The Impact of Remittances on Saving Behaviour and Expenditure Patterns in Vietnam

We examine the effects of receiving remittances on household saving behaviour and expenditure patterns in Vietnam. We consider the amount of saving, the saving rate, and the share of expenditure, as well as per capita expenditure on education, health, assets, house repairs, food, non-food, and utilities. We apply propensity score matching to data from the Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey (VHLSS) of 2012. We find that remittances have a positive impact on household savings and increase both the amount of saving and the saving rate. As far as expenditure patterns are concerned, our results indicate that receiving households spend more on health, assets, and house repairs, and less on food. This finding suggests that households tend to use remittances productively, with receiving households increasing their investments in human and physical capital. For the economy as a whole, remittances can create more opportunities for the development of services provided by banks, financial institutions, hospitals and healthcare centres, and give incentives to the production of building materials and tangible assets

Some Theoretical and Practical Issues on the Impact of CSR on the Vietnam Textile and Garment Enterprises Operational Efficiency

The paper shows the impacts of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on the operational efficiency of Vietnamese textile enterprises by using primary data from qualitative analysis methods. The results show that corporate social responsibility has a great influence on the operational efficiency of textile enterprises in many ways. On that basis, the article proposes several recommendations for the Government of Vietnam as well as Vietnamese textile enterprises to well perform corporate social responsibilities. Keywords:Corporate social responsibility (CSR), operational efficiency, financial performance DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/12-15-04 Publication date:May 31st 202

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Oxidant-free and metal-free highly-selective catalytic production of vanillic aldehyde through activated carbon fiber-mediated aerobic oxidation

Typically, oxidizing agents (such as H2O2) are necessitated for vanillic alcohol (VLA) conversion; nevertheless, intensive consumption of H2O2 is required due to the stoichiometric chemistry, and metal catalysts are usually required to improve conversion of VLA by H2O2. Nevertheless, for pursuing the goal of sustainability, it would be highly desired to develop an oxidizing agent-free and metal-free process which can selectively oxidize VLA to vanillic aldehyde (VAE). The aim of this study is to propose activated carbon fiber (ACF) as a highly effective catalyst for VLA conversion to VAE without using metals and oxidizing agents. At 120 °C within 30 min, ACF could enable CVLA = 100% with SVAE = 100% without using metals/oxidants. The effect of radical scavengers and ESR analyses further reveal that the oxidation of VLA to VAE by ACF could be attributed to reactive oxygen species derived from ACF-mediated aerobic reactions

2-dimensional nanoleaf-like porous copper nitrate hydroxide as an effective heterogeneous catalyst for selective oxidation of hydroxymethylfurfural to diformylfuran

Background: 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidin-oxyl (TEMPO) accompanied with Cu has been validated as a promising oxidative catalytic process for oxidizing 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) to value-added products. Since Cu-O cluster plays an important role in TEMPO-based HMF oxidation, and N-O moiety would facilitate the catalytic cycle of TEMPO regeneration, an interesting solid-phase material, copper nitrate hydroxide (CNH) (Cu2(OH)3NO3) is proposed for the first time for co-catalyzing TEMPO to oxidize HMF into a valuable product, 2,5-diformylfuran (DFF). Methods: In particular, a CNH with a 2D elliptical and porous surface is fabricated to become the leaf-like porous CNH (LPCNH) to maximize surface contact via a relatively simple procedure, and LPCNH would be an advantageous catalyst with TEMPO for converting HMF into DFF. Significant findings: While TEMPO or LPCNH was unable to oxidize HMF into DFF, the combination of LPCNH/TEMPO rapidly, and efficiently converted HMF to DFF with high selectivities. At 140 °C, a significantly high YDFF = 99.3% with SDFF = 100% can be obtained, and surpass almost all reported values, indicating that LPCNH+TEMPO is advantageous and selective to convert HMF into DFF. LPCNH could be also reusable for co-catalyzing with TEMPO for converting HMF to DFF. These findings validate that LPCNH is certainly a useful heterogeneous catalyst for valorizing HMF

Nanoneedle-assembled copper/cobalt sulfides on nickel foam as an enhanced 3D hierarchical catalyst to activate monopersulfate for rhodamine B degradation

While metal oxides are conventionally proposed for activating monopersulfate (MPS) to degrade refractory contaminants, metal sulfides have recently gained increased attention for MPS activation because these sulfides exhibit more reactive redox characteristics to enhance the catalytic activation of MPS. The present study attempts to develop a novel material comprised of metal sulfides with 3D hierarchical nanostructures to activate MPS. Specifically, a 3D hierarchically structured catalyst was fabricated by growing CuCo-layered double hydroxide (LDH) on nickel foam (NF), followed by direct sulfurization, affording Cu/CoS@NF (CCSNF). CCSNF could exhibit a unique morphology of floral bunches comprised of nano-needles, residing on the NF surfaces. Compared with its precursor, CuCo-LDH@NF, oxide analogue, and CuCo2O4@NF, CCSNF possessed superior physical and chemical properties, including larger surface area and pore volume, higher current density, and lower charge transfer resistance. These features render CCSNF a much more effective catalyst than CuCo-LDH@NF and CuCo2O4@NF for activating MPS to degrade Rhodamine B (RB). In particular, RB degradation by CCSNF-activated MPS required an activation energy only 26.8 kJ/mol, which is much lower than the reported values. The activation mechanism and degradation pathway of RB degradation by CCSNF-activated MPS were investigated and validated through experimental evidences and density function theory calculations