-acquired (HAP)/ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). The limited literature has demonstrated higher rates of recurrence for non-glucose fermenting gram-negative bacilli with short course therapy, raising the concern of optimal treatment duration for these pathogens. Therefore, we aimed to compare the outcomes for patients receiving shorter therapy treatment (≤ 8 days) versus longer regimen (> 8 days) for the treatment of multidrug resistant (MDR) Pseudomonas pneumonia., Methods: A single-center, retrospective cohort study was conducted to evaluate adult patients receiving an antimicrobial regimen with activity against MDR Pseudomonas aeruginosa in respiratory culture between 2017 and 2020 for a minimum of 6 consecutive days. Exclusion criteria were inmates, those with polymicrobial pneumonia, community-acquired pneumonia, and infections requiring prolonged antibiotic therapy., Results: Of 427 patients with MDR P. aeruginosa respiratory isolates, 85 patients were included. Baseline characteristics were similar among groups with a median age of 65.5 years and median APACHE 2 score of 20. Roughly 75% had ventilator-associated pneumonia. Compared to those who received ≤ 8 days of therapy, no difference was seen for clinical success in patients treated for more than 8 days (80% vs. 65.5%, p = 0.16). The number of 30-day and 90-day in-hospital mortality, 30-days relapse, and other secondary outcomes did not significantly differ among the treatment groups., Conclusions: Prolonging treatment duration beyond 8 days did not improve patient outcomes for MDR P. aeruginosa HAP/VAP., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

As the role of exosomes in physiological and pathological processes has been properly perceived, harvesting them and their internal components is critical for subsequent applications. This study is a debut of intermittent lysis, which has been integrated into a simple and easy-to-operate procedure on a single paper-based device to extract exosomal nucleic acid biomarkers for downstream analysis. Exosomes from biological samples were captured by anti-CD63-modified papers before being intermittently lysed by high-temperature, short-time treatment with double-distilled water to release their internal components. Exosomal nucleic acids were finally adsorbed by sol-gel silica for downstream analysis. Empirical trials not only revealed that sporadically dropping 95 °C ddH 2 O onto the anti-CD63-modified papers every 5 min for 6 times optimized the exosomal nucleic acids extracted by the anti-CD63 paper but also verified that the whole deployed procedure is applicable for point-of-care testing (POCT) in low-resource areas and for both in vitro (culture media) and in vivo (plasma and chronic lesion) samples. Importantly, downstream analysis of exosomal miR-21 extracted by the paper-based procedure integrated with this novel technique discovered that the content of exosomal miR-21 in chronic lesions related to their stages and the levels of exosomal carcinoembryonic antigen originated from colorectal cancer cells correlated to their exosomal miR-21., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Austria, part of Springer Nature.)

Field-effect transistors (FETs) have been developed as pH sensors by using various device structures, fabrication technologies, and sensing film materials. Different transistor structures, like extended-gate (EG) FETs, floating-gate FET sensors, and dual-gate (DG) FETs, can enhance the sensor performance. In this article, we report the effects of using solution-gate and bottom-gate FET configurations on pH sensing and investigate the influence of different ionic concentrations of buffers in the measured signals. The surface charge of hafnium dioxide (HfO 2 ) affected by the buffer pH, with/without the modification of polyethylene glycol (PEG) terminated with hydroxyl groups, and the location of applied gate voltage are vital factors to the sensor performance in pH sensing. Based on the results, the solution-gate FET exhibits good pH sensitivity even in the high ionic strength solutions of bis-tris propane (BTP), and these values of pH sensitivity are close to the Nernst limit (59.2 mV/pH). In general, silane-PEG-OH modification can reduce the deviations of measured signals in pH sensing. The performance of bottom-gate FET is inferior in the BTP buffers with high ionic solutions but suitable to be operated in low ionic concentrations, such as 0.1, 1, and 10 mM BTP buffers. The size of the ions was also studied and discussed. The solution-gate FET demonstrates excellent performance under high ionic strengths, meaning a more significant potential for detecting biological molecules under physiological conditions., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Nocardia pyomyositis in immunocompetent patients is a rare occurrence. The diagnosis may be missed or delayed with the risk of progressive infection and suboptimal or inappropriate treatment. We present the case of a 48-year-old immunocompetent firefighter diagnosed with pyomyositis caused by Nocardia brasiliensis acquired by direct skin inoculation from gardening activity. The patient developed a painful swelling on his right forearm that rapidly progressed proximally and deeper into the underlying muscle layer. Ultrasound imaging of his right forearm showed a 7-mm subcutaneous fluid collection with surrounding edema. Microbiologic analysis of the draining pus was confirmed to be N brasiliensis by Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Time-of-Flight (MALDI-TOF) Mass Spectrometry. After incision and drainage deep to the muscle layer to evacuate the abscess and a few ineffective antibiotic options, the patient was treated with intravenous ceftriaxone and oral linezolid for 6 weeks. He was then de-escalated to oral moxifloxacin for an additional 4 months to complete a total antibiotic treatment duration of 6 months. The wound healed satisfactorily and was completely closed by the fourth month of antibiotic therapy. Six months after discontinuation of antibiotics, the patient continued to do well with complete resolution of the infection. In this article, we discussed the risk factors for Nocardia in immunocompetent settings, the occupational risks for Nocardia in our index patient, and the challenges encountered with diagnosis and treatment. Nocardia should be included in the differential diagnosis of cutaneous infections, particularly if there is no improvement of "cellulitis" with traditional antimicrobial regimens and the infection extends into the deeper muscle tissues., Competing Interests: Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

This study proposes a paper/PMMA hybrid device designed to isolate exosomes and extract exosomal miRNA, followed by quantitative analysis. It aims to provide simplified and convenient sample preparation for potential point-of-care testing (POCT) processes. In contrast to previous work conducted by our research team, which focused on isolating exosomes and exosomal nucleic acids, this study introduces a novel approach by integrating paper and a PMMA mold with a microvalve controlled design. This innovative method enables the entire process to be performed on paper. The pressure on the paper could be adjusted by turning the screw upon the valve to change the pore size and permeability of the paper, which achieved the effect of controlling the flow rate of fluids. The paper was designed to have an immunoaffinity area for capturing exosomes and a sol-gel silica coating area for extracting miRNA. The paper-based ELISA (p-ELISA) exhibited a limit of detection and a limit of quantitation of 6 × 10 7 and 5.4 × 10 8 particles/mL, respectively, for exosome measurement. The reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) revealed that the Ct (threshold cycle) value for quantifying the miR-21 in the miRNAs extracted by the proposed paper/PMMA hybrid device was comparable to the Ct value of the commercial extraction kit. The developed paper/PMMA hybrid device with a microvalve-controlled design should be incorporated into the POCT system to extract exosomal miRNAs., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Emerging evidence has shown that microRNAs play pivotal roles in wound healing. MicroRNA-21 (miR-21) was previously found to upregulate in order to fulfill an anti-inflammation role for wounds. Exosomal miRNAs have been identified and explored as essential markers for diagnostic medicine. However, the role of exosomal miR-21 in wounds has yet to be well studied. In order to facilitate the early management of poorly healing wounds, we developed an easy-to-use, rapid, paper-based microfluidic-exosomal miR-21 extraction device to determine wound prognosis in a timely manner. We isolated and then quantitatively examined exosomal miR-21 in wound fluids from normal tissues and acute and chronic wounds. Eight improving wounds displayed lower levels of exosomal miR-21 expression after wound debridement. However, four instances of increased exosomal miR-21 expression levels were notably associated with patients with poor healing wounds despite aggressive wound debridement, indicating a predictive role of tissue exosomal miR-21 for wound outcome. Paper-based nucleic acid extraction device provides a rapid and user-friendly approach for evaluating exosomal miR-21 in wound fluids as a means of monitoring wounds. Our data suggest that tissue exosomal miR-21 is a reliable marker for determining current wound status.

Interleukin 6 (IL-6) has been regarded as a biomarker that can be applied as a predictor for the severity of COVID-19-infected patients. The IL-6 level also correlates well with respiratory dysfunction and mortality risk. In this work, three silanization approaches and two types of biorecognition elements were used on the silicon nanowire field-effect transistors (SiNW-FETs) to investigate and compare the sensing performance on the detection of IL-6. Experimental data revealed that the mixed-SAMs-modified silica surface could have superior surface morphology to APTES-modified and APS-modified silica surfaces. According to the data on detecting various concentrations of IL-6, the detection range of the aptamer-functionalized SiNW-FET was broader than that of the antibody-functionalized SiNW-FET. In addition, the lowest concentration of valid detection for the aptamer-functionalized SiNW-FET was 2.1 pg/mL, two orders of magnitude lower than the antibody-functionalized SiNW-FET. The detection range of the aptamer-functionalized SiNW-FET covered the concentration of IL-6, which could be used to predict fatal outcomes of COVID-19. The detection results in the buffer showed that the anti-IL-6 aptamer could produce better detection results on the SiNW-FETs, indicating its great opportunity in applications for sensing clinical samples.

Background: Candida auris is an emerging nosocomial pathogen worldwide. However, there has been little published on the management of C. auris in solid organ transplant recipients., Methods: A single-center, retrospective cohort study was conducted to evaluate C. auris bloodstream infections in solid organ transplant recipients between January 2020 and December 2021. Patient-related and outcomes data were extracted from electronic medical records., Results: Of the 42 patients identified with C. auris bloodstream infections, five were in solid organ transplant recipients (1 heart, 3 liver, and 1 combined liver-kidney). The median time to fungemia from hospital admission was 43 days, and the median time to fungemia from transplant was 18 days. All patients received micafungin as initial treatment, at a median of 6 hours from pathogen detection. Four patients achieved blood clearance, two patients had persistent fungemia, and two patients developed secondary complications from hematogenous spread. One patient died, resulting in a mortality rate of 20%., Conclusions: Solid organ transplant recipients are at high risk for developing C. auris bloodstream infections. In order to prevent graft loss and mortality, best practices for the management of C.auris should include rapid screening, diagnosis, and treatment. While echinocandins are considered first-line, antifungal selection should be based on susceptibilities and site of infection. Data to support routine use of combination therapy are lacking, however there may be a role for refractory cases. Prevention efforts against C. auris infection are especially important given the lack of effective decolonization strategies. For transplant recipients, hospitals should seek opportunities to restore patients' gut microbiome by curtailing unnecessary hospital procedures and inappropriate antimicrobial use. Further research and national guidelines are needed to better direct stewardship in this field., (© 2022 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Purpose: Board of Pharmacy Specialties (BPS) certification is endorsed to distinguish pharmacists for advanced practice areas, yet perceived value to stakeholders remains poorly described. This study characterized how board certification is integrated in hospital pharmacy departments across California., Methods: A prospective, cross-sectional study was conducted in which a survey was administered to all hospital pharmacy directors in California between November 2019 and March 2020. Licensed institutions and corresponding pharmacy directors were identified from the California State Board of Pharmacy. The survey queried for institution and pharmacy director characteristics and if/how board certification was integrated. Multivariable logistic models identified predictors of institutions with at least 25% full-time board certified pharmacists and those that reward board certification., Results: Surveys were completed by 29% of institutions. Most of these institutions were urban (81%) and nonteaching (57%), with fewer than 325 hospital beds (71%), and with fewer than 50 full-time pharmacist positions (86%). The majority reported that less than 25% of their pharmacists were board certified. Currently, 47% consider board certification during hiring and 38% reward board certified employees. Predictors of institutions with 25% or more board certified pharmacists included being a teaching institution (odds ratio [OR], 2.96; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.24-7.06), having 325 or more beds (OR, 7.17; 95% CI, 2.86-17.97), and having a pharmacy director who was previously or currently board certified (OR, 3.69; 95% CI, 1.46-9.35). Hospitals with 100 or more pharmacist positions predicted institutions that reward board certification (OR, 16.69; 95% CI, 1.78-156.86)., Conclusion: Board certification was an employment preference for almost half of the hospital survey respondents in California. Institutions more likely to reward board certified pharmacists are larger, urban, and teaching hospitals and have pharmacy directors who have been board certified., (© American Society of Health-System Pharmacists 2021. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Exosomes, nanovesicles derived from cells, contain a variety of biomolecules that can be considered biomarkers for disease diagnosis, including microRNAs (miRNAs). Given knowledge and demand, inexpensive, robust, and easy-to-use tools that are compatible with downstream nucleic acid detection should be developed to replace traditional methodologies for point-of-care testing (POCT) applications. This study deploys a paper-based extraction kit for exosome and exosomal miRNA analytical system with some quantifying methods to serve as an easy sample preparation for a possible POCT process. Exosomes concentrated from HCT116 cell cultures were arrested on paper-based immunoaffinity devices, which were produced by immobilizing anti-CD63 antibodies on Whatman filter paper, before being subjected to paper-based silica devices for nucleic acids to be trapped by silica nanoparticles adsorbed onto Whatman filter paper. Concentrations of captured exosomes were quantified by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), demonstrating that paper-based immunoaffinity devices succeeded in capturing and determining exosome levels from cells cultured in both neutral and acidic microenvironments, whereas microRNA 21 (miR-21), a biomarker for various types of cancers and among the nucleic acids absorbed onto the silica devices, was determined by reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) to prove that paper-based silica devices were capable of trapping exosomal nucleic acids. The developed paper-based kit and the devised procedure was successfully exploited to isolate exosomes and exosomal nucleic acids from different biological samples (platelet-poor plasma and lesion fluid) as clinical applications., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Lai, Lee, Vu, Vu, Tsai, Chen and Cheng.)

MicroRNA (miRNA) sensing plays an essential role in the diagnosis of several diseases, especially cancers, for appropriate intervention and treatment. However, quantifying miRNA demands highly sensitive and selective assays which can distinguish analogous sequences with low abundance in bio-samples and determine wide range of concentrations. In this report, we present a novel technique satisfying all those requirements by modifying silicon nanowire field-effect transistors (SiNWFETs) with 2-component mixed self-assembled monolayers (mSAMs) of polyethylene glycol (PEG) at different ratios (silane-PEG-NH 2 :silane-PEG-OH = 1:1, 1:3, and 1:5) and glutaraldehyde to immobilize DNA probes for miRNA-21 detection, a biomarker in several types of cancers. Empirical results reveal that all the fabricated PEG-SiNWFET DNA biosensors could quantify miRNA-21 within 1 fM - 10 pM. Especially, the ones modified with silane-PEG-NH 2 :silane-PEG-OH = 1:3 exhibited an outstanding performance to recognize miRNA-21 at an ultra-low concentration of 10 aM in the dynamic range up to 6 orders of magnitude (10 aM - 10 pM). This approach is more convenient, analytical competitive, and cost-effective in comparison with currently used methods for nucleic acid testing because of label- and amplification-free characteristics. It is therefore not only feasible for miRNA detection by SiNWFET-based biosensors but also potential for clinical applications of disease diagnosis with oligonucleotide biomarkers., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

This chapter introduces neutralized DNA (nDNA) as a novel design for the primers of PCR and RT-PCR by methylating phosphate groups of some oligonucleotides in their structures. It starts with an introduction of the nDNA which possesses an electrically chimeric neutral backbone as well as the proposed standards in designing nDNA as a novel primer for PCR and RT-PCR , concluded from various experimental results presented afterward. The primary content comprises empirical data from PCR to compare nDNA and unmodified DNA as primers in terms of ability to distinguish and amplify mismatch templates, activities of polymerase enzymes, melting temperature of double-stranded sequences, and the trials and discussions on various modified positions of the nDNA primers. In summary, nDNA exhibited outstanding performance as a primer for PCR and RT-PCR , compared to unmodified DNA, and is expected to be expanded in diverse applications which require enhanced specificity., (© 2022. Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)