ECONOMIC Potential of Renewable Energy in Vietnam's Power Sector

A bottom-up Integrated Resource Planning model is used to examine the economic potential of renewable energy in Vietnam’s power sector. In a baseline scenario without renewables, coal provides 44% of electricity generated from 2010 to 2030. The use of renewables could reduce that figure to 39%, as well as decrease the sector’s cumulative emission of CO2 by 8%, SO2 by 3%, and NOx by 4%. In addition,renewables could avoid installing 4.4GW in fossil fuel generating capacity, conserve domestic coal,decrease coal and gases imports, improving energy independence and security. Wind could become cost-competitive assuming high but plausible on fossil fuel prices, if the cost of the technology falls to 900 US$/kW

Learning Styles of Vietnamese Medical Students

Background: The purpose of this study was to assess the learning styles of Vietnamese medical students at the Ho Chi Minh City University of Medicine and Pharmacy.Method:  Participants were 856 (147 first-year, 144 second-year, 144 third-year, 136 fourth-year, 148 fifth-year, and 137 sixth-year students) medical students who completed the 100-item Vermunt’s Inventory of Learning Styles.Results:  Factor analysis resulted in four factors with adequate reliability (α range: 0.71 - 0.86):  Meaning-directed learning style (factor 1), passive, undirected learning style (factor 2), application-directed learning style (factor 3), and reproduction-directed learning style (factor 4).  Final-year students employed more deep processing, concrete processing, self regulation, use of knowledge, but more stepwise processing, certification orientation, intake of knowledge than did the freshmen. Students with higher achievement classifications had higher mean score of deep processing, concrete processing, self-regulation, construction of knowledge, and use of knowledge, lower certificate and ambivalent orientation. Discussion:  Four theoretically meaningful and cohesive factors underlying learning patterns emerged from the factor analysis.  The learning styles of Vietnamese medical students were relatively similar to Asian students, but there were some differences from European students.Conclusion:  The assessment of learning styles of medical students may help curriculum renewal, the application of teaching and assessment methods, and improve student learning

Women's Role in Disaster Response in Vietnamese Rural Families Today: Challenges in the context of climate change

The 13th Next-Generation Global Workshop第13回次世代グローバルワークショップテーマ: New Risks and Resilience in Asian Societies and the World 日程: 21-23 November, 2020 開催場所: ベトナム社会科学院(ハノイ)/Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences(No. 1 Lieu Giai street, Ba Dinh, Hanoi, Vietnam) ※Due to the COVID-19, the workshop will be held at ONLINE for overseas participants(not from Vietnam)/ONSITE for Vietnamese participants.Vietnam is one of the countries most vulnerable to natural disasters. More than 70% of Vietnam's population has been affected by natural disasters and climate change at many different levels. Women in Vietnam, especially ethnic minority women, rural women and women living in mountainous areas are at highest risk of natural disasters because they work in agriculture and this type of work depends on the weather, natural conditions and natural resources such as soil, water and climate... This paper uses quantitative and qualitative data from the research "The response of women in Central Vietnam to climate change" with 368 household questionnaires and 25 in-depth interviews conducted in Ninh Thuan province in 2017. By analyzing documents and doing frequency, correlation and logistic regression analysis, the research results show that people in community in general and members in family in particular have suffered the influence of disasters in different ways. Gender gaps have been found in the level of suffering from natural disasters as well as in the way of responding to natural disasters. Women play a very important role in coping with natural disasters, but due to the unequal distribution of rights, resources and cultural standards, women have confronted a lot of difficulties in disasters response, especially in the context of climate change today

Legacy Phosphorus Implications in the Lake Pontchartrain Estuary Sediment Due to the 2011 Bonnet Carre Spillway Opening

Phosphorus (P) is an essential nutrient for life and excess P in aquatic systems can trigger algal blooms. Nutrient-rich Mississippi River water is diverted into the Lake Pontchartrain estuary (LPE) periodically through the Bonnet Carré Spillway (BCS) to avoid downstream flooding to the city of New Orleans, Louisiana and can significantly increase the internal P load in the sediment. A sequential P fractionation procedure was performed on sediments collected before the opening and after the closing of the 2011 BCS operation to understand the role of these large river diversions on P dynamics. Before the 2011 BCS opening, 10,368 Mt of P were found in the 0-10 cm sediment interval of the LPE. After the closure of the spillway, 13,293 Mt of P were measured in the 0-10 cm sediment interval. Total P significantly increased by 28% and a mass loading of 2,925 Mt of P was a consequence of the 42 days BCS opening. Sediment grain size analyzes revealed that majority of the finer sand and silt fractions were deposited near the BCS entrance, while the lighter clay fraction were transported tens of km towards the center of the LPE. Calculating the time for all newly added P from the 2011 BCS operation to flux out of the water column is important to understanding the impact on water quality of the LPE. Using a previously determined linear flux rate of ~517 Mt yr-1, it was estimated that ~6 years are needed to flux out the newly added sediment TP. While assuming a nonlinear model of flux rate, it is suggested that it would take a longer period of time to flux out all the newly P loaded from the sediments in the LPE. If the operations of these BCS opening are closely spaced in time (\u3c 6 years), there will be an increase of P in the sediments which could lead to changes in the trophic status of the LPE. This increase of TP in sediments can lead to an increase in the frequency and persistence of harmful algal blooms for many years after the spillway opening

The impact of the assessment process and the international MA-TESOL course on the professional identity of Vietnamese student teachers :an ecological perspective

PhD ThesisIn the context of globalisation, English language teaching is a billions-of-pounds-worth business, yet the teacher of English still remains “an almost invisible figure” (Garton and Richards, 2008, p. 4). In Vietnam, thousands of TESOL teachers have been sponsored to enhance their professionalism in Anglophone institutions, yet the results of their sojourn study still remain almost intangible. These vague self-concepts of the TESOL teacher in both global and local contexts have motivated the researcher to conduct this study on the impact of the international MA-TESOL course on the professional identity of Vietnamese student teachers with the assessment process being the main focus owing to its substantial influence on the learner’s identity (Ecclestone and Pryor, 2003; Pryor and Crossouard, 2008). This “divergent multiple case study” is grounded in the school of social constructivism with new developments of cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) and theories of expansive learning (Engeström, 2001; Engeström and Sannino, 2010). It adopts an ecological view to analyse the assessment process and the international MA-TESOL course by using an “ecological activity system”, a combination of Engeström (1987)’s activity system, Pryor and Crossouard (2008)’s socio-cultural theorisation of formative assessment, and Hodgson and Spours (2013)’s high opportunity progression eco-system (HOPE) as the major conceptual framework. The assessment process, the object of the system, is perceived as encompassing both summative assessment tasks and formative feedback. Meanwhile, the professional identity, the outcome with cognitive, affective, behavioural, and socio-cultural aspects, is regarded as a case of multiplicity in unity and discontinuity in continuity (Akkerman and Meijer, 2011), and is to be depicted in two different dimensions: retrospection vs. prospection and projection vs. introjection (Bernstein, 2000). This research follows narrative inquiry and employs intensive, active, semi-structured interview as the primary data collection method and the documentary analysis of the MA-TESOL syllabi as the supplementary one. It called for the voluntary participation of fourteen Vietnamese student teachers studying in four Anglophone countries: Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States and collated four sets of the course syllabi. The thematic data analysis has yielded insights into (1) the positive impact of the assessment process on four major aspects of the professional identity; (2) the salient impacts of other factors of the international MA-TESOL course: the subject, the mediating artefacts, the rules, the community, and the power relations; and (3) the long-term impact on their continued career paths. The research findings may facilitate cross-institutional understanding of the assessment policies and the international MA-TESOL curricula and serve as a reference to design more beneficial TESOL training programmes for the future student teachers worldwide.Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), the Viet Nam International Education Development Department (VIED), the University of Foreign Languages and International Studies, Viet Nam National University, Hanoi (ULIS -VNU