BANK EFFICIENCY AND GOVERNANCE: EVIDENCE FROM JOINT VENTURE AND FOREIGN COMMERCIAL BANKS IN VIETNAM

In this paper, we intend to examine the influence of national governance on the bank efficiency of joint venture and foreign commercial banks in Vietnam. Joint venture and foreign commercial banks have been instrumental in introducing new financial products to the Vietnamese market (e.g., mortgage services and medium-term certificates of deposit). At the same time, they have also penetrated the retail market through automobile and housing loans, and international credit card services.  We use the DEA double bootstrap method to develop a bank network function to evaluate bank efficiency. The findings from our random-effects model demonstrate that world governance indicators as proposed by the World Bank independently determine the bank efficiency of the joint venture and foreign commercial banks in Vietnam. There are important implications to be highlighted for policymakers and stakeholders of joint venture and foreign commercial banks and other types of banks in the banking industry elsewhere around the world

The Brexit vote and currency markets

This paper studies the effect of the Brexit vote on the intraday correlation and volatility transmission among major currencies. We find that the vote causes an increase in the correlation among the safe-haven currencies of the Swiss franc and Japanese yen as well as gold, and also find a decrease in their correlation with the directly involved currencies of British sterling and the Euro. These changes are due to the appreciation of the former group and the depreciation of the latter group which represents a flight to quality of investors. We also observe a substantial decrease in volatility transmission between British sterling and the Euro following the Brexit vote due to lower levels of market integration. However the volatility transmission among the currencies has increased in general and their net spillover is positively correlated with their level of volatility and trading activities. Therefore we document the significant impact of the politically important Brexit vote on the high frequency correlation and volatility spillover in the foreign exchange market

Symmetry-preserving graph attention network to solve routing problems at multiple resolutions

Travelling Salesperson Problems (TSPs) and Vehicle Routing Problems (VRPs) have achieved reasonable improvement in accuracy and computation time with the adaptation of Machine Learning (ML) methods. However, none of the previous works completely respects the symmetries arising from TSPs and VRPs including rotation, translation, permutation, and scaling. In this work, we introduce the first-ever completely equivariant model and training to solve combinatorial problems. Furthermore, it is essential to capture the multiscale structure (i.e. from local to global information) of the input graph, especially for the cases of large and long-range graphs, while previous methods are limited to extracting only local information that can lead to a local or sub-optimal solution. To tackle the above limitation, we propose a Multiresolution scheme in combination with Equivariant Graph Attention network (mEGAT) architecture, which can learn the optimal route based on low-level and high-level graph resolutions in an efficient way. In particular, our approach constructs a hierarchy of coarse-graining graphs from the input graph, in which we try to solve the routing problems on simple low-level graphs first, then utilize that knowledge for the more complex high-level graphs. Experimentally, we have shown that our model outperforms existing baselines and proved that symmetry preservation and multiresolution are important recipes for solving combinatorial problems in a data-driven manner. Our source code is publicly available at https://github.com/HySonLab/Multires-NP-har

Organic Fertilizer Production and Application in Vietnam

Crop production is an important subsector of Vietnam’s agriculture, has an impressive achievement in last 30 years and based on the intensive production with increasing use of chemical fertilizer and pesticide. Consequences are the negative effects on environment and human health and food safety. Organic agriculture has become a trend worldwide and is developing rapidly in the world. In Vietnam the certified organic farming area has expanded since 2012. Organic market revenue in Vietnam is estimated to be at $132.15 million a year. Most Vietnamese certified organic products are exported to international markets. Organic agriculture using organic fertilizer is one of Vietnam government’s priorities. Vietnam already produced organic fertilizer from different materials by using different production technologies, but the production capacity is small and does not meet the demand for organic agriculture. Vietnam government encourages, promotes the organic fertilizer production, application and has the policy to develop the organic fertilizer in Vietnam

New records and morphological assessments of long-nosed fruit bats (chiroptera: pteropodidae: Macroglossus spp.) from Vietnam

Long-nosed fruit bat is a common name of the genus Macroglossus which comprises two species: Dagger-toothed long-nosed fruit bat (M. minimus) and Greater long-nosed fruit bat (M. sobrinus). These two species were rarely recorded from Vietnam or neighboring countries. Within Vietnam, M. minimus has been recorded only from two localities in southern Vietnam while M. sobrinus was known from all northern, central and southern regions of the country. Morphological features of these species in Vietnam were poorly documented in previous publications. With results from a rapid examination of all specimens and recently captured individuals, we here confirm that M. sobrinus is distinctively larger than M. minimus in all external and craniodental measurements. Two species are also distinguishable by their nostril shapes and mandible symphyses. This paper provides new distributional records of both M. sobrinus and M. minimus from Vietnam with remarks on their ecology and habitats.

New records of bats (Mammalia: Chiroptera) from Cu Lao Cham and Ly Son archipelagos, central Vietnam

Cu Lao Cham and Ly Son are two well-known archipelagos of Vietnam for their specular landscapes and varied ecosystems including forest, cave, and agriculture. However, their bat fauna has received little attention. Between July 2017 and August 2018, we conducted a series of mammal surveys with emphasis on bats of the two archipelagos. Bats were captured by mist nets and harp traps. Echolocation calls of microchiropteran species were recorded using the PCTape system then analysed by Selena software. With reference to all available literatures and specimens from the recent surveys, we obtained confirmed records of 9 bat species from Cu Lao Cham and 3 species from Ly Son. Of these, Megaderma spasma and Taphozous melanopogon are new to Cu Lao Cham while Rhinolophus macrotis is new to Ly Son. These three species were rarely recorded from other islands of Vietnam and also uncommon within Cu Lao Cham and Ly Son. These new records not only expand the known distributional range, but also provide worthwhile notes on a narrow geographical variation in morphology and echolocation of each species

Monitoring rice growth status in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam using multitemporal Sentinel-1 data

Rice is one of the world’s most dominant staple foods, and hence rice farming plays a vital role in a nation’s economy and food security. To examine the applicability of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data for large areas, we propose an approach to determine rice age, date of planting (dop), and date of harvest (doh) using a time series of Sentinel-1 C-band in the entire Mekong Delta, Vietnam. The effect of the incidence angle of Sentinel-1 data on the backscatter pattern of paddy fields was reduced using the incidence angle normalization approach with an empirical model developed in this study. The time series was processed further to reduce noise with fast Fourier transform and smoothing filter. To evaluate and improve the accuracy of SAR data processing results, the classification outcomes were verified with field survey data through statistical metrics. The findings indicate that the Sentinel-1 images are particularly appropriate for rice age monitoring with R2  =  0.92 and root-mean-square error (RMSE) = 7.3 days (n  =  241) in comparison to in situ data. The proposed algorithm for estimating dop and doh also shows promising results with R2  =  0.92 and RMSE  =  6.2 days (n  =  153) and R2  =  0.70 and RMSE  =  5.7 days (n  =  88), respectively. The results have indicated the ability of using Sentinel-1 data to extract growth parameters involving rice age, planting and harvest dates. Information about rice age corresponding to the growth stages of rice fields is important for agricultural management and support the procurement and management of agricultural markets, limiting the negative effects on food security. The results showed that multitemporal Sentinel-1 data can be used to monitor the status of rice growth. Such monitoring system can assist many countries, especially in Asia, for managing agricultural land to ensure productivity

Longitudinal liver stiffness assessment in patient with chronic hepatitis C undergoing antiviral therapy.

BACKGROUND/AIMS:Liver stiffness (LS) measurement by means of transient elastography (TE) is accurate to predict fibrosis stage. The effect of antiviral treatment and virologic response on LS was assessed and compared with untreated patients with chronic hepatitis C (CHC). METHODS: TE was performed at baseline, and at weeks 24, 48, and 72 in 515 patients with CHC. RESULTS: 323 treated (62.7%) and 192 untreated patients (37.3%) were assessed. LS experienced a significant decline in treated patients and remained stable in untreated patients at the end of study (P<0.0001). The decline was significant for patients with baseline LS ≥ 7.1 kPa (P<0.0001 and P 0.03, for LS ≥ 9.5 and ≥ 7.1 kPa vs lower values, respectively). Sustained virological responders and relapsers had a significant LS improvement whereas a trend was observed in nonresponders (mean percent change -16%, -10% and -2%, for SVR, RR and NR, respectively, P 0.03 for SVR vs NR). In multivariate analysis, high baseline LS (P<0.0001) and ALT levels, antiviral therapy and non-1 genotype were independent predictors of LS improvement. CONCLUSIONS: LS decreases during and after antiviral treatment in patients with CHC. The decrease is significant in sustained responders and relapsers (particularly in those with high baseline LS) and suggests an improvement in liver damage

Pragmatic economic valuation of adaptation risk and responses across scales Case study in Vietnam

Vietnam is one of the countries particularly vulnerable to climate change. Increased temperatures, increased salinity intrusion due to sea-level rise and altering precipitation patterns significantly affect livelihood options of smallholder farmers, resulting in losses in agricultural production. These impacts are projected to become increasingly severe, hence, adaptation to climate change and sensitivity needs to be assessed and adaptation measures taken. This study provides a vulnerability assessment based on the results for exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. This includes present and projected future climatic conditions and hazards, crop suitability analyses and socioeconomic assessments on a district scale. In addition, a case study is presented focusing on the two provinces of Tra Vinh and Ben Tre, identified as highly vulnerable in the Mekong Delta area. The case study shows opportunities, economic trade-offs and barriers of adoption of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices to adapt to progressive climate change

Multiple Recurrent Acute Ischemic Strokes Treated by Thrombectomy in a Patient with Acute Pulmonary Embolism

BACKGROUND: Thrombectomy is recommended to treat for an acute ischemic stroke (AIS) patient with anterior large vessel occlusion. However, there were neither detailed guidelines nor systematic reviews of acute ischemic stroke patients having multiple times or re-occluded arteries. CASE REPORT: In our case report, we struggled a multiple (4-times) AIS patient underwent by one intravenous r-tpA and 3 remaining of endovascular treatment of thrombectomy. Especially, the finding of both pulmonary embolism and cerebral arteries occlusion in this patient made us difficult to decide the appropriate treatment plan. The patient was considered having multiple cardiac thrombi pumping out to the brain and pulmonary vessels even in treatment with NOAC (New Oral Anticoagulant). Our priority, normally, was to recanalize the brain vessels compared to the pulmonary arteries. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, based on this noticed case study, we want to share our experiences on the diagnosis of ischemic stroke, the strategy in treatment and prevention with anticoagulant therapy