China's rise and the 'Chinese dream' in international relations theory

The rise of China/East Asia and the perceived decline of the US/West pose an emerging question about how international relations (IR) theory should respond to this change. Increasingly, there have been heated discussions among Chinese IR academics over a desirable Chinese contribution to IR theory (IRT), particularly the possibility of building a distinctive Chinese IRT. Inevitably, this drive towards theorizing from a Chinese perspective also creates a backlash among not only Western but also other Chinese scholars as they question the ‘nationalistic’ if not ‘hegemonic’ discourse of the scholarship. Drawing on the sociology of scientific knowledge framework, this article examines the linkages between the vibrant dynamics of the Chinese theoretical debates and the actual practices of Chinese scholars in realizing their claims. It suggests that this investigation can serve as a springboard into a better appreciation of the theory–practice and power–knowledge relationships in the context of Chinese IR

Equity Carry Trade in Emerging Markets : Evidence from 11 emerging economies

This thesis studies the implementation of the concept of the “carry trade” in equity markets using data from 11 emerging economies over the period of 1999-2021. The period of 21 years includes both the financial crisis of 2008 and the global pandemic of 2020. The data availability is scarcer for emerging markets than for developed markets, hence the sample consists only about half of all countries that fall within the definition of an emerging market. The first part of this thesis focuses on theories of international parity relationships, history of the carry trade as well as application of that strategy in asset classes other than currency markets. As a concept, the carry trade has proven to be an effective strategy to earn positive excess returns even though its existence contradicts the financial theory called uncovered interest parity. In the common currency carry trade, an investor makes profit by going long the securities with high carry and shorting the securities with low carry. With the currency carry trade, the carry is the interest rate differential between two countries. However, according to uncovered interest parity, carry trade should not yield nonzero returns because the interest rate differential is offset by the exchange rate change. Extending the concept of the currency carry trade, this thesis attempts to apply a generalized version of carry to equity markets. Using data of 11 emerging market equity indices, the carry for each index is measured with the expected dividend yield over the local risk-free interest rate. Then, a long-short portfolio is constructed using individual indices’ carry as a trading signal. The strategy is executed using futures contracts, that is, buying futures contracts of high-carry markets and short selling futures contracts of low-carry markets. Finally, the carry trade strategy’s return is calculated by summing the portfolio carry and the portfolio’s capital change. This study finds support for carry trade strategy in equity markets with a Sharpe ratio of 0.60. It is significantly higher than that of a passive, long-only strategy which yields a Sharpe ratio of 0.14. The findings of this thesis can be summarized into three main points. First, the results suggest that the concept of carry can be extended outside the currency markets to equity markets. In a practical context, an investor could benefit from a simple carry trade strategy by buying index futures with high expected dividend yields and selling index futures with low expected dividend yields. Second, carry is an important component of expected return as it acts as a trading signal and contributes to the profit as well. Finally, the backtest and the regression analysis strengthen the evidence against the uncovered interest/equity parity, and thus also against the “rational expectations” hypothesis.: Tämä tutkimus tutkii “carry trade” -kaupankäyntistrategian implementointia osakemarkkinoilla käyttäen dataa kehittyviltä markkinoilta. Dataa kerätään 11 markkinasta ajanjaksolta 1999– 2021. 21 vuoden ajanjakso sisältää näin ollen sekä vuoden 2008 finanssikriisin että vuoden 2020 maailmanlaajuisen pandemian. Datan saatavuus on niukempaa kehittyvien markkinoiden osalta kuin kehittyneiden markkinoiden ja siksi tutkimuksen otos sisältää vain noin puolet maista, jotka kuuluvat kehittyvän markkinan määritelmään. Tutkimuksen ensimmäinen osa keskittyy kansainvälisiin talousteorioihin, kuten ostovoima- sekä korkopariteettiin, ”carry traden” historiaan sekä sen soveltamiseen muissa omaisuusluokissa kuin valuuttamarkkinoilla. Konseptina ”carry trade” on todistettu olevan tehokas strategia, jolla on mahdollista saavuttaa positiivista ylituottoa, vaikkakin sen olemassaolo on ristiriidassa talousteorioiden kanssa. Harjoittamalla ”carry tradea” valuuttamarkkinoilla sijoittaja voi hyötyä ostamalla korkean ”carryn” omaavia arvopapereita ja lyhyeksi myymällä matalan ”carryn” omaavia arvopapereita. Valuuttakaupassa ”carry” on kahden maan välinen korkoero. Kuitenkin kattamattoman korkopariteetin mukaan ”carry traden” ei pitäisi toimia, sillä korkoeron tasoittaa valuuttakurssin muutos, jolloin sijoittajan lopullinen nettotuotto on nolla. Laajentaen ”carry traden” käsitettä, tässä tutkimuksessa yritetään soveltaa sen yleistettyä versiota osakemarkkinoille. Käyttämällä 11 osakeindeksin dataa kehittyviltä markkinoilta, kunkin indeksin ”carry” mitataan sen odotetulla osinkotuotolla yli paikallisen riskittömän koron. Tämän jälkeen muodostetaan ”long-short” portfolio, jossa käytetään yksittäisten indeksien ”carrya” kaupankäyntisignaalina. Strategia toteutetaan käymällä kauppaa futuurisopimuksilla, eli ostamalla korkean ”carryn” futuurisopimuksia ja lyhyeksi myymällä matalan ”carryn” futuurisopimuksia. Lopuksi lasketaan strategian tuotto summaamalla yhteen portfolion ”carry” ja sen arvonmuutos. Tulokset tästä tutkimuksesta osoittavat, että ”carry trade” -strategia osakemarkkinoilla tuottaa Sharpe-luvuksi 0.60, joka on merkittävästi korkeampi kuin passiivinen, osta-ja-pidä -strategia, jonka Sharpe-luku on 0.14. Tutkimuksen tulokset voidaan tiivistää kolmeen pääpointtiin. Ensinnäkin tulokset viittaavat siihen, että ”carry trade” konseptia voidaan laajentaa valuuttamarkkinoista osakemarkkinoille. Tutkimus osoittaa, että sijoittaja voi käytännössä hyötyä ostamalla korkean odotetun osinkotuoton omaavia indeksifutuureja ja lyhyeksi myymällä matalan odotetun osinkotuoton omaavia indeksifutuureja. Toiseksi, ”carry” on tärkeä osa odotettua tuottoa, koska se toimii sekä kaupankäyntisignaalina että kontribuoi tuottoon. Kolmanneksi, ”backtest” ja regressioanalyysi vahvistavat näyttöä kattamattoman korko-/osakepariteetin pitävyyttä vastaan, ja sitä kautta myös ”rationaaliset odotukset” -hypoteesia vastaan

Music Dynamic Animations

Audio visualization gives a graphical representation to beats, intensity, and the fluctuating sounds heard in music. Music dynamic animation, deriving from this concept of audio visualizers, implements a hard coded range styled beat detection. This algorithm prioritizes graphical representations of classical and instrumental music. These graphical representations are intended to provide a sense of imagery

Edge Assignment and Data Valuation in Federated Learning

Federated Learning (FL) is a recent Machine Learning method for training with private data separately stored in local machines without gathering them into one place for central learning. It was born to address the following challenges when applying Machine Learning in practice: (1) Communication cost: Most real-world data that can be useful for training are locally collected; to bring them all to one place for central learning can be expensive, especially in real-time learning applications when time is of the essence, for example, predicting the next word when texting on a smartphone; and (2) Privacy protection: Many applications must protect data privacy, such as those in the healthcare field; the private data can only be seen by its local owner and as such the learning may only use a content-hiding representation of this data, which is much less informative. To fulfill FL’s promise, this dissertation addresses three important problems regarding the need for good training data, system scalability, and uncertainty robustness: 1. The effectiveness of FL depends critically on the quality of the local training data. We should not only incentivize participants who have good training data but also minimize the effect of bad training data on the overall learning procedure. The first problem of my research is to determine a score to value a participant’s contribution. My approach is to compute such a score based on Shapley Value (SV), a concept of cooperative game theory for profit allocation in a coalition game. In this direction, the main challenge is due to the exponential time complexity of the SV computation, which is further complicated by the iterative manner of the FL learning algorithm. I propose a fast and effective valuation method that overcomes this challenge. 2. On scalability, FL depends on a central server for repeated aggregation of local training models, which is prone to become a performance bottleneck. A reasonable approach is to combine FL with Edge Computing: introduce a layer of edge servers to each serve as a regional aggregator to offload the main server. The scalability is thus improved, however at the cost of learning accuracy. The second problem of my research is to optimize this tradeoff. This dissertation shows that this cost can be alleviated with a proper choice of edge server assignment: which edge servers should aggregate the training models from which local machines. Specifically, I propose an assignment solution that is especially useful for the case of non-IID training data which is well-known to hinder today’s FL performance. 3. FL participants may decide on their own what devices they run on, their computing capabilities, and how often they communicate the training model with the aggregation server. The workloads incurred by them are therefore time-varying, and unpredictably. The server capacities are finite and can vary too. The third problem of my research is to compute an edge server assignment that is robust to such dynamics and uncertainties. I propose a stochastic approach to solving this problem

EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS OF ADSORPTION OF Ni (II) FROM WASTEWATER USING COFFEE HUSK BASED ACTIVATED CARBON

In recent years, the studies on finding the low cost methods to remove metal ions have been increased. Use of agricultural wastes such as coffee husk, coffee residue, coconut fiber, rice husk, peanut shells, cob, etc. as adsorbents to remove heavy metals, pollutants in wastewater has been of great concern in Viet Nam and regional countries. The results showed that the material from coffee husk had superior adsorption. In this study, the coffee husk was heated in Ar gas at temperatures of 300 oC, 400 oC, 500 oC, 600 oC for 30 minutes, 60 minutes and 90 minutes, then was denatured by impregnation with HNO3 at different concentrations (1M, 3M, 5M). The adsorbent products from the above process from coffee husk were tested to find the best technical solution by studying the influences of pH (2 ÷ 9), contact time (10 ÷ 100 min), adsorbent dose (0.2 ÷ 10 g/L) and initial concentration Ni(II) (10 ÷ 60 mg/L). The research results showed that while the activated carbon samples treated at 400 oC in 30 minutes had Ni (II) adsorption capacity of 1.97 mg/g, the activated carbon by HNO3 had Ni (II) adsorption higher capacity, maximum adsorption capacity is 21.14 mg/g (more than 10 times in comparison with the non-denatured or non-modified coal).

ENHANCING COMPETITIVE CAPABILITY FOR EDUCATION IN VIETNAM IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBALIZATION

In the trend of globalization, the development of intellectual standard and training of high-quality human resources, who meet the demands of current society, are seen as very significant targets because developing education does not only aim at building intellectuals standard of the people but also to be a major impetus for the development of a country. The process of globalization requires education background in all countries in general and Vietnamese education in particular to have some proactive switches in order to improve the quality of training that meets the requirements of domestic and foreign labor employment. Improving competitiveness for Vietnam education requires several immediate and long term strategies. Therefore, we have to assess the difficulties and advantages of education in Vietnam as well as the ability of other competitors in the region and worldwide, so we will find the most effective solutions to develop our education.  Article visualizations

Is sharing caring? Exploring the perceived social and economic sustainability of sharing economy in emerging markets

Sharing economy is a significant socio-economic phenomenon of this century and mobility sharing is one of the most controversial, heavily-debated topic within the domain. Although there are more and more researches done in the field, but limited knowledge is achieved on social and economic sustainability of sharing economy in emerging markets. Motivated by the research gap, this thesis explores the perceived social and economic sustainability of sharing economy within the case of mobility sharing platform in a rapidly developing country, Vietnam. The focus of the study is on examining the social and economic impacts of ridesharing platforms on independent providers, namely the platform drivers in this case. The research is facilitated with interview as the research tool. Platform drivers, drivers from conventional businesses and platform representative make up the interview sample. The findings indicate ridesharing platform changes the drivers’ livelihood both positively and negatively. The economic effects include direct economic gains, increased efficiency, improved trust and safety, creation of dependent self-employment and risky financial decision. Meanwhile, the social consequences comprise of social inclusion, lack of long-term security, hostility from conventional businesses, work-life off balance and concern over threat of monopoly. The results demonstrate the social and economic transformations triggered by sharing economy especially in transportation sector. The study contributes to the ongoing wider discussion about sustainability of sharing economy in general and ridesharing specifically. It also has important managerial implications for ridesharing firms regarding their strategies to retain and attract drivers

Assessing and improving rational antimicrobial use in urban and rural health care facilities in Vietnam

The global problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is particularly pressing in developing countries including Vietnam, where the infectious disease burden is high and cost constrains the replacement of older antimicrobials with newer, more expensive ones. Along with surveillance and infection control, responsible use of antimicrobials is one of the main objectives of the Vietnam National Action Plan on combating AMR. This thesis aims to get a better understanding of how antimicrobials are used in the Vietnamese community and how its use can be improved, to tailor evidence-based interventions and inform policies in controlling AMR. To assess the current situation of community access and use of antimicrobials and identify determinants associated with current practice, an observational study was conducted in 30 private pharmacies in northern Vietnam. This study was followed by a randomised controlled trial (RCT) to evaluate a point of care (POC) C-reactive protein (CRP, a biomarker of inflammation) test in reducing unnecessary antimicrobial prescribing for patients with non-severe acute respiratory infections (ARI) and analysis of the economic impact and acceptance of this intervention among users. In private pharmacies, profit incentives coupled to poor knowledge about AMR are key drivers of over the counter dispensing of antimicrobials regardless the existence of regulations. Using a simple rapid blood test to identify customers who do not benefit from antimicrobial therapy would be a potential solution. Primary healthcare stations where over-prescription of antimicrobials for self-limiting infections are common, were chosen for the intervention. CRP POC testing reduced unnecessary AB use for ARI patients without compromising patient’s recovery. This supports and extends findings from European trials by showing that such a stewardship approach is applicable even in resource constrained settings. However, there were several obstacles identified among users regarding test adherence associated with large between-site heterogeneity that need to be addressed to maximize the intervention’s effect in the future. More importantly, our cost analysis indicated that to encourage adoption at scale, proper funding mechanisms to balance the invested costs and achieve global impact on AMR is recommended. In summary, antimicrobial use in Vietnam is largely uncontrolled both in the community and the healthcare system leading to overuse and over-prescription for non-severe ARI. Use of commercially available CRP tests can be an effective, scalable and economically viable approach, even in highly resource-constrained settings. For the future, we are looking at ways to optimise use of POC biomarker testing in primary healthcare and private pharmacy setting. The potential for biomarker based tests to be combined with rapid pathogen detection, enhancing test algorithm adherence, use of CRP tests with equal financial incentives as as selling of antimicrobials and introducing pay for performance mechanisms may be crucial parts for optimisation

VIETNAM'S CONFLICT RESOLUTION STRATEGY IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA: DIALOGUE AND MEDIA OVER LEGAL ACTION

Territorial disputes in the South China Sea can be seen as one of the most complex issues among states in the contemporary world due to the involvement of many parties. However, despite the presence of peaceful conflict resolutions, which are regulated under international law, the positive result is still miles apart. This article examines why the Vietnamese Government does not choose to bring the dispute to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is regarded as a legal action to solve the conflict between the two countries, as the Philippines did. Instead, remedies such as dialogue and media take precedence over all others. In the end, the settlement for both countries, based on the model of Peter Wallensteen in the South China Sea, is also discussed. The author approaches the South China Sea dispute between Vietnam and China from realism and neo-liberalism's perspective and will collect the primary data from legal sources, official statements and secondary data in an effort to examine the strategic decisions of the Vietnamese Government toward China concerning the territorial dispute. The paper's finding reveals that legal action is less likely to be used by the Vietnamese Government to tackle conflict in the South China Sea due to the limitations of international law, the asymmetrical and interdependent Vietnam - Sino relations throughout history, and the strategic foreign policy of Vietnamese Government towards China. There is a tendency that the Vietnam Government will keep negotiating with China by using peaceful resolutions such as dialogue and media. At the same time, the Vietnam Government will draw attention from international communities against China's assertiveness for not complying with international law as well as strengthen external defense with other powers. Using the international court will be the last resort in solving the territorial conflict between Vietnam and China.  Article visualizations