Structure learning of undirected graphical models for count data

Biological processes underlying the basic functions of a cell involve complex interactions between genes. From a technical point of view, these interactions can be represented through a graph where genes and their connections are, respectively, nodes and edges. The main objective of this paper is to develop a statistical framework for modelling the interactions between genes when the activity of genes is measured on a discrete scale. In detail, we define a new algorithm for learning the structure of undirected graphs, PC-LPGM, proving its theoretical consistence in the limit of infinite observations. The proposed algorithm shows promising results when applied to simulated data as well as to real data

The host genetics of typhoid fever in Vietnam

Typhoid fever is a systemic infection caused by the bacterium Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi. It remains a major public health problem throughout the developing world with over 22 million people infected each year. The emergence of resistance to chloramphenicol and other antimicrobials has been a major setback and we now face the very real prospect that untreatable typhoid fever will emerge. Understanding host genetics may yield answers that lead to the development of new therapeutics for infectious disease such as typhoid fever. Using a genetic approach we aim to investigate a number of immune response genes that may be important in the defense against typhoid fever. Here we describe studies investigating the genetic variation within some human innate immunity genes which may play an important role in susceptibility to typhoid fever. The TLR4 gene encoding the principal receptor for bacterial endotoxin recognition, an element of innate immunity that contributes to the first line of defense against infectious disease was investigated. We determined the extent of genetic variation within TLR4 in a Vietnamese kinh population and identified a number of novel missense mutations. It appears that this gene may be involved in defense against typhoid fever, as evidenced by weak associations with two SNPs and the presence of low frequency non-synonymous SNPs in only typhoid fever cases which may have the potential to alter protein function. The haplotypic structure of a 150Kb genomic region encompassing TNFA was determined in a Vietnamese population. This allowed the identification of 15 haplotype tagging SNPs which were genotyped in a case/control genetic association study. Seven polymorphisms across three key genes in the TNF region were associated with typhoid fever. A haplotype spanning this region (*12122*1111) was strongly associated with protection from typhoid fever. Polymorphisms in the chemokine and other immune response gene cluster on chromosome 17q11.22-q22 were also investigated. Our results show that the NOS2A gene within this region, which encodes iNOS, plays an important role in typhoid fever as polymorphisms within NOS2A were shown to be associated with protection from typhoid fever. A number of genes or genomic regions encoding components of the innate and acquired immune responses contribute to an individual’s ability to mount an appropriate immune response to S. typhi infection during typhoid fever. Genetic variation in any of these genes may lead to the alteration of the host immune response with deleterious effects. Together with environmental factors and pathogen virulence, host genetic factors contribute to typhoid fever susceptibility, and studies of candidate genes and genomic regions add to our overall understanding of protective disease mechanisms

Social work to children affected by violence: Perceptions and Policy implementation

The 13th Next-Generation Global Workshop第13回次世代グローバルワークショップテーマ: New Risks and Resilience in Asian Societies and the World 日程: 21-23 November, 2020 開催場所: ベトナム社会科学院(ハノイ)/Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences(No. 1 Lieu Giai street, Ba Dinh, Hanoi, Vietnam) ※Due to the COVID-19, the workshop will be held at ONLINE for overseas participants(not from Vietnam)/ONSITE for Vietnamese participants.Ensuring that " No child is left behind", Vietnamese government has developed more effective and equitable social and economic policies to protect children affected by domestic, school and community violence, especially in social work field over the past decade. This article aims to reflect on the pros and cons of implementing policies related to protect children from violence through the perceptions of local social workers, based on the policy analysis and a qualitative survey involving 30 participants, conducted in 2020. It outlines a framework for practising social work with children, focusing national policies to protect children affected by various forms of violence in the current Vietnamese context. Secondly, the paper examines the awareness of local social workers of those policies and how they performed child protection in three areas: home, school and community. Subsequently, how advantages and disadvantages of performing social work in this domain will be shown for policy recommendation

The Preservation of Culture-Specific Items in Translation from Vietnamese to English

The article uses statistical, comparative, quantitative and qualitative methods, to determine the frequency of using certain translation strategies for translating CSIs (in the Dumb luck novel). The data generated by this method is a statistic showing the frequency of each translation strategy applied. From studying the application of CSI translation strategies, the article have been explored to find out the handling of cultural issues in translation, whether the translators are able to convey culture-specific items from the original to the translation English, and methods to optimize CSI translation. This study will provide results that help translators understand better how to use CSI translation strategies and evaluate the effectiveness of their work in the best way, how to preserve Vietnamese cultural values when translate Vietnamese to English

Similarities and Differences of the Dam Giong Epics (Vietnam) and Reamker (Cambodia), Ramakien (Thailand), PhraLakPhra Lam (Laos) (Note 1)

There are a lot of similarities and differences in The Dam Giong epics of Bahnar ethnic in Central Highlands-Vietnam and Reamkerepic (Cambodia), Ramakien epic (Thailand) and PhraLakPhra Lam epic (Laos). Although there are some similarities in content and themes, these epics differ in capacity, structure, character system and some other artistic elements. Reamker, Ramakien, PhraLakPhra Lam are short independent epics, deriving from Ramayana epic (Indian). Meanwhile, The Dam Giong epics, about a hero named Giong, have a large capacity of hundreds of epics. These epics derive from myths, legends and creeds of Bahnar ethnic in the Central Highlands-Vietnam, especially, they are “living” epics. Nowadays, the epics of Dam Giong are still being circulated and they are developing in the lives of Bahnar ethnic. Currently, in Central Highlands-Vietnam, the epics of Dam Giong are still composed and the number of these epics is constantly increasing

Applying Social Media in the Hotel Sector: Satisfaction with the Facebook Pages of Hotels and Intention of Future Visit

CC BY-NC-ND 4.0This study is carried out with the main objective of analyzing the determining factors for the gratification of Facebook users when accessing a hotel’s Facebook page and verifying the relationship between satisfaction with the Facebook page and the intention to visit a hotel. This study surveyed 404 Facebook users in Vietnam. The methods of exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling are used to process the data. The results conclude that the factors affecting satisfaction with hotels’ Facebook pages are information, convenience, and social interaction; in addition, satisfaction with these Facebook pages has a positive effect on the intention to visit a hotel. This study contributes to hotels by helping them to understand the expectations of customers on their Facebook pages. From there, suggestions as to how to take measures to improve their presence on Facebook and enhance their competitiveness on the virtual platform are provided

The Combined Use of Pediococcus pentosaceus and Fructooligosaccharide Improves Growth Performance, Immune Response, and Resistance of Whiteleg Shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei Against Vibrio parahaemolyticus

In this study, we evaluated the effect of probiotic bacteria Pediococcus pentosaceus supplemented at different inclusion levels in a control diet [basal diet containing 0.5% fructooligosaccharide (FOS)] on the growth performance, feed conversion ratio, immune response, and the disease resistance of whiteleg shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei juveniles against Vibrio parahaemolyticus. A control diet with 0.5% FOS but without P. pentosaceus supplementation (Control) was prepared. In addition, three other test diets were also formulated: control diet supplemented with P. pentosaceus at (i) 1 x 10(6) cfu g(-1) diet (P1), (ii) 1 x 10(7) cfu g(-1) diet (P2), or (iii) 1 x 10(8) cfu g(-1) diet (P3). After a 60-day feeding trial, the experimental shrimps were challenged with V. parahaemolyticus. The results showed that dietary supplementation of P. pentosaceus significantly improved the growth performance and immune responses of L. vannamei juveniles. The juveniles that were fed with a P2 or P3 diet recorded the maximum increase in the final body weight, final length, weight gain, and survival rate. The total hemocyte counts, phenoloxidase, and lysozyme activity of shrimp fed with either of these two diets were significantly enhanced. The results also showed that juveniles fed with a P2 or P3 diet exhibited significantly lower mortality when challenged with V. parahaemolyticus. Overall results suggested that a combination of P. pentosaceus at the inclusion level of 1 x 10(7) cfu g(-1) diet (P2) and 0.5% FOS could be considered as a potential synbiotic formulation for improving the growth, health, and robustness of L. vannamei

Five years of the bayesvl package: A journey through Bayesian statistical analysis

Five years ago, on May 24, 2019, the computer program ‘bayesvl’ was officially published on R under the name “bayesvl: Visually Learning the Graphical Structure of Bayesian Networks and Performing MCMC with ‘Stan’”. This program (or package) was developed by two founders of the SM3D Portal, Vuong Quan Hoang and La Viet Phuong, to improve the productivity of conducting social research. The package was designed with a pedagogical orientation, supporting users in familiarizing themselves with Bayesian statistical methods, MCMC simulation, and visualization of technical diagnoses and results

La vérification de patrons de workflow métier basés sur les flux de contrôle : une approche utilisant les systèmes à base de connaissances

This thesis tackles the problem of modelling semantically rich business workflow templates and proposes a process for developing workflow templates. The objective of the thesis is to transform a business process into a control flow-based business workflow template that guarantees syntactic and semantic validity. The main challenges are: (i) to define formalism for representing business processes; (ii) to establish automatic control mechanisms to ensure the correctness of a business workflow template based on a formal model and a set of semantic constraints; and (iii) to organize the knowledge base of workflow templates for a workflow development process. We propose a formalism which combines control flow (based on Coloured Petri Nets (CPNs)) with semantic constraints to represent business processes. The advantage of this formalism is that it allows not only syntactic checks based on the model of CPNs, but also semantic checks based on Semantic Web technologies. We start by designing an OWL ontology called the CPN ontology to represent the concepts of CPN-based business workflow templates. The design phase is followed by a thorough study of the properties of these templates in order to transform them into a set of axioms for the CPN ontology. In this formalism, a business process is syntactically transformed into an instance of the CPN ontology. Therefore, syntactic checking of a business process becomes simply verification by inference, by concepts and by axioms of the CPN ontology on the corresponding instance.Cette thèse traite le problème de la modélisation des patrons de workflow sémantiquement riche et propose un processus pour développer des patrons de workflow. L'objectif est de transformer un processus métier en un patron de workflow métier basé sur les flux de contrôle qui garantit la vérification syntaxique et sémantique. Les défis majeurs sont : (i) de définir un formalisme permettant de représenter les processus métiers; (ii) d'établir des mécanismes de contrôle automatiques pour assurer la conformité des patrons de workflow métier basés sur un modèle formel et un ensemble de contraintes sémantiques; et (iii) d’organiser la base de patrons de workflow métier pour le développement de patrons de workflow. Nous proposons un formalisme qui combine les flux de contrôle (basés sur les Réseaux de Petri Colorés (CPNs)) avec des contraintes sémantiques pour représenter les processus métiers. L'avantage de ce formalisme est qu'il permet de vérifier non seulement la conformité syntaxique basée sur le modèle de CPNs mais aussi la conformité sémantique basée sur les technologies du Web sémantique. Nous commençons par une phase de conception d'une ontologie OWL appelée l’ontologie CPN pour représenter les concepts de patrons de workflow métier basés sur CPN. La phase de conception est suivie par une étude approfondie des propriétés de ces patrons pour les transformer en un ensemble d'axiomes pour l'ontologie. Ainsi, dans ce formalisme, un processus métier est syntaxiquement transformé en une instance de l’ontologie