The Religious Life of Hmong Protestants in the Central Highlands of Vietnam

Since taking over the country, the Vietnamese government has been heavily criticized for their policies and actions on addressing religion and ethnic minorities-related matters. ‘Religious freedom’ is believed to be significantly restricted and ‘the life and voices of marginalized minorities’ are said to be largely taken for granted. By exploring a specific case that covers both given concerns, the thesis provides insights into how an ethnic minority group – the Hmong – has been actively living out their religious faith in a communist country since the very first mass conversion to a western religion even though the hardships on multiple life aspects that they have to confront are countless, unseen, and untold. The dissertation is built on intensive ethnographic fieldwork that was mainly done at a focal village called Yagad in the Central Highlands. Also, several field trips were conducted in some other Hmong villages of Vietnam to gather comparative data. Along with detailed participant observation notes and a variety of field notes, the research appreciates more than 100 participants’ thoughts and voices. In terms of the data analysis, interpretation, and writing-up processes, they have been done mainly in the field of Science of Religion (Religionswissenschaft). Structurally, Part I explains how the research is defined and designed and how the whole research is processed methodologically. Part II is on the Hmong and their Encounters with Christianity on regional and global scales. A more significant portion of their current conversion to Protestantism in Vietnam is reconsidered and illuminated by numerous narratives collected in the field. Part III, titled ‘the Hmong Protestants of Vietnam: An Ethnographic Study,’ intensively explores the religious life of Hmong converts in a focal village of the Central Highlands. Firstly, this part re-examines existing conclusions on mass Hmong migrations southwards in the early 1990s empirically proved to be driven by religion-related causes. It also provides a detailed investigation of their religious practices and beliefs after their conversion in the late 1980s. As a matter of fact, the Hmong converts have been establishing a well-organized church in their own ways, creating a viral religious environment that enables every adherent to intensify their faith in preferable manners. Regarding religious belief, Hmong converts’ significant changes and their concrete expressions are displayed, confirming their unique way of believing in and communicating with God compared with their Christian counterparts worldwide. Furthermore, by examining the inter-group relations between the defined Hmong group with other groups of different ethnic and political backgrounds, this Part III shows the Hmong’s process of defining ‘Peb Hmoob’, building up and strengthening their community in the alien society. Such a successful process allows them to follow their religious group in a respected co-existence of varied Protestant denominations without any problems due to denominational differences, cohabit with other ethnic groups in harmony, and freely practice their freedom of religion in boundaries. Finally, by discovering Hmong Protestants’ religious ethic, their identity markers in the Protestant context, and considering the remaining changes and concerns present in their community, the impact of ‘being a Protestant’ on these ethnic minority people’s lives is revealed, highlighting how their ethnic and religious identities have been negotiated, which eventually results in a reconstructed identity as ‘Hmong Protestants.

Consumer Ethnocentrism, Country of Origin, Product Evaluation and Purchase Intention for Foreign Apparel Brands: the Study of Vietnam

Objectives This study attempts to explore the consumer ethnocentric and country of origin impacts on consumer behavior in the context of Vietnam. First, the study seeks to measure the variability of ethnocentric tendencies across demographic segments. Second, the study aspires to investigate the influence of country of origin on the relationship between consumer ethnocentrism and foreign product evaluation. Third, the study aims to explore whether consumer ethnocentric tendencies impact purchase intention for foreign apparel products. Summary The study adopted a quantitative design to construct the instrument. With the data collected on a sample size of 101, the independent samples t-test, the moderated multiple regression and the Pearson’s correlation coefficient were utilized to test the interrelationship between demographics, consumer ethnocentrism, country of origin, foreign product evaluation and purchase intention for foreign products. Conclusions The findings show that country of origin has positive influences on foreign product evaluation as a predictor not as moderator. Demographics does not vary with consumer ethnocentrism. Consumer ethnocentrism does not have significant influences on purchase intention for foreign products. The results leads to the need for further research

Anaerobic biodegradability of organic solid substrates by steam explosion or co-digestion

Organic solid waste is such a dominant source which accounts for nearly 50% of the total disposal solid waste. Besides, the fossil fuels, as a main source of energy production, are running out while the global energy demand is growing rapidly. The requirement for an alternative sustainable energy source is crucial to meet this demand, while minimizing greenhouse gas emissions. Anaerobic digestion for biogas recovery from organic solid waste has become an attractive technology to solve those problems with high economic and environmental benefits. In this study, several organic solid substrates including concentrated domestic sludge, industrial sludge from slaughterhouse, spent coffee grounds, microalgae and aquatic weeds were selected to evaluate their biodegradability by steam explosion or co-digestion. Biochemical methane potential tests were conducted in batch assays to verify the biomethane production of each substrate in each strategy. The results showed that industrial sludge from slaughterhouse produced highest methane yield at 745 mL/gVS without any pre-treatment because its component consists of high proportion of lipids. The lowest methane yield was obtained for aquatic weeds mainly due to its high lignocellulosic content in the cell wall. These results supported for the assumption that lipid-rich materials may have higher methane potential in comparison with lignocellulosic materials. Steam explosion at 180°C for 30 minutes did not show a substantial improvement in the methane yield but the process promoted the methane production rate of domestic sewage sludge and aquatic weeds so that reduced the lag phase time, which further shortened the hydraulic retention time of the tests. Some inhibition processes were assessed including acceptable air content inside the vessels and the precision of the triplicates. Those assessments were important in eliminating some inhibited conditions during the digestion process as well as validating the result of biochemical methane potential test.Departamento de Ingeniería Química y Tecnología del Medio AmbienteGrado en Ingeniería Químic

Approche micromécanique du comportement d'une suspension de bulles dans un fluide à seuil

This thesis contributes to characterizing the behavior of a suspension of bubbles dispersed in a non-Newtonian fluid (yield stress fluid type).It consists of three parts. The first part is a literature review identifying the theoretical and experimental works for bubbles sheared in a Newtonian material. The second part is dedicated to the experimental study of the simple shear of a bubble suspended in a yield stress fluid. The last part consists in developing an upscaling approach to study the macroscopic behavior of a suspension of bubbles in a yield stress fluid. For experimental work, we developped a first prototype of device for the study of the shearing of a bubble in a yield stress fluid. For that purpose, an air bubble is injected in a big volume of Carbopol sheared far from the bubble by a system in two parallel bands. A fist series of tests allowed to show the efficiency of the device and to obtain some results on the deformability of a sheared bubble in a yield stress fluid. For theoretical work, first we proposed estimates of the behavior of the suspension in the case of diluted scheme, Mori-Tanaka, autocoherent and morphological patterns. These models have allowed us to find that in the elastic regime the macroscopic elastic modulus of the suspension depends on the capillary number Caelast defined as the ratio of the shear modulus of the fluid suspended over the capillary pressure of the bubble. Then using a modified secant homogenization method (Suquet 1997), we estimated the overall nonlinear properties of the suspension. The model predicts that the overall yield stress of the suspension is that of the suspending fluid regardless of the size of bubbles. The validation of these micromechanical models was achieved thanks to the experimental results obtained in the laboratory (Ducloué 2014).Keywords: bubbles suspensions, yield stress fluid, rheology, capillary number, upscaling approachCette thèse est une contribution à la modélisation du comportement d'une suspension de bulles dans un fluide non newtonien du type fluide à seuil. Elle comprend trois parties. La première partie est une étude bibliographique recensant les travaux théoriques et expérimentaux pour des bulles cisaillées dans un matériau newtonien. La seconde partie est consacrée à l'étude expérimentale de cisaillement simple d'une bulle suspendue dans un fluide à seuil. La dernière partie présente une approche par changement d'échelle du comportement macroscopique d'une suspension de bulles dans un fluide à seuil. Pour le travail expérimental, nous avons développé un premier prototype de dispositif permettant de cisailler d'une bulle suspendue dans un fluide à seuil. Pour cela, une bulle d'air est injectée au sein d'un grand volume de Carbopol cisaillé loin de la bulle par un dispositif à bandes parallèles. Une première série d'essais a permis de montrer l'efficacité du dispositif et d'obtenir quelques résultats sur la déformabilité d'une bulle cisaillée par un fluide à seuil. Pour le travail théorique, d'abord nous avons proposé des estimations du comportement de la suspension dans le cas des schémas dilué, Mori-Tanaka, autocohérent et motifs morphologiques. Ces modèles nous ont permis de trouver que dans le régime élastique le module élastique macroscopique de la suspension dépend du nombre capillaire Caelast défini comme le rapport entre le module de cisaillement du fluide porteur et la pression capillaire de la bulle. Ensuite en utilisant une méthode d'homogénéisation sécante modifiée (Suquet 1997), nous avons estimé des caractéristiques non linéaires globales de la suspension. Le modèle prédit que le seuil d'écoulement de la suspension est égal au seuil d'écoulement du fluide porteur quelle que soit la taille des bulles. La validation de ces modèles micromécanique a été réalisée par comparaison aux résultats expérimentaux obtenus au laboratoire (Ducloué 2014).Mots clés : suspension de bulles, fluide à seuil, rhéologie, nombre capillaire, approche par changement d'échell

推薦システムのための複数の成分とドメインの協調手法の研究

Tohoku University石垣司課

Relationship Between Foreign Direct Investment and Economic Growth: An Applied Research in Low Income, Lower Middle Income, Upper Middle Income, and High-Income Countries

This research aims to find the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and economic growth at the global scale. The panel data, collected by the World Bank for a set of 135 countries over the period from 1990 to 2015, consists countries of four income groups – low, lower-middle, upper-middle, and high – based on gross national income (GNI) per capita. Linear regressions, which take the advantage of the ordinary least squares method, are used for estimating the unknown parameters. The results show that FDI has statistically significant and positive relationship with economic growth. Despite the development level, most countries have positive association with GDP growth. Based on these findings, some policies are recommended to attract more FDI and to use FDI resources more efficiently

EFL TEACHERS’ STRATEGIES AND CHALLENGES IN PROMOTING HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ AUTONOMY IN VOCABULARY LEARNING

Learner autonomy is now regarded as a desirable objective in language teaching. The objective of the study was to identify ELT teachers’ strategies in promoting EFL high school students’ autonomy in vocabulary learning. Besides, this research attempts to find out the challenges that ELT high school teachers employ in promoting EFL students’ autonomy in vocabulary learning. A questionnaire and an interview were used in this study to find out the strategies adopted by the teachers in the current research as well as the challenges they face. The findings of this study revealed that English language teachers frequently promoted autonomous learners in their classrooms. They usually implemented different teaching strategies, which can be categorized into three groups involving students in a student-centered atmosphere; playing various roles in the classroom; and equipping students with the strategies to learn vocabulary. Additionally, the results demonstrated that teachers faced challenges such as learners' lack of independent learning abilities, rules and regulations implemented in schools, and teachers' lack of fundamental ways to promote autonomous learning. Finally, it is hoped that the proposed pedagogical implications will contribute to the innovation of promoting learner autonomy in vocabulary learning in the context of high school in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam.  Article visualizations

Can price limit effectively reduce stock price volatility? An empirical evidence from Vietnam Stock Exchange

The financial market crashes happen in 1987 has led to discussions regarding the effectiveness of different methods of market discipline. One of the mechanisms was suggested to be implemented is circuit breakers, including price limit.Daily price limits represent explicit boundaries that pre-specify the maximum range, usually both upward and downward, in which stock prices are allowed to move within a single day. Price limit is set in various stock market around the world since the regulators argue that it help reduce and control for stock price volatility by providing a cool-off period, especially during time of panic overreaction. However, opponents of price limit argue that there are several costs associated with it, namely volatility spill-over hypothesis, delay price discovery process hypothesis, trading interfere and magnet effect hypothesis. Being an important part of the microstructure of market, the effects of price limit in financial markets have already been explored by many researchers. However, the results are somewhat mixed. This study aims to provide new evidence to the current debate by examining the impact of price limit on volatility in a small emerging market, the Vietnam stock market. The paper finds that price limit effectively reduce the excessive volatility in Vietnam stock exchange

Comparing the Generating Strategies of Hydropower of Cascade Reservoirs to Mitigate the Shortage of Water Supply

Source: ICHE Conference Archive - https://mdi-de.baw.de/icheArchive