The Time-Honored Friendship: A History of Vietnamese-Algerian Relations (1946-2015)

In 1958, the newly established Democratic Republic of Vietnam initiated a top secret program to ship a “large quantity” of submachine guns disguised as commercial goods to Algeria to assist the Front de libération nationale in its struggle for independence from French colonial rule. In 1973, Algeria leveraged its position as the host of the fourth Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement to issue a draft resolution requesting that all member nations pledge diplomatic support to the Việt Cộng, contribute to Vietnam’s post-war reconstruction, and demand the wholescale withdrawal of foreign troops from the Southeast Asian nation. At the close of 2015, Vietnam and Algeria celebrated the first commercial oil flow from the joint Vietnamese-Algerian Bir Seba oil project, located in the Algerian Sahara. Despite such events indicating that there exists a long and rich history of Vietnamese-Algerian relations, there has been no scholarship documenting it. Responding to this gap in scholarship, this project, “The Time-Honored Friendship,” pieces together the history of Vietnamese-Algerian relations from the beginning of the Indochina War in 1946 to the present day. In doing so, it proposes that the relationship can be divided into three distinct eras: anti-colonial solidarity (1946-1962); socialist, anti-imperial brotherhood (1962-1986); and joint ventures in economic liberalization (1986-2015). Corresponding with these three proposed eras of Vietnamese-Algerian engagement, this project is divided into three main sections. The first section, “The Era of Anti-Colonial Solidarity (1946-1962),” argues that the Vietnamese and Algerian people understood each others’ struggles against French colonial rule as extensions of their own and supported each other accordingly. Acts of solidarity were not merely initiated at the state level by political elite, but were also overwhelmingly driven from the grassroots during both the Indochina and Algerian wars of independence. The second section, “The Era of Socialist, Anti-Colonial Solidarity (1962-1986),” asserts that having both secured their formal independence from France, Vietnam and Algeria were eager to engage with one another through official bilateral relations. They premised their official relationship on their common adherence to the socialist creed and on supporting each other in securing economic sovereignty from the neo-colonial West. The third section, “The Era of Joint Ventures in Economic Liberalization (1986-2015),” details the drastic turn in the Vietnamese-Algerian relationship from being premised on revolutionary struggle against colonialism in all its forms to being premised on mutual economic growth through foreign investment, increased bilateral trade, and technical cooperation for the sake of reaching parity with the developed world. Rather than collaborating to fend off the corrupting influences of the West, the two nations came to embrace liberalization, and worked together to navigate a post-Cold War capitalist order. The conclusion entreats scholars of all disciplines to both build on this project’s findings and to explore how other formerly colonized peoples around the world, united in common oppression under distant European powers, engaged with each other in the quest for a more nuanced trans-regional scholarship

H&Vシールド機挙動の制御とシミュレーションに関する研究

国立大学法人長岡技術科学大

Business intelligence in the electrical power industry

Nowadays, the electrical power industry has gained tremendous interest from both entrepreneurs and researchers due to its essential roles in everyday life. However, the current sources for generating electricity are astonishing decreasing, which leads to more challenges for the power industry. Based on the viewpoint of sustainable development, the solution should maintain three layers of economically, ecologically, and society; simultaneously, support business decision-making, increases organizational productivity and operational energy efficiency. In the smart and innovative technology context, business intelligence solution is considered as a potential option in the data-rich environment, which is still witnessed disjointed theoretical progress. Therefore, this study aimed to conduct a systematic literature review and build a body of knowledge related to business intelligence in the electrical power sector. The author also built an integrative framework displaying linkages between antecedents and outcomes of business intelligence in the electrical power industry. Finally, the paper depicted the underexplored areas of the literature and shed light on the research objectives in terms of theoretical and practical implications

“Anh Nam, the attach file is my report for trip to KL”: An investigation into the emergence of a new variety of English in written Vietnamese business communication

This study sought to examine whether distinct, localised features of English used in business communication are emerging in the Vietnamese socio-cultural context. Both content analysis and discourse analysis were applied to texts with regard to systemic functional characteristics. The findings of the study indicate that systematic features were exhibited across the data at lexico-grammatical level as well as contextual level, together demonstrating six major features and suggesting that many issues of World Englishes be revisited

Bank loan loss in Vietnam : a dialectical view

Loan loss recognition and communication have been contentious issues in Vietnam recently. Before 2012, the State Bank of Vietnam and commercial banks continuously signaled that the banking system was under control, with the nonperforming loans (NPLs) ratio below 3%. However, a belief expressed through newspapers and other media was that the NPL ratio was much higher under international standards. This ratio became controversial when different figures were disclosed from different sources, and it has fluctuated strongly since 2012. The acceleration of NPLs in 2012 froze credit flows and the economy. Later, the NPL ratio steadily decreased until it reached the benchmark of 3%, which was announced as the safety level, and it has remained thus since 2014. However, many believe that the published figure of 3% represented just a part of the NPL iceberg. Most recently, the National Financial Supervisory Commission announced that the NPL was 9.5% at the end of 2017, while according to the banking industry’s report it was below 3%. Accompanying the different NPL numbers is the continuous change from 2012 to date in accounting regulation on debt classification and provisioning. That constant change represents the embarrassment of bank regulators in regulating loan loss recognition. It raises the research question why loan loss recognition and communication are contentious issues in the Vietnamese context. Answering this question is expected to equip Vietnam’s bank regulators with a theoretical basis for their decision-making in regulating loan loss recognition, and improve transparency in loan loss recognition as well. Seemingly, loan loss recognition used to be controversial in many other countries, such as Japan, the United States and China before, during and after their financial crisis. It led to the issuance of bank regulations such as Basel Accords I and II as well as new accounting standards - IAS 39 Financial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement, IFRS 7 Financial Instruments: Disclosures and IFRS 9 Financial Instruments - to resolve that controversy. Nevertheless, the phenomenon is repeated in Vietnam. It leads to the following subresearch questions: ‘Is Vietnam experiencing the same issue that occurred in other countries?’ and ‘Has Vietnam learned from history given that the country has been equipped with those new rules?

GacA/S signaalraja puudumine mõjutab raaminihke- ja asendusmutatsioonide tekkesagedust Pseudomonas putida KT2440 tüves

GacA/GacS two-component system can be found in Gram-negative bacteria, including enteric bacteria and Pseudomonas. gacS gene encodes for a membrane-bound sensor kinase GacS, whereas a transcriptional response regulator GacA is encoded by gacA gene. The aim of this thesis was to investigate whether the inactivation of the GacA/GacS two-component system could affect mutation frequency in Pseudomonas putida. Two test systems were employed for measuring mutation frequency: chromosomal RifR assay and a plasmidial test system based on lactose degradation. RifR phenotype of bacteria is a result of mutations that decrease the affinity of rifampicin binding to the β subunit of RNA polymerase. This makes this enzyme insensitive to rifampicin. The second test system is based on the monitoring mutations in lacZ gene encoding for β-galactosidase, which turns the tester strains from Lac- to Lac+ phenotype. Usage of both test systems revealed that the inactivation of the gacA gene elevates mutation frequency in P. putida. In estonian: GacA/GacS kahekomponendiline süsteem on kirjeldatud erinevates Gram negatiivsetes bakteriliikides, kuhu kuuluvad ka enterobakterid ja erinevad Pseudomonase liigid. Geen gacS kodeerib membraan-seoselist sensorkinaasi GacS ning transkriptsiooni regulaator GacA, mis saab signaali GacS-lt, on kodeeritud geeni gacA poolt. Käesoleva bakalaureusetöö eesmärgiks oli välja selgitada, kas GacA/GacS süsteemi inaktiveerimine mõjutab bakteris Pseudomonas putida mutatsioonisagedust. Mutatsioonisageduse mõõtmiseks kasutati kahte testsüsteemi: kromosomaalset RifR süsteemi ja plasmiidset laktoosi lagundamisel põhinevat Lac+ süsteemi. RifR fenotüübiga bakterites on tekkinud mutatsioonid, mis vähendavad rifampitsiini seondumist RNA polümeraasi β-subühikuga, muutes sel viisil ensüümi rifampitsiini suhtes tundetuks. Teine testsüsteem põhineb β-galaktosidaasi kodeerivas geenis lacZ tekkivate mutatsioonide tuvastamisel, mis võimaldavad Lac- testertüvedel hakata lagundama laktoosi (Lac+ reversioon). Töö tulemustena selgus, et gacA geeni inaktiveerimine bakteris P. putida põhjustas mutatsioonisageduse suurenemist mõlemate testsüsteemide rakendamisel

Protein Adsorption On Bioactive Glasses

Protein adsorption is a critical biological event taking place whenever a foreign body is introduced to the human body, playing a key role in deciding subsequent cellular responses. It is also an important indicator of a material’s biocompatibility. However, protein adsorption on bioactive glasses, which are a special class of biomaterials due to their peculiar biocompatibility and dissolution mechanisms, has not been fully understood. The ability to immobilize two model proteins, i.e. bovine serum albumin (BSA) and fibronectin, of several bioactive glass compositions were assessed and improved by different surface treatments, namely washing in buffer solutions with varied pH values and functionalization with a silane coupling agent – (3-aminopropyl)triethoxysilane (APTES). The purposes of surface treatments were to improve the APTES grafting and glass surface charge for BSA and fibronectin grafting. The effects of surface treatments on wettability and surface chemistry were investigated using contact angle measurements and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), respectively. The presence of proteins on glass surface were evidenced by fluorescence imaging and were later correlated to fibroblasts adhesion. Contact angle data show that the washing treatments slightly raised the wettability of bioactive glasses, thus modestly facilitating the adsorption of protein. A remarkable increase of the contact angle in APTES coated samples was the evidence of a successful silanization, which was expected to significantly enhance the protein adsorption via interaction between functional groups of proteins and APTES. Imaging of fluorescently-tagged proteins confirmed that APTES coated surface immobilized a greater amount of proteins and featured a more uniform protein layer. Subsequent cell culture tests showed that the improved protein adsorption by the surface treatments did support cell adhesion and spreading with larger cells and multiple focal adhesions detected. The results of this study propose a potential pathway to improve protein adsorption on both new and traditional bioactive glass compositions, which is promising toward the expansion their current application range

THE IMPACT OF MOVEMENT GAMES ON MALE PHYSICAL FITNESS IN PHYSICAL EDUCATION COURSES AT SAIGON UNIVERSITY, VIETNAM

Movement games not only help students improve their general fitness but also help increase excitement during exercise. However, the impact of movement games on physical development has not been determined, especially for non-sports majors. The purpose of this study was to find out the impact of movement games on male physical fitness in Physical Education courses. 51 healthy male student volunteers were randomly divided into 3 groups (15w, 7w, and control). Movement games were selected and applied to the experimental group (15w and 7w), while the control group did not apply movement games and practice according to the preset 15-week training program. The results in this study indicated that the application of MG for male students at Saigon University during PE courses had a positive way to enhance general physical fitness (i.e., the explosive power of the legs, agility, speed, and maximal aerobic speed). Future studies should focus on the impact in the time of movement games application, specific characteristics to different schools, as well as the evolution of physical development at each age when using the movement games.  Article visualizations