Livestock CRP Vietnam 2019-2021 Site selection process

[The Livestock CRP can] focus on difficult regions with high poverty and ethnic minorities, showing how research can deliver impact in challenging area, but can also conduct active research in medium scale intensified livestock areas to address priority issues on market, feeds and forage, animal diseases, food safety, AMR and the environment. While poverty rates have reduced rapidly over the past decade at national level, there remain sizable pockets of poverty at regional level, particularly in North-West, Central Highlands and Mekong Delta regions. In these areas, livestock, particularly indigenous pigs and cattle, play an important livelihoods function and could raise household income if market access, productivity, and animal disease constraints are overcome. This suggests a need for a targeted, regional approach for livestockoriented research in Vietnam

An efficient approach to measure the difficulty degree of practical programming exercises based on student performances

oai:ojs.www.rev-jec.org:article/282This study examines the generality of easy to hard practice questions in programming subjects. One of the most important contributions is to propose four new formulas for determining the difficulty degree of questions. These formulas aim to describe different aspects of difficulty degree from the learner's perspective instead of the instructor's subjective opinions. Then, we used clustering technique to group the questions into three easy, medium and difficult degrees. The results will be the baseline to consider the generality of the exercise sets according to each topic. The proposed solution is then tested on the data set that includes the results of the two subjects: Programming Fundamentals, Data Structures and Algorithms from Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology. The most important result is to suggest the instructors complete various degrees according to each topic for better evaluating student's performance

Comparison of sensory characteristics of green tea in Thai Nguyen and Phu Tho, Vietnam

Green tea is a popular consumption product in Vietnam. Especially, tea which origins from Tan Cuong, Thai Nguyen has been known for long by its better quality than those coming from other regions on the country. The study aims at comparing and finding out if the difference between tea in Thai Nguyen and Phu Tho can be figured by sensory tasting. Two products picked from Tan Cuong, Thai Nguyen province and two others from Phu Ho district, Phu Tho are were evaluated by a panel of twelve judges (eleven women and one man) who was set from a group of thirty eight peoples, had completed a general training and sensory tasting on tea. The experiment on dry tea (eleven descriptors) was carried out separately of the experiment on brewed tea (twenty-one descriptors) and brewed leaf (five descriptors). All attributes are made notes on the sensory unstructured intensity scale. Statistic analyses have shown typical differences by region among all of trees groups of attributes: dry leaf (10/11 attributes), liquor (6/21 attributes) and brewed leaf (5/5 attributes)

Exploring behavioural economics: Using ‘nudge theory’ to improve the effectiveness of SafePORK interventions in Vietnam

Pork is the most popular meat consumed in Vietnam and studies have shown high (28.6-44%) Salmonella contamination rates at the point of purchase, resulting in a high incidence rate of Salmonella related food borne disease. The high microbial contamination rate is attributed to poor hygiene practice in the pork value chain and the market-based approaches to improving the safety of pork in Vietnam, or SafePORK project has designed a set of interventions to improve the standard of practice which are due to be trialled in 2019. Behavioural economics and 'nudges’ are defined as interventions with a low level of intrusiveness on personal choice which can be used to alter behaviour. While they have not yet been used for food safety in the pork value chain, some of the proposed interventions aim to alter actor’s behaviour and thus could be amenable to ‘nudging’. A previous research project to assess the potential of nudges to improve pork safety in Vietnam highlighted three main themes which could be used to influence actors within the value chain; 1) actors were most influenced by people they respected, which within the study groups were found to be veterinarians and actor’s peers, 2) actor’s reputation was regarded as an important incentive, and 3) salient visual methods of displaying information were found to be a commonly used method of delivering information in existing food safety interventions. A stakeholder workshop supported by the SafePORK project, the International Livestock Research Institute and the Royal Veterinary College was held in Hanoi to gain a better understanding of the slaughterhouse and retail processes to ascertain which nudges could be used to support the proposed interventions, and to discuss the practical aspects of implementing nudges. Participants included actors (n=32) from various parts of the pork value chain, including slaughterhouse workers, retailers, veterinarians, government officials, and researchers. During the workshop participants were separated into small groups and took part in group discussions to explore the slaughterhouse and retail processes and discuss the feasibility of using nudges to change actors' behaviours. Participants were shown several potential nudges (posters, arrows and footprints) and asked to evaluate these through discussion and a scoring exercise. After each activity a plenary session took place to allow dissemination of feedback to the entire group. The workshop found that the slaughterhouse workers and retailers appeared to be aware of the major issues surrounding foodborne disease in their industry, highlighting, during the discussions, many of the key points in the pork production chain where meat contamination with microorganisms can occur. The concept of using posters to display information was well received by the workshop participants. Both positive and negative framing of information were thought to be effective, the choice of which dependent on the target audience. However, when scored by participants, the negatively framed posters scored significantly higher than the positively framed posters, indicating a greater anticipated impact on actor’s behaviour. All participants discussed the need to have site specific photos to reflect the real context of the setting to increase engagement with the media. When considering the effect of colour on salience; red was considered dirtiest, yellow, orange, and purple considered neutral colours, and green and blue considered the cleanest colours. The participants thought that the prospect of upscaling nudges to a broader audience of retailers and consumers could be implemented but would need to be supported by competent food safety authorities. Using the findings from this workshop, site specific nudges should be created to support specific SafePORK interventions, which at this stage are likely to be in the form of informational posters. Ideally, in addition to testing the interventions in a randomly controlled trial, the nudges would be similarly tested to allow assessment of their effectiveness. Further investigation, such as trialling the use of footprints and arrows in slaughterhouse environments, is needed to ascertain the practicality of using these nudge concepts to designate clean and dirty zones

XÂY DỰNG BỘ CHỈ TIÊU PHÁT TRIỂN BỀN VỮNG VỀ CÁC LĨNH VỰC KINH TẾ, XÃ HỘI VÀ MÔI TRƯỜNG CÁC TỈNH TÂY NGUYÊN

A  sustainable  development  indication  set  plays  a  very  important  role  for  assessing,  monitoring  the  sustainable development  status  in  a  region,  supporting  policy,  decision makers to  propose  confident  decisions  to control  economic, social, and environmental themes toward sustainable developmet. The content, procedure, methodology, and methods to establish the sustainable development indicator set in Tay Nguyen (SDI) were figured out; proposing a list of sustainable development indicators for Tay Nguyen consisting of 77 indicators at regional scale, 70 indicators at provincial scale, 49 indicators at district scale. The  SDI could comprehensively show overall development process toward sustainable by 13 themes (economic field - 3 themes; social field - 5 themes; and environmental field - 5 themes). The paper outlined the SDI’s definition and indicated SDI’s significance through linkages between the sustainable development indicators and sustainable development themes.ReferencesLê Thạc Cán, Trần Thùy Chi, Nguyễn Thế Chinh, Nguyễn Viết Thịnh, Ngô Đăng Trí, Nguyễn Thanh Tuấn, Trần Văn Ý và James Hennessy, 2013. Kết quả bước đầu của Đề tài “Nghiên cứu xây dựng Bộ chỉ tiêu phát triển bền vững các lĩnh vực kinh tế xã hội và môi trường các tỉnh Tây Nguyên”, Tạp chí Khoa học Công nghệ Việt Nam, ISSN 1859-4794. No14, 2013, p 61-64. Dhakal S. 2002. Report on Indicator related research for Kitakyushu Initiative. Ministry of Environment, Japan. Harold A. Linstone, Murray Turoff, 2002. The Delphi Method: Techniques and Applications. Hui-Chun Chu, Gwo-Jen Hwang, 2008. A Delphi-based approach to developing expert systems with the cooperation of multiple experts, Expert Systems with Applications, 34(4), 2826- 840. (SCI). Jean Hugé, Hai Le Trinh, Pham Hoang Hai, Jan Kuilman and Luc Hens, 2009. Sustainability indicators for clean development mechanism projects in Vietnam, Springer Netherlands. Environment, Development and Sustainability, August 2010, Volume 12, Issue 4, pp 561-571. Trần Văn Ý, Lê Thạc Cán, Trần Thùy Chi, Nguyễn Thế Chinh, Ngô Đăng Trí, Nguyễn Viết Thịnh, Nguyễn Thanh Tuấn, 2013. Bộ chỉ tiêu phát triển bền vững về các lĩnh vực kinh tế, xã hội và môi trường các tỉnh Tây Nguyên. Kỷ yếu hội thảo quốc tế lần thứ tư, Việt Nam học, Nhà xuất bản Khoa học xã hội, Hà Nội, ngày 26-28/11/2012, tập IV, 386-400. Bộ Kế hoạch và Đầu tư, 2010. Hệ thống chỉ tiêu thống kê quốc gia (Ban hành theo Quyết định số 43/2010/QĐ/TTg ngày 02 tháng 6 năm 2010 của Thủ tướng Chính phủ). UNDP và MPI, 2005. Identification of a sustainable development indicators set and mechanism for building a sustainable development database in Vietnam (Project VIE/01/021 “Implementation of Vietnam Agenda 21”) United Nations, 2007. Indicators of Sustainable Development: Guidelines and Methodologies. Thủ tướng Chính phủ, 2012. Các chỉ tiêu giám sát và đánh giá phát triển bền vững Việt Nam giai đọan 2011-2020 (Ban hành kèm theo Quyết định số 432/QĐ-TTg ngày 12 tháng 4 năm 2012 của Thủ tướng Chính phủ). Thủ tướng Chính phủ, 2013. Bộ chỉ tiêu giám sát, đánh giá phát triển bền vững địa phương giai đoạn 2013-2020 (Ban hành kèm theo Quyết định số 2157/QĐ-TTg ngày 11 tháng 11 năm 2013 của Thủ tướng Chính phủ). A  sustainable  development  indication  set  plays  a  very  important  role  for  assessing,  monitoring  the  sustainable development  status  in  a  region,  supporting  policy,  decision makers to  propose  confident  decisions  to control  economic, social, and environmental themes toward sustainable developmet. The content, procedure, methodology, and methods to establish the sustainable development indicator set in Tay Nguyen (SDI) were figured out; proposing a list of sustainable development indicators for Tay Nguyen consisting of 77 indicators at regional scale, 70 indicators at provincial scale, 49 indicators at district scale. The  SDI could comprehensively show overall development process toward sustainable by 13 themes (economic field - 3 themes; social field - 5 themes; and environmental field - 5 themes). The paper outlined the SDI’s definition and indicated SDI’s significance through linkages between the sustainable development indicators and sustainable development themes

ẢNH HƯỞNG CỦA TỈ LỆ Ba/Ti LÊN ĐẶC TRƯNG CỦA HẠT NANO BaTiO3 TỔNG HỢP BẰNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP THỦY NHIỆT

Highly dispersed BaTiO3 nanospheres with a uniform particle size were synthesized with the hydrothermal method. The influence of Ba/Ti molar ratios on the formation of BaTiO3 nanospheres was studied by analyzing the XRD and SEM data. The TiO2·H2O synthesized with the sulfuric acid method assisted by ultrasonication was used as a starting material. Highly dispersed BaTiO3 nanospheres with an average size of about 100 nm were obtained at 200 °C in 12 hours with a Ba/Ti ratio of 1.5. The Ba/Ti ratios have a strong influence on the formation of nano BaTiO3 and the phase transition. The particle size increases with the Ba/Ti ratio, while the uniformity decreases.Vật liệu BaTiO3 nano hình cầu phân tán cao với kích thước đồng đều được tổng hợp bằng phương pháp thủy nhiệt. Ảnh hưởng của tỉ lệ mol Ba/Ti lên sự hình thành vật liệu được nghiên cứu bằng cách phân tích dữ liệu XRD và SEM. TiO2·nH2O tổng hợp bằng phương pháp axit sunfuric với sự hỗ trợ sóng siêu âm được sử dụng làm nguyên liệu ban đầu. Vật liệu nano BaTiO3 hình cầu với độ phân tán cao và kích thước trung bình khoảng 100 nm đã thu được tại 200 °C trong 12 giờ với tỉ lệ Ba/Ti = 1,5. Tỷ lệ Ba/Ti ảnh hưởng mạnh đến sự hình thành BaTiO3 nano hình cầu với quá trình chuyển pha. Khi tăng tỉ lệ Ba/Ti, kích thước hạt tăng và tính đồng nhất giảm