The relationship between fluoride concentration in drinking water with dental caries and fluorosis in Vietnamese children

Obtained information on dental caries and fluorosis among a representative sample of Vietnamese children. Also collected information on factors likely to influence caries experience and dental fluorosis and undertook statistical analyses to examine the relationship between fluoride in drinking water, dental caries and dental fluorosisThesis (M.Sc.Dent.) -- University of Adelaide, Dental School, 200

CEO overconfidence effects on mergers and acquisitions

The purpose of the study is to extend further from the result studying overconfidence effects of CEOs on single deal of Malmendier and Tate (2008)'s article to study overconfidence effects of CEOs on multiple mergers and acquisitions. Based on the psychological and financial theories, the likelihood of overconfident CEOs acquiring a company is the net effect of two manifestations of overconfidence. The first manifestation is called miscalibration in psychology. Under this manifestation, overconfident CEOs overestimate the benefits and underestimate the costs of the merger. Thus, it increases the odds of overconfident CEOs undertaking the acquiring project. On the other hand, the second manifestation is called ''better-than-average'' effect. Under this manifestation, overconfident CEOs will curb investment to avoid external finance if the firms do not have sufficient internal fund. The reason for this biased decision is because overconfident CEOs believe that their firms are undervalued by the market. They want to avoid external finance so that the mispricing gap does not become greater. The net effect of the two manifestations of overconfidence on the probability of overconfident CEOs pursuing multiple mergers and acquisitions (M&A) is debatable. Malmendier and Tate (2008) empirically prove that overconfident CEOs are more likely to purchase another firm than non-overconfident colleagues in single deal. Moreover, the announcement effect of single deal by overconfident CEOs is significantly more negative than their rational counterparts' results. The sample used in the study consists of 622 mergers of 306 firms occurred in the US during 2006-2013. The data is retrieved from SDC Platinum, Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP) and Compustat. I find no evidence about the acquisitiveness and the worse performance of overconfident CEOs compared to others in multiple M&As. My findings suggest that overconfident CEOs are equally acquisitive as non-overconfident CEOs in multiple deals. Their multiple M&A deals receive similar announcement returns to others' during the normal economic cycle. One interesting observation is that during the financial crisis overconfident CEOs are more acquisitive in multiple acquisitions than rational CEOs. Although the majority of overconfident CEO's mergers are diversifying, they still receive significantly positive abnormal returns as opposed to the non-overconfident counterparts'. The reason for the interesting findings can be either investor sentiment or the external support of a strong and independent board as well as CEO's personal trading experience

What Factors Influence the Success of Soft Story Retrofit Programs? The Example of San Francisco’s Program

In the event of an earthquake, one of the types of structures that is most susceptible to collapse is soft-story buildings (Association of Bay Area Governments [ABAG], 2016). Built before current regulation and codes were enacted, a soft-story residential building is a building that has commercial space or open parking on the first floor, with units built above it (ABAG, 2016). The first floor has a weak structure and the units above the first floor weigh heavily on it (Arroyo, 2019). Due to their building structure, these properties may sway or collapse during an earthquake, ultimately causing fatalities and damage (ABAG, 2016). To prevent this from occurring, many cities have established programs to require property owners to retrofit their soft-story buildings (ABAG, 2016). The timing and intensity of the next earthquake are unpredictable, but to prepare for the next event, the City of San Francisco has created the Mandatory Soft Story Program to retrofit the city’s soft-story buildings. The following research question guides this study: In San Francisco, what factors influence owners’ decisions to retrofit their buildings? How can this knowledge help other cities to develop effective retrofit programs

Sponsorship Management in Vietnam: Progression, Development, and Recommendation.

2014 dissertation for MSc in International Marketing Management. Selected by academic staff as a good example of a masters level dissertation.Sponsorship has become a popular marketing communications tool. This study aims at exploring how managers view of their sponsorship programmes. The research looked at available literature, which is discussed the field of nature of sponsorship, managerial process and its effect evaluation. This project is specifically focussing on Vietnam. To deal with the research questions and objectives, the research adopted qualitative perspective especially in-depth interview for achieving open-ended, insight explanation of managers’ perception of sponsorship management in Vietnamese enterprises. Analysis of the interview data provided the author with practical comprehension about the existence of sponsorship activities in Vietnam. Through a cluster analysis, two types of sponsoring firm are grouped and labelled as unprofessional sponsors and more professional sponsors. Limitations, marketing implications and scope for future research have also been proposed

The Capability of E-reviews in Online Shopping. Integration of the PLS- SEM and ANN Method

Purpose: The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of e-review on iGen's propensity to purchase online. Especially, it can be better understood by dissecting the relationship among 3 variables of e-review (review valence, quantity of e-review and quality of e-review), e-satisfaction, and intention to buy.   Theoretical framework: This study classifies e-reviews according to their valence, quantity, and quality based on the study of Khammash (2008).   Design/methodology/approach: The PLS-SEM method was used to analyze data collected from online surveys administered to a sample of 222 iGen in Ho Chi Minh City to assess the hypotheses behind the study. Additionally, the Artificial Neural Network technique was used to separate SEM predictors that were relatively important.   Findings:  There are three results from the investigation: It has been found that (1) e-satisfaction is positively affected by valence, (2) e-satisfaction is generally increased with the high quality of e-review, but the quantity of e-review does not necessarily affect customers' e-satisfaction, and (3) e-satisfaction given in the context of an e-commerce platform has a strong effect on customers' online shopping intention. This study sheds new light on iGen's online buying habits and offers valuable management implications for iGen, online merchants, and e-commerce sites.   Research, Practical & Social implications:  E-reviews have become a significant factor in determining consumers' online purchase decisions. They also assist iGen in understanding how a qualified e-review—one that is clear, understandable, helpful, and has enough justification to support the opinions—will be advantageous for other consumers who wish to shop online.   Originality/value:  Provides the theory of e-review and its role in the online business environment. In addition, understand more about the behavior of igen, an age with a huge amount of spending on an online shopping platform

Challenges in Speaking English in ASEAN

Studies reveal that learning English by non-native individuals within any country across the globe increases the nature of problem-solving criteria adopted worldwide. People tend to adopt and embrace a new trajectory that can enhance efficiency in solving the problems that the designated group might face. Immigrants tend to meet a lot of issues within the nation. The leading cause of these problems is usually a result of the language barrier, which can be easily breached by introducing the English language within the region of ASEAN (Yi & Jang 2020). Proficiency in the language creates an atmosphere that is conducive for the aspect of solving the existing problems within the environment. The nature of problem-solving is sophisticated and crucial for the operations exhibited within ASEAN. This paper outlines the challenges faced by ASEANic people when speaking English. &nbsp

ベトナム・紅河デルタにおける地下水質の水文地球化学的評価に関する基礎的研究

首都大学東京, 2014-09-30, 博士（工学）首都大学東

An effective method for clustering-based web service recommendation

Normally web services are classified by the quality of services; however, the term quality is not absolute and defined relatively. The quality of web services is measured or derived using various parameters like reliability, scalability, flexibility, and availability. The limitation of the methods employing these parameters is that sometimes they are producing similar web services in recommendation lists. To address this research problem, the novel improved clustering-based web service recommendation method is proposed in this paper. This approach is mainly dealing with producing diversity in the results of web service recommendations. In this method, functional interest, quality of service (QoS) preference, and diversity features are combined to produce a unique recommendation list of web services to end-users. To produce the unique recommendation results, we propose a varied web service classification order that is clustering-based on web services’ functional relevance such as non-useful pertinence, recorded client intrigue importance, and potential client intrigue significance. Additionally, to further improve the performance of this approach, we designed web service graph construction, an algorithm of various widths clustering. This approach serves to enhance the exceptional quality, that is, the accuracy of web service recommendation outcomes. The performance of this method was implemented and evaluated against existing systems for precision, and f-score performance metrics, using the research datasets