The research aims to investigate the determinants of the financial performance of 1343 Vietnamese companies categorized into six different industries listed on the Vietnamese Stock Exchange over a four-year period from 2014 to 2017 using STATA software. Those determinants include firm size, liquidity, solvency, financial leverage, and financial adequacy while the financial performance is evaluated by three different ratios: return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), and return on sales (ROS). The research results from these companies during the given period indicate that: (1) Firm size has a positive impact on both ROA and ROS, especially ROA but it has the opposite effect on ROE, (2) Adequacy ratio impacts positively on ROA and ROS but negatively on ROE, (3) Financial leverage considerably negative influences on ROE and ROS but positively impacts on ROA, (4) Liquidity has a positive effect on both ROA and ROE but a negative one on ROS and (5) Solvency has a positive impact on ROA and ROS but the negative impact on ROE. Furthermore, agriculture accounted for the highest percentage of profitability at the beginning, which was replaced by service for ROA but manufacture for ROE from 2016 to 2017 as opposed to the least in transportation.

Background: Mahonia Nepalensis DC. (Hoang lien o ro), the specie of the family Berberidaceae, is widely distributed in the high mountainous areas at altitudes 1700 – 1900 m of Vietnam. It is found that the stem of Mahonia nepalensis indicated anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial and antifungal activities and they are used particularly for the treatment of eczema, psoriasis, and other skin conditions. However, no study on the antioxidant and anti-cancer activities of Mahonia Nepalensis stem has been previously reported. The aim of this study was to evaluate anti-oxidant and anti-cancer activities of Mahonia Nepalensis stem. Methods and Results: The stem pieces of Mahonia Nepalensis were dried and extracted three times with 100% methanol. After that, the extract was suspended in distilled water and then partitioned with n-hexane, ethyl-acetate (EtOAc) and butanol (water saturated BuOH) fractions were then evaporated using a vacuum rotary evaporator. Evaluation of the anti-oxidative activity of Mahonia Nepalensis was carried out using a DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) radical-producing system. The results revealed that the ethyl acetate fraction of M. nepalensis possessed higher potential DPPH radical scavenging activity (IC50, 81.88 ± 1.33㎍/㎖) than other fractions as well as BHT (2,6-Di-tert-Butyl-4-methylphenol) (IC50, 250.49 ± 1.60㎍/㎖). The reducing power assay was also investigated and EtOAc fraction showed higher absorbance values than other fractions. At 1.0 mg/ml concentration, EtOAc fraction showed absorbance of 1.72, be higher than Ascorbic acid. Cell viability was evaluated according to the MTT (3-(4,5-Dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-Diphenyl tetrazolium Bromide) assay. By MTT assay, all fractions showed a significant reduction in cell viability on COLO 205 (Human colon carcinoma cell) at the highest concentration tested (200㎍/ ㎖) with over 70% decrease in cell viability was obtained, and the highest significantly inhibiting effect occurred in butanol fraction with approximately 90% reduction in cell viability. Conclusion: We demonstrated that Mahonia Nepalensis stem extract has highly potential in anti-cancer activity. Further studies are necessary in order to explore the variety of Mahonia Nepalensis stem to be applied as a valuable natural material.

Response of grain yield and milled-rice protein content to nitrogen (N) rates at various growth stages is critical for quantifying real-time and real-amount of applied N requirement for target grain yield and protein content. An experiment including 10 N rate treatments at transplanting, tillering and panicle initiation stages with four rice cultivars in 2003, 6 N treatments with two rice cultivars in 2004 and 2005 was conducted. Increase of N rates at PIS significantly increased both grain yield and milled-rice protein content but increase of N rates at tillering stage significantly increased grain yield but not milledrice protein content. Therefore, high grain yield and low milled-rice protein content would be difficult to obtain only by adjusting N rates at PIS. Internal N use efficiency (INUE) was 60.5 kg grain/kg N accumulation on an average over N treatments, cultivars, and experimental years, showing considerable reduction especially at high shoot N accumulation in the experimental year of low sunshine duration. Milled-rice protein content tended to increase almost linearly with increasing shoot N accumulation, but it revealed big variation even at the same shoot N accumulation at harvest. Milled-rice protein content decreased with increasing INUE. N accumulation in the milled rice increased at an almost constant proportion of 45.5 percent of the shoot N accumulated at harvest, showing slight decresing proportion with the increasing shoot N accumulation.