A Comparative Study of the Intention to Buy Organic food between Consumers in Northern and Southern Vietnam

The purpose of this research is to examine the relationships between some selected factors (environmental attitude, perceived value, health consciousness, organic knowledge, subjective norms and attitudes toward organic food) and the purchase intention of Vietnamese customers with respect to organic food. Furthermore, a comparison of the significant differences among all the selected factors between Northern and Southern Vietnam is made. The data was collected from 201 people in the North (Ha Noi) and 201 people in the South (Ho Chi Minh City). The findings in this research are consistent with the results of a number of previous studies in terms of the positive correlation between the factors considered and purchase intention. In addition, the comparative study reveals significant differences in the health consciousness, subjective norms and purchase intention between Northern and Southern Vietnam

Impact of Service Quality Performance on Customer Satisfaction: A Case Study of Vietnam’s Five Star Hotel

To exist in highly competitive market, companies need to pay more attention in improving quality of products and services. It is necessary to maintain customers’ loyalty for sustainable future development. This research focuses on investigating the impact of service quality performance on customer satisfaction in a sample of Vietnam’s five star hotels, with a case study of Hotel X, where service quality is considered as the key to success. This study chose the SERVPERF model as a conceptual framework. Analysis of results shows that components RES-EM, ASSURANCE and RELIABLITY explain customer evaluation of perceived service quality in Hotel X. These components play important roles in service quality measurement and thus it is suggested that five star hotels generally and Hotel X in particular needs to have specific strategies to enhance these components as well as customer satisfaction

Catholic Relief Services: Information and Communication Technology in Monitoring and Evaluation

In February 2015, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) Vietnam initiated a new project to support the reintegration and rehabilitation of survivors of accidents involving landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERW). With funding from the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs (PM/WRA), CRS’ Access and Reintegration (A&R) project takes a comprehensive approach to serving the needs of 3,219 survivors of landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) in Quang Binh and Quang Tri provinces. Through collaboration with the Government of Vietnam’s provincial Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (DOLISA), CRS provides survivors with access to medical care, rehabilitation, and social and livelihood support services. The key to success has been establishing an effective and functional coordination system at the local level for referrals, strengthening a network of community-based workers, and supporting families to provide appropriate, home-based care and support. CRS’ A&R project creates a network of support that ensures increased access to comprehensive services for survivors and advances their reintegration into society. The A&R Project has established a model for scaling to six affected districts in the targeted provinces and beyond

Advanced Semantics for Commonsense Knowledge Extraction

Commonsense knowledge (CSK) about concepts and their properties is useful for AI applications such as robust chatbots. Prior works like ConceptNet, TupleKB and others compiled large CSK collections, but are restricted in their expressiveness to subject-predicate-object (SPO) triples with simple concepts for S and monolithic strings for P and O. Also, these projects have either prioritized precision or recall, but hardly reconcile these complementary goals. This paper presents a methodology, called Ascent, to automatically build a large-scale knowledge base (KB) of CSK assertions, with advanced expressiveness and both better precision and recall than prior works. Ascent goes beyond triples by capturing composite concepts with subgroups and aspects, and by refining assertions with semantic facets. The latter are important to express temporal and spatial validity of assertions and further qualifiers. Ascent combines open information extraction with judicious cleaning using language models. Intrinsic evaluation shows the superior size and quality of the Ascent KB, and an extrinsic evaluation for QA-support tasks underlines the benefits of Ascent.Comment: Web interface available at https://ascent.mpi-inf.mpg.d

Model prihvaćanja tehnologije i putevi do online lojalnosti potrošača na tržištima u razvoju

The technology acceptance model (TAM) has been well-known for decades. However, the global adoption of the Internet creates new interests in utilizing TAM in e-commerce and the post-consumption intention, especially in emerging markets. Data was collected from 758 online customers via a web-based survey in Vietnam. Particular contribution of the results is that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, fairness, trust and the quality of the customer interface have direct or indirect impacts on customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Moreover, in emerging markets, trust was outlined as the strongest factor contributing to customer satisfaction and leading to customer loyalty.Model prihvaćanja tehnologije (engl. technology acceptance model – TAM) dobro je poznat već desetljećima. Međutim globalno prihvaćanje interneta potiče novo zanimanje za primjenu TAM-a u e-trgovanju i postkupovnoj namjeri, posebice na tržištima u razvoju. Podaci su prikupljeni online anketiranjem 758 potrošača u Vijetnamu. Poseban doprinos rezultata jest u tome što pokazuju da percipirana korisnosti jednostavnost korištenja, poštenje, povjerenje i kvaliteta korisničkog sučelja imaju izravan ili neizravan utjecaj na zadovoljstvo i lojalnost potrošača. Nadalje, na tržištima u razvoju povjerenje je istaknuto kao najsnažniji čimbenik stvaranja zadovoljstva potrošača koje vodi lojalnosti potrošača

Optimal operation of Hoa Binh reservoir for flood control on Hong-Thai Binh river system

In the paper the optimal operation of Hoabinh reservoir for flood control on Hong–Thai Binh river system is presented. The findings show that in the flood season in 1996 if the operation of gates and outlets of Hoa Binh reservoir was made base on the calculated release, the water level at Hanoi would be 12.3 m and the water level of Hoa Binh reservoir would be 98 m. So the calculated release from Hoabinh reservoir in August 1996 can be considered as optimal in the mean that the water level at Hanoi can be controlled and the Hoabinh reservoir still have necessary pool for controlling the next floods

Ecological Engineering and Restoration of Eroded Muddy Coasts in South East Asia: Knowledge Gaps and Recommendations

Ecological engineering (EE) was employed for developing strategies for stabilizing eroded muddy coasts (EMCs). However, there was a limited analysis of these EE strategies with respect to design, performance, and lessons learned. This study employed a critical review for addressing the limitations. There were four EE models designed with different restoration interventions for stabilizing EMCs. The models using active interventions have not been cost-effective in controlling erosion because the interventions failed to achieve their goals or were costly and unnecessary. Of the two passive intervention models, the one with structures constructed from onshore proved to be more cost-effective in terms of construction costs, the survival rate of transplanted seedlings, and levels of sea mud accumulation. Interventions with adequate consideration of the muddy coastal ecological processes and the ecological reasoning for the positioning of these interventions play a crucial role in stabilizing EMCs. A passive restoration model using gradually expanded interventions should be promoted in order to ensure sustainable management of EMCs in the future

Study of Using Cassava Pulp to Produce Livestock Feed Pellet

In Vietnam, the cassava production capacity is about 10 million tons annually. Indeed, it eliminates approximate 4 million tons of cassava pulp from the cassava starch factories. This amount of cassava is usually dried to feed cattle or fertilizer. However, drying of cassava pulp has its disadvantages such as air pollution, difficult storage and transportation. This study has proposed and successfully tested a line of equipment used to produce pellets from the utilization of fresh cassava pulp bringing from cassava starch processing plants. The processing includes a mixing of fresh cassava pulp with dried cassava starch, pressing and drying of pellets. The experiment results show that when the mixing ratio between cassava starch and cassava residue is 1:10 – 1:5, the cassava pulp pellets after drying achieved the required technical specifications. Hence, it has high volume density, the dried specific weight of the pellets is about 700 kg / m3, the breaking strength of the pellets is greater than 2 kG, the tanning time of the pellets is greater than 116 minutes in water, the moisture content of the pellets is remained in 13% after drying in 5-5.5 hours

Using Fine-Grained Sediment and Wave Attenuation as a New Measure for Evaluating the Efficacy of Offshore Breakwaters in Stabilizing an Eroded Muddy Coast: Insights from Ca Mau, the Mekong Delta of Vietnam

Offshore breakwaters can be effective in reducing the energy of incident waves through dissipation, refraction or reflection. Breakwaters are increasingly constructed to stabilize eroded muddy coasts, particularly in developing countries. Accumulation of fine-grained sediment and wave attenuation are two attributes of a stable muddy coast. Effective interventions in stabilizing eroded muddy coasts include two important elements: accumulation of fine-grained sediment and wave reduction. The efficacy of offshore breakwaters in stabilizing eroded muddy coasts is, however, not yet adequately understood. A crucial question needing attention is whether accumulation of fine-grained sediment and wave attenuation should be used in evaluating the efficacy of these offshore breakwaters in stabilizing eroded muddy coasts. To address this issue, a pile-rock offshore breakwater in Huong Mai, Tieu Dua of Ca Mau, Vietnam was selected as an appropriate example in this regard. Accumulation of fine-grained sediment and wave attenuation were tested as means to investigate the efficacy of the Huong Mai structure in stabilizing the eroded muddy coast. The study was undertaken using field-based measurements and semi-structured interviews in three stages between October 2016 and December 2020. We found that this structure has had limited efficacy in stabilizing the eroded muddy coast. The structure was effective in dissipating the energy of incident waves, but we found no evidence of fine-grained sediment accumulation due to an inappropriate structural design. There was also no monitoring system in place, leading to difficulties in evaluating its efficacy in terms of wave attenuation and accumulation of fine-grained sediment. The gaps between the shoreline and the structure have not been adequately explained, resulting in substantial challenges in replicating the structure elsewhere. The Huong Mai structure should be strengthened using supplementary measures and granulometric tests in order to improve the efficacy in stabilizing eroded muddy coasts. The methods in this study provide new insights in this regard