It is unclear why the severity of influenza varies in healthy adults or why the burden of severe influenza shifts to young adults when pandemic strains emerge. One possibility is that ...cross-protective T cell responses wane in this age group in the absence of recent infection. We therefore compared the acute cellular immune response in previously healthy adults with severe versus mild pandemic H1N1 infection.
49 previously healthy adults admitted to the National Hospital of Tropical Diseases, Viet Nam with RT-PCR-confirmed 2009 H1N1 infection were prospectively enrolled. 39 recovered quickly whereas 10 developed severe symptoms requiring supplemental oxygen and prolonged hospitalization. Peripheral blood lymphocyte subset counts and activation (HLADR, CD38) and differentiation (CD27, CD28) marker expression were determined on days 0, 2, 5, 10, 14 and 28 by flow cytometry. NK, CD4 and CD8 lymphopenia developed in 100%, 90% and 60% of severe cases versus 13% (p<0.001), 28%, (p = 0.001) and 18% (p = 0.014) of mild cases. CD4 and NK counts normalized following recovery. B cell counts were not significantly associated with severity. CD8 activation peaked 6-8 days after mild influenza onset, when 13% (6-22%) were HLADR+CD38+, and was accompanied by a significant loss of resting/CD27+CD28+ cells without accumulation of CD27+CD28- or CD27-CD28- cells. In severe influenza CD8 activation peaked more than 9 days post-onset, and/or was excessive (30-90% HLADR+CD38+) in association with accumulation of CD27+CD28- cells and maintenance of CD8 counts.
Severe influenza is associated with transient T and NK cell deficiency. CD8 phenotype changes during mild influenza are consistent with a rapidly resolving memory response whereas in severe influenza activation is either delayed or excessive, and partially differentiated cells accumulate within blood indicating that recruitment of effector cells to the lung could be impaired.
Energy is an essential resource for economic development. The study employed the asymmetric ARDL cointegration approach to investigate the impact of energy consumption on economic growth for Vietnam ...during the period 1971-2017. The finding of the study is that the effects of electricity consumption on economic growth are asymmetric in both the short- and long-run, and the negative changes have a greater effect than the positive changes. At the same time, the impact of petroleum consumption on economic growth is asymmetric in the long-run, and the positive changes have a greater effect than the negative changes. The causality test also indicates the existence of bi-directional causality between energy consumption and economic growth, supported the Feedback hypothesis. Several policy implications are suggested from the obtained result findings.
The paper investigates the role of renewable energy and alternative and nuclear energy in mitigating CO2 emissions. Trade openness is added to consider its effect on the environment, as it appears to ...be a crucial factor in interregional cooperation and development. We adopt a sample of nine signatories to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) from 1971 to 2014. Various time-series econometric methods are utilized including two long-run estimators - fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) and dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) - and a Granger-causality test. Several noteworthy findings are achieved from this paper. First, the inverse U-shaped relationship is found in six countries: Australia, Canada, Chile, New Zealand, Peru and Vietnam. The U-shaped relationship is found in Japan and Malaysia whereas no evidence is observed in Mexico. Second, the adoption of either renewable energy or alternative and nuclear energy would mitigate CO2 emissions and trade openness plays an important role in facilitating this effect. Third, the directions of Granger causality among the variables of interests including consumption of renewable energy; consumption of alternative and nuclear energy, trade openness and CO2 emissions, do vary across countries and between the short term and the long term.
•Inverse U-shaped relationship in Australia, Canada, Chile, New Zealand, Peru, Vietnam.•U-shaped relationship in Japan and Malaysia and no evidence in Mexico.•Consumption of renewable energy, alternative & nuclear energy reducing CO2 emissions.
Herein, g-C3N4 and NiMoO4, which are moderate energy band gap semiconductors, have been effectively hybridized to create Z scheme heterojunction for successful visible-light photocatalytic converting ...CO2 into valuable products including CH4, CO, O2 and HCOOH. Ni(NO3)2·6H2O and (NH4)6Mo7O24·4H2O were used as precursors to synthesize NiMoO4 photocatalyst, which was continuously mixed with melamine before calcinating at 520 °C for 6 h to get NiMoO4/g-C3N4 Z scheme heterojunction. We explored that NiMoO4 intimately contacted with g-C3N4. These band positions of the NiMoO4 were also perfectly matched with those of the g-C3N4. Therefore, these photo-induced e− on conduction band of the NiMoO4 could easily travel to h+ on valence band of the g-C3N4 (recombination); thereby, minimize h+ and e− recombination in each material. Therefore, the NiMoO4/g-C3N4 direct Z-scheme heterojunctions could produce significant available h+ on the valence band of the NiMoO4 and e− on the conduction band of the g-C3N4. These e−/h+ have suitable redox potential to effectively convert CO2. Finally, the optimized g-C3N4 mole ratio for maximum enhancing photocatalytic efficiency of the NiMoO4/g-C3N4 heterojunction was 60%. When the g-C3N4 content increased to 70%, the excess g-C3N4 amount would entirely cover NiMoO4 surface leaded to form dense and closed shell. The formed closed shell decreased contact between NiMoO4 and CO2 as well as the interface charge transfer, which reduced the e− and h+ separation and transfer leading to decrease in photocatalytic conversion efficiency.
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•Successfully created NiMoO4/g-C3N4 Z scheme heterojunction for CO2 conversion.•Hybridization of NiMoO4 and g-C3N4 prevented recombination of e−/h+ in each material.•The created NiMoO4/g-C3N4 converted CO2 into HCOOH, CH4 and CO even under visible light.•The optimal molar ratio of g-C3N4/NiMoO4 for the best photocatalytic conversion was 60%.
ZnO/graphene oxide (ZnO/GO) nanocomposites were synthesized by hydrothermal method using zinc acetate and graphite as precursors. Properties of synthesized materials were investigated by different ...physico-chemical techniques and their photocatalytic performance was evaluated with the aid of the photodegradation of methyl orange under UV irradiation. Impacts of reaction conditions such as pH of solutions, catalyst loading and initial concentration on photodegradation rate of synthesized photocatalysts were also investigated. TEM images showed that the average size of the synthesized ZnO was approximately 35 nm, being in good agreement with the obtained XRD results which revealed good dispersion of ZnO particles over the wrinkled GO layers. UV–Vis absorption spectra of these synthesized materials revealed that 5% ZnO/GO exhibited the highest visible light absorption. Photocatalytic experimental results showed that the highest photodegradation rates occurred in a neutral solution with an initial methyl orange (MO) concentration of 10 mg/L. After 2 h of reaction under UV irradiation, more than 95% of MO was degraded at optimal conditions. The photodegradation of MO followed the pseudo-first-order kinetics with apparent reaction rate constants in the range of 0.009–0.030 (min
−1
). ZnO/GO photocatalyst was relatively stable in neutral aqueous solutions during the photodegradation of MO, with a decrease of 6% in photocatalytic performance observed after four cycles compared with the first cycle.
This study reports the clinical characteristics and outcome of HIV-associated Penicilliummarneffei infection in northern Vietnam.
We conducted a retrospective chart review of all patients with ...laboratory confirmed Penicilliummarneffei infection admitted to the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Hanoi, Vietnam, between July 2006 and September 2009.
127 patients with P. marneffei infection were identified. All were HIV-infected; median CD4+ T-cell count was 24 cells/μl (IQR:12-48); 76% were men. Common clinical features were fever (92.9%), skin lesions (82.6%), hepatomegaly (61.4%), lymphadenopathy (40.2%), weight loss (59.1%) and cough (49.6%). Concurrent opportunistic infections were present in 22.0%; half of those had tuberculosis. Initial treatment regimens were: itraconazole or ketoconazole capsule (77.2%), amphotericin B (20.5%), and fluconazole (1.6%). In-hospital mortality was 12.6% and showed no significant difference in patients treated with itraconazole (or ketoconazole) and amphotericin B (p = 0.43). Dyspnea, ascites, and increased LDH level were independent predictors of mortality. No seasonality was observed.
The clinical features, treatments and outcomes of HIV-associated P. marneffei infection in northern Vietnam are similar to those reported in other endemic regions. Dyspnea was an important predictor of mortality. More patients were treated with itraconazole than amphotericin B and no significant difference in treatment outcome was observed. It would be of clinical value to compare the efficacy of oral itraconazole and amphotericin B in a clinical trial.
In this paper, we address the effective and robust identification of material behavior parameters from full-field measurements obtained by means of the advanced Digital Image Correlation (DIC) ...experimental technique. The objective is to optimize the identification procedure by defining an appropriate and flexible numerical methodology that automatically incorporates the limited knowledge on both the used mathematical model (which is always biased, whatever its complexity) and experimental data (which are numerous in the case of DIC, but inevitably noisy). The inverse methodology we propose, denoted DIC-mCRE, is based on the modified Constitutive Relation Error (mCRE) concept which is a convenient tool to deal with reliability of information. In this framework, the designed identification tool is constructed from a hybrid mathematical formulation with a cost function made of weighted modeling and observation error terms. The associated metric thus naturally considers and connects all error and uncertainty sources. We introduce here a consistent setting of the weighting factors with respect to measurement noise, that gives full sense to the quantification of the model quality. Additionally, an integrated version (called mI-DIC) of the methodology is developed, and an extension to nonlinear constitutive models is proposed together with a dedicated solver. The performance of the approach is analyzed and validated on several numerical experiments dealing with linear elasticity or nonlinear models, and using synthetic or real full-field data.
•Reliability of information is consistently introduced in the inversion process.•Admissibility spaces and weights are defined with respect to uncertainty sources.•An integrated version of the mCRE-based inversion technique is introduced.•An extension to nonlinear constitutive models is proposed, with dedicated algorithm.
Artificial intelligence (AI) radar technology offers several advantages over other technologies, including low cost, privacy assurance, high accuracy, and environmental resilience. One challenge ...faced by AI radar technology is the high cost of equipment and the lack of radar datasets for deep-learning model training. Moreover, conventional radar signal processing methods have the obstacles of poor resolution or complex computation. Therefore, this paper discusses an innovative approach in the integration of radar technology and machine learning for effective surveillance systems that can surpass the aforementioned limitations. This approach is detailed into three steps: signal acquisition, signal processing, and feature-based classification. A hardware prototype of the signal acquisition circuitry was designed for a Continuous Wave (CW) K-24 GHz frequency band radar sensor. The collected radar motion data was categorized into non-human motion, human walking, and human walking without arm swing. Three signal processing techniques, namely short-time Fourier transform (STFT), mel spectrogram, and mel frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs), were employed. The latter two are typically used for audio processing, but in this study, they were proposed to obtain micro-Doppler spectrograms for all motion data. The obtained micro-Doppler spectrograms were then fed to a simplified 2D convolutional neural networks (CNNs) architecture for feature extraction and classification. Additionally, artificial neural networks (ANNs) and 1D CNN models were implemented for comparative analysis on various aspects. The experimental results demonstrated that the 2D CNN model trained on the MFCC feature outperformed the other two methods. The accuracy rate of the object classification models trained on micro-Doppler features was 97.93%, indicating the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
This work examines the impact of greenwash on green brand equity and analyses the mediation effects of green brand image, green satisfaction and green trust as well as the moderating effect of ...information and knowledge based on the legitimacy theory and signalling theory. This study adopts a questionnaire‐based survey design to gather data from 445 respondents using a cluster random sampling technique. Data collection focuses on Vietnamese consumers who had purchased electronic products in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The findings show that although greenwash is not significantly related to green brand equity possibly due to the halo effect, greenwash is adversely related to green brand image, green satisfaction and green trust, which would positively influence green brand equity. In other words, green brand image, green satisfaction and green trust play a full mediation role in the relationship between greenwash and green brand equity. In addition, information and knowledge actually moderate the relationship between greenwash and green brand equity, and it strengthens the adverse relationship between greenwash and green brand equity. This research is the first to combine green brand image, green satisfaction and green trust as mediators to shed light on the understanding of different impact mechanisms in the greenwash–green brand equity relationship. Furthermore, this research is also the first to study information and knowledge as a moderator in the greenwash–green brand equity relationship. This provides a better insight into the process and context by which greenwash affects green brand equity. Taken together, the findings of this study extend and advance the understanding regarding the different mechanisms and the dynamics in which green brand image, green satisfaction, green trust as mediators and information and knowledge as a moderator can play in the emerging market context of consumers of electronic products in Vietnam. The findings enrich the growing body of green marketing literature and contribute significantly towards a unified theory of brand equity.
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