Vietnam Inbound M&A Activity: the Role of Government Policy and Regulatory Environment

With a robust recent history of reform and opening, joining of the World Trade Organization, and negotiating a myriad of regional and global trade agreements, Vietnam has emerged as a promising destination for foreign direct investment(FDI) and cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A). In this paper, we providean overview of Vietnam’s inbound mergers and acquisitions and review the twomain driving forces of inbound M&A, which are the legal framework reformprocess and the equitization of State-owned enterprises. We close by providingdirections for future research in the area of cross-border M&As

Theoretical analysis of dynamic chemical imaging with lasers using high-order harmonic generation

We report theoretical investigations of the tomographic procedure suggested by Itatani {\it et al.} [Nature, {\bf 432} 867 (2004)] for reconstructing highest occupied molecular orbitals (HOMO) using high-order harmonic generation (HHG). Using the limited range of harmonics from the plateau region, we found that under the most favorable assumptions, it is still very difficult to obtain accurate HOMO wavefunction, but the symmetry of the HOMO and the internuclear separation between the atoms can be accurately extracted, especially when lasers of longer wavelengths are used to generate the HHG. We also considered the possible removal or relaxation of the approximations used in the tomographic method in actual applications. We suggest that for chemical imaging, in the future it is better to use an iterative method to locate the positions of atoms in the molecule such that the resulting HHG best fits the macroscopic HHG data, rather than by the tomographic method.Comment: 13 pages, 14 figure

How swelling debts give rise to a new type of politics in Vietnam

Vietnam has seen fast-rising debts, both domestic and external, in recent years. This paperreviews the literature on credit market in Vietnam, providing an up-to-date take on the domesticlending and borrowing landscape. The study highlights the strong demand for credit in both therural and urban areas, the ubiquity of informal lenders, the recent popularity of consumer financecompanies, as well as the government’s attempts to rein in its swelling public debt. Given thehigh level of borrowing, which is fueled by consumerism and geopolitics, it is inevitable that theamount of debt will soon be higher than the saving of the borrowers. Unlike the conventional wisdom that creditors have more bargaining power over the borrowers, we suggest that—albeitlacking a quantitative estimation—when the debts pile up so high that the borrowers could not repay, the power dynamics may reverse. In this new politics of debt, the lenders fear to lose the money's worth and continue to lend and feed the insolvent debtors. The result is a toxic lending/borrowing market and profound lessons, from which the developing world could learn

Performance and design analyses of various configurations of dew point evaporative cooling-based desiccant air-conditioning (DAC) systems for hot and humid conditions

Thermally driven desiccant- and evaporative cooling-based technologies are promising greener and cheaper alternatives to compressor-based systems due to the separate handling of latent and sensible loads. Desiccant air-conditioning (DAC) systems comprise a desiccant dehumidifier, a sensible cooling unit, a heat source for regeneration, and a heat recovery unit. These components of a DAC system can be arranged in various ways to give different configurations with varying advantages and disadvantages. In this study, five configurations of thermally driven desiccant dehumidifier- and dew point evaporative cooling (DPEC)-based DAC systems were investigated. Seven evaluation criteria namely regeneration temperature, desiccant moisture removal capacity, COPt, DPEC L/H, heat exchanger UA, system size, and fan power requirement were employed. Results show that the standard cycle in ventilation mode offers the highest COPt despite having the highest regeneration temperature. Recirculation of the return room air can operate at a significantly lower regeneration temperature at the expense of larger equipment size and much lower COPt. DAC with an internally cooled dehumidification can operate at low regeneration temperature at the expense of higher fan power and slightly lower COPt. Dividing the dehumidification process into two stages can offer operation at moderately lower regeneration temperature without severely affecting the other criteria. This study can serve as a guide for the selection of an appropriate DAC configuration for space cooling depending on the objective criteria and the resources available

The second law analysis of a humidification-dehumidification desalination system using M-cycle

Humidification-dehumidification desalination (HDD) systems offer a feasible approach for the production of fresh water in inaccessible areas as they can be operational using renewable energy and require little maintenance. Various studies are being carried out to boost the system performance. In this paper, an open air open water HDD system is proposed that exploits the enhanced evaporation and condensation processes by implementing with the Maisotsenko cycle (M-cycle). The system utilizes solar energy as the energy input to heat the saline water. A thermodynamic model is formulated under steady-state conditions, considering the first and second law of thermodynamics. The energetic and exergetic performance of the system is studied. The model is first validated with the experimental data and a good agreement is found where the maximum discrepancy is about 6.0 %. Effects of different operating conditions on key performance parameters such as the Gain Output Ratio (GOR), specific energy consumption (SEC), exergy destruction, and exergy efficiency are analyzed. An improvement is observed in the GOR when the inlet air temperature is raised at constant humidity ratio. The system exhibits better performance in dry air environment when compared with humid air environment. The analysis shows a maximum mass flow rate of desalinated water of 22.3 kg/h, recovery ratio (RR) of 0.223, GOR of 3, SEC of 0.23 kWh/kg and an exergy efficiency of 43.21 %

Intrinsic Fiber Optic pH Sensor for Measurement of pH Values in the Range of 0.5-6

The development, design, and evaluation of an intrinsic optical fiber pH sensor for low pH values (in the range of 0.5-6) based on fluorescence from a novel coumarin dye, which is covalently immobilized onto the end surface of an optical fiber is described. The sensor provides a rapid response (of approximately 25 s) over this pH range of 0.5-6.0, showing with very good stability over a period of several months. The sensor has also demonstrated insensitivity to ionic strength and excellent photostability through a series of laboratory tests

An open database of productivity in Vietnam's social sciences and humanities for public use

This study presents a description of an open database on scientific output of Vietnamese researchers in social sciences and humanities, one that corrects for the shortcomings in current research publication databases such as data duplication, slow update, and a substantial cost of doing science. Here, using scientists’ self-reports, open online sources and cross-checking with Scopus database, we introduce a manual system and its semi-automated version of the database on the profiles of 657 Vietnamese researchers in social sciences and humanities who have published in Scopus-indexed journals from 2008 to 2018. The final system also records 973 foreign co-authors, 1,289 papers, and 789 affiliations. The data collection method, highly applicable for other sources, could be replicated in other developing countries while its content be used in cross-section, multivariate, and network data analyses. The open database is expected to help Vietnam revamp its research capacity and meet the public demand for greater transparency in science management

Novel battery thermal management via scalable dew-point evaporative cooling

Thermal management is critical to safety, stability, and durability of battery energy storage systems. Existing passive and active air cooling are not competent when the cooling performance, energy efficiency and cost of the thermal management system are drawing concurrent concerns. Here we propose dew-point evaporative cooling as a novel active air-cooling approach for large battery systems. Its capability of cooling the air towards its dew-point temperature with simple working principle and great electrical efficiency offers an ideal solution. Therefore, a scalable dew-point evaporative cooling technology was developed, and a large-scale cooler was constructed which could deliver 2.9–6.7 kW cooling capacity with 8.9–28.9 coefficient of performance (COP). To demonstrate its performance for battery thermal management, we took a 20 Ah lithium iron phosphate (LFP) prismatic pouch cells for a case study whose complex dynamic electrochemical and thermal responses were investigated via lock-in thermography experiments and electrochemical-thermal modeling. The potential of dew-point evaporative cooling for battery cooling was explored via the multi-physics coupling of battery and cooler models. This study elucidates that dew-point evaporative cooling can efficiently cool a battery by 3.0–13.6 °C lower than the cases with only forced convection, and control the battery operating temperature within an ideal operating range of 20–40 °C

Theory of high-order harmonic generation from molecules by intense laser pulses

We show that high-order harmonics generated from molecules by intense laser pulses can be expressed as the product of a returning electron wave packet and the photo-recombination cross section (PRCS) where the electron wave packet can be obtained from simple strong-field approximation (SFA) or from a companion atomic target. Using these wave packets but replacing the PRCS obtained from SFA or from the atomic target by the accurate PRCS from molecules, the resulting HHG spectra are shown to agree well with the benchmark results from direct numerical solution of the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation, for the case of H$_2^+$ in laser fields. The result illustrates that these powerful theoretical tools can be used for obtaining high-order harmonic spectra from molecules. More importantly, the results imply that the PRCS extracted from laser-induced HHG spectra can be used for time-resolved dynamic chemical imaging of transient molecules with temporal resolutions down to a few femtoseconds.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure

The study of the guiding process for 10 keV electrons by planar Plexiglass surfaces

Experimental study of electron beam reflection from a single planar surface of Plexiglas was made. The distinct guiding effect for the part of the beam was observed for 10 keV electrons within angles of incidence from 0 to +3 degrees. The experiments using Poly plates showed a number of features of the process such as the dependence of the reflection on the plate surface quality and material of the surfaces, the divisions of the beam into two parts with different behaviour depend on tilt angle and the beam current value, the effect of an elevation angle of the beam in compare with initial beam trace at negative and zero tilt angles of the plat