Promoting the Purchase of Textbooks in the Vietnamese Higher Education Sector

Higher education textbooks sales account for a significant portion of the overall book market. This study makes an important contribution to the extant literature by examining students’ purchase of original textbooks in a developing market, Vietnam. Notably, it seeks to investigate why students do not purchase original textbooks as well as the difference in purchase behavior between different groups of students. The findings reveal that some key obstacles to students’ purchase behavior include high prices, insufficient availability, low perceived value, and the emergence of pirated textbooks. Another notable finding is that senior students who are female tend to purchase more textbooks. In light of these findings, marketing strategies are suggested for publishers, bookstores and universities who aim to promote the sales and consumption of original textbooks.     

Oxygen plasma treatment for reducing hydrophobicity of a sealed polydimethylsiloxane microchannel

Rapid prototyping of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is often used to build microfluidic devices. However, the inherent hydrophobic nature of the material limits the use of PDMS in many applications. While different methods have been developed to transform the hydrophobic PDMS surface to a hydrophilic surface, the actual implementation proved to be time consuming due to differences in equipment and the need for characterization. This paper reports a simple and easy protocol combining a second extended oxygen plasma treatments and proper storage to produce usable hydrophilic PDMS devices. The results show that at a plasma power of 70 W, an extended treatment of over 5 min would allow the PDMS surface to remain hydrophilic for more than 6 h. Storing the treated PDMS devices in de-ionized water would allow them to maintain their hydrophilicity for weeks. Atomic force microscopy analysis shows that a longer oxygen plasma time produces a smoother surface.     

Is starting with the feet out of the water faster in backstroke swimming?

This study aimed to determine if starting with the feet above the water (FAW) in male backstroke swimming resulted in faster start times (15-m time) than when the feet were underwater (FUW). It was hypothesised that setting higher on the wall would generate increased horizontal force and velocity, resulting in quicker starts. Twelve high-level male backstrokers performed three trials of the FAW and FUW techniques. A biomechanical swimming testing system comprising one force plate (1,000 Hz), four lateral-view (100 Hz), and five overhead (50 Hz) video cameras captured the swimmers' performance. Data for each participant's fastest trial for each technique were collated, grouped, and statistically analysed. Analysis included Wilcoxon, Spearman Rho correlation, and regression analysis. Wilcoxon results revealed a significantly faster start time for the FAW technique (p < 0.01). Peak horizontal force was significantly smaller for FAW (p = 0.02), while take-off horizontal velocity was significantly greater (p = 0.01). Regression analysis indicated take-off horizontal velocity to be a good predictor of start time for both techniques, and the horizontal displacement of the centre of mass for the FAW start.     

External stakeholders’ roles and factors influencing their participation in developing generic skills for students in Vietnamese universities

External stakeholders have increasingly participated in instructional and training activities in higher education; however, their contribution has not yet been adequately documented, especially in non-Western university contexts. This article reports a study that examined external stakeholders’ roles and factors influencing their participation in these roles in developing generic skills (GS) for students at six Vietnamese universities of different institutional contexts. Data, which were primarily collected by semi-structured interviews with 69 university leaders, academics and staff members of the Youth Union and its associates, were analysed using a content analysis approach. The analysis showed that external stakeholders participated in multiple roles in executing GS policy, including consulting relevant GS for curriculum modification, training students in these skills, providing and supervising student internships, and evaluating the effectiveness of the skills development programmes. The analysis indicated that their participation was influenced by their interests in these roles, university location and university status. University leadership, which appeared to be driven by contextual factors such as several reforms concurrently taking place, curriculum autonomy, and regulations about staff appointment, was also found to influence extremal stakeholders’ participation.     

Educating women about HIV/AIDS: some international comparisons

This paper describes current trends in the HIV/AIDS epidemic. It looks at issues and strategies involved in educating women about HIV/AIDS in the context of the global pandemic, focusing particularly on Canada and Vietnam. These strategies are essential steps in preventing the spread of HIV and in caring for those who have already developed AIDS. The strategies identified include the formulation of public policy within Canada, Vietnam, and the UK which would strive to eliminate inequality and discrimination, while at the same time positioning HIV/AIDS education within a gender‐sensitive perspective. Other educational strategies include teaching women how to practise negotiated safety while understanding the power dynamics within which safer sex must occur, being sensitive to local cultures and moving away from individualistic programmes towards programmes that focus on structural inequalities.     

Field tested milliliter-scale blood filtration device for point-of-care applications

In this paper, we present a low cost and equipment-free blood filtration device capable of producing plasma from blood samples with mL-scale capacity and demonstrate its clinical application for hepatitis B diagnosis. We report the results of in-field testing of the device with 0.8–1 ml of undiluted, anticoagulated human whole blood samples from patients at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Hanoi, Vietnam. Blood cell counts demonstrate that the device is capable of filtering out 99.9% of red and 96.9% of white blood cells, and the plasma collected from the device contains lower red blood cell counts than plasma obtained from a centrifuge. Biochemistry and immunology testing establish the suitability of the device as a sample preparation unit for testing alanine transaminase (ALT), aspartate transaminase (AST), urea, hepatitis B “e” antigen (HBeAg), hepatitis B “e” antibody (HBe Ab), and hepatitis B surface antibody (HBs Ab). The device provides a simple and practical front-end sample processing method for point-of-care microfluidic diagnostics, enabling sufficient volumes for multiplexed downstream tests.     

Passive optical separation and enrichment of cells by size difference

A size-selective cell sorting microfluidic device that utilizes optical force is developed. The device consists of a three-dimensional polydimethylsiloxane microstructure comprised of two crossed microchannels in a three-dimensional configuration. A line shaped focused laser beam is used for automatic size-selective cell sorting in a continuous flow environment. As yeast cells in an aqueous medium are fed continuously into a lower channel, the line shaped focused laser beam is applied (perpendicular to the direction of flow) at the junction of the two crossed channels. The scattering force of the laser beam was employed to push cells matching specific criteria upward from one channel to another. The force depends on the size of the cells, the laser power, and the fluid flow speed. The variation in size of yeast cells causes them to follow different routes at the intersection. For flow speeds below 30 μm∕s, all yeast cells larger than 3 μm were removed from the main stream. As a result, a high purity sample of small cells can be collected at the outlet of bottom channel.     

A systematic review and Bayesian meta-analysis of the development of turn taking in adult–child vocal interactions

Fluent conversation requires temporal organization between conversational exchanges. By performing a systematic review and Bayesian multi-level meta-analysis, we map the trajectory of infants’ turn-taking abilities over the course of early development (0 to 70 months). We synthesize the evidence from 26 studies (78 estimates from 429 unique infants, of which at least 152 are female) reporting response latencies in infant–adult dyadic interactions. The data were collected between 1975 and 2019, exclusively in North America and Europe. Infants took on average circa 1 s to respond, and the evidence of changes in response over time was inconclusive. Infants’ response latencies are related to those of their adult conversational partners: an increase of 1 s in adult response latency (e.g., 400 to 1400 ms) would be related to an increase of over 1 s in infant response latency (from 600 to 1857 ms). These results highlight the dynamic reciprocity involved in the temporal organization of turn-taking. Based on these results, we provide recommendations for future avenues of enquiry: studies should analyze how turn-by-turn exchanges develop on a longitudinal timescale, with rich assessment of infants’ linguistic and social development.