International audienceGold nanoparticles have been reported as a possible radio-sensitizer agent in radiation therapy due totheir ability to increase energy deposition and subsequent direct damage to cells and DNA within theirlocal vicinity. Moreover, this increase in energy deposition also results in an increase of the radiochemicalyields. In this work we present, for the first time, an in silico investigation, based on the general purposeMonte Carlo simulation toolkit Geant4, into energy deposition and radical species production around aspherical gold nanoparticle 50 nm in diameter via proton irradiation. Simulations were preformed forincident proton energies ranging from 2 to 170 MeV, which are of interest for clinical proton therapy

We proposed an innovative hybrid intelligent approach, namely, the multiboost based naïve bayes trees (MBNBT) method for the spatial prediction of landslides in the Mu Cang Chai District of Yen Bai Province, Vietnam. The MBNBT, which is an ensemble of the multiboost (MB) and naïve bayes trees (NBT) base classifier, has rarely been applied for landslide susceptibility mapping around the world. For the modeling, we selected 248 landslide locations in the hilly terrain of the study area. Fifteen landslide conditioning factors were selected for the construction of the database based on the one-R attribute evaluation (ORAE) technique. Model validation was done using statistical metrics, namely, sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, mean absolute error (MAE), root mean square error (RMSE), and the area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUC). Performance of the hybrid model was evaluated and compared with popular soft computing benchmark models, namely, multiple perceptron neural network (MLPN), Support Vector Machines (SVM), and single NBT. Results indicated that the proposed MBNBT (AUC = 0.824) model outperformed the popular models, namely, the MLPN (AUC = 0.804), SVM (AUC = 0.804), and NBT (AUC = 0.800) models. Analysis of the model results also suggested that the MB meta classifier ensemble model could enhance the prediction power of the NBT model. Therefore, the MBNBT is a suitable method for the assessment of landslide susceptibility in landslide prone areas.

Essential oils (EOs) are known as any aromatic oily organic substances which are naturally synthesized in plants. Exhibiting a broad range of biological activities, EOs have played a key role in numerous industries for ages, including pharmaceutical, textile, and food. However, the volatility and high sensitivity to environmental influences pose challenges to the application of EOs on industrial scale. Microencapsulation via the spray-drying method is one of the promising techniques to overcome these challenges, thanks to the presence of wall materials that properly protect the core EOs from oxidation and evaporation. By optimization of key factors related to the infeed emulsion properties and spray-drying process, the encapsulation efficiency and retention of encapsulated EOs could be significantly improved, thus allowing a wide range of EO applications. This review attempts to discuss on different determining factors of the spray-drying process to develop an effective encapsulation formula for EOs. Furthermore, recent applications of encapsulated EOs in the fields of foods, pharmaceuticals, and textile industries are also thoroughly addressed.

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The COVID-19 (coronavirus disease-2019) pandemic has affected almost all countries in the world. When the first cases were reported from Hubei, China, in late December 2019, the Vietnamese authorities acknowledged the potential risk of an epidemic having had the experience of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and the Avian flu. When it was clear that there was human-to-human transmission in the epidemic in Wuhan that started in January 2020, the Vietnamese government, health care system, and civil society were rapidly mobilized. How has a country with a population of about 100 million and a long porous border to China managed to prevent a larger outbreak? This case history is about how Hai Phong city implemented the initial COVID-19 response. Hai Phong reacted quickly after the COVID-19 outbreak in China by, quarantining people coming from pandemic areas, and carrying out contact tracing and extensive testing, closing schools and universities and implementing two weeks of social distancing measures. There are no detected positive cases until May 18, 2020 in Hai Phong.

Administrative staff at healthcare facilities, who are not either doctors or nurses, coordinate, facilitate patient care, and account for 18–20% of human resources in hospitals. Their contribution to the value chain of healthcare service is crucial, but they are not well recognized either by hospital managers and healthcare staff or by patients. Low recognition may cause low job motivation and repeated tasks may cause boredom for them. Our study aimed to assess the level of job motivation among administrative staff in 2 hospitals of Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam, and explore the influencing factors to job motivation. The exploratory mixed methods design was used in our study with an initial quantitative study with a designed questionnaire and then followed by a qualitative study with focus group discussions. The job motivation index of the administrative staff in our study was not high (4.0). Positive factors were extra income, higher education, healthcare benefits, and a good working environment. Negative factors were low salary index, less chance of higher education, and no separated key performance indicator criteria. The low job motivation index of the administrative staff at public hospitals in our study warns of the negative impact on hospital income in terms of patient satisfaction. In the future, hospitals should have a new strategy in human resource management specifically for administrative staff by maintaining the positive factors and step-by-step overcome the negative factors such as developing separated key performance indicator criteria.

Three mono-O-isopropylidene derivatives of methyl β-D-glucoseptanoside have been prepared by acid-catalysed hydrolysis of methyl 2,3 : 4,5-di-O-isopropylidene-β-D-glucoseptanoside or by acetonation of methyl β-D-glucoseptanoside. Two of these derivatives have been used for the preparation of methyl 2,3-O-isopropylidene-α-L-idoseptanoside (8a) and methyl 3,4-O-isopropylidene-α-L-idoseptanoside (10a). Hydrolysis of (10a) yielded methyl α-L-idoseptanoside (12a) and acetonation of (8a) and (12a) yielded methyl 2,3 : 4,5-di-O-isopropylidene-α-L-idoseptanoside. Possible conformations of these compounds are discussed.

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