Approche variationnelle de la fonction rang : relaxation convexe, sous-différentiation généralisée, régularisation-approximation de Moreau

Dans ce mémoire de these, nous étudions la fonction rang du point de vue variationnel. La raison pour laquelle nous nous intéressons à cette fonction est qu'elle apparaît comme une fonction objectif (ou comme fonction contrainte) dans divers problèmes d'optimisation moderne, par exemple: complétion de matrices, analyse de données statistiques, acquisition parcimonieuse de données, etc. Dans certains cas particuliers, les problèmes de minimisation de la fonction rang peuvent être résolus en utilisant la décomposition en valeurs singulières. Mais, en géneral, les problèmes de minimisation de la fonction rang sont « NP-difficiles ». Nous proposons ici quelques propriétés de la fonction rang du point de vue variationnel: des démonstrations supplémentaires pour son enveloppe convexe fermée (restreinte à des boules spectrales), les expressions des sous-différentiels généralisés et la régularisation-approximation au sens de Moreau. Puis, dans le dernier chapitre, nous revenons sur une notion dont la définition ressemble à celle de la fonction rang, la fonction cp-rang.In this dissertation, we consider the rank function from the variational point of view. The reason why we are interested in this function is that it appears as an objective (or constraint) function in various modern optimization problems, such as: low rank matrix completion, multivariate statistical data analysis, compressed sensing, etc. In some particular cases, the rank minimization problems can be solved by using the singular value decomposition of matrices or can be reduced to the solution of linear systems. But in general, the rank minimization problems is known to be « NP-hard ». We provide here several properties of the rank function from the variational point of view: additional proofs for its closed convex relaxation, the expressions of its generalized subdifferentials and the explicit expression of its Moreau regularization-approximation form. Then, in the last chapter, we revisit a notion whose definition resembles that of the rank, the cp-rank function

Fetus Trafficking in Viet Nam – The New Criminal Method of Human Trafficking

When it comes to basic rights of the fetus, including the right to life, theoretical studies around the world on human rights of the fetus still have not reached an agreement on approaches and explanation. Criminal law at the international and national levels still leaves the possibility of protecting the unborn child. Viet Nam’s criminal law is no exception to this trend. In addition, Viet Nam is currently facing human trafficking with new methods and tricks. Children are bought and paid for while still in the womb, then born abroad and given to traffickers. Children are only protected by criminal law for human trafficking if they are born, alive, and detected by the authorities. While the act of trafficking in fetuses is often easily detected by the authorities right from the stage of purchasing and paying, it is not feasible to prosecute this act for human trafficking under the criminal law of Viet Nam. This reduces the criminal law’s ability to suppress crime, at the same time, leaves many fetuses unprotected. Should criminal law be left outside the legal mechanism to protect children while in the fetal stage? This article suggests considering fetus trafficking as a form of human trafficking and to criminalize fetus trafficking. Criminal law should recognize fetus trafficking as a sign of crime or an early stage in the criminal process of human trafficking, because children need special care and protection, including appropriate legal protection before and after birth, due to their physical and mental immaturity

Characterization of O-glycan binding lectin from the red alga Hydropuntia eucheumatoides

The red alga, Hydropuntia eucheumatoides is one of the algal genera from which agar is commercially extracted, and is the main source of agar in the world. The lectin HEL from the red alga H. eucheumatoides was isolated by a combination of aqueous ethanol extraction, ethanol precipitation, ion exchange and filtration chromatography. Lectin gave a single band with molecular mass of 17,000 Da in both non-reducing and reducing SDS-PAGE conditions, therefore lectin exists in monomeric form. The hemagglutination activities of HEL were stable over a wide range of pH from 3 to 10, temperature up 60 oC and not affected by either the presence of EDTA or addition of divalent cations, indicating that lectin requires no metal for biological activity. The hemagglutination activities of HEL were not inhibited by monosaccharides and glycoproteins, D-glucose, D-mannose, D-galactose, D-xylose, N-acety-D-mannosamine, transferin, fetuin and yeast mannan, but strongly inhibited by monosaccharides containing  acetamido groups at equatorial C2 position, such as N-acetyl-galactosamine, N-acetyl-glucosamine, N-acetyl-neuraminic acid and glycoprotein porcine stomach mucin bearing O-glycans. Thus, lectin is specific for O-glycans and  may recognize the sequences GalNAcαSer/Thr, GalNAc(α1-3)[Fuc(α1-2)]Gal(β1-4)GlcNAc(β1-3)GalNAc- and GluNAc(α1-4)Gal- under interacting with the acetamido groups at equatorial C2 position of the terminal sugar residues in oligosaccharide structures of O-glycans. The red alga H. eucheumatoides could promise to be a source of valuable lectins for application in biochemistry and biomedicine

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

The contribution of free radicals in paracetamol degradation by UV/NaClO

UV/Chlorine is an emerging advanced oxidation process which forms several reactive species including •OH, •Cl, •OCl. This study investigated the contribution of three main free radicals: •OH, •Cl, •OCl on Paracetamol degradation under different conditions. Benzoic acid (BA), Nitro benzene (NB) and DMOB were used as probe compounds. The second rate constant of •OH, •Cl, •OCl with PRC were determined: 4.19 (±0.15) ×109 M-1s-1; 3.71 1010 M-1s-1; 3.532×109 M-1s-1, respectively. The formation of free radicals depends on pH. In particular, at pH 5: the contribution of •OH and     (-•OCl, •Cl) are 45 %, 41 %, respectively, at pH 8.5, the contribution of free radicals increases up to 63 %. Keywords. Paracetamol, UV/Chlorine process, reactive species

Photoinduced hydrosilylation through hydrogen abstraction: an NMR and computational study of the structural effect of silane

The hydrosilylation reaction, describing the addition of Si–H bonds to unsaturated bonds, is performed in the presence of catalysts, usually highly active platinum catalysts. This work focuses on the study of a photoinduced hydrosilylation by the use of benzophenone which promotes the addition reaction of olefin on different hydrosilanes. The reactivity of silanes towards addition onto the double bond during hydrosilylation appears to depend on their structure. It was observed that the consumption of Si–H and C[double bond, length as m-dash]C functional groups increases with the irradiation time, and reaches a maximum of approx. 51% in the case of diphenylsilane. The hydrosilylation products are determined with (1)H NMR, HSQC, DEPT, COSY and (13)C NMR. The main product corresponds to the single adduct of the silyl radical onto the double bond. Substitution of the Si–H bond by two or three phenyls groups (triphenylsilane, diphenysilane) enhances the yield of the reaction, although diphenylsilane was found to be more efficient than triphenylsilane because of its lower steric hindrance. The ketyl radical formed after hydrogen abstraction by the triplet state of benzophenone likely forms benzopinacol, a reaction which reduces the overall yield of the hydrosilylation reaction. All these experiments are in line with DFT calculations of the Gibbs free energy of the reactions involved. This sheds new light on the photoinduced hydrosilylation process and opens the way to more active combinations of photoinitiator/silane/vinylsilane systems

RMDM: A Multilabel Fakenews Dataset for Vietnamese Evidence Verification

In this study, we present a novel and challenging multilabel Vietnamese dataset (RMDM) designed to assess the performance of large language models (LLMs), in verifying electronic information related to legal contexts, focusing on fake news as potential input for electronic evidence. The RMDM dataset comprises four labels: real, mis, dis, and mal, representing real information, misinformation, disinformation, and mal-information, respectively. By including these diverse labels, RMDM captures the complexities of differing fake news categories and offers insights into the abilities of different language models to handle various types of information that could be part of electronic evidence. The dataset consists of a total of 1,556 samples, with 389 samples for each label. Preliminary tests on the dataset using GPT-based and BERT-based models reveal variations in the models' performance across different labels, indicating that the dataset effectively challenges the ability of various language models to verify the authenticity of such information. Our findings suggest that verifying electronic information related to legal contexts, including fake news, remains a difficult problem for language models, warranting further attention from the research community to advance toward more reliable AI models for potential legal applications.Comment: ISAILD@KSE 202

Village Baseline Study – Site Analysis Report for My Loi, Ky Anh district, Ha Tinh province – Viet Nam

Data collection for the Village Baseline Study (VBS) of My Loi village in the CCAFS benchmark site of central Viet Nam took place on 17- 19 October 2014. Focus group discussions were conducted separately for 45 men and 45 women villagers.. The VBS had three main topics: map of (1) community resources, (2) organizational landscapes, and (3) information networks. A seminar was held in December 2014 to seek participants’ feedback. My Loi village has experienced multiple extreme weather events (temperature and water stresses, storms and typhoons) throughout the years. The main constraints for agricultural development and livelihoods are limited water resources and poor conditions of irrigation systems, which are challenges to improving the agricultural production situation. Moreover, sand and rock mining have caused water pollution, erosion on riverbanks and loss of farmland area. Another constraint is marketing, as villagers are not aware of any organization involved in finding outlets for agricultural products. The potentials for developing innovative climate-smart solutions in the village are several: farmers have experiences and are interested in trying new varieties and adjusting farming calendars to improve the situation. Livestock expansion and agroforests/reforestation hold opportunities for improving household incomes. Furthermore, at least half of the organisations identified in the region are working to address food security issues