"Eating alone is painful" : an interdisciplinary and ethnographically inspired sociolinguistic investigation into Vietnamese mealtime ritual invitations : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics at Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand

Invitations are a commonplace part of language ritual at meals in Vietnamese culture. They are verbal and non-verbal signals extended around everyday meals and interpreted as offers or invitations for food and/or company at meals. These invitations form communal and familial bonds and serve as a means to maintain hierarchical order. However, the commonly-held misperceptions of these invitations include them being explicitly verbalised, occurring only at meal-starts, and being specific to regions and people groups. Previous studies discussed the language of invitations from a narrow linguistic perspective which led to limited understandings of their nature and of how contextual and social factors govern their usage. My research examines linguistic and cultural perceptions and usage of Vietnamese mealtime ritual invitations (VMRIs) by about 350 native speakers of Vietnamese in New Zealand and Vietnam. My study draws on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork data, including participant observations, informal talks, diaries, video-recordings, and interviews. This is an interdisciplinary study drawing upon theoretical ideas from Sociolinguistics and Cultural Anthropology to analyse and interpret the data. The main findings are from two perspectives. From a linguistic perspective, VMRIs exhibit several features. Firstly, their linguistic variants are diverse. Secondly, particular linguistic features can express formality, politeness, hierarchical respect, and communicative conventions. Thirdly, key sociocultural variables (age, gender, familiarity, perception, and socio-family status) appear to influence usage. From an anthropological perspective, VMRIs are daily-life ritual practices manifesting the value of food in Vietnamese socio-cultural and historical context of food insecurity, the significance of family meals and meal manners, and the role of women. This study on Vietnamese mealtime ritual invitations expands the conceptual boundaries of invitations as multiplex discourses by showing how context (food and family meals) and other factors (status, familiarity, age, gender, and perception) generate and constrain language use. It also highlights the interrelationship between language and behaviour, the ritual practice of familial bonding during mealtimes, and the role of women in Vietnamese society. The findings emphasise the importance not only of taking account of speakers and hearers’ identities and discursive contexts when interpreting contextual language use but also of identifying those contexts

The minimum total heating lander

The article will research a lander flying into the atmosphere with flow velocity constraint, i.e. the total load by means of minimizing the total thermal energy at the end of the landing process. The lander’s distance at the last moment depends on the variables selected from the total thermal energy minima. To deal with the problem, the  Pontryagin maximum principle and scheme Dubovitskij Milutin will be applied. Boundary value problems are solved by the introduction and continuation of the perturbation parameters and solutions for the selected parameter. The results of simulations are performed on Matlab

Zooplankton from Can Giuoc River in Southern Vietnam

In this study, the variables of zooplankton and water quality were investigated in the Can Giuoc River, Southern Vietnam. Zooplankton was monitored in April and September 2015 at 5 sampling sites in the river. Some basic water quality parameters were also tested, including pH, total suspended solid (TSS), dissolved oxygen (DO), biological oxygen demand (BOD5), inorganic nitrogen (NH4+), dissolved phosphorus (PO43-), and coliform. The zooplankton biodiversity indices were applied for the water quality assessment. The results showed that pH ranged from 6.7 to 7.6 during the monitoring. The TSSs were between 34–117 mg/L. The DO and BOD5 were from 0.6 to 3.8 mg/L and from 6.3 to 13.2 mg/L, respectively. The NH4+ and PO43- concentrations ranged from 0.44 to 3.23 and from 0.08 to 1.85 mg/L, respectively. The coliform number was between 9.3x103–9.3x104 MPN/100 mL. The zooplankton analyses showed that there were 31 species of coelenterates, rotatoria, oligochaetes, cladocerans, copepods, ostracods, mysidacea, and 8 larval types. Thereof, the species of copepods were dominant in the species number. The zooplankton density ranged from 9 500 to 23 600 individuals/m3 with the main dominant species of Moina dubia (Cladocera), Thermocyclops hyalinus, Acartia clausi, Oithona similis (Copepoda), and nauplius copepods. The biodiversity index values during the monitoring were from 1.47 to 1.79 characteristic of mesotrophic conditions of the aquatic environment. Besides, the species richness positively correlated with pH, TSS, DO, BOD5, NH4+, PO43-, and coliform, while the zooplankton densities got a positive correlation with DO, BOD5, NH4+, PO43-, and coliform. The results confirmed the advantage of using zooplankton and its indices for water quality assessment

Vietnamese cultural diplomacy and the enhancement of Vietnam's soft power - A case study of Vietnamese cultural diplomacy towards ASEAN

The idea of soft power has emerged since the beginning years of the 21st century and it has caught attention of many scholars and political leaders of the world. Cultural diplomacy is an instrument utilized by governments to attract the governments and the public of other countries, especially through cultural activities. Studies on soft power and cultural diplomacy have been carried out in different countries such as the United States (the U.S.), China, Japan, South Korea, India, Canada, Australia and so on. However, there are not many works on soft power and cultural diplomacy of small country like Vietnam in both Vietnamese and English literature. This thesis attempts to provide a more in-depth analysis on how Vietnam has carried out its cultural diplomacy in order to enhance its soft power in Asia. The thesis sets up a framework for the analysis of Vietnam’s soft power and cultural diplomacy with theories in international relations as well as with examples from the United States, China, Japan and South Korea. In the next parts, Vietnam’s soft power and cultural diplomacy will be analyzed in specific details. Vietnamese cultural diplomacy towards ASEAN will also be discussed in the last part of the thesis as a case study for a better understanding of Vietnam’s soft power and cultural diplomacy in general

A characterization of the algebraic degree in semidefinite programming

In this article, we show that the algebraic degree in semidefinite programming can be expressed in terms of the coefficient of a certain monomial in a doubly symmetric polynomial. This characterization of the algebraic degree allows us to use the theory of symmetric polynomials to obtain many interesting results of Nie, Ranestad and Sturmfels in a simpler way.Comment: 14 page

Shortage in Access to Basic Social Services: A Case Study of Ethnic Minority Groups in Vietnam

The research uses shortages in the multi-dimensional poverty criteria and household living standards survey data collected by the General Statistic Office to evaluate the access to basic social services by ethnic minorities. The result shows significant differences in shortages between the Kinh and ethnic minorities, among ethnic minority groups and among localities. Differences in geographical location, level of development and lacking specific policies are the main causes. A number of policy recommendations has been made to narrow the gap in access to basic social services among ethnic minority groups in Vietnam. Keywords: Ethnic minorities, basic social services, shortage in access to basic social services, Vietnam DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/12-17-15 Publication date:June 30th 202

CHARACTERISTICS OF QUATERNARY SEDIMENTARY FACIES IN RELATION TO WATER BEARING CAPACITY OF AQUIFERS AND AQUICLUDES IN RED RIVER DELTA, VIETNAM

Joint Research on Environmental Science and Technology for the Eart

Anti-inflammatory activity of methyl ferulate isolated from Stemona tuberosa Lour

AbstractObjectiveTo evaluate the anti-inflammatory activity of methyl ferulate (MF) isolated from the roots of Stemona tuberosa (S. tuberosa) Lour (Stemonaceae) in lipopolysaccharide activated macrophage cells.MethodsMethanol extracts of a root powder of S. tuberosa were prepared for isolation of a potential anti-inflammatory agent using ultrasound extraction combined with repeated chromatography on silica gel. After the quantitative analyses, anti-inflammatory activity of the isolated compound was evaluated by measurement of cytokine release, NO generation, expression of cyclooxygenase-2 and phosphorylation of mitogen activated protein kinases including p38 and c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase using quantitative kits and Western blotting with specific antibodies.ResultsThe isolation process yielded a potential anti-inflammatory compound with a purity level of 99% determined by high performance liquid chromatography. The compound was identified as MF by using nuclear magnetic resonance. MF strongly inhibited the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines from macrophages, including IL-6, TNFα, IFNγ, yet it did not affect the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10. Phosphorylation of p38 and c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase were clearly reduced in MF-treated macrophages stimulated with lipopolysaccharide. cyclooxygenase-2 expression and NO generation by macrophages were also suppressed when the cells were treated with MF.ConclusionsThe data suggested that MF is a possible inhibitor of the mitogen activated phosphor kinase pathway and could be a potential anti-inflammatory agent isolated for the first time in medicinal plant S. tuberosa

The influence of scalar unparticle on the production of multiple photons in the Randall- Sundrum model

The influence of scalar unparticle on the production of multiple photons in the Randall- Sundrum model at muon colliders with the center of mass energy $\sqrt{s} = 3 - 10$ TeV is evaluated in detail. The results indicate that the total cross-sections depend strongly on the polarization of the muon and antimuon beams, the collision energy $\sqrt{s}$, the scaling dimension $d_{U}$ of the unparticle operator $\mathcal{O}_{U}$ and the energy scale $\Lambda_{U}$. Numerical evaluation shows that the cross - sections for the production of four - photons at the final state are much larger than the associated production of two - photons with the unparticle under the same conditions.Comment: 13 figures, 1 table. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1807.0045