Molecular Kondo effect in flat-band lattices

The Kondo effect of a single magnetic impurity embedded in the Lieb lattice is studied by the numerical renormalization group. When the band flatness is present in the local density of states, it quenches the participation of all dispersive electrons in the Kondo singlet formation, and reduces the many-body Kondo problem to a two-electron molecular Kondo problem. The two-electron analog of the many-body Kondo singlet, a quantum entanglement of two spins, is stable at low temperature, and the impurity contributions to thermodynamical and dynamical quantities are qualitatively different from that obtained in the conventional Kondo effect in systems without flat bands. The existence conditions of the molecular Kondo effect in narrow band systems are also discussed

The influence of CEO characteristics on corporate environmental performance of SMEs: Evidence from Vietnamese SMEs

Drawing on upper echelon theory, this study investigates the impact of CEOs’ (chief executive officers) demographic characteristics on corporate environmental performance (CEP) in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We hypothesized that CEO characteristics, including gender, age, basic educational level, professional educational level, political connection, and ethnicity, affect SMEs’ environmental performance. Using the cross-sectional data analysis of 810 Vietnamese SMEs, this study provides evidence that female CEOs and CEOs’ educational level (both basic and professional) are positively related to the probability of CEP. We also find that based on the role of institutional environment on CEP, political connections had a negative effect on CEP in the context of Vietnam. Another finding is that SMEs with chief executives from ethnic minority groups show a higher level of the probability of corporate environmental performance than companies operated by Kinh chief executives. Since CEP is an essential dimension of corporate social responsibility, a strategic decision for SMEs, it is crucial for the company to select appropriate CEOs based on their demographic characteristic

THE IMPACT OF PROTESTANTISM ON THE ECONOMY OF THE COHO CHIL PEOPLE IN LAM DONG PROVINCE

This study examines the relationship between Protestantism and the Coho Chil economy using qualitative methods to analyze data from fieldwork in the Coho Chil Protestant communities of Lam Dong Province. The research shows that Protestantism has a positive impact on the economy of the Coho Chil community. This impact is manifested in casting out superstitious and magical practices and in applying economic rationalization. The Protestant doctrine and sermons by clergy have influenced the thinking of the people and their economic performance. Protestantism creates a social network and social capital that not only influences their economic life, but also provides timely material support for Christians in need. This paper serves as an additional resource for research related to the relationship between religion and the economy – an intriguing topic that is not found in much previous research in Vietnam.This study examines the relationship between Protestantism and the Coho Chil economy using qualitative methods to analyze data from fieldwork in the Coho Chil Protestant communities of Lam Dong Province. The research shows that Protestantism has a positive impact on the economy of the Coho Chil community. This impact is manifested in casting out superstitious and magical practices and in applying economic rationalization. The Protestant doctrine and sermons by clergy have influenced the thinking of the people and their economic performance. Protestantism creates a social network and social capital that not only influences their economic life, but also provides timely material support for Christians in need. This paper serves as an additional resource for research related to the relationship between religion and the economy – an intriguing topic that is not found in much previous research in Vietnam

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

Exploring Cloud Adoption Possibilities for the Manufacturing Sector: A Role of Third-Party Service Providers

As the manufacturing sector strides towards digitalization under the influence of Industry 4.0, cloud services have emerged as the new norm, driving change and innovation in this rapidly transforming landscape. This study investigates the possibilities of cloud adoption in the manufacturing sector by developing a conceptual model to identify suitable cloud-based solutions and explores the role of third-party service providers in aiding manufacturers throughout their cloud adoption journey. The research methods consist of a comprehensive literature review of the manufacturing industry, digital transformation, cloud computing, etc., followed by qualitative analyses of industrial benchmarks case studies and an investigation into an application of the developed model to a hypothetical food manufacturing company as an example. This study indicates that cloud adoption can yield substantial benefits in the manufacturing sector, including operational efficiency, cost reduction, and innovation, etc. The study concludes that the developed conceptual model provides a practical framework to identify the most suitable cloud-based solutions during the cloud adoption process in the manufacturing context. In addition, third-party service providers like Capgemini are capable of not only filling the technical gaps but also consulting strategic directions and innovations for their client organizations, hence playing a vital role in driving the industrial digital transformation process. With an extensive mapping of their capabilities, a set of recommendations intended to assist Capgemini in enhancing capabilities and improving competitive performance in the market has been offered

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

Object-Oriented Approach: Applying ISO 21001 at Vietnamese Higher Education Institutions

To evaluate whether an educational institution has quality or not, requires standards that reflect all the requirements of the complex relationships operating within the educational institution. At the same time, this standard must be recognized by all nations for it to apply widely. It is in this context that the ISO 21001:2018 series of standards was published. This standard mentioned three areas of activities that an educational organization must pay attention to: training, scientific research, and community service. They are also the main activities that the educational accreditation standards refer to. To meet the requirement of quality guarantee and enhancement, a higher education institution has to apply quality assurance norms in general and quality criteria on management systems. Putting the ISO 21001 quality standard into practice is the choice of Vietnamese educational institutions to ensure they meet the requirements for improving management system quality. There are a set of quality system standards for educational organizations to satisfy their specific needs. Not following the traditional approach as they apply other ISO standard systems, Vietnamese educational institutions have chosen an object-base approach, where the beneficiaries are related to the management system of the university. They then approach the PDCA cycle to build and implement an ISO 21001 quality management system. We found that, according to this orientation, the implementation processes might be ensured given that the quality thresholds set by the university are met in order to satisfy the demands of the learners and related stakeholders. The paper aims to analyze the approach of Vietnamese educational institutions in implementing ISO 21001 standards, and at the same time identify advantages and disadvantages in developing policies in the quality management system at educational institutions. The paper also gives recommendations that can be adjusted by management at other higher education institutions to improve quality assurance activities towards sustainable development. Keywords: ISO 21001:2018, quality assurance, quality management system, PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act), sustainable developmen