The emerging business of science in Vietnam

Manh-Tung Ho, Khanh-Linh Hoang, Minh-Hoang Nguyen, Manh-Toan Ho (2019). Chapter 8. The emerging business of science in Vietnam. In Quan-Hoang Vuong, Trung Tran (Eds.), The Vietnamese Social Sciences at a Fork in the Road (pp. 163–177). Warsaw, Poland: De Gruyter. DOI:10.2478/9783110686081-013. Online ISBN: 9783110686081 © 2019 Sciendo / De Gruyte

Scrambling for higher metrics in the Journal Impact Factor bubble period: a real-world problem in science management and its implications

Universities and funders in many countries have been using Journal Impact Factor (JIF) as an indicator for research and grant assessment despite its controversial nature as a statistical representation of scientific quality. This study investigates how the changes of JIF over the years can affect its role in research evaluation and science management by using JIF data from annual Journal Citation Reports (JCR) to illustrate the changes. The descriptive statistics find out an increase in the median JIF for the top 50 journals in the JCR, from 29.300 in 2017 to 33.162 in 2019. Moreover, on average, elite journal families have up to 27 journals in the top 50. In the group of journals with a JIF of lower than 1, the proportion has shrunk by 14.53% in the 2015–2019 period. The findings suggest a potential ‘JIF bubble period’ that science policymaker, university, public fund managers, and other stakeholders should pay more attention to JIF as a criterion for quality assessment to ensure more efficient science management

Increasing Technology-Based Driver’s Productivity Under Covid-19 Pandemic in Vietnam: the Significant Contribution of Consumer Behavior

Purpose: Ride-hailing service, after the emergence in Hanoi – capital of Vietnam in 2014, has experienced major development and gradually enhanced the inner-city travelling of citizens. This study aims at investigating technology-based driver productivity perception and identifying several important influencing factors during the period of COVID-19 pandemic   Design/methodology/approach: The samples of 370 technology-based drivers have been surveyed to collect significant data about factors impacting on worker productivity in Vietnam ride-hailing service. SPSS 26 software is conducted with two types of analyses, including descriptive analysis and statistical analysis   Findings: The findings indicate that social distances, service waste and customer behaviors possess significant impacts on worker productivity in Vietnam ride-hailing services. Several special concerned factors have been identified to raise driver’s awareness of productivity improvement in ride-hailing service.   Research, Practical and Social implication: Major implications can be suggested for improving driver productivity during and after COVID-19 pandemic, especially in term of reducing service waste and increasing customer behavior towards ride-hailing services.   Originality/value: Basing on research findings, the study becomes significant contribution to further papers as well as service managers to enhance technological driver productivity during COVID-19 pandemic.

Management current land use of perennial industrial crops by NDVI index: A case study in Chu Se District, Gia Lai Province, Vietnam: Research article

Remote sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) - an effective tool for managing naturalresources, is quite common application in establishing thematic maps. However, the application of this modern technology in natural resource management has not yet been popular in Vietnam, particularly mapping the land use/cover. Currently, land use/cover map is constructed as traditional methods and gets limitations of management counting due to time-consuming for mapping andsynthesis the status of land use/cover. Hence, information on the map is often outdated and inaccurate.The main objective of this study is to upgrade the accuracies in mapping current perennialcrops in Chu Se District, Gia Lai Province in Vietnam by interpreted NDVI index (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) from Landsat 8-OLI (Operational Land Imager). The results of studyis satisfied the urgent of practical requirement and scientific research. There are 3 types of perennial industrial plants in the study area including rubber, coffee, and pepper, in which most coffee isgrown, with an area of over 10,000 hectares. The results also show that integration of remote sensing and GIS technology enables to map current management and distribution of perennial industrialplants timely and accurately. This application is fully consistent with the trend of the world, and in accordance with regulations of established land use/cover map, and the process could be appliedat other districts /towns or in higher administrative units.Viễn thám và hệ thông tin địa lý (GIS) là công cụ hữu hiệu để quản lý tài nguyên thiên nhiên, được ứng dụng khá phổ biến để thành lập các loại bản đồ. Tuy nhiên, việc áp dụng công nghệ hiện đại này trong lĩnh vực quản lý tài nguyên thiên nhiên ở Việt Nam chưa phổ biến, nhất là công tác xây dựng bản đồ hiện trạng sử dụng/độ phủ đất. Việc xây dựng bản đồ hiện trạng hiện nay vẫn theo phương pháp truyền thống, thường gặp nhiều hạn chế do thời gian tổng hợp và xây dựng bản đồ hiện trạng kéo dài, dẫn đến thông tin trên bản đồ bị lạc hậu và không chính xác. Mục tiêu chính của nghiên cứu này là nâng cao độ chính xác kết quả giải đoán ảnh viễn thám Landsat 8 bằng chỉ số NDVI (chỉ số khác biệt thực vật) để thành lập bản đồ hiện trạng sử dụng đất cây công nghiệp lâu năm ở huyện Chư Sê, tỉnh Gia Lai, Việt Nam. Từ đó quản lý hiện trạng sử dụng loại đất này phù hợp yêu cầu cấp bách thực tiễn sản xuất và nghiên cứu khoa học. Kết quả của nghiên cứu cho thấy có 3 loại hình cây công nghiệp trên địa bàn nghiên cứu gồm cây cao su, cà phê và hồ tiêu, trong đó cây cà phê được trồng nhiều nhất, với diện tích hơn 10.000 ha. Nghiên cứu cũng cho thấy, tích hợp công nghệ viễn thám và GIS cho phép quản lý hiện trạng và phân bố cây công nghiệp trong không gian một cách hiệu quả và nhanh chóng. Ứng dụng này hoàn toàn phù hợp với xu hướng của thế giới, đồng thời theo đúng quy định thành lập bản đồ hiện trạng sử dụng đất, và quy trình này có thể thực hiện được ở cấp huyện/thị xã hoặc đơn vị hành chính cấp cao hơn

Developing Culinary Tourism Experiences for Inbound Travellers in Vietnam

In recent years, the growing popularity of Vietnamese cuisine has become an attraction of the country that motivates an increasing number of travellers to visit Vietnam to taste the cuisine. Together with food tasting, there is a wide variety of activities related to food that have the potentiality to attract international visitors. The main goal of this thesis was to provide suggestions and directions to develop culinary tourism experiences for foreign visitors in Vietnam by finding out their perspective towards current gastronomic experiences in the destination country and discovering how satisfied they were when engaging in food-involved activities. The paper also discussed inbound travellers’ expectations for culinary experiences prior to the travels in Vietnam together with post-travel feelings and behaviours. The thesis used mixed methods, in which qualitative method was primarily adopted to answer the research issue. An electronic survey was conducted and posted on different social channels. Simultaneously, interviews were carried out with the support of two experienced stakeholders working in the tourism sector. The findings of the research revealed that most of the inbound tourists were satisfied with their food experiences in Vietnam. Generally, those experiences met their expectations, yet they still lacked some elements to go beyond what they expected. The results also showed that the country had various potentialities and advantageous opportunities to develop this emerging niche market. On the other hand, several existent problems present a threat to its growth. Amid those controversies, development solutions were suggested in an attempt to tackle the problems as well as to improve the experiences of future international visitors in the country

The coastline of Vietnam - annual dynamics derived from 35 years of Earth Observation data

Understanding the intricate interplay between alterations in sedimentation patterns and the rising sea levels is of critical significance, particularly for coastal regions at large and, notably, for the vulnerable Mekong Delta. Among the myriad drivers of coastline changes, the repercussions of reservoirs, channel construction, and dredging remain inadequately explored. The construction of reservoirs upstream can drastically alter the sediment flow downstream, reducing the sediment load reaching the delta. Altering natural channels and extensive dredging for navigation and industrial purposes can disrupt sedimentation patterns. Moreover, while the impact of coastal erosion on flooding has been established, it also represents an area of research that remains underexplored. Therefore, the monitoring the coastline of the Mekong Delta is of paramount importance

Assessing the impact of urbanization on urban climate by remote satellite perspective: a case study in Danang city, Vietnam

Urban climate, one of the challenges of human being in 21 century, is known as the results of land use/cover transformation. Its characteristics are distinguished by different varieties of climatic conditions in comparison with those of less built-up areas. The alterations lead to “Urban Heat Island”, in which temperature in urban places is higher than surrounding environment. This happens not only in mega cities but also in less urbanized sites. The results determine the change of land use/cover and land surface temperature in Danang city by using multi-temporal Landsat and ASTER data for the period of 1990-2009. Based on the supervised classification method of maximum likelihood algorithm, satellite images in 1990, 2003, 2009 were classified into five classes: water, forest, shrub, agriculture, barren land and built-up area. For accuracy assessment, the error metric tabulations of mapped classes and reference classes were made. The Kappa statistics, derived from error matrices, were over 80% for all of land use maps. An comparison change detection algorithm was made in three intervals, 1990-2003, 2003-2009 and 1990-2009. The results showed that built-up area increased from 8.95% to 17.87% between 1990 and 2009, while agriculture, shrub and barren decreased from 12.98% to 7.53%, 15.72% to 9.89% and 3.88% to 1.77% due to urbanization that resulted from increasing of urban population and economic development, respectively. Land surface temperature (LST) maps were retrieved from thermal infrared bands of Landsat and ASTER data. The result indicated that the temperature in study area increased from 39oC to 41oC for the period of 1990-2009. Our analysis showed that built-up area had the highest LST values, whereas water bodies had the least LST. This study is expected to be useful for decision makers to make an appropriate land use planning which can mitigate the effect to urban climate

UNDERSTANDING THE STATUS AND CHALLENGES OF MANGROVE CONSERVATION IN CENTRAL VIETNAM: CASE STUDY IN DUY XUYEN DISTRICT, QUANG NAM PROVINCE

Abstract: While mangrove forests support large surrounding populations and diverse economic activities, mangrove areas in Central Vietnam are decreasing. This study, thereforce, aims to understand the current status and threats facing mangrove conservation and development. A survey of 52 respondents was conducted in Duy Xuyen district, the largest area of mangrove forests of Quang Nam province. The results show that 17 mangrove species belong to 11 families, in which 8 significant species and 9 minor species were found in this site. The distribution of species was uneven with dominated by Nipah palms (Nypafruticans Wurmb). Although the mangrove species had several useful functions including protection against wind, wave break and serving tourism development, mangrove areas have been decreasing from 26.39ha to 18.22ha during period of 1999-2018. In which, 67.3% of respondents argued that the conversion of mangroves to aquaculture is one of the main causes of mangrove loss. The study also provided some suggestions related to a long-term development strategy for both government and local community, especially who are directly involving in the mangrove for their livelihoods.Keywords: Central Vietnam, development strategy, mangrove forests, livelihood

On how religions could accidentally incite lies and violence: folktales as a cultural transmitter

Folklore has a critical role as a cultural transmitter, all the while being a socially accepted medium for the expressions of culturally contradicting wishes and conducts. In this study of Vietnamese folktales, through the use of Bayesian multilevel modeling and the Markov chain Monte Carlo technique, we offer empirical evidence for how the interplay between religious teachings (Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism) and deviant behaviors (lying and violence) could affect a folktale’s outcome. The findings indicate that characters who lie and/or commit violent acts tend to have bad endings, as intuition would dictate, but when they are associated with any of the above Three Teachings, the final endings may vary. Positive outcomes are seen in cases where characters associated with Confucianism lie and characters associated with Buddhism act violently. The results supplement the worldwide literature on discrepancies between folklore and real-life conduct, as well as on the contradictory human behaviors vis-à-vis religious teachings. Overall, the study highlights the complexity of human decision-making, especially beyond the folklore realm