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We demonstrated that the methanol extract of Mitrephora thoreliiPierre's branches and leavesin Lam Dong, Vietnam is anti-Staphylococcus aureusstrain (Sta1) of Phenikaa University, Hanoi, Viet Nam and Staphylococcus aureusATCC 29213strain(Sta2) from Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA. Invitro anti-Sta1 and Sta2 activity of the methanol extract of Mitrephora thoreliiPierre's branches and leaves were not significantly different. With a rise in extract content, the inhibitory zone's created diameter grew as well. The extract content of 100 mg/mL demonstrated the greatest antibacterial activity with a 25 mm inhibition zone diameter against Sta1 and 24mm inhibition zone diameter against Sta2. Bacteria were not resistant to the extract at concentrations of 20; 80 and 100 mg/mL after 48, 72, and 96 hours. The lowest inhibitory concentration (MIC) was between 312.5 and 625 μg/mL. The minimum bactericidal concentration was found to be 1.25mg/mL.

Additional file 1: . Model development and evaluation, description of RAILUS software and usability questionnaire.

In this study, iron benzenedicarboxylate framework/graphene nanoplatelets (MIL-100(Fe)/GNPs) composites have been synthesized. As-prepared composite materials were characterized by XRD, SEM, FTIR techniques, UV-VIS diffuse reflectance.

The major intendment of this study was to discover the interactive relationship between productivity and social performance, in which the productivity measured as a ratio of number of active borrowers to number of staff, the social performance is measured through the breadth of outreach and the depth of outreach. This research used the panel data regression method with research data from thirty-six selected CFIs in Vietnam from 2013 to 2018. The study results discovered that the debt-to-equity ratio, equity growth rate, breadth of outreach and return on equity had positive relationships with productivity and that the depth of outreach, loan-to-deposit ratio, non-performing loans ratio and return on assets had negative relationships with productivity. The age of CFIs, debt-to-equity ratio, breadth of outreach had positive relationships with the depth of outreach; the productivity and financial sustainability had negative impacts on the depth of outreach. The depth of outreach, productivity and non-performing loans ratio had positive relationships with the breadth of outreach; the deposit growth ratio had a negative impact on the breadth of outreach. The research had determined the bidirectional interactions and relationship between productivity and social performance. Based on the findings the study offers policy implication and further emphasizes optimal policies to CFIs management that helps the policy makers, CFIs managers and executives in improving the overall productivity and increasing the social performance of CFIs in Vietnam.

Customer satisfaction towards microfinance services is a measure of how microfinance services supplied by a microfinance institution meet or surpass customer expectation. The use of microfinance services plays a very important role in the socioeconomic development and contributes significantly to the development of microfinance sector in one nation. This study aims at measuring the customer satisfaction towards microfinance services they are using. This study uses the five broad dimension theory of service quality, data will be collected from the way of survey from microfinance institutions (MFIs) customers and later on will be analyzed by statistical technique and tools like descriptive statistics, and correlation method. The descriptive statistics are conducted to show out some specific areas in which MFIs need to pay more attention. The correlation analysis is to find out the relationship between each independent variable and the dependent variable. Finally, the conclusion and recommendation will summarize the key findings of the research and give suggestions to MFIs in Vietnam.

This study purposes to discover the interactive relationship between credit growth and profitability and to examine factors that affect the credit growth and profitability of people's credit funds (PCFs). After regression analysis on a set of panel data from 2013 to 2018 on 24 selected PCFs, it appeared that deposit growth and loan-to-deposit ratio had positive relationships with credit growth, and capital adequacy ratio and profitability had negative relationships with credit growth of PCFs. The age of PCFs has a positive relationship with profitability, while the credit growth, debt-to-equity ratio, non-performing loan ratio, economic growth and inflation have negative relationships with profitability of PCFs. The study found the credit growth and profitability have relationships with each other in a contrary trend. Based on the findings the study proposes policy measures that could be implemented by the managers to increase PCFs’ credit growth rate and profitability.

Productivity and profitability are the most complex areas of financial decision making due to their interrelationship with other financial decision variables. At the same time, productivity and profitability are factors affecting the operations and goals of formal microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Vietnam. This study’s purpose was to discover the interaction and causal relationship between productivity and profitability and to examine factors that affect the productivity and profitability of formal MFIs. After regression analysis on a set of panel data from 2010 to 2018 of all formal MFIs in Vietnam, it appeared that profitability and debt-to-equity ratio have positive relationships with productivity and that the number of branches and deposits have negative relationships with productivity. Productivity has a positive relationship with profitability and both the debt-to-equity ratio and equity have negative impacts on profitability. The study found bidirectional interactions and a causal relationship between productivity and profitability. Based on the findings the study proposes policy measures that could be implemented by the managers of formal MFIs to increase productivity and ensure a more efficient distribution of economic resources. This study also helps managers of formal MFIs understand the key determinants for better management of formal MFIs.

Background: One of the main ways to strengthen the health-system capacity by the intersectoral approaches is to promote social health by linking microfinance with healthcare support activities. The aim of the study was to discover the interaction relationship between the diversification of health care support activities and the health care services outreach of formal microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Vietnam. This study proposes policy measures that could be implemented by the policy makers, managers of MFIs to diversify the health care support activities and to promote the health care services outreach.Methods: This study used the panel data regression method from 2010 to 2019 of all formal MFIs in Vietnam, the study found out the interaction relationship between the diversification of health care support activities and the health care services outreach of formal MFIs in Vietnam.Results: The results showed that number of branches and the health care services outreach had positive relationships with the diversification of health care support activities; productivity had a negative impact on the diversification of health care support activities. The diversification of health care support activities, and productivity had positive relationships with the health care services outreach; number of branches had a negative impact on the health care services outreach. At the same time, this study found bidirectional interactions and the causal relationship between the diversification of health care support activities and the health care services outreach of formal MFIs in Vietnam.Conclusions: This study found bidirectional interactions and the causal relationship between the diversification of health care support activities and the health care services outreach. The study results encourage and provide opportunities to diversify the health care support activities and to promote the health care services outreach of formal MFIs in Vietnam.

Object tracking is an important procedure in the computer vision field as it estimates the position, size, and state of an object along the video’s timeline. Although many algorithms were proposed with high accuracy, object tracking in diverse contexts is still a challenging problem. The paper presents some methods to track the movement of two types of objects: arbitrary objects and humans. Both problems estimate the state density function of an object using particle filters. For the videos of a static or relatively static camera, we adjusted the state transition model by integrating the movement direction of the object. Also, we propose that partitioning the object needs tracking. To track the human, we partitioned the human into N parts and, then, tracked each part. During tracking, if a part deviated from the object, it was corrected by centering rotation, and the part was, then, combined with other parts.

In low and middle income countries, infectious diseases continue to have a significant impact, particularly amongst the poorest in society. Tetanus and hand foot and mouth disease (HFMD) are two such diseases and, in both, death is associated with autonomic nervous system dysfunction (ANSD). Currently, photoplethysmogram or electrocardiogram monitoring is used to detect deterioration in these patients, however expensive clinical monitors are often required. In this study, we employ low-cost and mobile wearable devices to collect patient vital signs unobtrusively; and we develop machine learning algorithms for automatic and rapid triage of patients that provide efficient use of clinical resources. Existing methods are mainly dependent on the prior detection of clinical features with limited exploitation of multi-modal physiological data. Moreover, the latest developments in deep learning (e.g. cross-domain transfer learning) have not been sufficiently applied for infectious disease diagnosis. In this paper, we present a fusion of multi-modal physiological data to predict the severity of ANSD with a hierarchy of resource-aware decision making. First, an on-site triage process is performed using a simple classifier. Second, personalised longitudinal modelling is employed that takes the previous states of the patient into consideration. We have also employed a spectrogram representation of the physiological waveforms to exploit existing networks for cross-domain transfer learning, which avoids the laborious and data intensive process of training a network from scratch. Results show that the proposed framework has promising potential in supporting severity grading of infectious diseases in low-resources settings, such as in the the developing world.

Co-operative credit institutions (CCIs) play an important role for achieving the national mission of financial inclusion. Therefore, we should be taking a wider view of productivity and credit and assessing productivity and credit growth. These are factors affecting the CCIs' operations and goals. This study used the panel data regression method with research data from thirty-two selected CCIs in Vietnam from 2013 to 2018. This study’s purpose to discover the reciprocity relationship productivity and credit growth in Vietnam's CCIs. By assessing the factors affecting the productivity and credit growth, the research results have determined the bidirectional interactions and causal relationships between productivity and credit growth. Based on the findings the study offers policy implication and new insights for developing a more sustainable CCIs and further emphasizes optimal policies to CCIs management that helps the policy-makers, CCIs managers and executives in improving the overall productivity, and the credit growth of CCIs going forward.

Productivity and financial sustainability are the most complex areas of financial decision making due to its interrelationship with other financial decisions variables. At the same time, productivity and financial sustainability are factors affecting the operations and the goals of people's credit funds (PCFs) in Vietnam. The purpose of this study is to discover the interaction and causal relationship between productivity and financial sustainability and to examine factors that affect productivity and financial sustainability of PCFs. After regression analysis on a set of panel data from 2013 to 2018 of tweenty-four selected PCFs in Vietnam, it appears that deposit, credit growth rate and financial sustainability have positive relationships with productivity; depth of outreach has a negative relationship with productivity. Productivity, capital adequacy ratio, income have positive relationships with financial sustainability; credit growth rate has a negative impact on financial sustainability. The study finds bidirectional interactions and the causal relationship between productivity and financial sustainability. Based on the findings the study proposes policy measures that could be implemented by the managers of PCFs to increase productivity and ensure a more efficient distribution of economic resources. Beside, this study recommends that managers of PCFs and helps researchers, managers to understand the key determinants for better management of PCFs.

Background Dengue can cause plasma leakage that may lead to dengue shock syndrome (DSS). In approximately 30% of DSS cases, recurrent episodes of shock occur. These patients have a higher risk of fluid overload, respiratory distress and poor outcomes. We investigated the association of echocardiographically-derived cardiac function and intravascular volume parameters plus lactate levels, with the outcomes of recurrent shock and respiratory distress in severe dengue. Methods/Principle findings We performed a prospective observational study in Paediatric and adult ICU, at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases (HTD), Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Patients with dengue were enrolled within 12 hours of admission to paediatric or adult ICU. A haemodynamic assessment and portable echocardiograms were carried out daily for 5 days from enrolment and all interventions recorded. 102 patients were enrolled; 22 patients did not develop DSS, 48 had a single episode of shock and 32 had recurrent shock. Patients with recurrent shock had a higher enrolment pulse than those with 1 episode or no shock (median: 114 vs. 100 vs. 100 b/min, P = 0.002), significantly lower Stroke Volume Index (SVI), (median: 21.6 vs. 22.8 vs. 26.8mls/m2, P, Author summary Dengue is a viral illness that can lead to severe and potentially fatal complications. The most common complication is fluid leakage from blood vessels, which can cause low blood pressure or dengue shock syndrome (DSS). The majority of patients recover with simple intravenous fluid replacement, however in approximately 30% of DSS cases, recurrent episodes of shock occur, and these patients have a higher risk of fluid overload, respiratory distress and death. We investigated whether using portable echocardiograms (Echo) in the intensive care unit (ICU) to assess cardiac function and intravascular volume parameters as well as blood lactate levels, can help identify these patients. We found patients who developed recurrent shock had higher heart rates and lower Stroke Volume Index (SVI), and higher lactate levels at enrolment than those with 1 episode or no shock. Higher SVI and worse cardiac function after 3 days in ICU was associated with respiratory distress. Admission lactate levels predicted patients who subsequently developed recurrent shock and correlated positively with the total IV fluid volume received. These results demonstrate that Echo-derived intravascular volume assessment and venous lactate levels can help identify dengue patients at high risk of poor outcomes in the ICU, and could assist in the management of severe dengue.

Supervisor:丁 洛榮, 情報科学研究科, 修士