A scientist’s walk through Hanoi Old Quarter Houses

Hanoi – the capital city of Vietnam and the land of thousand years of civilization – invokes among both locals and tourists the image of the ‘Sword Lake’ with its ancient ‘Turtle Tower’ and the charming Old Quarter with its preserved old houses lying along small commercial alleys. The houses in the Old Quarter were constructed over a century ago which feature tube houses with inclined tile roofs and a blend of French architecture create the infusions of history and memory. Researchers of various fields have attempted to capture and explain the essence of these townhouses in their works, either in the collectibles of many authors, the quintessential drawings of talented painters, or in publications on the history of the Old Quarter. Among these, the recent work by Vuong et al. (2019) adds a unique view of the architectural features of Hanoi’s ancient townhouses as these features are viewed as dependent and independent variables. The study titled ‘Cultural evolution in Vietnam’s early 20th century: A Bayesian network analysis of Hanoi Franco-Chinese house designs’ aims to find traces of cultural evolution in the early 20th century in Vietnam and highlight the most notable elements that affect the Vietnamese people’s perception of cultural evolutions

Book Review: The Vietnamese Social Sciences at a Fork in the Road

For individual researchers and academics, research outputs are a crucial asset that enables public gaining of recognition and acknowledgments of their expertise. For institutions, industry sectors, and countries, scientific publications serve a more critical role, being a measure and an index that indicates scientific development and competitiveness. As a country that is transitioning to modernization and industrialization, Vietnam recognizes science and education as the driving force for its socio-economic development. The government has made sizeable efforts to enhance the research capacity for research institutes and higher education establishments across the country. This involves introducing policies that prioritize research activities and elevating research funding and monitoring schemes to some certain levels

Promoting skills-based education in the 21st century: A dataset of Vietnamese secondary students

As the world has become more digitally interconnected than ever before in the 21stcentury, the next generation is required to possess various sets of new skills to succeed in their works and lives. The purpose of the article is to present a dataset of socio-demographic, in-school, out-of-school factors as well as the eight domains of 21st-century skills of Vietnamese secondary school students. A total of 1183 observations from 30 secondary schools in both rural and urban areas of Vietnam are introduced in this dataset. The linear regression analysis was also utilized as an analysis example for this dataset. The insights generated from the dataset are hoped to contribute to skills-based education and policy planning in Vietnam

Hanoi Old Quarter Houses: A View for Bayesian Analysis

The mentioning of Hanoi – the capital city of Vietnam and the land of thousand years of civilization – depicts among both locals and tourists the image of the ‘Sword Lake’ with its ancient ‘Turtle Tower’ and the charming Old Quarter with its preserved shop-houses lying along small ancient commercial alleys. The houses in the old quarter constructed over a century ago which feature tube houses with inclined tile roofs and a blend of French architecture create the infusions of history and memory. One can easily find abundant research done on these townhouses, either in the collectibles of many authors, the quintessential drawings of talented painters, or in publications on the history of the Old Quarter. Among these, the recent work by Vuong et al. (2019) adds an extremely interesting view of the architectural features of Hanoi’s ancient townhouses as these features are viewed as dependent and independent variables. The study titled ‘Cultural evolution in Vietnam’s early 20th century: A Bayesian network analysis of Hanoi Franco- Chinese house designs’ aims to find traces of cultural evolution in the early 20th century in Vietnam and highlight the most notable elements that affect the Vietnamese people’s perception of cultural evolutions

Vietnamese Folklore Seen from an Adult’s View

Folklore, I believe, is a manual for learning to appreciate the value of hard work, honesty, and kindness that not only myself but also many other Vietnamese people who have been reading and listening to folklore take into their later life. However, as much as I appreciate its moral values and beauty, my worldview as an adult reader has urged me to reflect on the scarcely discussed contradictions of norms and virtues in folklore. The reading of ‘On how religions could accidentally incite lies and violence: Folktales as a cultural transmitter’ by a group of Vietnamese researchers has been enlightening to me in this regard

Book Review: The Vietnamese Social Sciences at a Fork in the Road

For individual researchers and academics, research outputs are a crucial asset that enables public gaining of recognition and acknowledgments of their expertise. For institutions, industry sectors, and countries, scientific publications serve a more critical role, being a measure and an index that indicates scientific development and competitiveness. As a country that is transitioning to modernization and industrialization, Vietnam recognizes science and education as the driving force for its socio-economic development. The government has made sizeable efforts to enhance the research capacity for research institutes and higher education establishments across the country. This involves introducing policies that prioritize research activities and elevating research funding and monitoring schemes to some certain levels

Household Financial Burden and Poverty Impacts of Cancer Treatment in Vietnam

Purpose. This paper aims to analyze the household financial burden and poverty impacts of cancer treatment in Vietnam. Methods. Under the “ASEAN CosTs in ONcology” study design, three major specialized cancer hospitals were employed to assemble the Vietnamese data. Factors of socioeconomic, direct, and indirect costs of healthcare were collected prospectively through both individual interviews and hospital financial records. Results. The rates of catastrophic expenditure based on the cut-off points of 20%, 30%, 40%, and 50% of household’s income were 82.6%, 73.7%, 64.7%, and 56.9%, respectively. 37.4% of the households with patient were impoverished by the treatment costs for cancer. The statistically significant correlates of the impoverishment problem were higher among older patients (40–60 years: 1.77, 95% CI 1.14–2.73; above 60 years: 1.75, 95% CI 1.03–2.98); poorer patients (less than 100% national income: 29, 95% CI 18.6–45.24; less than 200% national income: 2.89, 95% CI 1.69–4.93); patients who underwent surgery alone (receiving nonsurgery treatment: 2.46, 95% CI 1.32–4.59; receiving multiple treatments: 2.4, 95% CI 1.38–4.17). Conclusions. Lots of households were pushed into poverty due to their expenditure on cancer care; more actions are urgently needed to improve financial protection to the vulnerable groups

Reading habits, socioeconomic conditions, occupational aspiration and academic achievement in Vietnamese junior high school students

Reading practices play an important role in the learning process of students. Especially in a fast-changing world where knowledge about nature and society is in a constant state of flux, book reading helps students foster skills such as thinking, valuing, adaptability and creativity for sustainable development. This research study used a dataset of 1676 observations of junior high school students from Northern Vietnam to explore students' academic achievement and its association with their reading passion, family socio economic condition, parental education and occupational aspiration. The empirical results show that higher grades in STEM-related subjects are predicted by reading interest (βReadbook = 0.425, p < 0.0001), with students who love reading books achieve higher score than those who take no interest in books. Remarkably, the education level of the mother strongly enhances academic performance, with β = 0.721 (p < 0.0001) in cases of mother having a university diploma or higher. Students coming from wealthy families are more likely to buy books whereas borrowing from the library is the main source of books for students who grow up in not-rich families. However, even among wealthy families, investment into buying books still rely more on personal interest, despite the aforementioned educational benefits of book reading, as evidenced by an over 7 percentage point disparity between the likelihood of purchasing books among wealthy-family students who took an interest in reading (45%) versus students of the same background who did not like to read (38.7%). The results present implications for education policy making with a vision towards United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 4: Quality Education.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Removal of methylene blue from aqueous solution by biochar derived from rice husk

International audienceIn this research, rice husk-derived biochar (BC) was evaluated to determine the suitable conditions for the methylene blue (MB) solution adsorption. The characterization of BC was identified by the methods of FT-IR, Raman, and point of zero charges (PZC). The adsorption studies were carried out with BC at different activation conditions (raw BC, HNO$_3$ 25% for 4 hours, NaOH 25% for 4 hours, H$_2$O at 90°C for 2 hours and 4 hours, HNO3 25% at 90°C for 2 hours and 4 hours). The activated material then went through an adsorption assessment. Activated BC with NaOH 25% showed its preeminence compared to the other six conditions when reaching the maximum efficiency after the first hour of adsorption. The investigation revealed that the adsorption capacity of the material depends on the activation methods, including pH, activation agent, temperature, and time. The adsorption of BC was consistent with the pseudo-first-order kinetic model and the Langmuir isotherm model, with high correlation coefficients (R2: 0.9838 and 0.9975, respectively). Therefore, it can be concluded that the use of rice husk is feasible for the removal of MB from aqueous solutions