Weighting deprivations using subjective well-being : an application to the multidimensional child poverty index in Vietnam

Although multidimensional approach to study child poverty has received growing attention, weights of different dimensions in constructing single aggregation indices have not been properly investigated. Using Young Lives data, this study attempts to fill this gap by examining a weight estimation method which takes into account the children’s perspectives. This approach consists of computing analytical weights from estimated parameters of a subjective well-being regression model, where children’s subjective well-being is explained by their achievement in dimensions included in multidimensional poverty indices. By doing so, weights reflect value judgments of children on what is a good life and are not based on a normative approach. Estimation results indicate that revealed preferences of children change overtime and across sub-groups of children. More importantly, this paper demonstrates that children do not give the same value to all dimensions, contrary to what the most common approach to calculate weights is supposing. Children then attach more importance to deprivations such as shelter, water and sanitation deprivations, which impact immediately their well-being than to deprivations which may affect negatively their well-being in the long-term, with the exception of education for some groups of children

Identifying the influence of airbag structure on driver injury during a crash using a dummy model

This study undertakes the analysis of collision scenario using a car model with a dummy and airbags, in the event of a direct collision with a hard wall, one of the necessary studies of passive safety. To describe in detail, the input conditions, a simulation problem of the driver's seat displacements was performed and this displacements data was exported as boundary conditions for the collision simulation. The results simulation crash show that the calculated energy values and simulation results are approximately the same (7.381E+07 and 7.367E+07), energy is converted from kinetic energy into internal energy of the elements. The airbag deployment simulation results are similar to NHTSA's previous research, both in terms of graph shape and maximum value. The impact of the collision incident on the driver is not excessively large, as evidenced by surveys on head (HIC 300), thigh (F 2.8 kN), and neck (F3,098 kN; T 190 Nm) injuries. However, the study proceeds to further analyze and assess the airbag's structure, examining its influence on these metrics, concluding that changes in the exhaust valve size (increase from 1000 mm2 to 2000 mm2) lead to a reduction in the evaluated parameters. These results suggest changes to the airbag structure to enhance driver safety, as well as a simpler simulation model to save analysis tim

Antimicrobial and antioxidant activity of bacterial endophytes isolated from leaves of the mangrove plant Rhizophora stylosa

Mangroves are the most productive ecosystems and contain highly diverse plants and microbial communities. Mangrove endophytes are proved to be a rich source of bioactive secondary metabolites. The biological molecules produced by endophytes play an important role in protection of mangrove plants against herbivores, insects as well as pathogens. The present study aimed to isolate the endophytic bacteria from the mangrove plant Rhizophora stylosa and screen antimicrobial and antioxidant activity of ethyl acetate extracts from the isolated endophytic bacteria. A total of 64 endophytic bacterial strains from R. stylosa leaves were isolated, of which ethyl acetate extracts of 14 isolated endophytic strains showed antimicrobial activity against at least one of reference microorganisms Escherichia coli ATCC 25922, Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 25923, Bacillus subtilis ATCC 27212, Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 12222 and Candida albicans ATCC 7754 with MIC values from 32 to 512 µg/ml. Among them, four strains showed activity against one reference microorganism, five strains showed activity against two reference microorganisms, four strains showed activity against three reference microorganisms, and one strain showed activity against four reference microorganisms. Additionally, the ethyl acetate extracts of 12 isolated endophytic bacteria showed ATBS and DPPH radical scavenging activity with scavenging values from 36.27 ± 2.6% to 71.46 ± 6.6% and from 26.22 ± 3.3% to 57.38 ± 5.8%, respectively. The identification of the five most active endophytic bacteria by 16S rRNA sequences revealed that the endophytes belonged to four genera, including Bacillus, Streptomyces, Pseudovibrio and Pseudomonas. The obtained results suggest that the endophytic bacteria from mangrove plants are a promising reservoir of antimicrobial and antioxidant agents.      

Machinery Usage and Productivity in Manufacturing: Firm-Level Matter in Developing Countries

This study examines the determinants of machinery usage and its relationship with productivity outcomes among Vietnamese manufacturing firms, using nationally representative panel data from 2010 to 2019. A multinomial logit model and panel regressions with first- and second-differences reveal substantial heterogeneity in machinery choices, reflecting differences in firm size, ownership, and sectoral contexts. Medium and large enterprises tend to use computer-controlled machinery and are more likely to exhibit positive associations with labor productivity, although these effects often diminish over time. In contrast, micro and small firms remain reliant on handheld tools and show mixed or short-lived productivity gains. Foreign-invested enterprises demonstrate more consistent productivity benefits from advanced machinery than state-owned firms. These findings suggest that sustained productivity improvements require more than technological upgrades alone. The study highlights the potential importance of complementary investments – such as workforce development, managerial capacity, and institutional support – for fostering inclusive and effective machinery usage. These insights may inform targeted policy efforts aimed at narrowing technology gaps across heterogeneous firms in developing economies

ASSESSMENT OF GEOMORPHIC PROCESSES AND ACTIVE TECTONICS IN CON VOI MOUNTAIN RANGE AREA (NORTHERN VIETNAM) USING THE HYPSOMETRIC CURVE ANALYSIS METHOD

the Day Nui Con Voi (DNCV) area of Vietnam. For this purpose, a spatial database was collected and constructed, including DEM (Digital Elevation Model) and a geological map. The hypsometric curve (HC) analysis method and its statistical moments were adopted to use for the assessment. These methods have been widely used for the assessment of geomorphic processes and active tectonics in many areas in the world showing promising results. A total of 44 sub-basins of the Red River and the Chay river were analyzed. The result shows that 3 curve-types such as "straight- shape", "S- shape", and concave were found; with the concave curve being the dominant and widely distributed in the northeast side and in the south of the southwestern side of the study area. The hypsometric integral (HI) values are rather small with the largest value is 0.37 and the smallest one is 0.128. Other statistical moments of the hypsometric curve, i.e. skew (SK), kurtosis (KUR), and the density function (density skew - DSK and density kurtosis-DKUR) show great values, which increased in the south direction of the area study. Accordingly, recent active tectonics (uplift-lower) in the study area is generally weak; however, they are also not completely homogeneous and can be distinguished by different levels. The southwestern side is being lifted higher than the northeastern side. The northern part is being lifted larger than the southern part. In the region, the uplift activities were increased gradually in the Pliocene-Quaternary and could have stopped at certain time in the past. The current geomorphic processes are mainly headward erosion in the upstream.References Allen, C.R., Gillepie, A.R., Han, Y., Sieh, K.E., Zhu, C., 1984. 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Vehicle Type Classification with Small Dataset and Transfer Learning Techniques

This study delves into the application of deep learning training techniques using a restricted dataset, encompassing around 400 vehicle images sourced from Kaggle. Faced with the challenges of limited data, the impracticality of training models from scratch becomes apparent, advocating instead for the utilization of pre-trained models with pre-trained weights. The investigation considers three prominent models—EfficientNetB0, ResNetB0, and MobileNetV2—with EfficientNetB0 emerging as the most proficient choice. Employing the gradually unfreeze layer technique over a specified number of epochs, EfficientNetB0 exhibits remarkable accuracy, reaching 99.5% on the training dataset and 97% on the validation dataset. In contrast, training models from scratch results in notably lower accuracy. In this context, knowledge distillation proves pivotal, overcoming this limitation and significantly improving accuracy from 29.5% in training and 20.5% in validation to 54% and 45%, respectively. This study uniquely contributes by exploring transfer learning with gradually unfreeze layers and elucidates the potential of knowledge distillation. It highlights their effectiveness in robustly enhancing model performance under data scarcity, thus addressing challenges associated with training deep learning models on limited datasets. The findings underscore the practical significance of these techniques in achieving superior results when confronted with data constraints in real-world scenario

Inland vessels emission inventory: distribution and emission characteristics in the Red River, Hanoi, Vietnam

Purpose – Shipping is a major source of air pollution, causing severe impacts on the environment and human health, greatly contributing to the creation of greenhouse gases and influencing climate change. The research was investigated to provide a better insight into the emission inventories in the Red River in Hanoi (Vietnam) that is often heavily occupied as the primary route for inner-city waterway traffic. Design/methodology/approach – The total emissions of seven different pollutants (PM10, PM2.5, SOx, CO, CO2, NOx and HC) were estimated using the SPD-GIZ emission calculation model. Findings – The results show that CO2 has the most significant contribution to the gas volume emitted: 103.21 tons/day. Remarkably, bulk carriers are the largest emission vehicle, accounting for more than 97% of total emissions, due to their superior number and large capacity. Social implications – The result to have a roadmap for making efforts to fulfil its commitment so that it could achieve its net-zero climate target by 2050 in Vietnam as committed at COP26. Originality/value – In this research, the number of vehicles and types of vessels travelling on the Red River flowing within Hanoi territory and other activity data are reported. The tally data will be used to estimate emissions of seven different pollutants (PM10, PM2.5, SOx, CO, CO2, NOx and HC) using a method combining both top-down and bottom-up approaches

Effects of Culture Media and Duration on In Vitro Maturation and Production of Cỏ Goat Embryos

This study aimed to evaluate the effects of maturation media and duration on the in vitro maturation (IVM) of Cỏ goat oocytes for the in vitro production of Cỏ goat embryos. In Experiment 1, the highest percentage of matured oocytes and blastocyst rates were observed in the IVM medium consisting of tissue culture medium (TCM) 199 + 10% fetal calf serum (FCS) + 50 ng/mL follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) + 100 μM cysteamine + 10 ng/mL epidermal growth factor (EGF) + 100 units/mL penicillin G potassium + 0.1 mg/mL streptomycin sulphate (P \u3c 0.05). In Experiment 2, Cỏ goat oocytes were cultured in the same IVM medium for 20, 22, and 24 h, respectively. The matured oocyte and blastocyst rates of the 20-h group were lower than those of the 22- and 24-h groups (61.56% vs. 76.81% and 73.48%; 13.76% vs. 24.75% and 24.72% respectively; P \u3c 0.05), while there was no difference between the 22- and 24-h groups (P \u3e 0.05). In conclusion, the TCM 199 medium supplemented with FCS, FSH, cysteamine, EGF, and a maturation duration of 22 or 24 h are suitable for the in vitro maturation and subsequent embryo development of Cỏ goat oocytes

Clinical Characteristics and Histopathology of Idiopathic Epiretinal Membrane in Vietnam

BACKGROUND: Idiopathic epiretinal membrane (iERM) is an avascular proliferation of different types of cells between the posterior vitreous cortex and the internal limiting membrane. That causes visual impairment including blurry, distortion, scotoma. Many studies of iERM were done to describe the clinical characteristics and investigate the histopathology of this disease. Nonetheless, there has not been a study of iERM histopathology in Vietnam. AIMS: To describe clinical characteristics and histopathological results of idiopathic retinal membrane and the association between them. METHODS: A cross sectional decriptive study of 35 iERMs (33 patients) in Vietnam National Institute of Ophthalmology (VNIO). RESULTS: High morbidity incidence was in group age >50 years (32/35), female gender (26/35), limited movement works (27/35), and high educational levels (28/35). Distortion was the highest (77.14%), scotoma and floater was less frequent (28.5%, 45.7%). Macular edema in all cases and PVD and exudate were high frequent (65.7%, 62.8%). Symptom duration was 8.2 ± 4.7 months, (1-21 months). Mean of central macular thickness was 468.51 ± 97.24 µm (656-274 µm). Six types of cell were detected, including glial cell (35/35), fibroblast (23/35), myofibroblast (23/35), macrophage (13/35), lymphocyte (5/35) and neutrophil (2/35). The number of cell types in one sample ranged from 1-5 types (2.85 ± 1.28 cell types). Number of cell types were correlated to symptom duration (r = 0.47, p = 0.004, Pearson's test) and central macular thickness (r = 0.72, p < 0.001, Pearson's test). CONCLUSION: There were 6 types of cells in iERM. Glial cell was the most frequent cell, inflammatory cells (macrophage, lymphocyte, neutrophil) was also detected. The number of cell types was stastitically correlated to symptom duration and CMT