Outsourcing: More Harm than Good

Outsourcing is a highly effective strategy, widely used in various types of business to gain a competitive edge. The tremendous growth of outsourcing first started in the manufacturing and information technology industries. It has also spread into the accounting industry as well. However, in accounting the major problems and benefits caused by outsourcing are different from those identified in the manufacturing and IT industries. This leads to the question of whether or not outsourcing in accounting would create more advantages than disadvantages. This paper analyzes the question through four steps: (1) how accounting outsourcing is done, (2) which accounting tasks (both private and public) are fit for outsourcing, (3) what are the benefits and challenges of accounting outsourcing, and (4) what are the effects that outsourcing, including accounting outsourcing, have on the U.S economy. The author argues that accounting outsourcing generates more risks and harmful effects than benefits for companies and their stakeholders. Therefore, accounting outsourcing should be discouraged. This research provides a comprehensive view on the topic of outsourcing in accounting, including rewards and problems caused by accounting outsourcing, effects of outsourcing on business stakeholders, effects of outsourcing on the U.S economy, and future outsourcing trends and regulations

OPORTUNIDADES E DESAFIOS DA TRANSFORMAÇÃO DIGITAL NA EDUCAÇÃO NO DESASTRE DE COVID NO VIETNÃ

Coronavirus affects the education system in the world. Schools, colleges, and universities are closed to control the spread of the coronavirus. School closure brings difficulties for students, teachers, and parents. So, online learning is a solution to continue the education system. However, the lack of network infrastructures, computers, and internet access is challenging. This paper aims to review the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the education and status of digital transformation in education in Vietnam. Verify the opportunities and challenges in the digital transformation in education and recommend some issues that need to do be concerned to promote the transformation process in education in Vietnam.O coronavírus afeta o sistema educacional no mundo. Escolas, faculdades e universidades são fechadas para controlar a disseminação do coronavírus. O fechamento de escolas traz dificuldades para alunos, professores e pais. Portanto, o aprendizado online é uma solução para dar continuidade ao sistema educacional. No entanto, a falta de infraestruturas de rede, computadores e acesso à Internet é um desafio. Este artigo tem como objetivo revisar o impacto da pandemia COVID-19 sobre a educação e a situação da transformação digital na educação no Vietnã. Verifique as oportunidades e desafios na transformação digital na educação e recomende algumas questões que precisam se preocupar para promover o processo de transformação na educação no Vietnã

Diversity of microcystins and non-microcystin-producing Microcystics population in the Dau Tieng reservoir, Vietnam

In this study, a 16S rDNA clone library was used to evaluate the diversity of potential microcystin producing cyanobacteria and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to analyze the diversity of this population based on the presence of the mcyD gene in samples collected during a bloom season. The results revealed that Microcystis genera from the Dau Tieng reservoir (DTR) contained several genotypes. The isolated Microcystis strains from the DTR were found to consist both toxic and non-toxic species within species and population. In total 35 strains acounted for 58% were found to produce a mixture of microcystins (MCs). All samples of cyanobacterial blooms in the DTR contained high amount of MCs which could pose health risk to aquatic systems and local people.

Impact of Image Denoising Techniques on CNN-based Liver Vessel Segmentation using Synthesis Low-dose Contrast Enhanced CT Images

Liver vessel segmentation in contrast enhanced CT (CECT) image is relevant for several clinical applications. However, the liver segmentation on noisy images obtain incorrect liver vessel segmentation which may lead to distortion in the simulation of cooling effect near the vessels during the planning. In this study, we present a framework that consists of three well-known and state-of-the-art denoising techniques, Vesssel enhancing diffusion (VED), RED-CNN, and MAP-NN and using a state-of-the-art Convolution Neural Networks (nn-Unet) to segment the liver vessels from the CECT images. The impact of denoising methods on the vessel segmentation are ablated using with multi-level simulated low-dose CECT of the liver. The experiment is carried on CECT images of the liver from two public and one private datasets. We evaluate the performance of the framework using Dice score and sensitivity criteria. Furthermore, we investigate the efficient of denoising on roughness of the surface of liver vessel segmentation. The results from our experiment suggest that denoising methods can improve the liver vessel segmentation quality in the CECT image with high low-dose noise while they degrade the liver vessel segmentation accuracy for low-noise-level CECT images

A Multiple Choices Reading Comprehension Corpus for Vietnamese Language Education

Machine reading comprehension has been an interesting and challenging task in recent years, with the purpose of extracting useful information from texts. To attain the computer ability to understand the reading text and answer relevant information, we introduce ViMMRC 2.0 - an extension of the previous ViMMRC for the task of multiple-choice reading comprehension in Vietnamese Textbooks which contain the reading articles for students from Grade 1 to Grade 12. This dataset has 699 reading passages which are prose and poems, and 5,273 questions. The questions in the new dataset are not fixed with four options as in the previous version. Moreover, the difficulty of questions is increased, which challenges the models to find the correct choice. The computer must understand the whole context of the reading passage, the question, and the content of each choice to extract the right answers. Hence, we propose the multi-stage approach that combines the multi-step attention network (MAN) with the natural language inference (NLI) task to enhance the performance of the reading comprehension model. Then, we compare the proposed methodology with the baseline BERTology models on the new dataset and the ViMMRC 1.0. Our multi-stage models achieved 58.81% by Accuracy on the test set, which is 5.34% better than the highest BERTology models. From the results of the error analysis, we found the challenge of the reading comprehension models is understanding the implicit context in texts and linking them together in order to find the correct answers. Finally, we hope our new dataset will motivate further research in enhancing the language understanding ability of computers in the Vietnamese language

Outcome versus process value in service delivery

Purpose: This study is embedded in social exchange and transaction cost theories. The objective is twofold: First, to compare the relative importance of process value and outcome value in building affective and cognitive relationship strength; and second, to compare the relative effects of each type of relationship strength on attitudinal and behavioral loyalty. Design/methodology/approach: This empirical study features a quantitative approach. The sample comprises 167 business-to-business (B2B) customers of a large transportation and logistics company in Vietnam. Findings: Process value and outcome value have different effects on affective relationship strength: The effect of process value is greater than that of outcome value. In addition, cognitive strength has a stronger impact on both attitudinal and behavioral loyalty than affective strength. Research limitations/implications: These insights extend extant literature regarding the process and outcome components of the service assessment. Further studies also should employ a cross-industry, cross-country sample to examine the potential moderating effects of country- or industry-specific factors. These findings show B2B managers how to make appropriate resource allocation and investment decisions to enhance relationship strength and resulting customer loyalty. Originality/value: To clarify the links among customer value, relationship strength and customer loyalty, this study examines the relative importance of rational and non-rational factors (i.e., process value vs. outcome value; affective strength vs. cognitive strength) for relationship performance. Unlike most prior research, this study is set in the B2B context of a developing country

Evaluation of genetic diversity and DNA fingerprinting of 19 standard reference rice varieties using SSR markers

Molecular markers are advanced-tools for identifying new varieties at DNA levels. According to the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties ofPlants,  new breeded varieties need to be tested for the Distinctness, Uniformity and Stability (DUS), before being recognized as the new ones. Traditional DUS criteria based on 62 - 65 morphological and biochemical characteristics, which evaluated on comparison of new varieties with 19 standard reference varieties for traits of interest.  Study on the genotypic polymorphism of 19 standard reference rice varieties provides genotypic information of these varieties for the evaluation of new rice varieties based on genotyping analysis.  The reference marker set (30 markers) was used to evaluate the genetic diversity and DNA fingerprinting of 19 standard reference rice varieties. The results showed the similarity coefficient of 19 varieties varied from 0.04 to 0.548. At the genetic similarity coefficient of 0.1, the 19 rice varieties divided into two main groups. Group one included 3 varieties: DH1, DH5, DH13. Group 2 included the remaining 16 varieties. Inside group two, phylogenetic tree divided into two main branches at the genetic similarity coefficient of 0.3. Branch 1 includes 5 varieties including DH2, DH6, DH10, DH11 and DH7. The 11 remaining varieties were in the branch 2. The most closely varieties were DH6 and DH10 with the genetic similarity coefficient of 0.548. This study shows that, the standard reference varieties have high uniformity and high genotypic polymorphism, could used for testing new varieties based on genotyping by DNA fingerprinting combining with phenotype