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The large sea urchins (Diadematidae) are widely distributed worldwide, from temperate to tropical waters. Diadematidae is an important herbivore in the coral reef ecosystem through herbivore-algal-coral interaction, which maintains the reef’s health. Many studies of Diadematidae have been performed around world, but in Vietnam, there is little known about the ecology of this group. Here, we first investigated the assemblage structure of Diadematidae in Northern Vietnam. We observed 43 sites of representative coral reefs in Ba Mun - Co To, Cat Ba - Ha Long, and Hon Me. Based on the surveys, we found four species of considerable size sea urchins, of which the most common species is Diadema setosum (79.8% of the total), Enchinothrix calamaris (10.1%), E. diadema (8.3%), and D. savignyi (1.8%). Among three study regions, Hon Me is the most diverse. In addition, Hon Me also has the highest density of sea urchins. However, this value is generally low compared to that in Southern Vietnam and other neighboring countries. Further study is needed to investigate the ecology and reproductive biology of Diadematidae to provide fundamental information for sustainable exploitation and conservation.

This study quantitatively investigated the increase in ballasting time through numerical calculations when an ultraviolet (UV) ballast water management system (BWMS) is installed on an existing vessel. The calculation results indicate that the ballasting time of a gas carrier having 55,000 dead weight tonnage was 2.152 hours without installation of the UV BWMS and implementation of a flow control function. Ballasting time increased by 14.2% after installing the UV BWMS, and it increased by 20.4% with both its installation and implementation of a flow control function. If actual conditions are taken into account, ballasting time after installing the UV BWMS is estimated to increase by at least 30% compared with current ballasting time. Therefore, when concerned parties select a UV type BWMS, it is advisable for them to minimize ship operation losses from an increase in ballasting time by considering the capacity of the actual ballast pumps on board and the flow energy loss of the UV BWMS. Additionally, it is recommended that a BWMS with larger capacity, larger pipes, and pipes with inside coatings be used to minimize the increase in ballasting time after installation of the BWMS.

Carangidae family has got about 148 species belonging to 32 genera. In Vietnam, Carangidae is of high commercial value and playing an important role in the ecosystem. In the context Vietnam has received yellow card for seafood since Nov. 2017 by the EU, in which one of the main reasons was related to the restriction of traceability. In this study, DNA barcoding technique of mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I (COI) gene was used to classify 56 specimens of Carangidae from three coastal areas (Northern, Central and Southern) in Vietnam to evaluate the effectiveness compared to the morphological classification method. Results showed that 21 species belonging to 16 genera were determined by the COI barcode while 18 species (16 genera) were determined when using morphological method. Seriola quinqueradiata and Trachinotus anak were newly recorded in Vietnam. From 56 sequences with 660 bp of mtDNA (COI), total 27 haplotypes were detected; haplotype diversity (h) and nucleotide diversity (π) were 0.903 ± 0.00060 and 0.14%, respectively. The DNA barcodes of COI gene of 21 species in Carangidae which were developed in this study could be used as a basis for comparison and traceability of their products. In addition, the results showed the high potentiality in using COI barcode to identify Carangidae fish in Vietnam.

The family Gobiidae is a relatively high abundance family of coastal fish with about 2000 species in 210 genera described. In Vietnam, the study on Gobiidae is very complex due to the large number of species, small size and high morphological variation which makes difficulties in identification and classification. In this study, the DNA barcoding technique has been used through mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I (COI) gene to classify 30 specimens of Gobiidae from three coastal areas (North, Central and South) in Vietnam to evaluate the effectiveness compared to the morphological classification method. Results showed that 26 species belonging to 21 genera were determined by the COI barcode while 19 species (17 genera) were determined when using morphological method. Mahidolia mystacina was new recorded in Vietnam. The DNA barcodes of COI gene developed in this study could be useful for estimating phylogenetic diversity as well as other studies of gobiids in terms of conservation, management and utilization of fisheries resources in Vietnam. In addition, the results showed the high potentiality in using COI barcode to identify marine fish.

After two months of online learning, students of Sai Gon University in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam could gain recognition of benefits and drawbacks of online learning in comparison with face-to-face learning. This article shows which learning mode was preferred more and the reasons by students of the university through a survey of 180 undergraduates from six general English classes. As a result, the number of participants who chose face-to-face mode was the same as that of who preferred online learning. The explanations of face-to-face learning voters were face-to-face interactions, less distraction factors, better environment for communication skill practice and more various learning activities. Flexibility of learning place and time, comfort and accessible online materials and lecture notes were the reasons for the online learning voters. A few participants could not decide their favorite mode of learning since both had their own outstanding benefits. &nbsp

Dealing with uncertain and linguistic information has been always a big problem in the areas of computational intelligence and artificial intelligence. Fuzzy inference mechanism is one of the common approaches to handling uncertain and linguistic information. The conventional fuzzy inference rule is expressed in the form of "if-then" rule: "IF X is A THEN Y is B", where A and B represent fuzzy sets in universes U, V. Since 2013, Cuong and Kreinovich [7] proposed Picture Fuzzy Sets (PFS), the interest in FPS continues to grow and the research area continues to expand, especially picture fuzzy logic and picture fuzzy inference. PFS is a direct expansion of FS, it enhances the flexibility and efficiency of FS. This paper has presented some new classes of operators in the implication and generalize the Inference of Compositional Rule on the Picture Fuzzy Logic (PFL) setting.

DNA barcoding based on a fragment of the cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene is widely applied in species identification and biodiversity studies. The aim of this study was to establish a comprehensive barcoding database of coastal ray-finned fishes in Vietnam. A total of 3,638 specimens were collected from fish landing sites in northern, central and southern Vietnam. Seven hundred and sixty-five COI sequences of ray-finned fishes were generated, belonging to 458 species, 273 genera, 113 families and 43 orders. A total of 59 species were newly recorded in Vietnam and sequences of six species were new to the Genbank and BOLD online databases. Only 32 species cannot be annotated to species level because difficulty in morphological identifications and their Kimura-2-Parameter (K2P) genetic distances to most similar sequences were more than 2%. Moreover, intra-specific genetic distances in some species are also higher than 2%, implying the existence of putative cryptic species. The mean K2P genetic distances within species, genera, families, orders and classes were 0.34%, 12.14%, 17.39%, 21.42%, and 24.80, respectively. Species compositions are quite different with only 16 common species among northern, central and southern Vietnam. This may attribute to multiple habitats and environmental factors across the 3,260 km Vietnamese coastline. Our results confirmed that DNA barcoding is an efficient and reliable tool for coastal fish identification in Vietnam, and also established a reliable DNA barcode reference library for these fishes. DNA barcodes will contribute to future efforts to achieve better monitoring, conservation, and management of fisheries in Vietnam.

Many definitions of fuzzy rough sets exist. Most of them are defined on fuzzy approximation spaces. In this paper, we firstly introduce the notion of picture fuzzy approximation space and functional and set approaches are used. Some new picture fuzzy rough sets are proposed. Presented new basic propositions should be useful for knowledge discovery in the picture fuzzy information systems.

In this paper, a computing procedure for stock value and financial index forecasting based on fuzzy clustering and fuzzy inference system is presented. Firstly, we present a data processing method based on percentage variation rate. Then we construct a fuzzy inference system with fuzzy rules obtained by the fuzzy clustering process. We determine weight of each rule and construct a defuzzification method. Finally, we apply the proposed computing procedure to some financial forecasting problems such as Vietnam’s stock value and foreign exchange. The experimental results show that our computing procedure gives better forecasting results in some case than several conventional models such as Autoregressive Model (AR), Adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system (ANFIS).