Determining the factors impacting the quality of life among the general population in coastal communities in central Vietnam.

People living in coastal areas are frequently affected by natural disasters, such as floods and storms. This study aimed to assess the quality of life (QoL) of people living in disadvantaged coastal communes (subdivision of Vietnam) and identify their associated factors by using the World Health Organization's quality of life instrument (WHOQOL-BREF). To achieve this, a cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted on 595 individuals aged 18 years and above living in the coastal communes in Thua Thien Hue province, Vietnam, from October 2022 to February 2023. The results showed that the mean overall QoL (mean ± SD) was 61.1 ± 10.8. Among the four domains of QoL, the physical health (57.2 ± 12.3) domain had a lower score than the psychological health (61.9 ± 13.0), social relations (63.4 ± 13.4), and environment (61.9 ± 13.3) domains. The QoL score of the domains for participants affected by flooding was significantly lower than that of those not affected, except for social relations. Multivariable logistic regression showed that subjects with not good QoL had the educational background with no formal education (Odds ratio (OR) = 2.63, 95% CI 1.19-5.83), fairly poor/poor households (OR = 2.75, 95% CI 1.48-5.12), suffered Musculoskeletal diseases (OR = 1.61, 95% CI 1.02-2.56), unsatisfaction with health status (OR = 5.27, 95% CI 2.44-11.37), family conflicts (OR = 4.51, 95%CI 2.10-9.69), and low levels of social support (OR = 2.62; 95% CI 1.14-6.02). The analysis also revealed that workers (OR = 0.17, 95% CI 0.04-0.66) had a better QoL than farmer-fisherman. QoL in disadvantaged coastal communes was low, with the lowest scores in the physical health domain. Based on the socioeconomic factors associated with not good QoL identified here, it is recommended that local authorities take more appropriate and practical measures to increase support, including measures for all aspects of physical health, psychological health, social relations, and the living environment, especially for people affected by floods.

Climate shocks and responses: Perspectives and experiences of ethnic minority farmers in rural mountainous regions of Central Vietnam.

Ethnic minority farmers (EMFs) in upland areas of Central Vietnam are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate shocks and extreme events. It is thus urgent to examine their perceptions of the potential risks, their coping strategies, and the factors influencing their adaptation decisions in agriculture production. By exploring adaptation measures of the Xo Dang and Co Tu EMFs in Quang Nam province, Central Vietnam, the study results reveal that the EMFs are increasingly conscious of local climate shocks in the recent decade; as a result, they have applied multiple specific strategies in agriculture production to mitigate risks. The findings indicate that the key variables of the age of the household head, income, household size, residence period at the locality, and farmers' perception of climate change significantly influenced the households' adaptation decisions. Recognizing this, the study proposed specific recommendations and policy implications to minimize risks while maximizing benefits for the EMFs.

Molecular dynamics simulation of cancer cell membrane perforated by shockwave induced bubble collapse.

It has been widely accepted that cancer cells are softer than their normal counterparts. This motivates us to propose, as a proof-of-concept, a method for the efficient delivery of therapeutic agents into cancer cells, while normal cells are less affected. The basic idea of this method is to use a water jet generated by the collapse of the bubble under shockwaves to perforate pores in the cell membrane. Given a combination of shockwave and bubble parameters, the cancer membrane is more susceptible to bending, stretching, and perforating than the normal membrane because the bending modulus of the cancer cell membrane is smaller than that of the normal cell membrane. Therefore, the therapeutic agent delivery into cancer cells is easier than in normal cells. Adopting two well-studied models of the normal and cancer membranes, we perform shockwave induced bubble collapse molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the difference in the response of two membranes over a range of shockwave impulse 15-30 mPa s and bubble diameter 4-10 nm. The simulation shows that the presence of bubbles is essential for generating a water jet, which is required for perforation; otherwise, pores are not formed. Given a set of shockwave impulse and bubble parameters, the pore area in the cancer membrane is always larger than that in the normal membrane. However, a too strong shockwave and/or too large bubble results in too fast disruption of membranes, and pore areas are similar between two membrane types. The pore closure time in the cancer membrane is slower than that in the normal membrane. The implications of our results for applications in real cells are discussed in some details. Our simulation may be useful for encouraging future experimental work on novel approaches for cancer treatment.

Impact of Mutations at C-Terminus on Structures and Dynamics of Aß40 and Aß42: A Molecular Simulation Study.

Alzheimer's disease is presumed to be caused by the formation of intracellular plaques of amyloid ß (Aß) peptides inside neurons. The most abundant Aß forms are Aß40 and Aß42 comprising, respectively, 40 and 42 residues. Recent experiments showed that the triple Gly33Val-Val36Pro-Gly38Val (VPV) mutation causes Aß42 to become "super-Aß42" with elevated aggregation rates and toxicity. Upon VPV mutation, oligomerization pathways of Aß40 become similar to those of the Aß42 wild type. It was hypothesized that the super behavior of Aß42 occurs due to an enhanced content of the ß-turn and ß-hairpin, centered at residues 36-37, and the similarity in oligomerization pathways of Aß40-VPV and Aß42-WT comes from the increased ß-turn population. As this is based on simulation of the truncated fragments, this hypothesis may not be valid for the full-length case, motivating us to perform all-atom molecular dynamics simulations for full-length Aß sequences. We showed that the results obtained for truncated peptides fall short in explaining the similarity of self-assembly pathways of Aß40-VPV and Aß42-WT. Instead, we propose that the similarity is due to not only increased ß-turn population but also due to the elevated ß-structure of the entire sequence. Similar to VPV, the Gly33Val-Val36Asn-Gly38Leu mutation enhances the ß-structure and the C-terminal ß-turn making the behavior of Aß40 similar to that of Aß42-WT.

Alzheimer's Amyloid-ß Sequesters Caspase-3 in Vitro via Its C-Terminal Tail.

Amyloid-ß (Aß), the main constituent in senile plaques found in the brain of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), is considered as a causative factor in AD pathogenesis. The clinical examination of the brains of patients with AD has demonstrated that caspase-3 colocalizes with senile plaques. Cellular studies have shown that Aß can induce neuronal apoptosis via caspase-3 activation. Here, we performed biochemical and in silico studies to investigate possible direct effect of Aß on caspase-3 to understand the molecular mechanism of the interaction between Aß and caspase-3. We found that Aß conformers can specifically and directly sequester caspase-3 activity in which freshly prepared Aß42 is the most potent. The inhibition is noncompetitive, and the C-terminal region of Aß plays an important role in sequestration. The binding of Aß to caspase-3 was examined by cross-linking and proteolysis and by docking and all-atom molecular dynamic simulations. Experimental and in silico results revealed that Aß42 exhibits a higher binding affinity than Aß40 and the hydrophobic C-terminal region plays a key role in the caspase-Aß interaction. Overall, our study describes a novel mechanism demonstrating that Aß sequesters caspase-3 activity via direct interaction and facilitates future therapeutic development in AD.

First-principles calculation on oxygen ion migration in alkaline-earth doped La2GeO5.

By using first-principles calculations based on the density functional theory, we investigated the doping effects of alkaline-earth metals (Ba, Sr and Ca) in monoclinic lanthanum germanate La2GeO5 on its oxygen ion conduction. Although the lattice parameters of the doped systems changed due to the ionic radii mismatch, the crystal structures remained monoclinic. The contribution of each atomic orbital to electronic densities of states was evaluated from the partial densities of states and partial charge densities. It was confirmed that the materials behaved as ionic crystals comprising of cations of La and dopants and anions of oxygen and covalently formed GeO4. The doping effect on the activation barrier for oxygen hopping to the most stable oxygen vacancy site was investigated by the climbing-image nudged elastic band method. By tracing the charge density change during the hopping, it was confirmed that the oxygen motion is governed by covalent interactions. The obtained activation barriers showed excellent quantitative agreements with an experiment for the Ca- and Sr-doped systems in low temperatures as well as the qualitative trend, including the Ba-doped system.