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Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a rare epithelial carcinoma arising from the nasopharyngeal region. The pathogenesis of NPC is linked to Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) infection, although genetics and lifestyle factors appears to be also implicated. NKG2D is an immunoreceptor expressed by NK and T-cell subsets that recognizes MICA protein and other ligands on tumor cells. NKG2D interaction with MICA plays a role in the immunosurveillance to viruses and cancer. We investigated potential associations between functional polymorphisms in NKG2D and MICA genes with NPC susceptibility. We conducted a case–control study including 255 Vietnamese patients with EBV + non-differentiated NPC and 220 healthy controls. We observed a significant association between the LNK/LNK genotype of rs1049174 (a variant associated with lower NKG2D receptor expression and reduced NK cell cytotoxicity) and increased susceptibility to NPC (adjusted OR = 1.66, 95% CI 1.07–2.59; p = 0.024). Similarly, the AA genotype of MICA rs2596542 was significantly associated with NPC (adjusted OR = 2.12; 95% CI 1.22–3.81; p = 0.009). In addition, tumor specimens of NPC patients with the AA genotype displayed a higher expression level of MICA proteins and showed higher EBV titers compared with tumor tissues from patients with the GG or GA genotypes. Higher EBV copy numbers were also observed in tumors with the A allele of MICA rs1051792 (also known as MICA-129 Met/Val) compared with those with the G allele; however, MICA rs1051792 variants were not associated with NPC susceptibility. These results suggest that genetic variants in components of the NKG2D axis may influence the individual susceptibility to EBV-induced NPC.

Mulberry fruit contains healthpromoting polyphenols and is consumed in processed products such as juices, syrups, liquors, molasses, and jams. In Vietnam, syrups prepared from mulberry fruits and sugar have long been used in food preparation. We investigated the changes in chemical composition and biological activities of mulberry syrup during its processing and storage. The toxic metals lead and cadmium were detected in mulberry syrup at levels below regulatory limits. Prolonged storage in glass containers, from which toxic metals could leach into the syrup, could be a risk to the health of consumers. The total phenolic (TPC), flavonoid (TFC), and anthocyanin (TAC) contents varied during processing and decreased significantly after day 45. The 1,1-diphenyl-2-picryl-hydrazyl activity of the mulberry syrup was correlated with its TPC, TFC, and TAC values, and anthocyanins were responsible for the inhibition of nitric oxide production. The magnitude of inhibition of α-glucosidase and α-amylase was linearly correlated with the TFC and TAC values of the mulberry syrup. The quality of the mulberry syrup was maintained during storage for 30 days but decreased thereafter.

Lao PDR and Vietnam share an extensive land border and there are a number of points at which border crossings can be made and border trade conducted. The connectivity of these crossings is to be intensified by cross-border transportation infrastructure such as the Vientiane-Bolikhamsay-Vung Anh deep seaport railroad, which would facilitate exports from landlocked Lao PDR. Such infrastructure will improve existing Vietnamese investment in its western neighbour, where more than 400 projects worth more than US$5 billion have already been licensed in activities such as hydropower, industrial tree plantation and mining. Meanwhile, Star Telecom, which is a joint venture between Viettel Global and Lao Asia Telecom, has achieved 50% market share of the mobile telecommunications market in Lao PDR and there are numerous further opportunities for investment in consumer markets as well as business-to-business markets. The Lao PDR government would certainly like to diversify its exports away from reliance on natural resource commodities but lacks resources and capacity for leadership in this area and the vital small and medium-sized enterprises sector suffers from the ‘missing middle’ phenomenon that means firms are generally unable to participate in regional value chains, including those mobilised potentially by Vietnamese partners. This paper investigates the extent of Lao-Vietnamese border trade and cross-border investment and the prospects for the future in an international environment challenged by trade wars, volatility and global climate change.

This study analyses the effects of hydrogen concentration enriched biogas on indicated engine cycle work, soot and NO x emissions of dual-fuel engine. The results show that if advance injection angle of the engine is fixed at the same value as biogas only mode operation, peak value of in-cylinder pressure increases significantly but indicated engine cycle work is only slightly improved with an increase in hydrogen concentration. Optimum advance injection angle decreases as increasing hydrogen concentration in the fuel mixture. At a given engine speed, NO x emissions decrease with increasing equivalence ratio whereas soot emissions increase almost proportionally with the equivalence ratio. At a given equivalence ratio, NO x emission increases with the increasing hydrogen concentration in fuel mixture whereas soot emission decreases contrarily. The maximum soot peak value is obtained with slightly rich mixture at equivalence ratio of around 1.1. Lean burn mixture and high hydrogen concentration result in extremely low soot concentration. Soot emission is practically negligible at equivalence ratio of about 0.9 and 20% hydrogen concentration in mixture with biogas. As hydrogen concentration increases, the decrease of optimum advance injection angle reduces simultaneously both soot and NO x emissions.

Three new crinane-type alkaloids, namely, 6-methoxyundulatine (1), 6-methoxycrinamidine (2), and undulatine N-oxide (3), along with the known compounds 6-hydroxyundulatine (4), 6-hydroxybuphanidrine (5), undulatine (6), crinamidine (7), ambelline (8), filifoline (9), augustamine (10), and perlolyrine (11), were isolated from the leaves of Crinum latifolium by using various chromatographic separations. Their structures were established by extensive analysis, including 1D and 2D NMR, HR-QTOF-MS, and CD data. Among the isolated compounds, perlolyrine (11) showed significant cytotoxicity against five human cancer cell lines, namely, KB, HepG2, MCF7, SK-Mel2, and LNCaP with the IC50 values ranging from 22.12 ± 2.80 to 28.45 ± 3.75 μM.

Iminostilbene (IS) (5H‐dibenz[b,f]azepine) is a common polymerization inhibitor used in industrial processes to control radical polymerization reactions. Here a library of 90 monosubstituted IS derivatives was screened in silico to establish an activity scale for radical scavenging. Substituents on the aromatic rings had only weak effect on bond dissociation energies of the N-H moiety; however, ionization energies were much more affected. Thus the IS derivatives 3-NMe2-IS, 1-OH-IS, and 10-OH-IS are predicted to be potent radical scavengers in organic solvents suitable for capturing radicals in polymerization reactions and improving polymer stability.

Forward osmotic (FO) membrane is a new process for producing fresh water from salt water. The study of draw solute is essential in the development and application of FO technology; draw solution should be good at drawing water and easy at recovery. In this paper, three complex draw solutes such as ammonium iron (II) sulfate, ammonium iron (III) sulfate and ammonium iron (III) citrate with different concentrations were studied. The physical properties such as pH, conductivity and total dissolved solids (TDS) have simultaneously been investigated. The pH of most ammonium complexes was decreased whereas TDS increased with increasing of draw solution concentrations. We found that high water flux of these iron complexes was reported in the range of 8.88–11.24 LMH which was higher than the ammonium bicarbonate draw solution. In addition, more than 90% iron complexes draw solutions were recovered by NF-90 membrane, which plays an important role in the FO process to produce fresh water. This study provides direct evidence for the ability of permeate water from feed solution to draw solution, which shows the potential applications of iron complexes in FO process to produce fresh water from sea-, brackish or river water.

As a promising candidate for expanding the capacity of drug loading in silica nanoplatforms, hollow mesoporous silica nanoparticles (HMSNs) are gaining increasing attention. In this study, porous nanosilica (PNS) and HMSNs were prepared by the sol-gel method and template assisted method, then further used for Rhodamine (RhB) loading. To characterize the as-synthesized nanocarriers, a number of techniques, including X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), nitrogen absorption-desorption isotherms, dynamic light scattering (DLS), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) were employed. The size of HMSN nanoparticles in aqueous solution averaged 134.0 &plusmn, 0.3 nm, which could be adjusted by minor changes during synthesis, whereas that of PNS nanoparticles was 63.4 &plusmn, 0.6 nm. In addition, the encapsulation of RhB into HMSN nanoparticles to form RhB-loaded nanocarriers (RhB/HMSN) was successful, achieving high loading efficiency (51.67% &plusmn, 0.11%). This was significantly higher than that of RhB-loaded PNS (RhB/PNS) (12.24% &plusmn, 0.24%). Similarly, RhB/HMSN also possessed a higher RhB loading content (10.44% &plusmn, 0.02%) compared to RhB/PNS (2.90% &plusmn, 0.05%). From those results, it is suggested that prepared HMSN nanocarriers may act as high-capacity carriers in drug delivery applications.

Detecting and tracking student engagement in a large classroom can help tutors or automatic learning systems easily control or summarize the situation. To come up with the advanced technique in machine learning, especially deep learning, nowadays, many schools can build an efficient system for supporting teachers or tutoring systems. In this paper, we propose a transfer learning method applying to a small dataset to classify student actions in the classroom. Another contribution is building a lightweight dataset with a limited number of images for each category for classification work. The experiments show the acceptable result in action recognition with high accuracy compared to other researches.

Ten compounds (

The BREEDCAFS project plans to test F1 hybrids of Coffea arabica - high yielding, stress resistant and adapted to agroforestry - in coffee producing countries, such as Vietnam. Materials Several F1 hybrids (provided as in vitro plantlets, Fig.A) were sent from Agristart (USA) to Hanoi where they were acclimatized (Fig.B). Then, these plants were sent to NOMAFSI greenhouses (Mai Son, Son La province) where they were transferred in plastic bags to speed-up their development (Fig.C). Methods In order to study the responses of these F1 hybrids to abiotic stresses, a field experiment was set-up in the NOMAFSI station by planting these hybrids, as well as local varieties (i.e. catimor), under shade and full-sun conditions (Fig.D). In 2019, controlled irrigation and water withdrawal system (mimicking drought periods) will be implemented, therefore permitting to monitor regularly physiological traits (water status, photosynthetic efficiency, stomatal conductance, etc.) and molecular (transcriptomic) of hybrids and control plants. In order to test the responses of F1 hybrids to environmental conditions and farmers' management, twelve smallholder farms were also selected in the NW provinces of Son La and Dien Bien Phu to set-up the farmers' field trials under different altitudes (ranging from 600 to 1100m) and agroforestry systems (Figs.E-F). These trials were planted in June 2018 and should produce their first and significant production in 2021.

Ten compounds (1–10) were purified from the extract of lichens C. faveomaculata, and among these one new triterpenoid, cryptothecin A (1) was characterized through mass spectrometric and 2D NMR spectroscopic analyses. Some of the isolated compounds were assessed for their antimicrobial (1, 6, and 8) and cytotoxic activity (1, 4–5, and 7–9), but only weak inhibitory effects were observed.

The river routing scheme (RRS) in the Organising Carbon and Hydrology in Dynamic Ecosystems (ORCHIDEE) land surface model is a valuable tool for closing the water cycle in a coupled environment and for validating the model performance. This study presents a revision of the RRS of the ORCHIDEE model that aims to benefit from the high-resolution topography provided by the Hydrological data and maps based on SHuttle Elevation Derivatives at multiple Scales (HydroSHEDS), which is processed to a resolution of approximately 1 km. Adapting a new algorithm to construct river networks, the new RRS in ORCHIDEE allows for the preservation of as much of the hydrological information from HydroSHEDS as the user requires. The evaluation focuses on 12 rivers of contrasting size and climate which contribute freshwater to the Mediterranean Sea. First, the numerical aspect of the new RRS is investigated, in order to identify the practical configuration offering the best trade-off between computational cost and simulation quality for ensuing validations. Second, the performance of the new scheme is evaluated against observations at both monthly and daily timescales. The new RRS satisfactorily captures the seasonal variability of river discharge, although important biases stem from the water budget simulated by the ORCHIDEE model. The results highlight that realistic streamflow simulations require accurate precipitation forcing data and a precise river catchment description over a wide range of scales, as permitted by the new RRS. Detailed analyses at the daily timescale show the promising performance of this high-resolution RRS with respect to replicating river flow variation at various frequencies. Furthermore, this RRS may also eventually be well adapted for further developments in the ORCHIDEE land surface model to assess anthropogenic impacts on river processes (e.g. damming for irrigation operation). Fil: Nguyen Quang, Trung. Laboratoire de Meteorologie Dynamique; Francia. École Polytechnique; Francia Fil: Polcher, Jan. École Polytechnique; Francia. Laboratoire de Meteorologie Dynamique; Francia Fil: Ducharne, Agnès. University Fraser Simon; Canadá. Sorbonne Unniversité; Francia Fil: Arsouze, Thomas. École Polytechnique; Francia. Laboratoire de Meteorologie Dynamique; Francia Fil: Zhou, Xudong. Hohai University; República de China Fil: Schneider, Ana. Sorbonne Unniversité; Francia. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; Francia Fil: Fita Borrell, Lluís. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera; Argentina

The consumption of fuel by vehicles emits nitrogen oxides (NOx) and non-methane hydrocarbons (NMHCs) into the atmosphere, which are important ozone precursors. Ozone is formed as a secondary pollutant via photochemical processes and is not emitted directly into the atmosphere. In this paper, the ozone increase resulting from the use of biodiesel and diesel fuels was investigated, and the different ozone formation trends were experimentally evaluated. Known amounts of exhaust gas from a power generator operated using biodiesel and diesel fuels were added to ambient air. The quality of the ambient air, such as the initial NMHC and NOx concentrations, and the irradiation intensity have an effect on the ozone levels. When 30 cm(3) of biodiesel fuel exhaust gas (BFEG) or diesel fuel exhausted gas (DFEG) was added to 18 dm(3) of ambient air, the highest ratios of ozone increase from BFEG compared with DFEG in Japan and Vietnam were 31.2 and 42.8%, respectively, and the maximum ozone increases resulting from DFEG and BFEG compared with the ambient air in Japan were 17.4 and 26.4 ppb, respectively. The ozone increase resulting from the use of BFEG was large and significant compared to that from DFEG under all experimental conditions. The ozone concentration increased as the amount of added exhaust gas increased. The ozone increase from the Jatropha-BFEG was slightly higher than that from waste cooking oil-BFEG.

Low molecular weight-methyl ester (LMW-ME), which was reported in our previous study [1], was generated by the use of biodiesel fuel (BDF) with a diesel power generator. In this article, the detailed chemical kinetics for the thermal decomposition of LMW-MEs was investigated at atmospheric pressure and a temperature range of 773 to 973 K. Six standards of LMW-MEs were used for thermal decomposition in a continuous flow reactor. The kinetic data, such as reaction orders, activation energies, and rate constants, were then calculated. The reaction orders and activation energies of the thermal decomposition reactions of C4, C5, C6, C7, C8, and C9 were 1.13, 0.96, 1.17, 0.80, 0.99, 0.84, and 312.04, 117.37, 87.29, 62.94, 74.80, 75.79 kJ mol−1, respectively. The decomposition of LMW-MEs with higher carbon numbers was faster than those with smaller carbon numbers, except for C8. The C4 methyl ester was stable and abundant in the product of the decomposition as well as in the exhausted gas from the engine combustion using BDF. This kinetic data will be applied to modeling study on BDF decomposition and engine technologies to mitigate toxic emissions from BDF combustion. © 2016 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 35: 1190–1197, 2016

In recent years, the Recommender System has been a promising prospect. Many studies show that Collaborative Filtering is commonly used in successful systems. However, these systems are more and more face the problem of large data and sparsity. It brings issues of computation cost as well as low quality of the recommendations. Traditional collaborative filtering methods use the K-nearest neighbor model for generating recommendations. It requires the computation on the whole space. Hence the cost is very high. Moreover, large systems requires the execution process to be processed in parallel that the traditional collaborative filtering does not meet. This paper reports an empirical work related to the application of the combination between Dimension Reduction and User Clustering in Collaborative Filtering. We use available algorithms as the pre-processing phase before applying traditional methods to overcome these problems. Our results bring value to Collaborative-Filtering based system that processing data on big-data ecosystems. The experiments show results in both the processing time of the system and the accuracy of the method.

In field survey, Pteris vittata and Pityrogramma calomelanos were only found in arsenic (As) contaminated areas with soil pH 7.2–8.8 and 2.3–4.2, respectively. In the first pot experiment, two fern species were grown on the soil amended with 300 mg kg−1 As at soil pH of 5.1, 7.2 and 9. P. calomelanos survived all pH treatments, and had the highest frond As concentration and soil As removal efficiency at soil pH 5.1. All P. vittata plants were dead at soil pH 5.1. P. vittata had higher frond As concentration, biomass and the amount of As removed from the soil than those of P. calomelanos at soil pH of 7.2 and 9. In the second pot experiment, P. vittata was demonstrated to have greater life time, biomass, As tolerance and accumulation than those of P. calomelanos as planted on alkaline soil (pH 7.8) spiked with various concentrations of As.

Ethanol-gasoline and butanol-gasoline blended fuel was tested in a conventional engine under various air-fuel equivalence ratios for its performance and emissions. The results of engine performance tests showed that torque output would increase slightly at seventy percent throttle valve opening when ethanol-gasoline and butanol-gasoline blended fuel was used. It was also shown that CO and HC emissions were reduced with the increase of ethanol/butanol content in the blended fuel, which resulted from oxygen enrichment. At an air-fuel equivalence ratio slightly larger than one, the smallest amounts of CO and HC and the largest amounts of CO R2R resulted. It was noted that under the lean combustion condition, CO R2R emission was controlled by air-fuel equivalence ratio; while under the rich combustion condition, CO R2R emission is offset by CO emission. From the experimental data, the optimal ethanol, butanol content in the gasoline and air-fuel equivalence ratio in terms of engine performance and air pollution was found.

Two new guaiane sesquiterpene lactones, vulgarolides A and B (1 and 2), were isolated from Artemisia vulgaris aerial parts using various chromatographic separations. The structure elucidation was performed by combination of spectroscopic experiments including 1D and 2D NMR, HR ESI MS, and CD. Their in vitro cytotoxic activities against five human cancer cell lines were also evaluated using SRB method.