Factors contributing to animal health risks: Implication for smallholder pig production in Vietnam

In Vietnam, there are about four million households producing pigs of which more than half are producing at small scale, i.e., about one to two pigs per production cycle. One of the most critical constraints to pig production, especially for small scale, is the presence of animal disease. Many types of diseases have been reported by smallholder pig producers in Hung Yen such as diarrhea, pneumonia, fever, blue ear, head edema and pasteurellosis. The percentage of sick pigs is highest among piglets (27 percent), as compared with growing pigs and fatteners (five percent each). Diseases could lead to death of pigs, resulting in economic losses to the pig producers. Estimates of the cost of mortality in pig production in Hung Yen were about 3.3 million VND per household, accounting for about 13.6 percent of total income from pig production. Results of this study suggest that there are some practices that contribute to mitigating disease risk and those practices can be easily applied at small scale of pig production. These practices are related to applying a suitable production scale, isolating different age classes of pigs, designing pig houses and using specialized livestock farming tools and sanitation. The value of losses avoided from the above practices is estimated at 320.3 USD per household per year

Erratum: Mott Transition in the Mass Imbalanced Ionic Hubbard Model at Half Filling

Erratum: Mott Transition in the Mass Imbalanced Ionic Hubbard Model at Half Filling[Nguyen Thi Hai Yen, Le Duc Anh, Hoang Anh Tuan, Nguyen Toan Thang and Tran Thi Thu Trang, Communications in Physics, Vol. 29, No. 3SI (2019), pp. 305-312]This paper was published on 22 October 2019 with an omission in the text of the author’s list. The author list should read asNGUYEN THI HAI YEN$^1$, LE DUC ANH$^2$, HOANG ANH TUAN$^{1,3,\dagger}$, NGUYEN TOAN THANG$^1$, TRAN THI THU TRANG$^4$ AND NGUYEN THI HUONG$^5$$^1$Institute of Physics, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (VAST), Hanoi, Vietnam $^2$Hanoi National University of Education, Hanoi, Vietnam $^3$Graduate University of Science and Technology, VAST, Hanoi, Vietnam $^4$Ha Long University, Quang Ninh, Vietnam $^5$Thuy Loi University, Hanoi, Vietnam$^{\dagger}$E-mail: [email protected] author’s list has been corrected as of 29 November 2019. The author’s list has been corrected in the electronic version of the journal

Impact of Vocational Education and Training On Decent Job Opportunities Regarding Information and Communication Technology

Vocational education and training plays a crucial part in the creation of decent job. The fast growth of information and communication technology (ICT) during the past ten years has increased work opportunities for laborers. This research uses the yearly labor force survey data to study the impact of vocational education and training on decent job opportunities for employees in the context of Vietnam's information and communication technology development. The logit model results indicate that the 2020 rate of decent jobs is still low, at approximately 25.6 percent. However, vocational education and training and the advancement of ICT positively affect decent job opportunities. This long-lasting impact affects laborers in various areas, regions, and industries. These findings suggest that vocational education and training and ICT must play a significant role in transitioning from precarious to more secure employment, so laborers must acquire professional knowledge and information technology skills

Foreign bank penetration in Vietnam following Vietnam’s accession to the WTO: matching expectations with reality

Vietnam continuously liberalizes the financial market as a requirement for its accession to the World Trade Organization in 2007. This paper discusses the foreign investors’ expectation and their experience when penetrating into Vietnam’s market. The role of the foreign entrants is also assessed. By synthesizing and analyzing relevant research and reports, several important insights are discovered. Firstly, the presence of foreign investors and banks improves market competition, efficiency, and stability. Wholly and partly foreign-owned banks provide the spillover effects in management quality, in the introduction of world standard banking products and services, and in the application of information technology. Secondly, by looking into the foreign owned banks, it is found that the banks’ foreign investors are not likely to play an influential role in managing the banks they invested in. The motive of the investors to control the invested companies leads to their decision of holdings withdrawing

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON VOLATILE COMPOUNDS OF AGARWOOD FROM KHANH HOA PROVINCE EXTRACTED BY DIFFERENT METHODS

Agarwood from Aquilaria crassna cultivated in Khanh Hoa province was extracted by 5 methods, including simple, enzyme-assited, and microwave-assisted hydrodistillation, extraction with solvent and supercritical carbon dioxide. The volatile compounds of the products were analyzed by GC-MS. Almost all samples contain some common characteristic components, such as Valerianol, Agarospirol, Eudesmol b-, Eudesmol 10-epi-g-, 2-Allyl-4-methylphenol, Guaiol and Neopetasone. However, there were obvious differences in yields, composition, and number of identified components. The application of the more advanced methods for the extraction of agarwood resulted in saving of time and energy, and some improvement of product yield. However, these methods also lead to unconventional products with many unknown components, what requires further investigations

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

This research employs the Bayesian network modeling approach, and the Markov chain Monte Carlo technique, to learn about the role of lies and violence in teachings of major religions, using a unique dataset extracted from long-standing Vietnamese folktales. The results indicate that, although lying and violent acts augur negative consequences for those who commit them, their associations with core religious values diverge in the final outcome for the folktale characters. Lying that serves a religious mission of either Confucianism or Taoism (but not Buddhism) brings a positive outcome to a character (βT_and_Lie_O= 2.23; βC_and_Lie_O= 1.47; βT_and_Lie_O= 2.23). A violent act committed to serving Buddhist missions results in a happy ending for the committer (βB_and_Viol_O= 2.55). What is highlighted here is a glaring double standard in the interpretation and practice of the three teachings: the very virtuous outcomes being preached, whether that be compassion and meditation in Buddhism, societal order in Confucianism, or natural harmony in Taoism, appear to accommodate two universal vices—violence in Buddhism and lying in the latter two. These findings contribute to a host of studies aimed at making sense of contradictory human behaviors, adding the role of religious teachings in addition to cognition in belief maintenance and motivated reasoning in discounting counterargument

EFFECTS OF SALT STRESS ON PLANT GROWTH AND BIOMASS ALLOCATION IN SOME WETLAND GRASS SPECIES IN THE MEKONG DELTA

Salt stress causes serious damage to many cellular and physiological processes that leads to yield reduction. The study induced salt stress using Hoagland solution added NaCl to evaluate its effects on plant growth and biomass allocation of some wetland grass species in order to identify salt-tolerant species for replacing and/or supplementing rice/grass in rice-shrimp model and salt-affected area in the Mekong Delta. The study also seeks to evaluate the response of leaf chlorophyll (SPAD unit) and proline content in salt-treated plants to varying application of salinity. Typha orientalis, Lepironia articulata, Eleocharis dulcis and Scirpus littoralis were studied in hydroponics condition with four levels of NaCl of 5, 10, 15, 20‰ and the control treatment (without adding NaCl). The experiment was arranged in a completely randomized design with 3 replications. The salt-treated plants showed visually clear responses of inhibited growth under salt stress condition compared to the control plants. Among the four studied species, T. orientalis produced the highest dry shoot biomass (15.5 g DW/plant), while E. dulcis had the lowest value (2.8 g DW/plant). However, only T. orientalis showed significantly decreased in biomass as salinity increased with 9.3 and 4.6 times lower of fresh and dry biomass in plants grown at the salinity level of 20‰ compared to those grown in the control treatment. The other three plant species did not affect by salinity levels. The results indicated that S. littoralis, L. articulata and E. dulcis could tolerate at high salinity of 20‰ (eq. to the EC value in the nutrient solution of 38.0 dS/m) and could be potential candidate to grow in the rice-shrimp model or in the salt-affected soils. 

How Digital Natives Learn and Thrive in the Digital Age: Evidence from an Emerging Economy

As a generation of ‘digital natives,’ secondary students who were born from 2002 to 2010 have various approaches to acquiring digital knowledge. Digital literacy and resilience are crucial for them to navigate the digital world as much as the real world; however, these remain under-researched subjects, especially in developing countries. In Vietnam, the education system has put considerable effort into teaching students these skills to promote quality education as part of the United Nations-defined Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4). This issue has proven especially salient amid the COVID−19 pandemic lockdowns, which had obliged most schools to switch to online forms of teaching. This study, which utilizes a dataset of 1061 Vietnamese students taken from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)’s “Digital Kids Asia Pacific (DKAP)” project, employs Bayesian statistics to explore the relationship between the students’ background and their digital abilities. Results show that economic status and parents’ level of education are positively correlated with digital literacy. Students from urban schools have only a slightly higher level of digital literacy than their rural counterparts, suggesting that school location may not be a defining explanatory element in the variation of digital literacy and resilience among Vietnamese students. Students’ digital literacy and, especially resilience, also have associations with their gender. Moreover, as students are digitally literate, they are more likely to be digitally resilient. Following SDG4, i.e., Quality Education, it is advisable for schools, and especially parents, to seriously invest in creating a safe, educational environment to enhance digital literacy among students