Three new records of lycopsids and ferns from Vietnam

Three new records from Vietnam,Phlegmariurus guangdongensis Ching,Adiantum longzhouensis A.H.Wang,F.G.Wang&F.W.Xing,and Lepisorus bicolor Ching,are reported.The identification characteristics,information of specimen,and geographical distribution of the species are described.The discovery of new records not only enriches the study of plant diversity in Vietnam,but also provides important information for biodiversity conservation and botanical research in the region.The voucher specimens are kept in the Herbarium of Kunming Institute of Botany,Chinese Academy of Sciences(KUN),Herbarium of Institute of Botany,Chinese Academy of Sciences(PE)and Herbarium of Guangxi Forestry Research Institute(GXFI).

Prevalence and risk factors associated with long COVID symptoms in children and adolescents in a southern province of Vietnam

Objective:To investigate the prevalence and risk factors associated with long COVID symptoms among children and adolescents who have recovered from COVID-19.Methods:This study applied a cross-sectional approach within community settings in a southern province of Vietnam.A structured questionnaire featuring socio-demographic information and common long COVID symptoms was employed.Phi correlation coefficients assessed associations among pairs of long COVID symptoms.Additionally,multivariable logistic regression models were performed to investigate the risk factors of long COVID in recovered COVID-19 children and adolescents.Results:Among 422 participants,39.3%reported long COVID symptoms,with a prevalence of 45.2%(SD=0.5)in children and 22.2%(SD=0.4)in adolescents.Common symptoms reported were cough 34.6%(SD=0.5),fatigue 20.6%(SD=0.4),shortness of breath 10.9%(SD=0.3),and lack of appetite 6.6%(SD=0.3).Concerning risk factors of long COVID,a higher risk was observed among demographic groups,including girls(OR 1.25,95%CI 1.15-1.37;P<0.001,reference:boys),children compared to adolescents(OR 1.24,95%CI 1.12-1.37;P<0.001),overweight individuals(OR 1.14,95%CI 1.02-1.27;P=0.018,reference:healthy weight),and participants without any COVID-19 vaccination(OR 1.36,95%CI 1.20-1.54;P<0.001),or have received only one single dose(OR 1.35,95%CI 1.10-1.64;P=0.004)compared to those who have received two doses.Besides,patients with a COVID-19 treatment duration exceeding two weeks also had a higher risk of long COVID(OR 1.32,95%CI 1.09-1.60;P=0.003)than those who recovered less than seven days.Conclusions:The insights from this study provide crucial guidance for predicting the factors associated with the occurrence of long COVID in pediatric patients,contributing to strategic interventions aimed at mitigating the long COVID risks among children and adolescents in Vietnam.

Beta-lactam antibiotic resistance among Escherichia coli isolates from patients with urinary tract infections in Vietnam:A systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective:To investigate the evolving patterns of antimicrobial resistance against beta-lactam antibiotics in Escherichia coli isolates from urinary tract infection patients in Vietnam,covering the period from 2005 to 2022.Methods:29 Descriptive studies published between 2010 and 2022 in English and Vietnamese were included in the analysis.Data on resistance rates to beta-lactam antibiotics,including cephalosporins and carbapenems,were extracted and analyzed.Weighted pooled resistance rates were calculated using random-effects models.Annual trends in resistance were assessed using linear regression analysis.Results:Among the beta-lactam antibiotics studied,Escherichia coli exhibited varying levels of resistance,with cephalosporins showing higher resistance rates compared to carbapenems.Weighted pooled resistance rates were 66%for cefotaxime,65%for ceftriaxone,54%for ceftazidime,and 56%for cefepime.In contrast,carbapenems demonstrated lower resistance rates,with weighted pooled resistance rates ranging from 3%to 4%for meropenem,ertapenem,and imipenem.Resistance rates were also observed for amoxicillin/clavulanate(35%),ticarcillin/clavulanate(26%),and piperacillin/tazobactam(12%).Significant annual increases in resistance were noted for imipenem(0.56%,P<0.001).Conclusions:This study highlights the critical issue of antimicrobial resistance in urinary tract infections in Vietnam and emphasizes the importance of prudent antibiotic use and the regular monitoring of resistance patterns.These insights are useful for guiding healthcare professionals in optimizing treatment strategies and for policymakers in formulating evidence-based clinical guidelines to combat antibiotic resistance effectively.

Exploring Mazu Worship at Fujian Assembly Hall in Hoi An,Vietnam

Hoi An Ancient Town in Vietnam is not only a UNESCO(United Nations Educational,Scientific,and Cultural Organization)World Heritage Site but also a convergence point of traditional and modern cultures.Throughout its historical transitions,the cultural heritage of Hoi An Ancient Town has been well preserved and developed,and the worship of Mazu,an essential component of Hoi An’s culture,is no exception.As far as is known,Hoi An in central Vietnam houses the most Mazu temples,including the Chung Wah Hall,the Guangzhou Assembly Hall,the Fujian Assembly Hall,the Teochew Assembly Hall,and the Hainan Assembly Hall,among others,with the Fujian Assembly Hall being the most vibrant center of Mazu worship.This study employs field surveys and literature research to explore the Mazu worship practices at the Fujian Assembly Hall in Hoi An,Quang Nam Province,Vietnam.

FOCUS

China,Vietnam Forge Stronger Ties as Leaders Join Hands for Shared Future,Xi Jinping,general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Chinese president,paid a state visit to Vietnam on December 12 and 13,2023.During Xi's visit,China and Vietnam agreed to build a community with a shared future that carries strategic significance,charting a promising path of their closer cooperation and friendship going forward.Last year marks the 15th anniversary of the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between China and Vietnam.The visit accomplished the third round of mutual visits between the general secretaries of the two parties in the new era and showcased the special friendship between China and Vietnam,as well as both sides'high regard for the ties between their two parties and countries.

COMRADES FOREVER--To Lam’s visit demonstrates that China remains Vietnam’s top foreign policy priority

On August 20,2024,General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam(CPV)Central Committee and Vietnamese President To Lam concluded his state visit to China.China was the destination for Lam's first overseas visit after taking office as general secretary of the CPV Central Committee,which clearly demonstrates that the heads of both countries attach importance to developing the bilateral relations and that Vietnam regards China as the strategic choice and top priority for its foreign policy.

Intensive High-Level Visits from Southeast Asia

Recently,senior officials from Southeast Asian countries have visited China in succession,including Indonesian Presidentelect Prabowo Subianto,Lao Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Saleumxay Kommasith,Vietnamese Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son,Timor-Leste Foreign Minister Bendito Freitas,Vietnamese National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue,Singaporean Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat,and Thai Princess Maha Chakri Sirinhorn.

A NEW DAY FOR CHINA-VIETNAM RELATIONS Chinese President Xi Jinping’s fruitful visit to Vietnam

Chinese President Xi Jinping made a state visit to Vietnam from December 12 to 13,2023.During the two-day visit,China and Vietnam issued a joint statement on continuing to deepen and elevate their comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership and building a community with a shared future that carries strategic significance.The two sides also signed more than 30 agreements on bilateral cooperation.These developments injected strong momentum into China-Vietnam relations and elevated bilateral ties to a new height.

An Analysis of Specific Categories of Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities for Children of Participants of the Air Force Health Study

Background: The Air Force Health Study collected reproductive outcomes for live-born children of male Air Force veterans of the Vietnam War. Methods: Dioxin values for participants were obtained from blood samples. Analyses were conducted of occurrence of 16 specific categories of birth defects and developmental disabilities. Children were categorized as conceived before and after the start of participants’ Vietnam War service. Children conceived before the start of Vietnam War service were treated as being conceived when their fathers had unquantifiable dioxin values. Children conceived after the start of Vietnam War service for participants with missing dioxin values were excluded from primary analyses, but were used to assess the impact of their exclusion on conclusions. Correlation between values for specific categories for multiple children fathered by the same participant was accounted for. The dose-response relationship was treated as a step function increasing for dioxin values larger than adaptively identified individual thresholds changing with the specific category. Results: For 15 of 16 specific categories, the probability of occurrence increased substantially for a sufficiently high dioxin level above identified thresholds. Exclusion of children due to missing dioxin likely did not affect these results. Conclusions: Results supported the conclusion of substantial adverse effects on a wide variety of specific categories of birth defects and developmental disabilities due to sufficiently high exposures to dioxin, a toxic contaminant of Agent Orange used for herbicide spraying in the Vietnam War. Results may hold more generally, but might also have been affected by a variety of limitations.

Review and Analysis: Evaluation of the Impacts and Consequences of Using Agricultural Herbicides as Military Chemical Weapons in Second Indochina War

The legacy of the human misery caused by the application of the herbicides including Agent Purple and Agent Orange contaminated with unknown amounts of dioxin TCDD and Agent Blue, the arsenic-based herbicide, sprayed over the jungles, rice fields, and hamlets of Vietnam is still haunting us today. Why did this happen? Could it have been prevented? Was it necessary United States military strategy? Was it an intentional decision to inflict this blight on the enemy soldiers and the Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian civilians, to poison their land and cause generations of harm? Alternatively, was it an unpreventable accident in the march of military history? What patterns in the U.S. government’s thought process could be identified as the cause, which led to the decision to use these herbicides as tactical chemical weapons? If the introduction of herbicide (chemical) weapons had not been made, would the outcome of the Vietnam War and the Secret Wars in Laos and Cambodia have been any different? The objective of this treatise is to outline the role of world events and backgrounds and the role of the leaders, U.S. military, CIA, USDA, U.S. State Department, the U.S. President appointed Ambassadors to Vietnam and Laos, chemical companies, and President Diệm’s Republic of Vietnam (RVN) government and military. Their collective advice led to the decision to use herbicides as military and environmental chemical weapons in the Second Indochina War. Were the National interests achieved by U.S. military strategy in the RVN using herbicide weapons worth the long-term environmental and human health consequences in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos? Did it impact the outcome of the Second Indochina War?

The inaugural VIATT lays foundation to harness growth of Vietnam’s textile market

As the inaugural Vietnam International Trade Fair for Apparel,Textiles and Textile Technologies(VIATT)drew curtains on 1 March 2024,Messe Frankfurt's first inte-grated textile fair in Asia has positioned itself as an essential platform for the entire textile value chain.Covering three major industry sectors,the three-day fair attracted 17262 visits from 55 countries and regions,connecting with 409 exhibitors from 17 countries and regions.In addition to atracting top-quality suppliers,participants also noted the high calibre of buyers and the dlear potential for growth at future editions.

Prediction of Flash Flood Susceptibility of Hilly Terrain Using Deep Neural Network:A Case Study of Vietnam

Flash floods are one of the most dangerous natural disasters,especially in hilly terrain,causing loss of life,property,and infrastructures and sudden disruption of traffic.These types of floods are mostly associated with landslides and erosion of roads within a short time.Most of Vietnamis hilly and mountainous;thus,the problem due to flash flood is severe and requires systematic studies to correctly identify flood susceptible areas for proper landuse planning and traffic management.In this study,three Machine Learning(ML)methods namely Deep Learning Neural Network(DL),Correlation-based FeatureWeighted Naive Bayes(CFWNB),and Adaboost(AB-CFWNB)were used for the development of flash flood susceptibility maps for hilly road section(115 km length)of National Highway(NH)-6 inHoa Binh province,Vietnam.In the proposedmodels,88 past flash flood events were used together with 14 flash floods affecting topographical and geo-environmental factors.The performance of themodels was evaluated using standard statisticalmeasures including Receiver Operating Characteristic(ROC)Curve,Area Under Curve(AUC)and Root Mean Square Error(RMSE).The results revealed that all the models performed well(AUC>0.80)in predicting flash flood susceptibility zones,but the performance of the DL model is the best(AUC:0.972,RMSE:0.352).Therefore,the DL model can be applied to develop an accurate flash flood susceptibility map of hilly terrain which can be used for proper planning and designing of the highways and other infrastructure facilities besides landuse management of the area.

A Grey Simulation-Based Fuzzy Hierarchical Approach for Diagnosing Healthcare Service Quality

This study aims to assess and rank the service quality of the healthcare system utilizing a Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchical Process(Fuzzy AHP)andGreyRelationalAnalysis(Fuzzy GRA)technique.In this study,the six primary characteristics of healthcare service quality,comprising Tangibles(A),Healthcare Staff(B),Responsiveness(C),Relationships(D),Support Service(E),and Accessibility(F),are examined through a case study of 20 private and public hospitals in Hanoi,Vietnam.The weighting results of Fuzzy AHP technique indicated that Responsiveness(C)has the highest ranking,followed by Relationships(D)and Healthcare Staff(B).Meanwhile,Tangibility has finally comprised the next priority for increasing satisfaction with the service quality in the healthcare industry.Additionally,the highest service quality rankings are top 5 private hospitals via the Fuzzy GRA approach.Notably,this proposed approach may be applied to a complex decision-making process,which often makes sense with subjective data or imprecise information.

A new species of Nanohyla(Anura:Microhylidae)from the lowland forests of southern Vietnam

DEAR EDITOR,We describe a new species of Nanohyla from the Song Hinh Protected Forest in Phu Yen Province,southern Vietnam,based on an integrative taxonomic approach.The new species represents a divergent lineage(16S rRNA gene uncorrected P-distance>5.3%),which clearly differs from any other Nanohyla species based on a series of morphological characters,most notably the presence of white spots on the top of its head.Morphologically,Nanohyla albopunctata sp.nov.is characterized by small body size(male snout-vent length(SVL)18.2-20.2 mm);moderately slender body habitus;rounded snout;distinct tympanum;rounded canthus rostralis;loreal region slightly concave;skin on dorsum tubercular,ventral surfaces smooth;mid-vertebral skin ridge and dorsomedial stripe absent;superciliary tubercles absent.

The Mediating Role of Religious Beliefs in the Relationship between Well-Being and Fear of the Pandemic

Religion is one of the social entities that has had a significant impact on the pandemic.The study’s goals are to investigate the relationship between well-being and fear of COVID-19,as well as to test whether religious beliefs mediate the effect of wellbeing on fear of COVID-19.The sample comprised of 433 participants in Vietnam.Independent Sample t-Test,One-way ANOVA,mediation analysis were used to analyze the data.In the levels of well-being,individuals who engage in religious services daily have higher levels than those hardly and never attend,and people from the age of 18 to 30 have higher levels than individuals from 31 to above 60 years.In addition,people aged from 51 to above 60 have higher levels of religious beliefs than people aged from 18 to 50.Females experience more fear of COVID-19 compared to males.The latter illustrates that religious beliefs mediate the effect of well-being on fear of COVID-19.Social workers and clinicians must prioritize older adults and people with chronic diseases for early mental interventions,and they should be aware of the role of religion in psychological treatment integration.

A Novel Method in Wood Identification Based on Anatomical Image Using Hybrid Model

Nowadays,wood identification is made by experts using hand lenses,wood atlases,and field manuals which take a lot of cost and time for the training process.The quantity and species must be strictly set up,and accurate identification of the wood species must be made during exploitation to monitor trade and enforce regulations to stop illegal logging.With the development of science,wood identification should be supported with technology to enhance the perception of fairness of trade.An automatic wood identification system and a dataset of 50 commercial wood species from Asia are established,namely,wood anatomical images collected and used to train for the proposed model.In the convolutional neural network(CNN),the last layers are usually soft-max functions with dense layers.These layers contain the most parameters that affect the speed model.To reduce the number of parameters in the last layers of the CNN model and enhance the accuracy,the structure of the model should be optimized and developed.Therefore,a hybrid of convolutional neural network and random forest model(CNN-RF model)is introduced to wood identification.The accuracy’s hybrid model is more than 98%,and the processing speed is 3 times higher than the CNN model.The highest accuracy is 1.00 in some species,and the lowest is 0.92.These results show the excellent adaptability of the hybrid model in wood identification based on anatomical images.It also facilitates further investigations of wood cells and has implications for wood science.

China-Vietnam Business Communities Expect Cooperation in the New Era

In recent years,the China-Vietnam com-prehensive strategic and cooperative partnership has been tightened,and the economic and trade relations between the two countries have deepened,along with the level of bilateral trade,cooperation in terms of the production capacity and the infrastructure interconnection has also continuously improved,bringing tangible benefits to the people of both countries.

United States Secret War in Laos: Long-Term Environmental and Human Health Impacts of the Use of Chemical Weapons

In 1959, the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operation, against the Pathet Lao insurgences and Viet Mien military troops and supply route, began. The Ho Chi Minh Trail was developed after the North Vietnam government and military decided to reunify South and North Vietnam. The People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) then connected the old trails leading from North Vietnam panhandle southward into eastern Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam. Starting from Hanoi, the primary trail turned southwest into Laos and eastern Cambodia before branching into South Vietnam. Beginning in 1960s, the volume of traffic on the network of trails expanded significantly, but it still took more than a month’s march, by foot and bicycle, to travel from North to South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh Trail traffic was impacted by repeatedly by Royal Laotian Air Force (RLAF), which was supported by US Air Force tactical herbicide spraying (Operation Ranch Hand program), and US Air Force bombing runs. By the late 1960s, the trail was improved and could accommodate heavy trucks in some sections and was used to supply the annual needs of over one hundred thousand regular PAVN troops active in South Vietnam. By 1974, the trail was a well-marked series of jungle roads (some of them paved) with underground support facilities such as hospitals, fuel-storage tanks, and supply caches with weapons. The Ho Chi Minh Trail was the major supply route for PAVN forces that overran Republic of Vietnam (RV) forces in 1975 and unified Vietnam. The primary objective of this paper is to determine the environmental and human health impacts of RLAF and US Air Force secret spraying of tactical herbicides on Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos.

EFFECTS OF BIDEN’S VISIT TO VIETNAM For small and medium-sized countries,this period is one of both challenges and opportunities,which calls for increased caution

On September 10 after the G20 Summit in New Dehli,U.S.President Joe Biden traveled by Air Force One to Hanoi,Vietnam,for a state visit.There,he met with Nguyen Phu Trong,general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam(CPV)Central Committee,and other senior state leaders to exchange views on how to deepen cooperation between the two countries.

Treating Vietnam's Economic Woes

According to the newest Vietnam Macro Monitoring,an economic report released by World Bank,Vietnam’s economy slowed to 3.32 percent year-on-year in the first quarter,falling short of the anticipated 4.8 percent.The figure stands as the second-lowest first-quarter data in the past 12 years.