An Alternative Approach to Classify Illegal Logging: The Case in Vietnam

This article examines the different kinds of illegal logging that takes place in Vietnam, challenging the typical approaches to understanding and classifying the various criminal activities involved. We argue that either overlooking the classification of illegal logging or relying solely on illegal timber volumes and legal descriptions to categorise the crime is not sufficient to comprehend its diverse nature. This leads to inappropriate measures to tackle the crime. Instead, this study suggests that illegal logging should be categorised into three types, which are fundamentally distinctive, not only with regard to the volumes of illicit timber and the legislative definitions of the crime, but also (and more importantly) with reference to the attributes of harvesters, the degree of their involvement and their motivations, and the level of organisation involved in criminal commissions

The role of environmental regulations and innovation in TFP convergence: Evidence from manufacturing SMEs in Viet Nam

This is a pioneer study investigating the relationship between environmental compliance and TFP convergence for SMEs. It examines the impacts of environmental compliance, and its combination with innovation, on TFP convergence of manufacturing SMEs. We applied the dynamic panel regression method to estimate stochastic TFP. We find evidence of a Ø-convergence but a σ-divergence. Impacts of environmental practices of firms - pollution abatement and control expenditure, and environmental treatment - are only significant through their interaction with innovation. The Ø-convergence in firms' TFP is influenced by their industrial identity, while firms' size and investment have marginal impact

Investigating Effects of Teacher’s Using Authentic Texts on Cognitive Reading Engagement of Vietnamese EFL Students

The study examines the effects of teacher’s using authentic texts on EFL students’ cognitive reading engagement related to four variables including (i) reading comprehension, (ii) oral response to reading, (iii) reaction paragraph, and (iv) students’ perceptions of learning to read. Participants included 52 Vietnamese undergraduate students of EFL pre-intermediate level. The data of the study were collected through reading tests for the first three variables and a 32- item questionnaire for the fourth variable. Results revealed that students in the experimental condition achieved significantly better understanding of reading comprehension after the intervention course. In terms of reflection after reading and creating a reaction paragraph, the holistic quality of oral response and the reaction paragraph was significantly improved for both groups from a peer rating. However, students in the experimental group showed a more dramatic increase. Moreover, the findings of the questionnaire showed that students in the intervention course achieved a more positive perception of their learning to read

Flexible Pavement Life Cycle Cost Analysis by Using Monte-Carlo Method and the Suggestions for Developing Countries

Flexible road pavement plays an essential role in developing an effective, economic, and safe operation road network of any country. In Vietnam, a developing country, the selection of a suitable flexible pavement structure is always a challenge due to fiscal limitations. The traditional determinant method (TDM) by which pavement structures are selected mainly on the basis of initial construction costs and traffic load has been used for many years in the nation. This paper presents the use of Monte Carlo simulation to analyze the entire flexible pavement life cycle cost. Data including initial and maintenance costs and road user costs were collected from several different types of existing flexible pavement in Nghe An province, Vietnam. Random variations of several main inputs were explored in order to develop density distribution functions. These functions then were used as the bases for Monte Carlo simulation. One million simulation runs were implemented and the Net Present Values (NPVs) among pavement types were compared under the light of risk analysis. Research results showed that TDM method provided bias and uncertain results compared to that of Monte Carlo one. In terms of long- term pavement performance, a low-cost pavement structure should not always be considered as a wise selection. Some other suggestions for a developing country as Vietnam were also included

On a system of nonlinear wave equations with the Kirchhoff-Carrier and Balakrishnan-Taylor terms

summary:We study a system of nonlinear wave equations of the Kirchhoff-Carrier type containing a variant of the Balakrishnan-Taylor damping in nonlinear terms. By the linearization method together with the Faedo-Galerkin method, we prove the local existence and uniqueness of a weak solution. On the other hand, by constructing a suitable Lyapunov functional, a sufficient condition is also established to obtain the exponential decay of weak solutions

Impact of relations between employees and customers to the customers’ positive word-of-mouth in real estate industry

The study aims to explore and measure the relationship between employees and customers impacting positively to the word-of-mouth of customers who bought house from the real estate developers in Ho Chi Minh City. The study was based on survey data from 300 customers who bought house from the real estate developers in Ho Chi Minh City and using techniques of Cronbach Alpha analysis and Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA). The study shows 4 factors of customer relationship affecting positively customers’ word-of-mouth, including: (1) Familiarity; (2) Personal connection; (3) Care; (4) Trust. From the findings, the study suggests some policy implications to the real estate developers to improve the customers’ positive word-of-mouth

Fuzzy gain scheduling control apply to an RC Hovercraft

The Fuzzy Gain Scheduling (FGS) methodology for tuning the Proportional – Integral – Derivative (PID) traditional controller parameters by scheduling controlled gains in different phases, is a simple and effective application both in industries and real-time complex models while assuring the high achievements over pass decades, is proposed in this article. The Fuzzy logic rules of the triangular membership functions are exploited on-line to verify the Gain Scheduling of the Proportional – Integral – Derivative controller gains in different stages because it can minimize the tracking control error and utilize the Integral of Time Absolute Error (ITAE) minima criterion of the controller design process. For that reason, the controller design could tune the system model in the whole operation time to display the efficiency in tracking error. It is then implemented in a novel Remote Controlled (RC) Hovercraft motion models to demonstrate better control performance in comparison with the PID conventional controller

A Hybrid of Adaptation and Dynamic Routing based on SDN for Improving QoE in HTTP Adaptive VBR Video Streaming

Recently, HTTP Adaptive Streaming HAS has received significant attention from both industry and academia based on its ability to enhancing media streaming services over the Internet. Recent research solutions that have tried to improve HAS by adaptation at the client side only may not be completely effective without interacting with routing decisions in the upper layers. In this paper, we address the aforementioned issue by proposing a dynamic bandwidth allocation and management architecture for streaming video flows to improve users satisfaction. We also introduce an initial cross layer hybrid method that combines quality adaptation of variable bitrate video streaming over the HTTP protocol at the client side and SDN based dynamical routing. This scheme is enabled by the Software Defined Networking architecture that is now being considered as an emerging paradigm that disassociates the forwarding process from the routing process. SDN brings flexibility and the ability to flexibly change routing solutions, in turn resulting in dynamically improving the services provided in the application layer. Our experimental results show that the proposed solution offers significantly higher overall bitrates as well as smoother viewing experience than existing methods.Comment: 14 pages, 17 figures, IJCSNS International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, http://paper.ijcsns.org/07_book/201907/20190708.pd