Investigating learners’ English reading and writing skill enhancement using a framework of strengthening Ideal L2 Self for Vietnamese English-majored undergraduates

This study investigates the degree to which the first-year English-majored students’ reading and writing skills were enhanced and how they perceived their skill enhancement after the treatment of the Visionary Motivational Process (VMP) was integrated into the existing course of reading and writing at a university in Vietnam. Employing the theory of L2 Motivational Self System (L2 MSS) (Dörnyei, 2009) accompanied with the workable visionary enhancement activities (Hadfield and Dörnyei, 2013) in building up and developing students’ Ideal L2 self, this paper’s primary purposes comprise enhancing students’ language skills as regards reading and writing skills and exploring their perceptions towards the skill development through the intervention of the VMP. With the mixed methods used, the quantitative data (pre/post-test), and the qualitative data (learner diary) both revealed students’ reading and writing skills were significantly enhanced after the VMP, and notably, students’ perceptions towards the skill enhancement were recorded positively and mainly focused on ‘learning satisfaction’ in their learning and ‘motivational value’ of the VMP lesson plan

Synthesis and reactivity of 4-(trifluoromethyl)azetidin-2-ones

Because of the beneficial effect of a trifluoromethyl group on the biological properties of bioactive compounds on the one hand and the versatile synthetic potential of beta-lactams on the other hand, 4-CF3-beta-lactams comprises interesting entities for the preparation of a large variety of CF3-substituted nitrogen-containing target structures with promising biological characteristics. In this review, we present an overview of different building block approach-based routes toward the synthesis of 4-(trifluoromethyl)azetidin-2-ones and the application of the "beta-lactam synthon method" for the synthesis of a diverse set of (a)cyclic CF3-substituted molecules by means of ring-opening and ring-transformation reactions

Foreign direct investment and the labour market in Vietnam's services sector

The overall aim of this thesis is to investigate, theoretically and empirically, the impacts of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the host labour market. Specific objectives focus on exploring the role of FDI firms in determining wages and the employment of female workers (hereafter referred to as female employment) by domestic firms, using the empirical case of the services sector in Vietnam. While the literature suggests that foreign firms, especially large multinationals, tend to pay higher and employ women more intensively than local firms, there is scant evidence on whether and how FDI firms can influence domestic firms' wages and gendered employment, notably in the context of service industries. This thesis contributes to filling these knowledge gaps from both theoretical and empirical grounds. To realise the research objectives, I constructed two theoretical models to illustrate how the presence of FDI firms can be a determinant of local firms' pay and employment decisions. The first model shows that foreign presence can influence the expected average wage of domestic firms (causing so-called 'wage spillovers') through two contrasting channels, namely productivity spillovers and cut-off capability. The second model shows that FDI firms can affect domestic firms' female employment (measured by female-to-male labour ratio), directly via augmented female productivity spillovers and indirectly via the cut-off effect. The ultimate impact of foreign presence on wage and female employment depend on the relative strength of the two channels. Guided by the theoretical frameworks, I then specified two econometric models to empirically test and estimate the impacts of FDI firms on average wage and female employment of domestic counterparts. The empirical analyses utilise rich panel datasets of firms in Vietnam's services sector over the five-year period 2009-2013, which were extracted from the enterprise survey database of the General Statistics Office (GSO). In the specified models, foreign presence is the variable of interest and measured by the employment share of FDI firms in an industry, region and year. To address the potential endogeneity problem, I utilised the Generalised Method of Moments with Instrumental Variable (IV-GMM) estimation technique. Of this method, I adopted a novel approach to constructing IVs, which capitalises on the geographical and industry segmentation of the local labour market. In the estimation procedure, I conducted a number of diagnostic checking, including the endogeneity test, underidentification and overidentification tests (for the relevance and validity of selected instruments), and accounted for multicollinearity, autocorrelation, and heteroskedasticy problems. The estimation results indicate that FDI firms exert positive and statistically significant impacts on the pay level and female employment of domestic firms in Vietnam's services sector. Specifically, a one per cent increase in foreign presence induces local firms to raise their real wage and female-to-male labour ratio by 1.15 per cent and 2.18 per cent on average, respectively. The findings also suggest that higher paying firms tend to be larger, state owned, more capital intensive, and well established. Additionally, smaller, privately owned, less labour-intensive firms are more likely to hire women at a higher rate. To provide deeper insights into the heterogeneity of FDI-linked impacts, I extended the analysis by examining different layers of disaggregation. Notably, at the two-digit Vietnam SIC level, the scatterplots of the data and the estimation results reveal divergent effects of foreign presence on domestic firms' wages (positive in the high-wage group and negative in the low-wage group), and female employment (positive in the male-intensive group and insignificant in the female-intensive group). Likewise, additional investigations at the three-digit level show heterogeneous FDI impacts, depending on specific characteristics of domestic and foreign firms. While the existence of positive FDI impacts at the overall sector level may imply services FDI attraction as a viable strategy to improve local wages and promote female employment opportunities, the findings of heterogeneous effects warrant a more cautious and selective approach to be adopted by local firms, workers and governments in policy and decision formulation

Integrated teaching in primary schools: A systematic review of current practices, barriers, and future developments

Recent years have seen a rise in the use of integrated teaching in many nations across the globe due to the vital role it plays in the delivery of primary education programs that focus on the growth of students’ abilities. However, a comprehensive review of integrated classroom practices in elementary schools has yet to be conducted, making it difficult for interested readers to make education decisions about entering the sector or for established experts to keep up with the latest developments. To fill this gap, we performed a meta-analysis using the PRISMA procedure and a comprehensive literature search. Following the PRISMA guidelines, the study analyzed 24 publications on integrated teaching in primary school that appeared in Scopus and Google Scholar between 2014 and 2022. The study used text analysis and synthesis to highlight active nations, extracted keywords, drawing obstacles and challenges, and future research opportunities. The result reported 13 types of obstacles and challenges that need to be overcome in the long run. As such, five research directions were compiled based on prior publications, namely as teachers’ training program, integrated teaching materials, integrated teaching models, school policies and other interventions, and others. Interested readers, prospective researchers and policymakers could benefit from these findings by tackling existing issues or investigating recommended research directions

The future of robotic-assisted laparoscopic surgery

Introduction: Since the first revolution of robotic-assisted surgery officially happened in 2000, the healthcare service worldwide has transformed into a new era due to its superior technological advancements, particularly in laparoscopic surgery. Da Vinci which is seen as a master-slave system and Kymerax which is categorized as a hand-held device are commonly used in robotic-assisted laparoscopic surgery. Whilst a conventional or open method requires a large incision to perform a surgery, laparoscopy - a minimally invasive surgery (MIS) is an advantageous surgical method which reduces an abdominal incision to a minimum, and effectively exploited with robots. Methods: Based on available articles with the object of robotic surgical surgery, two SWOT analysis for Da Vinci and Kymerax were formulated to understand strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of each system in comparison with the traditional laparoscopic surgery. From that, the future outlook is anticipated based on the scientific background. Results: Alongside technological advantages of Da Vinci mainly known as 6-degree of freedom, dexterity enhancement, stereovision, tremor filtering and especially minimal invasive surgery, it still has disadvantages that are not neglectable such as huge investment and lack of haptic feedback. Although the malfunction rate of Da Vinci is not significantly high, surgeons should be aware of it to fix or alter instruments in time. Kymerax is not as advanced as Da Vinci but it can fill in the gap of the Da Vinci which includes thelarge investment and bulky instruments. The Kymerax is the low-cost hand-held device allowing multiple degrees of freedom. It is an optimal combination between traditional performance and robotic performance allowing surgeons to manipulate in their hands and ensure haptic feedback. Conclusions: Both Da Vinci and Kymerax systems offer superior benefits for medical service due to the ongoing technological growth. The cost-effectiveness of Da Vinci system is currently a problematic issue when medical institutions consider to install them. The surgical instruments market, however, has become highly competitive which is likely leading to the decline of the costly investments. In the digital world nowadays, it will be a promising future for more integrated medical inventions

Situation and solutions to implement social security policies in Nga Son district, Thanh Hoa province, Vietnam

Analyze the current situation and propose solutions in the implementation of social security policies in Nga Son district, Thanh Hoa province, Vietnam. 155 family support representatives who are enjoying social security policies in 3 sample units: Nga Thuy, Nga Thang and Nga Son town, the sample is taken based on general consultation and guidance of functional departments related to social security policy implementation in Nga Son district , Thanh Hoa province. Statistics and description of the actual situation of implementing social welfare policy in Nga Son district, Thanh Hoa province in terms of: job creation policy, income; social insurance policies, preferential policies and social allowances, basic social service policies. From there, propose solutions to improve the efficiency of organization and implementation of social security policies in Nga Son district, Thanh Hoa province. Conclusion: The study has successfully analyzed the actual situation of implementing social security policies in Nga Son district, Thanh Hoa province in the period of 2020-2022, specifically in the following contents: Employment, income, employment policy, social insurance, social incentives and allowances, basic social services. The policy implementation process still has a number of limitations, such as: The planning policies to organize the implementation still do not have the participation of the people in the implementation process, mainly from the top down. , there has not been much participation of policy beneficiaries. From those limitations, study the orientation of implementing social security policies in Nga Son district and propose 4 groups of possible solutions

NONLINEAR PROPERTIES OF STRUCTURAL HETEROGENEOUS PHOTONIC CRYSTAL FIBERS WITH As2Se3 SUBSTRATE

We examine the possibility of improving the nonlinear properties of photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) with As2Se3 substrates by creating a difference in the diameters of the air holes of the rings around the core. With the new design, all-normal dispersion properties, small effective mode area, high nonlinear coefficient, and low confinement loss were achieved in the long-wavelength range of 2.0–7.0 µm. The highest nonlinear coefficient is 4414.918 W-1.km-1 at 4.5 µm for the lattice constant (Ʌ) of 3.0 µm and the filling factor (d/Ʌ) of 0.85, while the lowest loss is 1.823´10-21 dB/cm with Ʌ = 3.5 µm and d/Ʌ = 0.8. Based on the numerical simulation results, the characteristics of two optimal structures have been analyzed in detail to guide the application in supercontinuum generation