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The paper focuses on the development and evaluation of rubric used to assess STEM lesson plans. The rubric was constructed based on theoretical studies on STEM education and decision tree models to ensure objectivity and scientific rigor. Two experts in the field of STEM education independently used the rubric for assessment, and Cohen’s Kappa coefficient was calculated to check the inter-rater reliability (k=0.625), indicating a high level of agreement. The study also analyzed STEM lesson plans of teachers and preservice teachers to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each plan. The results showed that the STEM lesson plans met the requirements of the guideline documents. Pre-service teachers’ lesson plans exhibited several strengths in terms of lesson plan ideas and the construction of inquiry-based activities, while teachers faced difficulties in identifying ideas and problem posing.

The subject of stimulating employees toward digital transformation has always been one of the most significant topics, attracting the interests of scientists and decision-makers. This study analyzes the impact of critical factors, including self-efficacy, attitude, leadership, and employee characteristics on employee readiness for digital transformation and job performance. The variables were selected based on the extended theory of planned behavior and personal resource adaption models. To achieve the research objective, partial least squares structural equation modeling was employed. Data were collected from a survey of 302 employees of SMEs in Vietnam. Research findings showed that employees attitude (β = 0.1148; p < 0.05), self-efficacy (β = 0.3737; p < 0.05), and characteristics (β = 0.3328; p < 0.05) affected their readiness for digital transformation. Employees self-efficacy and characteristics also demonstrated direct impacts on job performance. Meanwhile, leadership showed no direct impact (p = 0.6430) but an indirect impact on job performance through readiness (β = 0.1360, p < 0.05). Additionally, among the factors, employee readiness is the most substantial predictor of job performance (β = 0.5152). The findings can benefit Vietnamese SME managers and policymakers, as they can better understand employees and develop effective strategies and measures to promote employee readiness and job performance in a digital transformation context. AcknowledgmentThis article is a scientific product of the ministry-level project “Research on factors affecting digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises in Vietnam”, code B2022-BKA-22, funded by the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam.

Plasmonic photocatalytic nanocomposites of TiO2 and Au nanoparticles (NPs) have recently attracted the attention of researchers, who aim to improve the photocatalytic activity of potential TiO2 NPs. In this study, we report photocatalytic activity enhancement for a Au/TiO2 nanocomposite prepared by the plasma–liquid interaction method using an atmospheric microplasma apparatus. The enhanced photocatalytic activity of the prepared Au/TiO2 is demonstrated by the degradation of methylene blue (MB) in water under both ultraviolet (UV) and visible light irradiation. The prior treatment of TiO2 with microplasma in a NH3 and H2O2 solution is found to strongly improve the photocatalytic activity of both the treated TiO2 NPs, as well as the synthesized Au/TiO2 nanocomposite.

Summary: Background: Encephalitis is a worldwide public health issue, with a substantially high burden among children in southeast Asia. We aimed to determine the causes of encephalitis in children admitted to hospitals across the Greater Mekong region by implementing a comprehensive state-of-the-art diagnostic procedure harmonised across all centres, and identifying clinical characteristics related to patients’ conditions. Methods: In this multicentre, observational, prospective study of childhood encephalitis, four referral hospitals in Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar recruited children (aged 28 days to 16 years) who presented with altered mental status lasting more than 24 h and two of the following minor criteria: fever (within the 72 h before or after presentation), one or more generalised or partial seizures (excluding febrile seizures), a new-onset focal neurological deficit, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) white blood cell count of 5 per mL or higher, or brain imaging (CT or MRI) suggestive of lesions of encephalitis. Comprehensive diagnostic procedures were harmonised across all centres, with first-line testing was done on samples taken at inclusion and results delivered within 24 h of inclusion for main treatable causes of disease and second-line testing was done thereafter for mostly non-treatable causes. An independent expert medical panel reviewed the charts and attribution of causes of all the included children. Using multivariate analyses, we assessed risk factors associated with unfavourable outcomes (ie, severe neurological sequelae and death) at discharge using data from baseline and day 2 after inclusion. This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04089436, and is now complete. Findings: Between July 28, 2014, and Dec 31, 2017, 664 children with encephalitis were enrolled. Median age was 4·3 years (1·8–8·8), 295 (44%) children were female, and 369 (56%) were male. A confirmed or probable cause of encephalitis was identified in 425 (64%) patients: 216 (33%) of 664 cases were due to Japanese encephalitis virus, 27 (4%) were due to dengue virus, 26 (4%) were due to influenza virus, 24 (4%) were due to herpes simplex virus 1, 18 (3%) were due to Mycobacterium tuberculosis, 17 (3%) were due to Streptococcus pneumoniae, 17 (3%) were due to enterovirus A71, 74 (9%) were due to other pathogens, and six (1%) were due to autoimmune encephalitis. Diagnosis was made within 24 h of admission to hospital for 83 (13%) of 664 children. 119 (18%) children had treatable conditions and 276 (42%) had conditions that could have been preventable by vaccination. At time of discharge, 153 (23%) of 664 children had severe neurological sequelae and 83 (13%) had died. In multivariate analyses, risk factors for unfavourable outcome were diagnosis of M tuberculosis infection upon admission (odds ratio 3·23 [95% CI 1·04–10·03]), coma on day 2 (2·90 [1·78–4·72]), supplementary oxygen requirement (1·89 [1·25–2·86]), and more than 1 week duration between symptom onset and admission to hospital (3·03 [1·68–5·48]). At 1 year after inclusion, of 432 children who were discharged alive from hospital with follow-up data, 24 (5%) had died, 129 (30%) had neurological sequelae, and 279 (65%) had completely recovered. Interpretation: In southeast Asia, most causes of childhood encephalitis are either preventable or treatable, with Japanese encephalitis virus being the most common cause. We provide crucial information that could guide public health policy to improve diagnostic, vaccination, and early therapeutic guidelines on childhood encephalitis in the Greater Mekong region. Funding: Institut Pasteur, Institut Pasteur International Network, Fondation Merieux, Aviesan Sud, INSERM, Wellcome Trust, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), and Fondation Total.

Removing antibiotics from water is critical to prevent the emergence and spread of antibiotic resistance, protect ecosystems, and maintain the effectiveness of these vital medications. The combination of ozone and electrocoagulation in wastewater treatment provides enhanced removal of contaminants, improved disinfection efficiency, and increased overall treatment effectiveness. In this work, the removal of sulfamethoxazole (SMX) from an aqueous solution using an ozone–electrocoagulation (O–EC) system was optimized and modeled. The experiments were designed according to the central composite design. The parameters, including current density, reaction time, pH, and ozone dose affecting the SMX removal efficiency of the OEC system, were optimized using a response surface methodology. The results show that the removal process was accurately predicted by the quadric model. The numerical optimization results show that the optimum conditions were a current density of 33.2 A/m2, a time of 37.8 min, pH of 8.4, and an ozone dose of 0.7 g/h. Under these conditions, the removal efficiency reached 99.65%. A three-layer artificial neural network (ANN) with logsig-purelin transfer functions was used to model the removal process. The data predicted by the ANN model matched well to the experimental data. The calculation of the relative importance showed that pH was the most influential factor, followed by current density, ozone dose, and time. The kinetics of the SMX removal process followed the first-order kinetic model with a rate constant of 0.12 (min−1). The removal mechanism involves various processes such as oxidation and reduction on the surface of electrodes, the reaction between ozone and ferrous ions, degradation of SMX molecules, formation of flocs, and adsorption of species on the flocs. The results obtained in this work indicate that the O–EC system is a potential approach for the removal of antibiotics from water.

A series of sixteen A-ring modified (2,3-indolo-, 2-benzylidene) oleanonic acid derivatives, holding some cyclic amines, linear polyamines and benzylaminocarboxamides at C28, has been synthesized and screened for antiviral activity against influenza A/PuertoRico/8/34 (H1N1) and Dengue virus serotypes of DENV-1, -2, -3, -4. It was found that 28-homopiperazine 2 and 3-N-phthalyl 22 amides of oleanonic acid demonstrated high potency with selectivity index SI 27 (IC50 21 μM) and 42 (IC50 12 μM). Oleanonic acid aminoethylpiperazine amide 6 and C-azepano-erythrodiol 23 appeared to be the most effective compounds against DENV-1 (IC50′s 67 and 107 μM) and -2 (IC50′s 86 and 68 μM correspondingly) serotypes.

Monofloral honey samples (Coffea robusta) from Vietnam were determined for their chemical compositions. This is the first report on the chemical composition and antioxidant activity of coffee honey from Vietnam. These samples were characterized by their high contents of total and reducing sugars, total phenolic contents, and total flavonoid contents. The contents of seven phenolic acids (PAs) were quantified by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and analyzed with the assistance of principle component analysis (PCA) to differentiate the honey samples into groups. The hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) (0.048–2.933 mg/kg) and free acid contents (20.326–31.163 meq/kg) of coffee honey were lower in Nepal, which reflected the freshness of the honey when conducting this survey. The coffee honey had total sugar and reducing sugar contents 831.711 g/kg and 697.903 g/kg, respectively. The high level of total phenolic (0.642 mg GAE/g) and flavonoid (0.0341 mg GE/g) contents of coffee honey contributed to their antioxidant activity of this honey sample. Among the coffee honey tested, the IC50 of DPPH radical-scavenging activities value was 1.134–17.031 mg/mL, while the IC50 of ABTS radical-scavenging activities value was 115.381–213.769 mg/mL. The phenolic acids composition analysis displayed that gallic acid appeared in high concentrations in all studied honey samples, ranging from 0.037–1.015 mg/kg, and ferulic acid content ranged from 0.193 to 0.276 mg/kg. The content of trigonelline and caffeine in coffee honey samples ranged from 0.314–2.399 mg/kg and 8.946–37.977 mg/kg. The data in this article highlight the relevance of coffee honey as a healthy substance.

The document explores the concept of landscapes in Vietnamese literature and cinema from post-colonial to post-socialist perspectives. It delves into the relationship between humans and landscapes, emphasizing the shaping of human personality by the environment. The text discusses the significance of landscapes in shaping identities, cultural meanings, and values, as well as the portrayal of landscapes in literature and cinema over different historical periods. The authors analyze how landscapes are represented in art, the impact of landscapes on gender norms, and the ecological consequences of promoting landscapes through films. The document provides a comprehensive examination of the multifaceted role of landscapes in Vietnamese culture and society. [Extracted from the article]

This paper studies the common variational inclusion problem in real Hilbert spaces. To solve this problem, we propose a new accelerated approach with two initial parameter steps and establish a strong convergence theorem. Our scheme combines the viscosity approximation method with Tseng's forward backward-forward splitting method and uses self-adaptive step sizes. We simultaneously compute the inertial extrapolation and viscosity approximation at the first step of each iteration. We show that the iterative method converges strongly under conventional and appropriate assumptions. We also study some applications to the common minimum point problems, split feasibility problems, and to the least absolute selection and shrinkage operators (LASSO). Finally, we present two numerical results in Hilbert space and an application to the LASSO problem in order to illustrate the convergence analysis of the considered methods as well as compare our results to the related ones introduced by Cholamjiak et al. (J. Sci. Comput., 88(85), 2021) and Gibali and Thong (Calcolo, 55(49), 2018). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the problem of solving strongly monotone variational inequalities over the solution sets of split feasibility problems with multiple output sets in real Hilbert spaces. We present two new iterative algorithms when the involved subsets are given as the level sets of convex functions. In our algorithms, the projection to the half-space is replaced by the one to the intersection of two half-spaces. The algorithms are accelerated using the inertial technique and eliminate the need for calculating or estimating the norms of linear operators by employing self-adaptive step size criteria. We give convergence of the sequence generated by our algorithms under some suitable assumptions. Some applications to monotone variational inequalities over the solution set of the split feasibility problem are also reported. Finally, we present some numerical examples to illustrate the efficiency and implementation of our algorithms in comparison with existing algorithms in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collar rot is a devastating disease caused by the soil-borne pathogen Aspergillus niger that greatly affects groundnut production worldwide. The long-term persistence of the fungus in the soil can reduce the effectiveness of synthetic fungicides. Recently, significant attention has been raised to the use of the biological control method such as the application of antagonistic microorganisms, which potentially decline the number of spores and eradicated A. niger from the soil. In the present study, three Bacillus strains (Bacillus siamensis 101, B. siamensis 112 and B. velezensis 137) isolated from the rhizosphere soil of groundnut cultivation farms were found to inhibit the growth of A. niger mycelia by 53.6% to 60.8% in vitro. In pot experiments, the supplementation of this mixture of three bacterial strains (namely BAZ04) strongly reduced the collar rot symptoms of groundnut with a biocontrol efficacy of 100% compared to nil (no treatment). Field trials demonstrated the efficiency of BAZ04 in controlling collar rot disease, which increased the yield by 20.5-22.7% compared to the untreated plots. These results suggest that BAZ04 is a potential biocontrol agent for collar rot disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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