1,723,471 research outputs found
Customer’s satisfaction on service quality at Vietnam Technological and Commercial Joint Stock Bank – An Giang Branch
No full textThis study applied SERVQUAL scale of Parasuraman et al to measure factors a ecting customer satisfaction on service quality at Vietnam Technological and Commercial Joint Stock Bank - An Gi- ang Branch (Techcombank An Giang). The study was conducted to survey 207 customers who have been using the service at Techcombank An Giang. The survey results were analyzed by the Cronbach's Alpha reliability test method, then used Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to verify and evaluate the scale of service quality. The results of the regression analysis show that customer's satisfaction about service quality at Techcombank An Giang includes four factors: The factor with the highest level is the Empathy with Beta = 0.253, the second of factor is the Responsibility with Beta = 0.248, ranked third in the in uence level is the Tangible with Beta = 0.235, and the lowest im- pact level is the Reliability with Beta = 0.144. The research also uses statistical methods to describe and test the di erences of demographic factors with customer's satisfactionon service quality.The analysis results show that there is no di erence between customer's satisfaction on service quality and factors such as gender, age, income, number of transaction banks, regular transaction banks, and time to use the service at Techcombank An Giang. Through the research results, the author would like to propose some ideas to improve the quality of services, thereby attracting new cus- tomers and importantly, keeping traditional customers because the development orientation of Techcombank is to take care of old customers to cross sell other products of the bank. The Stud results o er a basis for the branch to identify the factors in uencing customer satisfaction on their service quality, thereby having an appropriate strategy to improve customer satisfaction
A Back Propagation Neural Network using Over-sampling techniques in bankruptcy prediction in construction industry
No full textConstruction industry plays a major part in any nation economy. However, the construction industry tends to face high risk due to the particular characteristic of the environment and high competition. Therefore, many researches have been conducted to find an appropriate model to forecast bankruptcy in construction sector. Artificial Neural Network (ANN) using Back Propagation Algorithm has been applied in this area since the early 1990s, and has been showed the promising outcome. Accordingly, in this study Back Propagation Network (BPN) was selected to construct a model in bankruptcy prediction for construction industry. In the previous study employing ANN methods, the sample-matching technique was usually used, which lead to sample selection biases, likely due to ANN’s inability to tackle between-class imbalance problem. In this research Back Propagation Network (BPN) using over-sampling techniques with all available firm-year data was proposed so as to tackle between-class imbalance challenge. The two over-sampling techniques used were: Enforce training and Synthetic Minority Over-Sampling TEchnique (SMOTE). The empirical result of this study showed that the BPN using SMOTE was out performed the BPN original and EBPN. Accordingly, BPN using SMOTE are suggested as an alternative to the existing mode
sj-pdf-1-his-10.1177_11786329211036855 – Supplemental material for Use of Project ECHO Telementoring Model in Continuing Medical Education for Pediatricians in Vietnam: Preliminary Results
No full textSupplemental material, sj-pdf-1-his-10.1177_11786329211036855 for Use of Project ECHO Telementoring Model in Continuing Medical Education for Pediatricians in Vietnam: Preliminary Results by Le Hong Nhung, Tran Minh Dien, Nguyen Phuong Lan, Pham Quoc Thanh and Pham Viet Cuong in Health Services Insights</p
Design and microfabrication of new automatic human blood sample collection and preparation devices
Full text linkFor self-sampling or collection of blood by health personal related to point-ofcare diagnostics in health rooms, it may often be necessary to perform automatic collection of blood samples. The most important operation that needs to be done when handling whole blood is to be able to combine automatic sample collection with optimal mixing of anticoagulation liquid and weak xatives. In particular before doing any transport of a sample or point-of-care nucleic acid diagnostics (POCNAD) it is very important to x the gene expression at the time of collection. It is also important to concentrate and separate out the white blood cells of interest from the whole blood before further detection. An automatic sample collection module with a microneedle array in combination with a micromixer is proposed for the blood collection in typical nurse or health rooms. An automatic human blood preparation module is also suggested that could be used for pre-mixing, concentration and lyses. Despite that the concept of microneedle has been intensively studied since several decades ago, the fabrication still remains very challenging. Major challenges concern the high aspect ratio of microneedle structure. In addition, the microneedles have to be su ciently strong to avoid fracture and cracks during practical implementation. The other challenge with small microchannel dimensions on a chip is the lack of turbulences (including fluids that operate with Reynolds number smaller than 2000). Hence a long mixing length is required for good mixing quality.
This doctoral thesis focus on the following challenges: (i) design and optimize a continuous concentration and separation unit, (ii) optimize and improve the fabrication process of high aspect ratio metallic microneedle, (iii) develop and investigate the mixing performance of a passive planar micromixer with ellipse-like micropillars, (iv) integrate and demonstrate the pretreatment system.
Article I reported the design and optimization of non-clogging counter-flow microconcentrator for enriching epidermoid cervical carcinoma cells. The counter-flow concentration unit with turbine blade-like micropillars were proposed in microconcentrator design. Due to the organization of these micropillar units the functionality cause a unique system of continuous concentration and separation. Due to the unusual geometrical-pro les and extraordinary micro fluidic performance, the cells blocking does not occur even at permeate entrances. The excellent concentration ratio of a fi nal microconcentrator was presented in both numerical and experimental results.
Article II proposed a simple and low cost micromixer for laminar blood mixing. The design of micromixer unit was modifi ed from the counter-flow concentration units which mentioned in Article I. The e ciency of the splitting and recombination (SAR) micromixer was examined by theoretical methods, including finite element method and verifi ed by measurement results. Numerical results show that micromixer with ellipse-like micropillars have a well mixing status when its mixing effi ciency is higher than 80% as Re 6 1.
Article III presented that the e ciency of the SAR micromixer for cell lysis. Some bacteria, especially gram-positive, may be diffi cult to lyse with conventional lysis bu er. If the cells are not properly lysed, the quality of the analysis results might suff er. With a splitting and recombination concept, homogeneous mixing can be obtained in short distance. Hence, the quality of the sample after lysis for further process (Nucleic Acid Purifi cation, Nucleic Acid Sequence Based Ampli fication) is also improved. The treatment in the SAR micromixer is comparable lysis by long ultrasound exposure. Hence, SAR micromixer proved to be a good alternative method for cell lysis. Moreover, SAR micromixer has the advantage that it can easily be integrated into an automatic system for lysis and sample treatment.
Article IV investigated the mixing performance at the outlet of SAR micromixer. The outlet channel of SAR micromixer was split into four sub-channels. Absorbance testing was used to implement to evaluate the outlet concentration of four subchannels. The homogeneous of fluids are varied with the inlet velocities.
Article V presented the optimized fabrication process of the template of extremely long microneedles for blood extraction. Backside lithography with a UVlight source was employed to build the high aspect ratio SU-8-based microneedle template. Some major challenges on fabrication process were also shown and discussed in this article.
Article VI covers a total process chain from design, fabrication to performance evaluation of the hollow microneedle design. The contribution of this article is a highly applicable theoretical model for the microneedle geometry. The proposed model has been developed to predict the fracture forces. A good agreement was observed between the results obtained from analytical solution and practical measurements of fracture force
Design and microfabrication of new automatic human blood sample collection and preparation devices
No full textFor self-sampling or collection of blood by health personal related to point-ofcare diagnostics in health rooms, it may often be necessary to perform automatic collection of blood samples. The most important operation that needs to be done when handling whole blood is to be able to combine automatic sample collection with optimal mixing of anticoagulation liquid and weak xatives. In particular before doing any transport of a sample or point-of-care nucleic acid diagnostics (POCNAD) it is very important to x the gene expression at the time of collection. It is also important to concentrate and separate out the white blood cells of interest from the whole blood before further detection. An automatic sample collection module with a microneedle array in combination with a micromixer is proposed for the blood collection in typical nurse or health rooms. An automatic human blood preparation module is also suggested that could be used for pre-mixing, concentration and lyses. Despite that the concept of microneedle has been intensively studied since several decades ago, the fabrication still remains very challenging. Major challenges concern the high aspect ratio of microneedle structure. In addition, the microneedles have to be su ciently strong to avoid fracture and cracks during practical implementation. The other challenge with small microchannel dimensions on a chip is the lack of turbulences (including fluids that operate with Reynolds number smaller than 2000). Hence a long mixing length is required for good mixing quality.
This doctoral thesis focus on the following challenges: (i) design and optimize a continuous concentration and separation unit, (ii) optimize and improve the fabrication process of high aspect ratio metallic microneedle, (iii) develop and investigate the mixing performance of a passive planar micromixer with ellipse-like micropillars, (iv) integrate and demonstrate the pretreatment system.
Article I reported the design and optimization of non-clogging counter-flow microconcentrator for enriching epidermoid cervical carcinoma cells. The counter-flow concentration unit with turbine blade-like micropillars were proposed in microconcentrator design. Due to the organization of these micropillar units the functionality cause a unique system of continuous concentration and separation. Due to the unusual geometrical-pro les and extraordinary micro fluidic performance, the cells blocking does not occur even at permeate entrances. The excellent concentration ratio of a fi nal microconcentrator was presented in both numerical and experimental results.
Article II proposed a simple and low cost micromixer for laminar blood mixing. The design of micromixer unit was modifi ed from the counter-flow concentration units which mentioned in Article I. The e ciency of the splitting and recombination (SAR) micromixer was examined by theoretical methods, including finite element method and verifi ed by measurement results. Numerical results show that micromixer with ellipse-like micropillars have a well mixing status when its mixing effi ciency is higher than 80% as Re 6 1.
Article III presented that the e ciency of the SAR micromixer for cell lysis. Some bacteria, especially gram-positive, may be diffi cult to lyse with conventional lysis bu er. If the cells are not properly lysed, the quality of the analysis results might suff er. With a splitting and recombination concept, homogeneous mixing can be obtained in short distance. Hence, the quality of the sample after lysis for further process (Nucleic Acid Purifi cation, Nucleic Acid Sequence Based Ampli fication) is also improved. The treatment in the SAR micromixer is comparable lysis by long ultrasound exposure. Hence, SAR micromixer proved to be a good alternative method for cell lysis. Moreover, SAR micromixer has the advantage that it can easily be integrated into an automatic system for lysis and sample treatment.
Article IV investigated the mixing performance at the outlet of SAR micromixer. The outlet channel of SAR micromixer was split into four sub-channels. Absorbance testing was used to implement to evaluate the outlet concentration of four subchannels. The homogeneous of fluids are varied with the inlet velocities.
Article V presented the optimized fabrication process of the template of extremely long microneedles for blood extraction. Backside lithography with a UVlight source was employed to build the high aspect ratio SU-8-based microneedle template. Some major challenges on fabrication process were also shown and discussed in this article.
Article VI covers a total process chain from design, fabrication to performance evaluation of the hollow microneedle design. The contribution of this article is a highly applicable theoretical model for the microneedle geometry. The proposed model has been developed to predict the fracture forces. A good agreement was observed between the results obtained from analytical solution and practical measurements of fracture force
Treatment failure after interferon-free treatment of hepatitis C as a clue of a yet undetected hepatocellular carcinoma
No full text
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
An application of residual network and faster - RCNN for Medico: Multimedia task at MediaEval 2018
No full textVariations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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