Spatial distribution and historical dynamics of threatened conifers of the Dalat Plateau, Vietnam

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on July 14, 2011).The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file.Thesis advisor: Dr. C. Mark Cowell.Includes bibliographical references.M.A. University of Missouri--Columbia 2011.The Dalat Plateau is one of several biodiversity hotspots in Vietnam. It is considered to be one of five centers of plant diversity and one of three endemic bird areas in the country. Almost half of the conifer species known to occur in Vietnam are found in this area. Among the 14 species of conifers found here, six have been evaluated in the 2004 IUCN Global Red List of Threatened Species. However, due to the remoteness of the mountains where these conifers grow, there is very limited information on the ecology, habitat, distribution, population characteristics or historical disturbances for these species. This research examines selected aspects of conifer biogeography in Bidoup-Nui Ba national park to determine their distribution and relationship to topography, size class structure, and disturbances between the 1970s - 2000s. A combination of field work, remote sensing and GIS was used to determine these patterns. Among the seven conifer species sampled, three were classified as threatened. Of the nine general land cover types in the study area, these conifer species occurred in the mixed forest and the coniferous forests, from 1,000 - 2,200 m asl. Results show that the stand structures for these conifer species were unimodal and decreasing. Age-class distribution of Pinus krempfii showed its population to be the oldest. This study suggests that the decreasing numbers of threatened conifers, especially the old age stands, are vulnerable

Corporate governance of banks in Vietnam and their roles on banks’ risk-taking and efficiency : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Banking Studies at Massey University, Manawatu Campus, New Zealand

This thesis comprises three essays that investigate the effectiveness of corporate governance mechanisms associated with recent Vietnamese banking reform on Vietnamese banks’ risk-taking and efficiency. The thesis uses a hand-collected dataset on accounting and corporate governance data from annual statements published by commercial banks during the 2006-2016 period. The first essay examines the role of foreign directors on bank risk-taking, using data from 32 commercial banks in Vietnam in the 2006-2016 period. Our findings suggest foreign directors increased bank risk-taking after 2011. The relationship is robust after taking account of potential endogeneity problems and different measures of bank risk-taking. The explanation is that foreign directors are motivated to encourage management to increase risk-taking to earn short-term returns when there is uncertainty in macroeconomic conditions. Other characteristics such as female directors, family related directors, and board size on risk-taking are also discussed. There is no evidence showing that foreign directors are more or less risk-averse in listed banks vs unlisted banks or in state-owned banks vs private banks. The second essay investigates the impact of female directors on boards on bank efficiency, using data from 32 commercial banks, covering the 2006-2016 period. The relationship is estimated by employing one-stage stochastic frontier analysis, using the Battese and Coelli (1995) (BC95) approach. The two-stage distributional free approach proposed by Cornwell, Schmidt, and Sickles (1990) (CS90) is employed as a robustness check. The result shows a robust relationship between female directors and cost-efficiency. This suggests that female directors are associated with a decrease in cost efficiency. A possible explanation is that female directors are less experienced in management than male directors and have less access to environmental resources that benefit firms. The third essay examines the impact of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) on bank efficiency, using a balanced panel dataset from 22 commercial banks over the 2008-2016 period. The study employs a two-stage DEA window analysis. Our findings suggest that there is no significant relationship between M&As and bank efficiency, which is not surprising given the small number of M&A events so far. However, there is evidence that Vietnamese banks experienced less improvement in efficiency after M&As. A possible explanation for this is that the M&As might not be not driven by profit-maximization, but by the government encouragement to rescue weak banks. Also, the combined entities need to spend additional resources on resolving the bad debts transferred from the weak, targeted banks

Noise-Robust Voice Conversion

A persistent challenge in speech processing is the presence of noise that reduces the quality of speech signals. Whether natural speech is used as input or speech is the desirable output to be synthesized, noise degrades the performance of these systems and causes output speech to be unnatural. Speech enhancement deals with such a problem, typically seeking to improve the input speech or post-processes the (re)synthesized speech. An intriguing complement to post-processing speech signals is voice conversion, in which speech by one person (source speaker) is made to sound as if spoken by a different person (target speaker). Traditionally, the majority of speech enhancement and voice conversion methods rely on parametric modeling of speech. A promising complement to parametric models is an inventory-based approach, which is the focus of this work. In inventory-based speech systems, one records an inventory of clean speech signals as a reference. Noisy speech (in the case of enhancement) or target speech (in the case of conversion) can then be replaced by the best-matching clean speech in the inventory, which is found via a correlation search method. Such an approach has the potential to alleviate intelligibility and unnaturalness issues often encountered by parametric modeling speech processing systems. This work investigates and compares inventory-based speech enhancement methods with conventional ones. In addition, the inventory search method is applied to estimate source speaker characteristics for voice conversion in noisy environments. Two noisy-environment voice conversion systems were constructed for a comparative study: a direct voice conversion system and an inventory-based voice conversion system, both with limited noise filtering at the front end. Results from this work suggest that the inventory method offers encouraging improvements over the direct conversion method

On the Precipice: Prospects for Free Labor Unions in Vietnam

Vietnam (officially, the “Socialist Republic of Vietnam”) is rapidly transitioning economically, in large part due to pro-trade policies that have attracted international capital. A necessary component for Vietnam to further integrate into the world economy is to develop a system of industrial relations that will ensure industrial stability and reassure international manufacturers that there is no risk of embarrassment resulting from revelations of brutal or unsafe working conditions. Positive signs for rapid labor reform were visible as recently as early 2016 with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (“TPP”), a trade agreement intended to integrate trade among twelve countries (including Vietnam), which would have set international benchmarks and a fixed deadline for labor reform. Notwithstanding the death of the TPP, labor reform in Vietnam continues, as there is currently a vigorous debate within the country over which direction reform should take. Thanks to labor scholars such as Cynthia Estlund, international labor scholars have a fairly decent idea about the progress and direction of labor law reform in China; however, this is not true for Vietnam, which is poised to become Southeast Asia’s next economic powerhouse. The purpose of this article is to fill this gap. Part II of this article describes how the ILO and the TPP jump-started the most recent wave of labor reform in Vietnam. Part III describes the existing labor regime in Vietnam. Part IV analyzes Vietnamese labor law, specifically as compared to the ILO norms, and explains that although Vietnam has made rapid and radical progress over the last two decades, there is still room for significant improvement. Part V describes and evaluates current proposals for reform. Part VI provides a conclusion of the issues discussed

FINE NEEDLE ASPIRATION CYTOLOGY AS A DIAGNOSTIC TOOL; AN ASSESSMENT

The study is about breast lesions which is a common cause of mortality and morbidity among females. To avoid negative consequences, there is need for urgent diagnosis and treatment. Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology (FNAC) is a useful diagnostic tool and possess higher level of accuracy. In this study, the objective was to determine the accuracy of FNAC in diagnosis of palpable breast lumps. Additionally, the objective was to find the correlation between cytological findings and histopathological examination of surgical specimens. The methodology of the study was based on retrospective study method. FNAC of breast lump was conducted on 271 patients out of which 104 formed the base group. The results showed that there were 104 patients of base study who had average age of 32 years. There were 54 patients with lump in left breasts, and 46 patients with lump in right breasts and 4 patient had bilateral lump. There were 77 patients with benign, 34 patients with malignant, and 3 had atypica;/suspicious lesions on cytological examination. Based on histopathological examination, 77 cases were related to benign, 26 were related to malignant, and 1 with atypical/suspicious. Cyto-histological concurrence was 93.05% and 79.2% for Fibroadenoma and Infiltrating ductal carcinoma respectively. Overall sensitivity of FNAC procedure was 94.17%, specificity 100% and accuracy 93.26%.  On the basis of result, it is concluded that FNAC is a simple, reliable method for diagnosis of both benign and malignant lesions and can be used in the evaluation of breast lesions.

ADSORPTION OF MERCURIC ION FROM AQUEOUS SOLUTIONS USING MODIFIED FLY ASH

In this study, fly ash was treated with NaOH solution (FAN) before modifying with (3-mercaptopropyl) triethoxysilane - MPTMS (FAMPS). By using FTIR, FESEM, XRD, EDX, and BET techniques, the change in structure, composition and morphology of FAN and FAMPS was evaluated. The FTIR spectra of FAN and FAMPS showed that there is no chemical reaction between the MPTMS and FAN. After modification, the FAMPS has a rough surface with composition difference from the FAN. Mercuric ion adsorption behavior as well as adsorptionisotherm models (Langmuir and Freundlich) of the FAN and FAMPS were also investigated and discussed. Thanks to FAN modification, the mercuric ion removal percent of the FAMPS was higher than that of the FAN. Owing to the adsorption data, Freundlich isotherm modelwas fitted for the mercuric ion adsorption process

SMEs development in the process of economic reform and policy implications

Thesis(Master) --KDI School:Master of Public Policy,2001masterpublishedTrang Thi Cam Tran

ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS’ LISTENING DIFFICULTIES AND USE OF STRATEGIES AT MIEN DONG UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, VIETNAM

Through the years, difficulties in English listening and listening strategies have been conducted by many researchers. Most of studies have pointed out the common difficulties and strategies which students often have. Focusing on the same subject with a new perspective, this research aimed at understanding English majors’ difficulties in listening and use of listening strategies. A total of ninety eight freshmen English-majored students at Mien Dong University took part in answering the questionnaire and five students answered the semi-structure interview questions. The data gained from the questionnaire were analyzed by SPSS version 20.0 in terms of descriptive statistic. The findings revealed that English-majored students had many difficulties in listening such as the difficulties related to the listener, the content of the dialogue, the speaker, the physical setting and the linguistic factors. In terms of listening strategies, the finding showed that the cognitive listening strategies were used more frequently than metacognitive and socio-affective strategies. Based on the findings, some implications were made to contribute to the administrations, teachers and students at Mien Dong University of Technology.  Article visualizations

Characterization of Structural Transition and Heterogeneity under Compression for Liquid Al2O3 Using Molecular Dynamics Simulation

We have performed a simulation of the structural transition and Structural Heterogeneity (SH) in liquid Al2O3 at 3500 K, in the range of 0–100 GPa. The results confirmed that the network structure of liquid alumina is built mainly from AlOx (x = 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) units, which are related to each other through the common oxygen atoms. The existence of separate AlO3-, AlO4-, AlO5-, AlO6- and AlO7- phases, where SH of the network structure can be sufficiently determined, besides, the existence of separate phases is clarified for SH in the liquid of Al2O3. In particular, at a pressure below 10 and beyond 20 GPa, AlOx units are uniformly distributed in the space and non-uniformly distributed in the range 10-20 GPa. Our study is expected to contribute to a simple way to determine the structural heterogeneity and diffusion coefficients of oxide systems. Doi: 10.28991/HIJ-2022-03-02-08 Full Text: PD