Gene function characterization in Aspergillus niger using a dual resistance marker transformation system mediated by Agrobacterium tumefaciens.

Aspergillus niger is a well-known workhorse for the industrial production of enzymes and organic acids. This fungus can also cause postharvest diseases in fruits. Although Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation (ATMT) based on antibiotic resistance markers has been effectively exploited for inspecting functions of target genes in wild-type fungi, it still needs to be further improved in A.

Telemedicine in home-based care for COVID-19 patients.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has made devastating impacts on public health and global economy. While most people experience mild symptoms, it is highly transmissible and deadly in at-risk populations. Telemedicine has the potential to prevent hospitalization and provide remote care.

Unmet needs for informal care among people with type 2 diabetes in rural communities in Vietnam.

Objectives: The objective of this study was to identify determinants associated with unmet needs for informal support among people with type-2 diabetes in rural communities of Vietnam in order to inform development of effective interventions aimed at bridging the gap between community members and resource constrained health systems.

Study Design: A cross-sectional survey was conducted from December 2018 to February 2019 in a rural area of northern Vietnam.

Methods: From 2 districts in northern Vietnam, 806 people with type-2 diabetes participated in a survey to assess who were their most important informal caregivers (ICGs) and to measure the association between demographic and socio-economic predictors and unmet needs of informal support of relevance for diabetes self-care using bivariate and multivariate analyses.

Cross-Cultural Adaption and Validation of SERVPERF Tool for Measuring Healthcare Quality in an Oncology Public Hospital, Vietnam.

SERVPERF (Service Performance) tool needs to be adapted to the context and the usage purpose. Our study aimed to validate the context adapted SERVPERF tool in an Oncology public hospital in Vietnam. A study was conducted in 2020 with 227 in-patients as respondents the modified SERVPERF tool.

Patient Satisfaction With Healthcare Service Quality and Its Associated Factors at One Polyclinic in Hanoi, Vietnam.

: Patient satisfaction is one of the most important components of measuring healthcare quality. : The study aimed to evaluate the validity and reliability of the patient satisfaction scale with the quality of health services and its associated factors. A cross-sectional study was conducted to collect data on patient satisfaction with 301 outpatients at one polyclinic in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Reproductive development of female wallago catfish (Wallago attu) in captivity.

The wallago catfish (Wallago attu) is a new potential fish for aquaculture in Vietnam. Data related to the reproductive cycle of W. attu in captivity are, however, not available.

Origin of novel coronavirus causing COVID-19: A computational biology study using artificial intelligence.

Origin of the COVID-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2) has been intensely debated in the scientific community since the first infected cases were detected in December 2019. The disease has caused a global pandemic, leading to deaths of thousands of people across the world and thus finding origin of this novel coronavirus is important in responding and controlling the pandemic. Recent research results suggest that bats or pangolins might be the hosts for SARS-CoV-2 based on comparative studies using its genomic sequences.

Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 among high-density communities and hyper-endemicity of COVID-19 in Vietnam.

Objective: To assess the magnitude of active and recovering COVID-19 patients among at-risk communities and to identify the factors associated with positive serology.

Methods: Four hundred and eighty-three close contacts of COVID-19 patients residing in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, during the fourth wave of the COVID-19 epidemic (September and October 2021) were included. Five weeks after exposure to a COVID-19 patient, they underwent a serology test using the BIOSYNEX COVID-19 BSS kit.

Impact of Public Health Insurance on Out-of-Pocket Health Expenditures of the Near-Poor in Vietnam.

Out-of-pocket payment is one of the indicators measuring the achievement of Universal Health Coverage. According to the World Health Organization, for countries from the Asia Pacific Region, out-of-pocket payments should not exceed 30%-40% of total health expenditure. This study aimed to identify factors influencing out-of-pocket payment for the near-poor for outpatient healthcare services as well as across health facilities at different levels.

A graph-based approach for population health analysis using Geo-tagged tweets.

We propose in this work a graph-based approach for automatic public health analysis using social media. In our approach, graphs are created to model the interactions between features and between tweets in social media. We investigated different graph properties and methods in constructing graph-based representations for population health analysis.

Overweight and obesity among Vietnamese school-aged children: National prevalence estimates based on the World Health Organization and International Obesity Task Force definition.

Background: Overweight and obesity is a severe global health issue in both developed and developing nations. This study aims to estimate the national prevalence of overweight and obesity among school-aged children in Vietnam.

Method: We conducted a national cross-sectional study on 2788 children aged from 11-14 years old from September to November 2018.

An empirical study on prediction of population health through social media.

Public health measurement is important for government administration as it provides indicators and implications to public healthcare strategies. The measurement of health status has been traditionally conducted via surveys in the forms of pre-designed questionnaires to collect responses from targeted participants. Apart from benefits, traditional approach is costly, time-consuming, and not scalable.

Hybrid multivariate pattern analysis combined with extreme learning machine for Alzheimer's dementia diagnosis using multi-measure rs-fMRI spatial patterns.

Background: Early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) is essential for timely treatment. Machine learning and multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) for the diagnosis of brain disorders are explicitly attracting attention in the neuroimaging community. In this paper, we propose a voxel-wise discriminative framework applied to multi-measure resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI) that integrates hybrid MVPA and extreme learning machine (ELM) for the automated discrimination of AD and MCI from the cognitive normal (CN) state.

A Leadership and Managerial Competency Framework for Public Hospital Managers in Vietnam.

Objective: The aim of this paper was to develop a leadership and managerial competency framework for public hospital managers in Vietnam.

Methods: This mixed-method study used a four-step approach. The first step was a position description content analysis to identify the tasks hospital managers are required to carry out.

Overexpression of the IbOr gene from sweet potato (Ipomea batatas 'Hoang Long') in maize increases total carotenoid and β-carotene contents.

Nutritional quality of most maize varieties is very low due to the lack of lysine and tryptophan and extremely low provitamin A carotenoids including β-carotene, α-carotene, and β-cryptoxanthin. In this study, we report the successful overexpression of the IbOr gene in H145 and H95 inbred maize lines under the control of maize seed-specific promoter globulin 1 (Glo1) for the purpose of improving β-carotene in maize. The results showed that the total carotenoid and β-carotene content of all analyzed transgenic maize plants were significantly higher than those of wild-type lines.

Detection of ground parrot vocalisation: A multiple instance learning approach.

Ground parrot vocalisation can be considered as an audio event. Test-based diverse density multiple instance learning (TB-DD-MIL) is proposed for detecting this event in audio files recorded in the field. The proposed method is motivated by the advantages of multiple instance learning from incomplete training data.

Dietary Assessment on a Mobile Phone Using Image Processing and Pattern Recognition Techniques: Algorithm Design and System Prototyping.

Dietary assessment, while traditionally based on pen-and-paper, is rapidly moving towards automatic approaches. This study describes an Australian automatic food record method and its prototype for dietary assessment via the use of a mobile phone and techniques of image processing and pattern recognition. Common visual features including scale invariant feature transformation (SIFT), local binary patterns (LBP), and colour are used for describing food images.