In Southeast Asia, access to improved forages remains a challenge for smallholder farmers and limits livestock production. We compared seed exchange networks supporting two contrasting livestock production systems to identify bottlenecks in seed availability and determine the influences of the market, institutions, and cultural context of seed exchange, using interview-based methods for ‘seed tracing’ and network analysis. Government agencies were the primary sources of high-quality genetic materials, with secondary diffusion in the Philippines dairy case being dominated by key individuals in active cooperatives. In the Vietnamese beef-oriented production context, farmer to farmer dissemination was more substantial. In both cases, formal actors dominated where botanical seed was exchanged, while farmers frequently exchanged vegetatively propagated materials among themselves. To improve access to forage seed in these contexts, government agencies and development actors should coordinate quality seed production upstream while supporting the creation of appropriate training, structures, and incentives for seed exchange network improvement downstream.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignant tumors, which is also often fatal. An early and accurate diagnosis is a decisive step towards the survival of the patients. Molecular biology improved significantly the prognosis of liver cancers through learned use of tumor markers like proteantigens, cytokines, enzymes, isoenzymes, circulating RNAs, gene mutations and methylations. Nevertheless, much improvement is still achievable and needed in this area, which is crucial in order to make an early diagnosis and monitor the progression of the disease. We present in this review what we believe to be the most relevant data regarding tissue and serum biomarkers related to HCC.

Since the year of 2017 landslides at the red mud basins in Nhan Co alumina factory, Dak Nong province have been occurring during the rainy seasons. The change of the soil physical and mechanical parameters due to rainwater infiltration has been considered as the main factor of the slope instability. The soil cohesion and angle of internal friction depend very much on the soil moisture: soil with a lower moisture content has a higher shearing strength than that with higher moisture content. The finite element modeling of moisture transfer in unsaturated soils through the relationship between soil moisture, soil suction, unsaturated permeability and soil-moisture dispersivity is capable of accurately predicting the wetting front development. The element sizes and time steps have been selected based on detailed analysis of analytical error estimation and on the numerical simulations with different element sizes numerical simulation errors. Soil samples had been taken and the soil different suctions and corresponding soil moisture values have been determined in the laboratory. The soil water characteristic curve (SWCC) parameters (a, n and m) have been determined by the best fitting using the least squared error method. The hydraulic conductivity of the saturated soil, one of the key input parameters was also determined. The results of the application to the study area's slope has shown that the wetting front depth can be up to 8 meters for 90 days of moisture transfer due to the rainwater infiltration The wetting front depth and the length of the intermediate part of the moisture distribution curve have increased with the infiltration time. The soil moisture distribution with a depth is an essential information to have soil strength parameters for the slope stability analyses. The slope stability analysis with the soil shear strength parameters which are strictly corresponding with the moisture change would provide the most accurate and reliable slope stability results and provide more reliable slope stabilization solutions.

Increases in pig farm densities have caused great pressures on waste management systems and produce massive manure and urine quantities in Vietnam. This study aimed to identify the role and contributions of biogas digesters to better manage the sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from pig wastes for different types of pig farms in the north of Vietnam. Four provinces, namely Thanh Hoa, Phu Tho, Thai Binh, Vinh Phuc, were identified. A total of 24 farms were purposively selected including 16 small-size farms and 8 larger-size farms. The findings showed that GHG emissions from small-size farms (154.8 t CO2-eq.yr-1) did not significantly differ from the amounts measured in larger-size farms (139.1 t CO2-eq.yr-1) in the four surveyed provinces. The sampling position did not significantly affect the GHG emission rates, with 173.9 t CO2-eq.yr-1 inside piggeries and 120.8 t CO2-eq.yr-1 outside the outlet of the biogas digesters (p-value=0.09). N2O emissions require further measurements at different farm sizes and sites. These results confirmed that the pig waste management of biogas digesters for both small-size and larger-size pig farms is not completely efficient and that efforts need to be invested in to mitigate GHG emissions in pig production. Reducing pig density per piggery is highly recommended. The application of other alternative aerobic or anaerobic digestion technologies like vermicompost, effective microorganisms, and composting should also be encouraged and promoted.

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