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Fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) is a metabolic hormone that is synthesized and secreted by cellular and metabolic stresses. Serum FGF21 levels are associated with clinical parameters in patients with various diseases, including metabolic disorders. Animal models that allow FGF21 levels to be monitored in vivo are important for research and clinical applications of FGF21. Here, a novel Fgf21-reporter mouse strain (Fgf21

Scientific research is a crucial section of health-related student education to ensure the competence of graduates. This study is the first to explore attitudes on research, willingness and motivation to conduct research, and barriers preventing this amid pharmacy students in Can Tho, Vietnam.A cross-sectional online survey was performed on undergraduate pharmacy students (years four and five) from three public and private universities in Can Tho, Vietnam between April and May 2021.Of the 576 respondents, the majority accredited the significance of conducting research to the field of pharmacy (85.9%) with the motivation of improving the profession (81.6%). Public university respondents were more than twice as likely to have a positive attitude toward research (odds ratio [OR] = 2.88, 95% CI = 1.32-6.27) and be willing to conduct research (OR = 5.73, 95%CI = 3.5-9.37) than their private university counterparts. Very good or excellent academic performance was associated with a positive attitude (OR = 3.09, 95% CI = 1.46-6.53), willingness (OR = 3.2, 95%CI = 1.7-6.03), and increased motivation (OR = 2.42, 95% CI = 1.26-4.64) toward conducting research compared to respondents with average or lower academic performance. A lack of experience (63.5%), knowledge and skills (46%), and research training (51.7%) were the most common personal and systemic barriers to conducting research.Most students reported having a positive attitude and strong motivation toward research. These findings revealed an opportunity for pharmacy policymakers and educators to utilize national strategy to improve pharmacy education and the profession.

The fruits of Eucalyptus globulus Labill. are known to have a plenty of medicinal properties, such as anti-tumor, anti-inflammatory, and immunosuppressive activity. Our previous study found that the phloroglucinol-sesquiterpene adducts in the fruits of E. globulus were immunosuppressive active constituents, especially Eucalyptin C (EuC). Phosphoinositide 3-kinases-γ (PI3Kγ) plays a pivotal role in T cell mediated excessive immune responses. In this study, EuC was first discovered to be a novel selective PI3Kγ inhibitor with an IC50 value of 0.9 μmol·L-1 and selectivity over 40-fold towards the other PI3K isoforms. Molecular docking, molecular dynamics simulation, and cellular thermal shift assay showed that EuC bound to PI3Kγ. Furthermore, EuC suppressed the downstream of PI3Kγ to induce the apoptosis and inhibit the activation of primary spleen cells derived from allergic contact dermatitis mice. This work highlights the role of the fruits of E. globulus as a source of bioactive plant with immunosuppressive activity.

Digital transformation describes the deep-seated changes in organizational activities, processes, and capabilities induced by the advent of digital technologies. Digital transformation requires sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring the digital technological challenges into opportunities. Academic literature acknowledges the central role of design as a driver of innovation. Furthermore, recent research discloses the value that design, especially design thinking, can have in leading digital transformations. In this understanding, design thinking has been proven to be an approach based on dynamic capabilities. What seems to lack in the current understanding is how the dynamic capabilities of design thinking can facilitate digital transformation. Thus, the paper aims to shed light on how dynamic capabilities of design thinking foster discovering the opportunities digital technologies provide to enact the transformation. This paper investigates four different cases of consulting projects where the adoption of design thinking dynamic capabilities enhance the value of digital technologies towards a more human centric digital transformation. By being a business-to-business market, the consulting environment might inform readers how design thinking dynamic capabilities are salient for digital transformation. Examining them, the paper proposes five design thinking dynamic capabilities that managers should cultivate: extending, debating, cropping, interpreting, and recombining. Concerning academic debate, the paper enriches the understanding of digital transformation by unshadowing the value that design thinking dynamic capabilities might play in it.

Context Although cancer and HIV/AIDS are common causes of death in Vietnam, limited data exist on their palliative care needs. As palliative care becomes part of Universal Health Coverage, evidence is needed to scale up appropriate care. Objectives To elicit from people with cancer or HIV/AIDS in Vietnam, and their caregivers, the specific multidimensional symptoms and concerns that cause serious health-related suffering. Methods Semistructured, qualitative, in-depth interviews were conducted with stage III or IV cancer patients, people with HIV/AIDS, and their caregivers at three cancer treatment centers and two HIV/AIDS treatment centers in northern, central, and southern Vietnam. Interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis. Results Sixty people were interviewed (21 cancer patients, 20 people with HIV/AIDS, 19 caregivers). Pain and other physical symptoms severely impacted their daily lives. Psychological distress—including sadness, depression, worry, and a feeling of having no future—was mentioned frequently, and it was exacerbated by disease progression and by social problems such as financial difficulties and, among people with HIV/AIDS, stigma. Caregivers also suffered physically and psychosocially. Spirituality emerged as a source of strength for patients. Findings highlighted patients' and family caregivers’ desire for more information about diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment, a shift toward individual decision-making. Conclusion The findings demonstrate common, multidimensional, and severe suffering among people living with cancer or HIV/AIDS and their caregivers in Vietnam. These qualitative data should guide development of optimum clinical assessment tools and palliative care services for these populations.

BackgroundCollaborative privacy-preserving modeling across several healthcare institutions allows for the construction of more generalizable predictive models while protecting patient privacy.ObjectiveWe aim at addressing the site availability issue on a hierarchical network by designing an immutable/transparent/source-verifiable quorum mechanism.MethodsWe developed an approach to combine a hierarchical learning algorithm, a novel Proof-of-Quorum (PoQ) consensus protocol, and a design of blockchain smart contracts. We constructed QuorumChain as an example and evaluated the scenarios of site-unavailability during the initialization and/or iteration phases of the modeling process on three healthcare/genomic datasets.ResultsWhen one or more sites would become unavailable, HierarchicalChain could not function, whereas QuorumChain improved predictive correctness significantly (the full Area Under the receiver operating characteristic Curve, or AUC, improved from 0.068 to 0.441, all with p-values&nbsp

This study contributes a practical approach for the fuzzy free vibration quantification of functionally graded semi-rigid frame structures. A new Timoshenko beam element is formulated to include the connection rigidity for the analysis purpose. The finite element formulation is general to present different semi-rigid conditions, whereas hinged and rigid connections are special cases. Furthermore, an efficient response-surface-based fuzzy analysis is established based on the α–cut strategy and first-order Taylor's approximation to predict the fuzzy natural frequencies of the structures. Highlighted point is that various input uncertainties, such as the material characteristics, the member dimensions, and the connection rigidities, can be incorporated in the analysis by the presented fuzzy methodology. Computational efficiency and correctness of the proposed method are shown, and the effect of the uncertainties, especially of the connection rigidities, on the natural frequency of semi-rigid FGM structures is explored via solving some numerical examples.

This paper studies how corruption affects two fundamental dimensions of a firm’s tax compliance: the likelihood of tax registration (possession of a tax ID) and the tax compliance ratio (the ratio between the firm’s tax payment and revenue). We explore a census covering all Vietnamese household businesses and leverage the differential exposure to corruption, depending upon which province similarly situated businesses are located within. Comparing household businesses in contiguous commune pairs that straddle provincial borders, we discover two seemingly contradictory results. We find that a household business that operates in a more corrupt province is more likely to possess a tax ID, even though it does not necessarily pay more in taxes. In fact, among firms that possess tax IDs, an increase in corruption is associated with a decrease in the tax compliance ratio. We suggest a plausible explanation for this pattern is that corrupt bureaucrats encourage tax-ID possession, because the registration form provides them with better business information to extract bribes. This mechanism implies that an increase in corruption should be associated with a smaller increase in tax-ID possession among more “visible” businesses. We test and find supporting empirical evidence for this prediction.

In this study, the fuzzy static behavior of functionally graded material (FGM) semi-rigid frame structures is freshly addressed. For the analysis purpose, a new FGM beam element with flexible connections is established. Moreover, a computationally efficient procedure is developed to predict the fuzzy static structural behaviors. An FGM beam and an FGM planar frame involving fuzzy uncertainties in material properties, loads, and connection rigidities, are examined as numerical demonstrations. Fuzzy displacement responses are investigated. It is demonstrated that relatively accurate membership functions of the fuzzy displacements can be obtained by the proposed fuzzy procedure. The method proposed in this study is superior to the traditional vertex method and the global optimization approach in terms of computational efficiency. Furthermore, it is revealing that the presence of uncertainties in connection rigidities can enlarge the fuzziness of the displacement outputs significantly.

The tannery is one of the oldest and most popular industries in the world. It is also characterized as pollutants generated industries which discharge toxic chemical output effluents to the environment. The process of tannery included a wide variety of chemical and inorganic constituents. This work focused on the removal of Chromium heavy metals as well as producing clean energy from the treatment of tannery wastewater. Accordingly, the analysis result on the input effluents appeared to have a brown color with a very high COD value, a high concentration of Chromium heavy metals as well as other organic compounds. After collected from the source, the effluents were settling and applied a simple subsequent filtration with lab scale cloth filter, the filtered effluents then were treated in an electrochemical system. Throughout many experiments, we introduce an electrochemical system with 5 × 5 cm electrodes (Platinum coated panel anode and carbon fiber cloth cathode), the low input voltage (10 V), easy setup and the support of separator membrane/adsorbents placed in the middle of the system to enhance the removal rates of heavy metals. It was found that the performance of the electrochemical system is under the influence of various factors such as temperature, pH value, adsorbents dose, and apply voltage. During 48 h of treatment, almost 80% of Chromium metals were treated by means of adsorption and electrical reduction process. The generation rate of hydrogen gases during the electrolysis process was also notable (45–65 cc/min). Furthermore, the adsorbent materials were still intact and seem to be ready for a longer run. The study also observed the adsorbent membrane of bagasse and straw showed their best removal efficiencies over other candidates. In that manner, we successfully provide an effective method for heavy metals removal and also capable of generating clean energy. The analysis results clarify that most of the parameters of the physical and chemical result were found well below the prescribed permissible limits of discharged effluents follows the standard of industrial waste management in Vietnam.

Model-free adaptive control has been used to design feedback in cases when accurate mathematical modeling of the system can not be realized. By using only input-output information, the control approach is attractive with respect to minimal design efforts. In this contribution an improved model-free control program is proposed and applied to flexible systems. The main control idea is based on the compact-form dynamic linearization technique. A linearized controller structure which contains a matrix of unknown time-varying parameters namely pseudo-partial derivative can be designed. First, an equivalent linearized data-based model of the original system is established and corrected locally by using the recursive least-squares estimation algorithm. Then a modified objective function with respect to the controller parameter matrix considering minimization of the current tracking errors and its variations is proposed for control performance improvement. Finally, the required control inputs are calculated to fulfill control requirements. For illustration and as example, the newly introduced method is applied to reduce vibrations of an elastic crane representing a multivariable system. The control effectiveness is verified nummerically and compared with conventional model-free and PI controllers.

A patient who presented with acute inferior-right ventricular (RV) ST-segment elevation (STE) myocardial infarction (MI) is described. Coronary angiography showed a mid-right coronary artery (RCA) occlusion and high-grade proximal left anterior descending (LAD) artery stenoses. Electrocardiography (ECG) after stent angioplasty to the RCA showed new STE in leads V1-V6. Whereas STE pattern recognition was misleading, ECG analysis using vector concepts enabled exclusion of anterior MI due to proximal LAD artery occlusion and recognition of the RV origin of this ECG picture. The ability of the ECG to “capture” RV dilation that enabled the manifestation of this ECG picture is highlighted.

This article investigates heterogeneity in the effect of experiencing natural disasters on mental health. Using Australian longitudinal data, we find that home owners generally show a reduction in mental health score after a disaster. There is a strong negative effect in the lowest two quantiles of the distribution for non-owners.

In this paper, we consider the cost (surplus) sharing problem when a coalition of agents operates under a common production technology and share the total cost (resp. output), given their individual demands (resp. input). We compare the allocation inequality between the Moulin–Shenker’s (Increasing) serial and Shapley shares in the Lorenz sense, and show that Increasing serial share dominates the Shapley value when the marginal is decreasing, while the opposite is true when the marginal is increasing. Together with earlier comparisons between the two and the average shares, and the comparison between Increasing and Decreasing serial rules, the result implies a complete Lorenz ordering in equality among the four common sharing allocations: Average, Increasing serial, Decreasing serial and the Shapley value.

Overcoming the unintentional doping of defect-related carriers induced from low oxygen partial pressure is a major challenge to realize multifunctional oxide electronics. In this work, we demonstrate that the two-step deposition in conjunction with layer modulated patterning process can enhance several properties of LaAlO3/SrTiO3 (LAO/STO) heterostructures grown under a low oxygen partial pressure of 5 x 10(-8) Torr. Specifically, our patterned samples exhibit extraordinary electronic properties including positive colossal magnetoresistance of similar to 3500% under 10 T, and enhanced carrier mobility similar to 5000 cm(2)/Vs at 2 K without using buffer layer or using additional elements. These unique phenomena are resulted from inhibition of the multiband conducting behaviour, which likely originates from oxygen vacancy related defects in the STO layers, through the two-step fabrication method. Consequently, by controlling defect behaviour through the two-step deposition jointly with modulated patterning process, several properties for oxide-based electronics can be induced in a single platform even under a low oxygen condition.