PERCEPTIONS OF SCIENCE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS TOWARD BLENDED TEACHING

Under the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic, it is a must for education institutes all over the world to incorporate online teaching into their teaching program. In Vietnam, high school teachers and students are now familiar with blended teaching in which students will learn from at least 30% of their lessons online and 70% face-to-face. This research aims at investigating Vietnamese high school students’ perceptions toward the benefits and challenges of blended teaching. Two research questions will be answered (1) “What are high school students’ perceptions toward the benefits of blended teaching?” and (2) “What are high school students’ perceptions toward the challenges of blended teaching?”. There were 200 sciences students (72 participants majoring in Physics, 60 in Chemistry, and 68 in Biology) from 3 high schools for the gifted in Vietnam who participated in the study. The results of the research show that the majority of participants agreed on the benefits and challenges of blended teaching in the context of high school for the gifted in Vietnam. The current study suggests that teachers should have an effective lecture design to help their students acquire science knowledge better in blended classes.  Article visualizations

Neural Scene Decoration from a Single Photograph

Furnishing and rendering indoor scenes has been a long-standing task for interior design, where artists create a conceptual design for the space, build a 3D model of the space, decorate, and then perform rendering. Although the task is important, it is tedious and requires tremendous effort. In this paper, we introduce a new problem of domain-specific indoor scene image synthesis, namely neural scene decoration. Given a photograph of an empty indoor space and a list of decorations with layout determined by user, we aim to synthesize a new image of the same space with desired furnishing and decorations. Neural scene decoration can be applied to create conceptual interior designs in a simple yet effective manner. Our attempt to this research problem is a novel scene generation architecture that transforms an empty scene and an object layout into a realistic furnished scene photograph. We demonstrate the performance of our proposed method by comparing it with conditional image synthesis baselines built upon prevailing image translation approaches both qualitatively and quantitatively. We conduct extensive experiments to further validate the plausibility and aesthetics of our generated scenes. Our implementation is available at \url{https://github.com/hkust-vgd/neural_scene_decoration}.Comment: ECCV 2022 paper. 14 pages of main content, 4 pages of references, and 11 pages of appendi

Assessing Vulnerability and Risk to Livelihoods in River Deltas Socio-ecological Systems: Alignment of the GDRI With Global Frameworks’ Indicators

Disasters have significant impacts on the progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, the interlinkage between sustainable development and disaster risk reduction is not considered enough in risk assessment tools. A greater alignment with global frameworks would ease the monitoring while increasing the capacity to address data availability issues for indicator-based assessments. To bridge this gap, we use the Global Delta Risk Index (GDRI), which is composed of multiple components to assess risks to livelihoods: hazards, vulnerability, and exposure of social-ecological systems. The modular library of indicators of the GDRI has been further aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and the Sendai Framework for Disaster and Risk Reduction (SFDRR). To improve the accuracy of the risk assessment, the list of indicators has been weighted and scored through consultation with stakeholders. This research presents the initial results of a multi-hazard risk assessment that encompasses SDG and SFDRR indicators in three Asian river deltas: Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna, Mekong and Red River. This work aims at better informing risk management and supporting delta-level interventions to influence progress towards sustainability and resilience of river deltas

Aligning the Global Delta Risk Index with SDG and SFDRR global frameworks to assess risk to socio-ecological systems in river deltas

River deltas globally are highly exposed and vulnerable to natural hazards and are often over-exploited landforms. The Global Delta Risk Index (GDRI) was developed to assess multi-hazard risk in river deltas and support decision-making in risk reduction interventions in delta regions. Disasters have significant impacts on the progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, despite the strong interlinkage between disaster risk reduction and sustainable development, global frameworks are still developed in isolation and actions to address them are delegated to different institutions. Greater alignment between frameworks would both simplify monitoring progress towards disaster risk reduction and sustainable development and increase capacity to address data gaps in relation to indicator-based assessments for both processes. This research aims at aligning the GDRI indicators with the SDGs and the Sendai Framework for Disaster and Risk Reduction (SFDRR). While the GDRI has a modular indicator library, the most relevant indicators for this research were selected through a delta-specific impact chain designed in consultation with experts, communities and stakeholders in three delta regions: the Red River and Mekong deltas in Vietnam and the Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna (GBM) delta in Bangladesh and India. We analyse how effectively the 143 indicators for the GDRI match (or not) the SDG and SFDRR global frameworks. We demonstrate the interconnections of the different drivers of risk to better inform risk management and in turn support delta-level interventions towards improved sustainability and resilience of these Asian mega-deltas

Farmers’ Decision-Making in Relation to Rice-Based Farming Systems in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta

Rice-based farming systems have changed in recent years in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta through an increase in crop intensity (more crops each year) and higher quality varieties than a decade ago. Although a range of policies relating to food security contributed to increasing rice productivity, it has still had a range of climatic and non-climatic constraints and threats occur in relation to how farmers decide about their rice-based farming systems. This study investigates the major decisions that farmers have to make about their rice-based farming systems through case studies from three provinces, An Giang, Can Tho and Bac Lieu in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta. The four main questions were: 1. What are the major decisions that farmers have to make about their rice-based farming systems that they wish to implement each year? 2. Which factors influence farmers’ decision-making for rice-based farming systems, and how will these factors influence them? 3. How have farmers made collective and individual decisions for their rice-based farming systems? 4. What are the consequences of the major decisions about rice-based farming systems and household livelihoods? The conceptual framework of this thesis was built around a household livelihood framework. A wide range of quantitative and qualitative data were collected, including 319 household surveys, 47 in-depth interviews and 18 focus group discussions across the six communes. The study found that in An Giang and Can Tho provinces the majority of farmers chose to implement a system of three rice crops a year with their decisions influenced by the need to retain a portion of the crop for household consumption, market price, and through agreements with neighbours regarding the flooding and draining of shared compounds within dykes. In those two provinces farmers tended to favour collective decision-making in relation to dyke construction and the drainage of their paddy fields, for deciding the seasonal calendar for planting and harvesting and for the selection of seed varieties. However, in many cases cooperation took the form of working together in time and place but did not extend to sharing economic costs and benefits. In Bac Lieu province the majority of farmers chose to implement integrated rice-shrimp systems because of saline water. In this province the pattern of individual and collective decision-making was similar to the other two provinces but there was a greater tendency to combine for the purposes of marketing because fewer rice traders were operating in Bac Lieu. In all three provinces collective decisions through farmer organisations had declined because of increasing conflict between members and declining government support for collective organisations

Social capital enhances the resilience of agricultural cooperatives: Comparative case studies in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam

Agricultural cooperatives play an important role in increasing rice production and contribute to the rural economy of the Mekong Delta, Vietnam, but their resilience can be influenced by community governance and the social capital of members. This study investigated the comparative importance of social capital of members in two agricultural cooperatives in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. We focused on two primary research questions: (1) How has social capital influenced the resilience of agricultural cooperatives for rice production? (2) What key factors influenced social capital in the two cooperatives? The study applied qualitative and quantitative data collection methods including focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, and household surveys. Measures of social capital of members in the cooperative in An Giang scored higher than that of members in the cooperative in Can Tho. Our study found that low levels of education amongst members and weak bonding social capital between subgroups with different social networks and different farming outputs in the same cooperative were two key factors impacting adversely on the resilience of the two cooperatives. Trust was revealed to be a very important component of successful ACs. These are critical areas that need to be addressed by policy makers in order to improve the community governance and resilience of rice farming cooperatives in the Mekong Delta

Вплив відсотку сажі на механічні властивості та мікроструктуру суміші полібутилентерефталату/поліаміду 6/сажі

This study focuses on analyzing the influence of carbon black (CB) on Polybutylene terephthalate (PBT)/Polyamide 6 (PA6) blends. This study aims to solve the source of waste from toothbrush filament during production. This PBT/PA6 mixture does not meet the mechanical properties due to the incompatibility of these two plastics, which means this waste must be discarded and cannot be reused. When combined with CB, it creates a new type of plastic with more stable mechanical properties that can be applied in many areas of life and, at the same time, helps manufacturing businesses save on waste treatment costs. To create these PBT/PA6/CB blends, the research team used injection molding with a PBT/PA6 ratio of 75/25 combined with 0, 4, 8, and 12 % carbon black. The tensile and impact strength were tested according to the ASTM D638 and ASTM D256 standards. The results found that when adding 4 % CB to the PBT/PA6 plastic mixture, the tensile strength decreased from 34.9 to 34.8 MPa. Meanwhile, the tensile strength is improved when adding 8 % CB (35.3 MPa). At 12 % CB, a difference in tensile strength results, decreasing to 29.7 MPa. This result shows that the ratio 75/25 can give the best tensile strength value of the PBT/PA6 mixture with 8 wt. % CB. The impact strength was 3.5, 2.9, and 2.7 kJ/m2 according to 4, 8, and 12 % CB samples. Mechanical quality tests have shown that the tensile strength is improved when combining CB into the PBT/PA6 mixture, but the impact strength is reduced. SEM results show that most CB interacts with PBT/PA6 mainly because the PA6 particles are spherical and tend to separate easily from the mixture. The research found that increasing CB density worsens the bonding ability between PBT and PA6. These results help us provide experience for the most appropriate application for each purposeЦе дослідження зосереджено на аналізі впливу сажі на суміші полібутилентерефталату (ПБТ)/поліаміду 6 (ПА6). Це дослідження спрямоване на виявлення джерела відходів від нитки зубної щітки під час виробництва. Ця суміш ПБТ/ПA6 не відповідає механічним властивостям через несумісність цих двох пластмас, що означає, що ці відходи потрібно викинути та не можна використовувати повторно. У поєднанні із сажею він створює новий тип пластику з більш стабільними механічними властивостями, який можна застосовувати в багатьох сферах життя, і, в той же час, допомагає виробничим підприємствам заощаджувати витрати на переробку відходів. Для створення цих сумішей ПБТ/ПA6/сажа дослідницька група використовувала лиття під тиском із співвідношенням ПБТ/ПA6 75/25 у поєднанні з 0, 4, 8 та 12 % сажі. Міцність на розтягування та ударну міцність перевіряли відповідно до стандартів ASTM D638 та ASTM D256. Результати показали, що при додаванні 4 % сажі до пластикової суміші ПБТ/ПA6 міцність на розрив зменшилася з 34,9 до 34,8 МПа. Між тим, міцність на розрив покращується при додаванні 8 % сажі (35,3 МПа). При 12 % сажі виникає різниця в міцності на розрив, яка зменшується до 29,7 МПа. Цей результат показує, що співвідношення 75/25 може дати найкраще значення міцності на розрив суміші ПБТ/ПA6 з 8 мас. % сажі. Ударна в’язкість становила 3,5, 2,9 і 2,7 кДж/м2 за зразками 4, 8 і 12 % сажі. Механічні випробування якості показали, що міцність на розрив покращується при поєднанні сажі із сумішшю ПБТ/ПA6, але міцність на удар знижується. Результати скінченно-елементного моделювання показують, що більшість сажі взаємодіє з ПБТ/ПA6 головним чином через те, що частинки ПА6 мають сферичну форму та мають тенденцію легко відокремлюватися від суміші. Дослідження показали, що збільшення щільності сажі погіршує зв’язок між ПБТ і ПA6. Ці результати допомагають отримати досвід для найбільш відповідного застосування для кожної мет