Environmentally friendly process for recovering cellulose from rice straw and for producing regenerated cellulose films

An environmentally friendly process for the use of renewable raw materials, especially biomass waste, was developed. This process allows the quantitative isolation of cellulose from rice straw. Furthermore, the viscosity properties of the dissolved cellulose were improved. This enabled a novel process to produce regenerated cellulose. Non-transparent and transparent powders and films of high quality can be produced. These RC powders and films have been fully characterized and applied as separation media. Thus, it represents a future-oriented green alternative to known industrial processes.Es wurde ein umweltfreundliches Verfahren zur Nutzung von nachwachsenden Rohstoffen, insbesondere von Biomasseabfällen, entwickelt. Dieses Verfahren ermöglicht die quantitative Isolierung von Zellulose aus Reisstroh. Die Viskosität der Zelluloselösung wurde untersucht. Dies ermöglichte ein neuartiges Verfahren zur Herstellung von regenerierten Zellulosepulvern und -folien von hoher Qualität. Diese RC-Pulver und -Filme sind vollständig charakterisiert und als Trennmedien eingesetzt worden. Es stellt damit eine zukunftsorientierte grüne Alternative zu bekannten industriellen Prozessen dar

The Influence of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems on Entrepreneurs' Perceptions and Business Success

Entrepreneurship continues to grow and receives a great deal of interest from business researchers and practitioners for its importance in the modern economy. This study aims to contribute to the body of knowledge that the entrepreneurial ecosystem correlates with founders' perceptions and startup success. Data were gathered from surveys of 200 founders or CEOs of SMEs and startups in Tay Ninh City (Vietnam), who have operated their own companies for at least five years. The primary data analysis was performed using the partial least squares (PLS) technique. Five out of six ecosystem factors significantly affect entrepreneurs' perceptions and startups’ success, based on the results of the empirical data. Besides, the founders' perceptions also positively affect the success of a startup. The implications show the need to enhance entrepreneurship in a nation

Factors Influencing the Households’ Adaptation under Natural Disaster Risk in the Coastal Areas of Giao Thien, Giao Thuy, Nam Dinh, Vietnam

This research is to identify the impacts of natural disaster risk on households of local residents and to identify the adaptation of households with natural disaster risk in Giao Thien commune, Giao Thuy district, Nam Dinh province, Vietnam. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are applied in this study to assess the overall impact of disasters on the livelihood strategies of households in response to natural disaster.  The findings show that the risks of natural disasters affecting the livelihood of the local population in the study area are typhoons, floods, coastal erosion/ sea level rise, and saltwater intrusion. Currently, people in the researching area are not merely affected by one disaster but usually 2-3 or even 4 types of disasters in a short period of time. Therefore, this leads to economic losses, in the form of assets of the households. There are 6 solutions to cope with disaster risks that people often used to reduce the damage include: (1) regularly monitor information; (2)  Change season calendar; (3) Change crop varieties; (4) Buy insurance; (5) Save of fertilizer and pesticide inputs; (6) Save seed production

OMG U got flu? Analysis of shared health messages for bio-surveillance

Background: Micro-blogging services such as Twitter offer the potential to crowdsource epidemics in real-time. However, Twitter posts ('tweets') are often ambiguous and reactive to media trends. In order to ground user messages in epidemic response we focused on tracking reports of self-protective behaviour such as avoiding public gatherings or increased sanitation as the basis for further risk analysis. Results: We created guidelines for tagging self protective behaviour based on Jones and Salath\'e (2009)'s behaviour response survey. Applying the guidelines to a corpus of 5283 Twitter messages related to influenza like illness showed a high level of inter-annotator agreement (kappa 0.86). We employed supervised learning using unigrams, bigrams and regular expressions as features with two supervised classifiers (SVM and Naive Bayes) to classify tweets into 4 self-reported protective behaviour categories plus a self-reported diagnosis. In addition to classification performance we report moderately strong Spearman's Rho correlation by comparing classifier output against WHO/NREVSS laboratory data for A(H1N1) in the USA during the 2009-2010 influenza season. Conclusions: The study adds to evidence supporting a high degree of correlation between pre-diagnostic social media signals and diagnostic influenza case data, pointing the way towards low cost sensor networks. We believe that the signals we have modelled may be applicable to a wide range of diseases

A Critical Investigation into Whole System Transitions to Low Carbon Futures and New Sources of Energy Flexibility in Great Britain's Electricity Sector

Great Britain’s (GB) electricity sector is transitioning to low carbon futures in response to various pressures including legally binding carbon emission targets while ensuring security of supply. Such transitions are likely to focus on a mix of inflexible low carbon generation and new sources of energy flexibility, e.g. demand side flexibility, storage and/or interconnection. Existing studies recognise that transitions are uncertain with actors across the whole sector playing a role. However, they suggest tidy and clearly delineated futures and fail to fully capture the messiness emerging from actor interactions. Drawing on transitions research concepts including the Multi-level Perspective, whole system analysis, architectural innovation, power and discourses, this study critically investigates whole system transitions to low carbon futures and new sources of energy flexibility in GB’s electricity sector. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews with 28 senior figures across the sector and analysed using thematic coding and discourse analysis. This study shows that five futures are articulated representing five discourse coalitions (1) ‘Market-based’, (2) ‘Network-focussed’, (3) ‘Policy-driven’, (4) ‘Consumer-centric’; and (5) ‘Prosumer-led’. These futures are messy because actors hold a plurality of views and cannot be simply marshalled into discourse coalitions. This underscores the complexity of electricity sector transitions and reveals important issues such as different ontologies and framings of energy flexibility. By investigating contemporary energy transition discourses, the study argues that a system level understanding of transitions and changes in future making practices currently dominated by quantitative modelling analyses and fixed transition frameworks are essential to effectively manage transitions. Further research is needed to investigate and find ways to better attend to the messiness and multiplicity of energy transitions from a whole systems perspective. This exploratory study is situated in a broader landscape of transitions research about energy futures and provides useful recommendations for both industry and academic communities

Uloga osobina ličnosti u oblikovanju poduzetničke namjere: Komparativna studija Južne Koreje i Vijetnama

This paper investigates the role of personality traits in nurturing entrepreneurial intention in South Korea and Vietnam. We developed a research model to examine the integrated influence of both positive entrepreneurial characteristics and dark triad on entrepreneurial intention in South Korea and Vietnam. Primary data was collected from 550 students in South Korea and 700 students in Vietnam using the convenient sampling method in a self-administered questionnaire survey. We used structural equation modelling (SEM) to analyse structural relationships between positive entrepreneurial attributes, dark triads, and entrepreneurial intention in two samples. T-tests were also performed to explore any differences in students’ entrepreneurial intention in South Korea and Vietnam regarding their family background and gender. Findings showed that positive entrepreneurial attributes and dark triads influence entrepreneurial intention differently in the two countries. While the dark triad mainly influenced Vietnamese students’ intention to startup, Korean students received more impact from the positive entrepreneurial characteristics such as risk tolerance, locus of control, and entrepreneurial alertness. Surprisingly, both gender and family tradition do not affect students’ entrepreneurial intention. Based on our findings, we suggested that policymakers and higher education institutions in both South Korea and Vietnam promote students’ entrepreneurial intentions in the future.Ovaj rad istražuje ulogu osobina ličnosti u njegovanju poduzetničkih namjera u Južnoj Koreji i Vijetnamu. Razvili smo znanstveni model za ispitivanje integriranog utjecaja pozitivnih poduzetničkih karakteristika kao i utjecaj mračne trijade na poduzetničke namjere u Južnoj Koreji i Vijetnamu. Primarni podaci dobiveni anketiranjem 550 studenata u Južnoj Koreji i 700 studenata u Vijetnamu prikupljeni su korištenjem prikladne metode uzorkovanja u anketi koju su sami proveli. Koristili smo modeliranje strukturnim jednadžbama (SEM) za analizu strukturnih odnosa između pozitivnih poduzetničkih atributa, tamnih trijada i poduzetničke namjere u dva uzorka. Također su provedeni T-testovi kako bi se istražile razlike u poduzetničkim namjerama studenata u Južnoj Koreji i Vijetnamu s obzirom na njihovo obiteljsko porijeklo i spol. Rezultati su pokazali da pozitivne poduzetničke osobine i mračne trijade različito utječu na poduzetničke namjere u dvije zemlje. Dok je mračna trijada uglavnom utjecala na namjeru vijetnamskih studenata da se pokrenu, korejski studenti dobili su veći utjecaj od pozitivnih poduzetničkih karakteristika kao što su tolerancija na rizik, lokus kontrole i poduzetničke budnosti. Iznenađujuće, spol i obiteljska tradicija ne utječu na poduzetničke namjere studenata. Na temelju naših otkrića, predložili smo da kreatori politika i visokoškolske ustanove u Južnoj Koreji i Vijetnamu promiču poduzetničke namjere studenata u budućnosti

GEOCHEMICAL SEDIMENTARY EVOLUTION FEATURES OF THE PROCESSES OF FORMATION, DEVELOPMENT AND DEGRADATION OF MANGROVE FORESTS IN NAMDINH COASTAL REGION, VIETNAM

Joint Research on Environmental Science and Technology for the Eart

What is Risk Culture, and Why Do We Need It?

Hybrid threats dominate our contemporary and technological society, and new risks can be challenging to predict because of today’s digitization. As modern safety-critical organizations and their technologies become more complex, similar to the digitalization experienced in today’s society, they become more susceptible to accidents resulting from unforeseen events. Thus, the importance of a sound and functional safety culture is deemed important. This thesis seeks to shed light on risk culture in safety-critical organizations, and whether focusing on risk culture could have a positive impact on safety culture and, subsequently, safety. Therefore, the problem statement of this thesis is: In what way can a sound risk culture improve an already existing safety culture in safety-critical organizations operating within compliance-based safety regimes? A qualitative research method, consisting of an exploratory case study, was used to help answer the problem statement. This included interviews with the case organization, as well as document analysis of both internal and external documents. In total, 18 semi-structured interviews with informants from different levels within the organization were conducted. After the interviews, the informants were provided with a statement form as a part of the interviews. Here, they were asked to rank eight statements from 1 to 5 as to whether they agreed or disagreed. The document analysis consisted of five internal documents and one external. While no organization can completely eliminate all risks, an emphasis on risk culture involves having a proactive and systematic approach to identifying, assessing, and managing risks. This could, in turn, ensure that decisions made are more likely to be the same, independently of the decision-maker. The findings of this thesis indicate that an emphasis on risk culture, as a component within safety culture, could have a positive impact and thus improve safety. We observed that there was a lack of a collective understanding of what risk, risk culture, and risk-based approach are, within the organization. An increased understanding of risk culture among individuals can contribute to a better systems-based understanding of how all tasks are interrelated and, thus, enhance awareness of the risks the employees may encounter in their workday. Consequently, emphasizing risk culture in light of their safety culture could have a positive influence on the existing safety culture, thus improving the level of safety