Association of Individual and Neighborhood Characteristics to Problematic Internet Use among Youths and Adolescents: Evidence from Vietnam.

INTRODUCTION: This study aimed to determine latent profiles from the Problematic Internet Use Questionnaire Short Form-6 (PIUQ-SF-6) score of Vietnamese youths and adolescents, which supports the diagnosis of problematic internet use among a large sample size. Moreover, it also explored factors that affect each latent profile of the PIUQ-SF-6 score among participants. METHODS: A sample of 1477 Vietnamese people, aged 14 to 24, across five provinces participated in the study. Multinomial logistic regression determined factors related to the levels of the Problematic Internet Use Questionnaire Short Form-6 (PIUQ-SF-6) after using latent profile analysis. RESULTS: Participants were divided into three profiles, including those at low, moderate, and high risk of internet addiction. The high-risk latent profile was obtained for 23.1% of adolescents, and the remaining percentages were, respectively, 40.2% and 36.7% of adolescents belonging to the moderate and low-risk groups. Moreover, factors including age, living alone, high Kessler psychological distress scale, excessive time on the internet, living in central cities, and high neighborhood disorder scores were found to be related to moderate- and high-risk internet addiction profiles. CONCLUSIONS: Factors analyzed according to individual and social characteristics further explore the reasons underlying increasing internet addiction among Vietnamese youths and inform early interventions.

Leaf Bleaching in Rice: A New Disease in Vietnam Caused by Methylobacterium indicum, Its Genomic Characterization and the Development of a Suitable Detection Technique.

A new disease in rice that is characterized by leaf bleaching was recently identified in some fields in the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam. The present study was the first to isolate and identify the pathogen of this disease. We confirmed that leaf bleaching symptoms were due to infection with Methylobacterium indicum bacteria using molecular biology approaches. A full-length genome analysis of pathogenic Methylobacterium strain VL1 revealed that it comprises a single chromosome and six plasmids, with a total size of 7.05| |Mbp and GC content of 70.5%. The genomic features of VL1 were similar to those of the non-pathogenic M. indicum strain SE2.11T; however, VL1 possessed additional unique genes, including those related to homoserine lactone biosynthesis. We established a loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assay using the unique sequences of VL1 as target sequences for the rapid and simple detection of pathogenic M. indicum strains. Our initial evaluation demonstrated that the LAMP assay successfully distinguished between pathogenic and non-pathogenic strains infecting rice plants in a rapid and sensitive manner. The present results provide insights into the pathogenesis and development of control measures for novel rice diseases.