Random walks on mutual microRNA-target gene interaction network improve the prediction of disease-associated microRNAs

Background: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been shown to play an important role in pathological initiation, progression and maintenance. Because identification in the laboratory of disease-related miRNAs is not straightforward, numerous network-based methods have been developed to predict novel miRNAs in silico. Homogeneous networks (in which every node is a miRNA) based on the targets shared between miRNAs have been widely used to predict their role in disease phenotypes. Although such homogeneous networks can predict potential disease-associated miRNAs, they do not consider the roles of the target genes of the miRNAs. Here, we introduce a novel method based on a heterogeneous network that not only considers miRNAs but also the corresponding target genes in the network model. Results: Instead of constructing homogeneous miRNA networks, we built heterogeneous miRNA networks consisting of both miRNAs and their target genes, using databases of known miRNA-target gene interactions. In addition, as recent studies demonstrated reciprocal regulatory relations between miRNAs and their target genes, we considered these heterogeneous miRNA networks to be undirected, assuming mutual miRNA-target interactions. Next, we introduced a novel method (RWRMTN) operating on these mutual heterogeneous miRNA networks to rank candidate disease-related miRNAs using a random walk with restart (RWR) based algorithm. Using both known disease-associated miRNAs and their target genes as seed nodes, the method can identify additional miRNAs involved in the disease phenotype. Experiments indicated that RWRMTN outperformed two existing state-of-the-art methods: RWRMDA, a network-based method that also uses a RWR on homogeneous (rather than heterogeneous) miRNA networks, and RLSMDA, a machine learning-based method. Interestingly, we could relate this performance gain to the emergence of "disease modules" in the heterogeneous miRNA networks used as input for the algorithm. Moreover, we could demonstrate that RWRMTN is stable, performing well when using both experimentally validated and predicted miRNA-target gene interaction data for network construction. Finally, using RWRMTN, we identified 76 novel miRNAs associated with 23 disease phenotypes which were present in a recent database of known disease-miRNA associations. Conclusions: Summarizing, using random walks on mutual miRNA-target networks improves the prediction of novel disease-associated miRNAs because of the existence of "disease modules" in these networks

Study on characteristics of acacia wood by FTIR and thermogrametric analysis

Renewable energy is very important for future development of society. Biomass is a type of energy that can be renewable. In this study, characterization of acacia wood is focused and discussed. The functional groups, crosslinking in the biomass structures and thermal decomposition were mentioned. In that, functional groups, crosslinking of acacia wood are analyzed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and thermal decomposition is investigated with thermogravimetric equipment. Acacia wood has typical group of wood from FT-IR such as O-H, C-H, C-O, C-O-C of cellulose and lignin. The structure of cellulose is also very easy to be broken by thermal factor. In the inert atmosphere, cellulose decomposed dramatically in the temperature range of 280 to 550 °C and degradation of lignin occurred in the temperature range of 100 to 800 °C. Acacia wood decomposed in the temperature range of 200 to 580 °C with three distinct weight loss stages. The first stage is water removal of biomass and it completes below 120 oC. The second stage is in the range of 200-350 oC that is the initial decomposition of biomass and directly related to the formation of volatile substances from decomposition of hemicellulose and cellulose. The last stage is the continuous decomposition of lignin at higher temperature up to 580 oC. For cellulose, the thermal degradation in air atmosphere has decomposition temperature higher than that in the nitrogen atmosphere but the ending temperature is lower. On the other hand, the thermal decomposition of lignin just occurred from 150 to 560 oC. The reaction for acacia wood demonstrated three stages. The water evaporated at lower than 120 oC in the first stage. The second stage is the devolatilization of biomass (214-322 oC) and the third one (322-420 oC) is the combustion of char. Keywords. Biomass, acacia wood, cellulose and lignin, FT-IR, characterization of biomass

Early sexual initiation and multiple sexual partners among Vietnamese women : analysis from the multiple indicator cluster survey, 2011

Introduction: Under current HIV transmission mechanisms operating in Vietnam, women are seen as victims of their male partners. Having multiple sexual partners is one of the well-known risk factors for HIV infection. However, little is known about women's risky sexual behaviour and their vulnerability to HIV in Vietnam. This study aims to explore association between early sexual initiation and the number of lifetime sexual partners in Vietnamese women. Although the Vietnamese culture is socially conservative in this area, identifying women's risky sexual behaviour is important for the protection of women at risk of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. Design: A total of 8,791 women, who reported having had sexual intercourse, were included in this analysis of data from the 2011 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey in Vietnam. Data were collected using two-stage strata sampling, first at the national level and second across six geographical regions (n=8,791). Multivariable logistic regressions describe association between early initiation of a sexual activity and lifetime multiple sexual partners. Results: Early sexual intercourse was significantly associated with having lifetime multiple sexual partners. Women who were aged 19 or younger at first sexual intercourse were over five times more likely to have multiple sexual partners, compared with women whose first sexual intercourse was after marriage; aged 10-14 years (OR=5.9; 95% CI=1.9-18.8) at first intercourse; and aged 15-19 years (OR=5.4; 95% CI=4.0-7.2) at first intercourse. There was significant association with having multiple sexual partners for women of lower household wealth and urban residence, but the association with educational attainment was not strong. Conclusions: The study results call for health and education policies to encourage the postponement of early sexual activity in young Vietnamese women as protection against risky sexual behaviour later in life. © 2016 Dinh Thai Son et al. **Please note that there are multiple authors for this article therefore only the name of the first 5 including Federation University Australia affiliate “Nguyen Van Huy” is provided in this record*

Analyzing Effects of Institutional Quality on Banking Stability: Evidence from Asean Countries

Purpose: The aim of this study is to examine the effect of institutional quality on bank stability using bank-level data from 2010 to 2020.   Theoretical framework: The study considers institutions from the perspective of governance institutions. Accordingly, the concept of government institutions is related to the country's organizational foundation in terms of governance, implying institutional quality.   Design/methodology/approach: The study uses GMM method and also choose the Zscore as the primary variable for bank stability.   Findings: The results show that institutional quality increases the stability of banks. Moreover, with the threshold model, the results show that countries with institutional quality above the threshold will increase the stability of banks. In addition, macroeconomic and banking characteristics variables such as total assets, income diversification, quality of control, inflation, and GDP growth rate have a high significance in the model.   Research, Practical & Social implications: The study shows The study's empirical results have specific policy implications for the Government in implementing policies related to institutional quality to improve bank stability.   Originality/value:   there are not many researches done to investigate institutional quality to improve bank stability. Moreover, from economic crisis, the matter of banking stability is among main concerns of many researches. Second, previous researches just focus on the aspect of corruption and ignore other aspects or other factors. That’s why authors conduct this research

Influence of non-linear parametric excitation on resonant characteristics of oscillating systems

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RESEARCH ON NEARSHORE WAVE CONDITIONS AT NHAT LE COASTAL AREA (QUANG BINH PROVINCE) BY USING MIKE21-SW

Research on marine dynamics, including coastal wave motions, is a concern of countries in the world in general and Vietnam in particular. Coastal wave dynamics has a direct impact on human activities including coastal construction, shipping, irrigation, aquatic resources exploitation, etc. The coastal area of Nhat Le, Quang Binh is one of the areas strongly influenced by the coastal wave regime which increases the risk of coastal erosion, estuarine sedimentation, destroys the economic life, affects marine fishing and directly affects the tourist beach area. This article aims to introduce some research results based on the application of MIKE21-SW model of the Danish Hydraulic Institute (DHI) to simulate coastal wave regime in Nhat Le coastal zone, Quang Binh province. The model results are verified by real-time wave data in long-term from the WaMoS® II Radar System at Quang Binh station. The results show that there are many similarities in wave height and direction between the computational model and the actual observation data from the radar system. This result will be an important basis for research and application for coastal protection, reduction in river mouth sedimentation, clearing and flood drainage in the study area

MEASURES TO IMPROVE THE LEARNING QUALITY OF BASKETBALL SUBJECT FOR NON-SPECIALIZED STUDENTS AT BAC NINH SPORTS UNIVERSITY OF VIETNAM UNDER THE CREDIT-BASED TRAINING SYSTEM

In using conventional scientific research methods in the field of physical training and sports, we selected and built the content of 04 measures to improve the quality of teaching Basketball subject for non-specialized students of Bac Ninh Sport University of Viet Nam under the credit-based training system, at the same time test the theory on the feasibility of measures by an expert method. The result showed that the selected and built measures were feasible and could be applied in practice to improve the quality of teaching Basketball subject for non-specialized students at Bac Ninh Sport University of Viet Nam under the credit-based training system.  Article visualizations

The effect of combustion temperature to low-tar gas production using oxygen-enriched air

Tar content in producer gas from biomass gasification is a serious problem for fuel gas utilization in downstream applications. This work presents the experimental studies of acacia woodchip gasification in a downdraft gasifier with two stages air supply. The effects of oxygen concentration in gasified agent on the temperature of gasifier, the syngas composition, the lower heating value and tar content in the producer gas are investigated. Results indicate that oxygen-enriched air rate not only favors to reduce tar component but also improves the heating value of the producer gas. When increasing oxygen concentration from 21 vol.% to 42 vol.% in the gasified agent, the tar content of the producer gas decreases from 67.4 mg/Nm3 to 30 mg/Nm3, hydrogen concentration increases from 7.28 to 13.15 vol.%, CO concentration increases from 19.65 vol.% to 26.52 vol.%, CH4 concentration increases from 1.4 to 3.3 vol.% and the low heating value increases from 4.45 MJ/m3 to 7.30 MJ/m3, respectively. On the other hand, the carbon conversion efficiency, gasification efficiency and gas yield of the gasifier are also presented in this approach. Keywords. Downdraft gasification, acacia woodchip, tar content, oxygen-enriched air