On how religions could accidentally incite lies and violence: folktales as a cultural transmitter

Folklore has a critical role as a cultural transmitter, all the while being a socially accepted medium for the expressions of culturally contradicting wishes and conducts. In this study of Vietnamese folktales, through the use of Bayesian multilevel modeling and the Markov chain Monte Carlo technique, we offer empirical evidence for how the interplay between religious teachings (Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism) and deviant behaviors (lying and violence) could affect a folktale’s outcome. The findings indicate that characters who lie and/or commit violent acts tend to have bad endings, as intuition would dictate, but when they are associated with any of the above Three Teachings, the final endings may vary. Positive outcomes are seen in cases where characters associated with Confucianism lie and characters associated with Buddhism act violently. The results supplement the worldwide literature on discrepancies between folklore and real-life conduct, as well as on the contradictory human behaviors vis-à-vis religious teachings. Overall, the study highlights the complexity of human decision-making, especially beyond the folklore realm

APPLICATION OF DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS FOR MEASURING SERVICE QUALITY FROM DISTRIBUTORS’ PERSPECTIVE IN SUPPLY CHAIN

Abstract: Vietnam’s textile and apparel sector has achieved fast and sustainable growth over the past years and played an important role in national socio-economic development. The export value of textile and garment products in recent years has ranked number two in the country’s total export revenue. In this scenario, an attempt was made to examine the service quality at the manufacturer – distributor interface of the textile supply chain and provide clear guidelines for benchmarking of service quality in multi-unit services. A sample of 144 distributors from Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in major regions of South Vietnam was selected. Exploratory Factor Analysis was used to identify the critical factors of service quality. This research applies the data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach to the computation of a measure of overall service quality and benchmarking when measuring service quality with the Service Performance model. Dealing with the five dimensions of Service Performance (SERVPERF) as outputs, the proposed approach uses DEA as a tool for multiple criteria decision making (MCDM), in particular, the pure output DEA model without inputs. Data envelopment analysis measures the relative efficiency of decision-making units (DMUs) and identifies a set of corresponding efficient DMUs that can be used as benchmarks for the improvement of inefficient DMUs. The findings shed valuable insights on measures and critical underlying dimensions of service quality in the context of the supply chain in the textile industry, specifically from the distributor perspective. The results also give the best performer in textile SMEs and set the benchmarking guideline within each group among SEMsKeywords: service quality, data envelopment analysis, SERVPER

Differentiation Effect of Two Alkaloid Fractions from Vietnamese Lycopodiaceae on Mouse Neural Stem Cells

Various Lycopodium alkaloids have been studied for their various biological activities including anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, immunomodulatory, and neuroprotective activities. Moreover, these alkaloid compounds have high potential in the treatment of neuron degenerative disease. This study has been carried out to test the effect of Huperzia serrata (Thunb.) Trevis, and Lycopodium clavatum L alkaloid fractions on the mouse neural stem cells (NSCs). Firstly, the alkaloid fractions were used to verify its toxicity on NSCs. The multiple concentrations of alkaloid fractions from H. serrata (0.044; 0.088; 0.175; 0.35; 0.7; 1.4 mg/ml) and L. clavatum (0.031; 0.063; 0.125; 0.25; 0.50; 1.0; 2.0 mg/ml) have been used for the treatment of NSCs at period of 48h incubation. Results of the study suggested that the IC50 value of H. serrata and L. clavatum was 0.56 mg/ml and 0.50 mg/ml, respectively. Then, the NSCs were differentiated in the presence of 5 and 10 µg/ml of alkaloid fraction from H. serrata; 0.625 and 1.25 µg/ml of alkaloid fraction from L. clavatum for 6 days. Here, we observed the primary NSCs treated with alkaloid fraction extract from H. serrata showed the increased gene expression level of early neuron TUBB3 and neuron-specific cytoskeleton MAP2. On the other hand, the L. clavatum alkaloid fraction increased the expression of neural stem cell marker genes (Nestin and PAX6) and decreased neuron marker genes. In conclusion, these results established that alkaloid fraction from H. serrata promoted differentiation of the mouse NSCs to neuron cells, and L. clavatum extract had a capacity for stemness maintenance

Enhancing light scattering effect of white LEDs with ZnO nanostructures

Pc-LEDs, the lighting method that blends blue LED light with yellow light from phosphor to discharge white radiation, is one of the most advance known for high lumen output. However, pc-LEDs has inferior due to angular CCT deviation, which prevent pc-LEDs from reaching better performance. As a result, this research is conducted to address the need of pc-LEDs development by introducing a configuration doped with ZnO nanoparticles. The finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method and the phosphor layer containing ZnO were applied in the experiments. The effect of ZnO-filled on the performance of color quality pc-LEDs is confirmed through calculated results. In particular, the uniformity of scattered light is improved with the presence of ZnO. In addition, ZnO particles also minimize the deviation of color temperature and enhance the color quality. Although there is a small decline in lumen output to achieve better color temperature uniformity, however, with suitable concentrations such as 0.25% N-ZnO, 0.25% S-ZnO, and 0. 75% R-ZnO, the decline is acceptable. The research on ZnO pc-LEDs demonstrates that this affordable and simple configuration can improve lighting properties and create other directions to enhance white ligh

Modified moth swarm algorithm for optimal economic load dispatch problem

In this study, optimal economic load dispatch problem (OELD) is resolved by a novel improved algorithm. The proposed modified moth swarm algorithm (MMSA), is developed by proposing two modifications on the classical moth swarm algorithm (MSA). The first modification applies an effective formula to replace an ineffective formula of the mutation technique. The second modification is to cancel the crossover technique. For proving the efficient improvements of the proposed method, different systems with discontinuous objective functions as well as complicated constraints are used. Experiment results on the investigated cases show that the proposed method can get less cost and achieve stable search ability than MSA. As compared to other previous methods, MMSA can archive equal or better results. From this view, it can give a conclusion that MMSA method can be valued as a useful method for OELD problem

FRANCE’S INDO-PACIFIC STRATEGY AND THE ROLE OF VIETNAM

The Indo-Pacific has partially replaced the term Asia-Pacific and emerged as a geo-economic and geostrategic concept over the last decade, with Japan, Australia, the United States, and India launching their respective plans. As a resident power and a long-time partner, France seized the opportunity. In May 2018, the French Indo-Pacific strategy was initiated during President Macron’s state visit to Australia and released as an official document a year later, making France the first European power to adopt such a strategy. To unveil the driving forces behind French policies and the roles of France in the region, this article employs major theories in international relations (realism, liberalism, and constructivism). In particular, the authors analyze France’s tactical actions concerning like-minded partners and a rising China, addressing how France can protect its interests and amplify its leverage in the region amid Sino-American tensions. The paper specifies several differences between the French approach and other major countries. Last but not least, given the importance of the Franco-ASEAN links mentioned in Section Three of the official strategy, the article also clarifies recent developments in their relationship, focusing on the role of Vietnam in France’s overall scheme

Investigation on the application of ZnO nanostructures to improve the optical performance of white light-emitting diodes

Though combining blue LED chips with yellow phosphor has been the most common method in white light-emitting diode (WLED) production, the attained angular correlated color temperature (CCT) uniformity is still poor. Thus, this article proposes to add ZnO nanostructures to WLED packages to promote the color uniformity of the WLEDs. The outcomes of the research demonstrate that utilizing ZnO at different amount can affect the scattering energy and the CCT deviations in WLEDs packages in different extents. Particularly, adding the node-like (N-ZnO), sheet-like (S-ZnO), and rod-like (R-ZnO) leads to the corresponding decreases of CCT deviations from 3455.49 K to 96.30 K, 40.03 K, and 60.09 K, respectively. Meanwhile, with 0.25% N-ZnO, 0.75% S-ZnO, and 0.25 % R-ZnO, WLED devices can achieve both better CCT homogeneity and lower reduction in luminous flux. The results of this article can be a valuable document for the manufacturer to use as reference in improving their WLED products

Clustering lifestyle risk behaviors among Vietnamese adolescents and roles of school : a Bayesian multilevel analysis of global school-based student health survey 2019

Background: Adolescence is a vulnerable period for many lifestyle risk behaviors. In this study, we aimed to 1) examine a clustering pattern of lifestyle risk behaviors; 2) investigate roles of the school health promotion programs on this pattern among adolescents in Vietnam. Methods: We analyzed data of 7,541 adolescents aged 13–17 years from the 2019 nationally representative Global School-based Student Health Survey, conducted in 20 provinces and cities in Vietnam. We applied the latent class analysis to identify groups of clustering and used Bayesian 2-level logistic regressions to evaluate the correlation of school health promotion programs on these clusters. We reassessed the school effect size by incorporating different informative priors to the Bayesian models. Findings: The most frequent lifestyle risk behavior among Vietnamese adolescents was physical inactivity, followed by unhealthy diet, and sedentary behavior. Most of students had a cluster of at least two risk factors and nearly a half with at least three risk factors. Latent class analysis detected 23% males and 18% females being at higher risk of lifestyle behaviors. Consistent through different priors, high quality of health promotion programs associated with lower the odds of lifestyle risk behaviors (highest quality schools vs. lowest quality schools; males: Odds ratio (OR) = 0·67, 95% Highest Density Interval (HDI): 0·46 – 0·93; females: OR = 0·69, 95% HDI: 0·47 – 0·98). Interpretation: Our findings demonstrated the clustering of specific lifestyle risk behaviors among Vietnamese in-school adolescents. School-based interventions separated for males and females might reduce multiple health risk behaviors in adolescence. Funding: The 2019 Global School-based Student Health Survey was conducted with financial support from the World Health Organization. The authors received no funding for the data analysis, data interpretation, manuscript writing, authorship, and/or publication of this article. © 2021 The Author(s

The application of dual-layer remote phosphor geometry in achieving higher color quality of WLEDs

If remote phosphor structures are put into comparison with conformal phosphor or in-cup phosphor, their luminous flux are better, but the color quality is not as elevated. This leads to an obvious need of a practical solution to enhance color quality. Therefore, many studies were carried out to achieve this purpose, and so is ours. We proposed using two layers of phosphor in WLEDs to achieve better rendering ability and chromatic performance. The identical WLEDs with different color temperatures, 5600 K-8500 K, were used and reported in this paper. Our research consists of two parts, which are placing a layer of red phosphor SrwFxByOz:Eu2+,Sm2+on the yellow YAG:Ce3+ phosphor layer at first, and then specifying an appropriate SrwFxByOz:Eu2+,Sm2+ concentration to reach the highest color performance. It is shown that with the contribution of SrwFxByOz:Eu2+,Sm2+,the color rendering index (CRI) and color quality scale (CQS) are increased. This can be explained by the increased amount of red light components in the WLEDs when the concentration of SrwFxByOz:Eu2+,Sm2+ was greater. However, excessive SrwFxByOz:Eu2+,Sm2+ will cause the reduction in the flux, which has been proven by the application of Mie scattering and the Lambert-Beer law. Therefore, the conclusion will present an optimal amount of SrwFxByOz:Eu2+,Sm2+ to obtain high color quality while minimizing the light loss