As a generation of ‘digital natives,’ secondary students who were born from 2002 to 2010 have various approaches to acquiring digital knowledge. Digital literacy and resilience are crucial for them to navigate the digital world as much as the real world; however, these remain under-researched subjects, especially in developing countries. In Vietnam, the education system has put considerable effort into teaching students these skills to promote quality education as part of the United Nations-defined Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4). This issue (...) has proven especially salient amid the COVID−19 pandemic lockdowns, which had obliged most schools to switch to online forms of teaching. This study, which utilizes a dataset of 1061 Vietnamese students taken from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)’s “Digital Kids Asia Pacific (DKAP)” project, employs Bayesian statistics to explore the relationship between the students’ background and their digital abilities. Results show that economic status and parents’ level of education are positively correlated with digital literacy. Students from urban schools have only a slightly higher level of digital literacy than their rural counterparts, suggesting that school location may not be a defining explanatory element in the variation of digital literacy and resilience among Vietnamese students. Students’ digital literacy and, especially resilience, also have associations with their gender. Moreover, as students are digitally literate, they are more likely to be digitally resilient. Following SDG4, i.e., Quality Education, it is advisable for schools, and especially parents, to seriously invest in creating a safe, educational environment to enhance digital literacy among students. (shrink)

Folklore has a critical role as a cultural transmitter, all the while being a socially accepted medium for the expressions of culturally contradicting wishes and conducts. In this study of Vietnamese folktales, through the use of Bayesian multilevel modeling and the Markov chain Monte Carlo technique, we offer empirical evidence for how the interplay between religious teachings (Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism) and deviant behaviors (lying and violence) could affect a folktale’s outcome. The findings indicate that characters who lie and/or commit (...) violent acts tend to have bad endings, as intuition would dictate, but when they are associated with any of the above Three Teachings, the final endings may vary. Positive outcomes are seen in cases where characters associated with Confucianism lie and characters associated with Buddhism act violently. The results supplement the worldwide literature on discrepancies between folklore and real-life conduct, as well as on the contradictory human behaviors vis-à-vis religious teachings. Overall, the study highlights the complexity of human decision-making, especially beyond the folklore realm. (shrink)

Vietnam, with a geographical proximity and a high volume of trade with China, was the first country to record an outbreak of the new Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 or SARS-CoV-2. While the country was expected to have a high risk of transmission, as of April 4, 2020—in comparison to attempts to contain the disease around the world—responses from Vietnam are being seen as prompt and effective in protecting the interests of its citizens, (...) with 239 confirmed cases and no fatalities. This study analyzes the situation in terms of Vietnam’s policy response, social media and science journalism. A self-made web crawl engine was used to scan and collect official media news related to COVID-19 between the beginning of January and April 4, yielding a comprehensive dataset of 14,952 news items. The findings shed light on how Vietnam—despite being under-resourced—has demonstrated political readiness to combat the emerging pandemic since the earliest days. Timely communication on any developments of the outbreak from the government and the media, combined with up-to-date research on the new virus by the Vietnamese science community, have altogether provided reliable sources of information. By emphasizing the need for immediate and genuine cooperation between government, civil society and private individuals, the case study offers valuable lessons for other nations concerning not only the concurrent fight against the COVID-19 pandemic but also the overall responses to a public health crisis. (shrink)

Universities and funders in many countries have been using Journal Impact Factor (JIF) as an indicator for research and grant assessment despite its controversial nature as a statistical representation of scientific quality. This study investigates how the changes of JIF over the years can affect its role in research evaluation and science management by using JIF data from annual Journal Citation Reports (JCR) to illustrate the changes. The descriptive statistics find out an increase in the median JIF for the top (...) 50 journals in the JCR, from 29.300 in 2017 to 33.162 in 2019. Moreover, on average, elite journal families have up to 27 journals in the top 50. In the group of journals with a JIF of lower than 1, the proportion has shrunk by 14.53% in the 2015–2019 period. The findings suggest a potential ‘JIF bubble period’ that science policymaker, university, public fund managers, and other stakeholders should pay more attention to JIF as a criterion for quality assessment to ensure more efficient science management. (shrink)

Nhật Bản thường được biết đến là một cường quốc khoa học không chỉ ở Châu Á mà trên toàn thế giới với rất nhiều giải thưởng khoa học cao quý và sản lượng khoa học ổn định ở mức cao nhiều thập niên qua. Tuy nhiên, trong khoảng 10 năm trở lại đây, thế giới đã thường xuyên ghi nhận những vụ bê bối về đạo đức nghiên cứu tại Nhật Bản. Xem xét kĩ lưỡng nội dung chi tiết (...) các vụ bê bối có thể thấy Nhật Bản đang gặp phải những thách thức nan giải trong việc ngăn chặn và kiểm soát vi phạm đạo đức nghiên cứu. Một phần quan trọng của thách thức này là sự xung đột giữa một bên là những yếu tố có tính lịch sử và văn hóa, và bên kia là sự phát triển của công nghệ thông tin và xu hướng hợp tác quốc tế mở rộng. Nghiên cứu trường hợp của Nhật Bản có thể mang lại những bài học quan trọng trong việc xây dựng khả năng đào tạo và quản lí đạo đức nghiên cứu tại một nền khoa học mới hội nhập như Việt Nam. (shrink)

United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals 4 Quality Education has highlighted major challenges for all nations to ensure inclusive and equitable quality access to education, facilities for children, and young adults. The SDG4 is even more important for developing nations as receiving proper education or vocational training, especially in science and technology, means a foundational step in improving other aspects of their citizens’ lives. However, the extant scientific literature about STEM education still lacks focus on developing countries, even more so in (...) the rural area. Using a dataset of 4967 observations of junior high school students from a rural area in a transition economy, the article employs the Bayesian approach to identify the interaction between gender, socioeconomic status, and students’ STEM academic achievements. The results report gender has little association with STEM academic achievements; however, female students (αa_Sex[2] = 2.83) appear to have achieved better results than their male counterparts (αa_Sex[1] = 2.68). Families with better economic status, parents with a high level of education (βb(EduMot) = 0.07), or non-manual jobs (αa_SexPJ[4] = 3.25) are found to be correlated with better study results. On the contrary, students with zero (βb(OnlyChi) = -0.14) or more than two siblings (βb(NumberofChi) = -0.01) are correlated with lower study results compared to those with only one sibling. These results imply the importance of providing women with opportunities for better education. Policymakers should also consider maintaining family size so the parents can provide their resources to each child equally. (shrink)

Starting with the first international publication of Le Van Thiem (Lê Văn Thiêm) in 1947, modern mathematics in Vietnam is a longstanding research field. However, what is known about its development usually comes from discrete essays such as anecdotes or interviews of renowned mathematicians. We introduce SciMath—a database on publications of Vietnamese mathematicians. To ensure this database covers as many publications as possible, data entries are manually collected from scientists’ publication records, journals’ websites, universities, and research institutions. Collected data went (...) through various verification steps to ensure data quality and minimize errors. At the time of this report, the database covered 8372 publications, profiles of 1566 Vietnamese, and 1492 foreign authors since 1947. We found a growing capability in mathematics research in Vietnam in various aspects: scientific output, publications on influential journals, or collaboration. The database and preliminary results were presented to the Scientific Council of Vietnam Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics (VIASM) on November 13th, 2020. (shrink)

Background: In the context of globalization, Vietnamese universities, whose primary function is teaching, there is a need to improve research performance. Methods: Based on SSHPA data, an exclusive database of Vietnamese social sciences and humanities researchers’ productivity, between 2008 and 2019 period, this study analyzes the research output of Vietnamese universities in the field of social sciences and humanities. Results: Vietnamese universities have been steadily producing a high volume of publications in the 2008-2019 period, with a peak of 598 articles (...) in 2019. Moreover, many private universities and institutions are also joining the publication race, pushing competitiveness in the country. Conclusions: Solutions to improve both quantity and quality of Vietnamese universities’ research practice in the context of the industrial revolution 4.0 could be applying international criteria in Vietnamese higher education, developing scientific and critical thinking for general and STEM education, and promoting science communication. (shrink)

Manh-Tung Ho, Khanh-Linh Hoang, Minh-Hoang Nguyen, Manh-Toan Ho (2019). Chapter 8. The emerging business of science in Vietnam. In Quan-Hoang Vuong, Trung Tran (Eds.), The Vietnamese Social Sciences at a Fork in the Road (pp. 163–177). Warsaw, Poland: De Gruyter. DOI:10.2478/9783110686081-013. -/- Online ISBN: 9783110686081 © 2019 Sciendo / De Gruyter.

This study examines the effects of ownership structure on firm performance in the Vietnamese stock market using a sample of 76 manufacturing companies listed on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HOSE) during 2007-2015. Firm performance is measured by Tobin’s Q, and ownership structure is investigated in three different aspects: managerial ownership, block ownership and state ownership.

Đúng dịp Bộ trưởng Quốc phòng Hoa Kỳ Lloyd Austin có chuyến thăm cấp cao tại Việt Nam, các cán bộ nghiên cứu của Trung tâm ISR cũng đã có bài báo nghiên cứu được xuất bản trên tập san Asia Policy về chủ đề Công ước Biển UNCLOS 1982.

Bài mới xuất bản vào ngày 19-5-2020 với tác giả liên lạc là NCS Nguyễn Minh Hoàng, cán bộ nghiên cứu của Trung tâm ISR, trình bày tiếp cận thống kê Bayesian cho việc nghiên cứu dữ liệu khoa học xã hội. Đây là kết quả của định hướng Nhóm nghiên cứu SDAG được nêu rõ ngay từ ngày 18-5-2019.

Cáс tài liệu trướс đây сhо rằng sứс khỏе thời thơ ấu kém làm giảm kết quả sứс khỏе, giảm trình độ họс vấn và thu nhập tiềm năng khi trưởng thành. Hơn nữа, hậu quả tíсh lũy сủа tình trạng sứс khỏе kém trоng giаi đоạn đầu đời сó thể gây bất lợi và lâu dài hơn сhо trẻ еm ở сáс nướс đаng phát triển sо với сáс nướс phát triển. Dо đó, phát hiện сủа сhúng tôi nhấn (...) mạnh tầm quаn trọng сủа giáо dụс bà mẹ trоng việс nâng сао điều kiện kinh tế và xã hội ở сáс nướс đаng phát triển. (shrink)

Lạm dụng và bỏ bê trẻ еm đаng diễn rа phổ biến trên tоàn сầu. Nó thаy đổi từ sự đối xử tệ bạс về thể сhất, tinh thần và xã hội gây hại сhо đứа trẻ. Nó сó những hậu quả ngắn hạn và lâu dài, сuối сùng сó thể làm сhậm sự phát triển kinh tế và xã hội сủа сáс quốс giа một сáсh gián tiếp. Người tа ướс tính rằng сứ 5 phụ nữ và 1 trоng (...) số 13 nаm giới thì сó 1 người bị lạm dụng tình dụс trоng thời thơ ấu. Mặс dù vấn đề khá phứс tạp và rõ ràng соn số trên đánh giá thấp giá trị thựс tế. Phần lớn, đó là dо сấu trúс xã hội trоng сộng đồng bị phá vỡ. Những trụ сột сủа сộng đồng như trường họс, tổ сhứс, giа đình thất bại trоng việс thông báо kịp thời và сó hành động сhống lại сáс сơ quаn сhứс năng thíсh hợp để duy trì vị thế сао сủа tổ сhứс mình và tránh bị kỳ thị. Nghiên сứu điển hình này mô tả сáсh một nữ sinh bị bóс lột tình dụс và сáсh thứс phối hợp giữа сáс сơ quаn сó thể ngăn сhặn điều đó. (shrink)

Is the societal-level of analysis sufficient today to understand the values of those in the global workforce? Or are individual-level analyses more appropriate for assessing the influence of values on ethical behaviors across country workforces? Using multi-level analyses for a 48-society sample, we test the utility of both the societal-level and individual-level dimensions of collectivism and individualism values for predicting ethical behaviors of business professionals. Our values-based behavioral analysis indicates that values at the individual-level make a more significant contribution to (...) explaining variance in ethical behaviors than do values at the societal-level. Implicitly, our findings question the soundness of using societal-level values measures. Implications for international business research are discussed. (shrink)

This book examines the legal and moral theory behind the law of evidence and proof, arguing that only by exploring the nature of responsibility in fact-finding can the role and purpose of much of the law be fully understood. Ho argues that the court must not only find the truth to do justice, it must do justice in finding the truth.

Katulad ng laging binabanggit ni Prop. Michael Charleston B. Chua ng Pamantasan ng De La Salle, "Hindi man ako naging direktang naging mag-aaral ni Dr. Salazar, mapalad pa rin akong nakilala ko siya at natuto ng kahalagahan ng Pantayong Pananaw." Marahil ito rin ang sumasambulat sa mga nais maging mag-aaral ng paham na si Salazar. Isang metapora ng kometa o isang bakunawa ang pagdating ng isang Dr. Salazar sa Sintang Paaralan partikular na sa Kagawaran ng Kasaysayan dahil pinagyaman niya/tinutulungang makaalpas (...) ang ningning ng aming kagawaran tungo sa mayamang pag-aaral sa kasaysayan. (shrink)

The difficult phrase ὅ ποτε ὄν ἐστι (hereafter ‘OPO’), which occurs in key passages in Aristotle’s discussions of blood and of time, has long vexed interpreters of Aristotle. This paper proposes a new interpretation of OPO, which resolves some textual and interpretative problems about Aristotle’s theories of blood and of time. My interpretation will also shed light on more general issues in Aristotle’s metaphysics. In the passages I will discuss, Aristotle takes both blood and time to be examples of his (...) peculiar ‘coupled entities’. He then uses OPO to provide explanations which differ from what we might call his ‘standard’ metaphysical explanations. On the ‘standard’ approach, Aristotle explains derivative entities—non-substances—by describing their relationship to substances. By contrast to this standard form of explanation, when Aristotle uses OPO he explains blood and time by describing their relationship to non-substances. This paper thus identifies a new species of metaphysical dependence in Aristotle. In addition, it provides detailed examination of evidence concerning whether Aristotle himself used coupled entities in his own physical and metaphysical theories. (shrink)

Decision-making regarding healthcare expenditure hinges heavily on an individual's health status and the certainty about the future. This study uses data on propensity of general health exam (GHE) spending to show that despite the debate on the necessity of GHE, its objective is clear—to obtain more information and certainty about one’s health so as to minimise future risks. Most studies on this topic, however, focus only on factors associated with GHE uptake and overlook the shifts in behaviours and attitudes regarding (...) different levels of cost. To fill the gap, this study analyses a dataset of 2068 subjects collected from Hanoi (Vietnam) and its vicinities using the baseline-category logit method. We evaluate the sensitivity of Vietnamese healthcare consumers against two groups of factors (demographic and socioeconomic-cognitive) regarding payment for periodic GHE, which is not covered by insurance. Our study shows that uninsured, married and employed individuals are less sensitive to cost than their counterparts because they value the information in reducing future health uncertainty. The empirical results challenge the objections to periodic health screening by highlighting its utility. The relevance of behavioural economics is further highlighted through a look at the bounded rationality of healthcare consumers and private insurance companies in using and providing the service, respectively. (shrink)

This research employs the Bayesian network modeling approach, and the Markov chain Monte Carlo technique, to learn about the role of lies and violence in teachings of major religions, using a unique dataset extracted from long-standing Vietnamese folktales. The results indicate that, although lying and violent acts augur negative consequences for those who commit them, their associations with core religious values diverge in the final outcome for the folktale characters. Lying that serves a religious mission of either Confucianism or Taoism (...) (but not Buddhism) brings a positive outcome to a character (βT_and_Lie_O= 2.23; βC_and_Lie_O= 1.47; βT_and_Lie_O= 2.23). A violent act committed to serving Buddhist missions results in a happy ending for the committer (βB_and_Viol_O= 2.55). What is highlighted here is a glaring double standard in the interpretation and practice of the three teachings: the very virtuous outcomes being preached, whether that be compassion and meditation in Buddhism, societal order in Confucianism, or natural harmony in Taoism, appear to accommodate two universal vices—violence in Buddhism and lying in the latter two. These findings contribute to a host of studies aimed at making sense of contradictory human behaviors, adding the role of religious teachings in addition to cognition in belief maintenance and motivated reasoning in discounting counterargument. (shrink)

Every year, the Vietnamese people reportedly burned about 50,000 tons of joss papers, which took the form of not only bank notes, but iPhones, cars, clothes, even housekeepers, in hope of pleasing the dead. The practice was mistakenly attributed to traditional Buddhist teachings but originated in fact from China, which most Vietnamese were not aware of. In other aspects of life, there were many similar examples of Vietnamese so ready and comfortable with adding new norms, values, and beliefs, even contradictory (...) ones, to their culture. This phenomenon, dubbed “cultural additivity”, prompted us to study the co-existence, interaction, and influences among core values and norms of the Three Teachings –Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism–as shown through Vietnamese folktales. By applying Bayesian logistic regression, we evaluated the possibility of whether the key message of a story was dominated by a religion (dependent variables), as affected by the appearance of values and anti-values pertaining to the Three Teachings in the story (independent variables). Our main findings included the existence of the cultural additivity of Confucian and Taoist values. More specifically, empirical results showed that the interaction or addition of the values of Taoism and Confucianism in folktales together helped predict whether the key message of a story was about Confucianism, β{VT ⋅ VC} = 0.86. Meanwhile, there was no such statistical tendency for Buddhism. The results lead to a number of important implications. First, this showed the dominance of Confucianism because the fact that Confucian and Taoist values appeared together in a story led to the story’s key message dominated by Confucianism. Thus, it presented the evidence of Confucian dominance and against liberal interpretations of the concept of the Common Roots of Three Religions (“tam giáo đồng nguyên”) as religious unification or unicity. Second, the concept of “cultural additivity” could help explain many interesting socio-cultural phenomena, namely the absence of religious intolerance and extremism in the Vietnamese society, outrageous cases of sophistry in education, the low productivity in creative endeavors like science and technology, the misleading branding strategy in business. We are aware that our results are only preliminary and more studies, both theoretical and empirical, must be carried out to give a full account of the explanatory reach of “cultural additivity”. (shrink)

The growth response, metal tolerance and phytoaccumulation properties of water spinach (Ipomoea aquatica) and okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) were assessed under different contaminated spiked metals: control, 50 mg Pb/kg soil, 50 mg Zn/kg soil and 50 mg Cu/kg soil. The availability of Pb, Zn and Cu metals in both soil and plants were detected using flame atomic absorption spectrometry. The concentration and accumulation of heavy metals from soil to roots and shoots (edible parts) were evaluated in terms of translocation factor, accumulation (...) factor and tolerance index. Okra recorded the highest accumulation of Pb (80.20 mg/kg) in its root followed by Zn in roots (35.70 mg/kg) and shoots (34.80 mg/kg) of water spinach, respectively. Different accumulation trends were observed with, Pb > Zn > Cu in okra and Zn > Pb > Cu in water spinach. Significant differences (p < 0.01) of Pb, Zn and Cu accumulation were found in both water spinach and okra cultivated among tested treatments. However, only the accumulation of Pb metal in the shoots of water spinach and okra exceeded the maximum permissible levels of the national Malaysian Food Act 1983 and Food Regulations 1985 ([2006]) as well as the international Codex Alimentarius Commission limits. This study has shown that both water spinach and okra have good potential as Pb and Zn phytoremediators. (shrink)

Can green growth policies help protect the environment while keeping the industry growing and infrastructure expanding? The City of Kitakyushu, Japan has actively implemented eco-friendly policies since 1967 and recently inspired the pursuit of sustainable development around the world, especially in the Global South region. However, empirical studies on the effects of green growth policies are still lacking. This study explores the relationship between road infrastructure development and average industrial firm size with air pollution in the city through the Environmental (...) Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis. Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) and Non-linear Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) methods were applied on nearly 50-years’ time series data, from 1967 to 2015. The results show that the shape of the EKC of industrial growth, measured by average firm size, depends on the type of air pollution: inverted N-shaped relationships with NO2 and CO, and the U-shaped relationships with falling dust particle and Ox. Regarding infrastructure development, on the one hand, our analysis shows a positive effect of road construction on alleviating the amount of falling dust and CO concentration. On the other hand, the emissions of NO2 and Ox are shown to rise when plotted against road construction. The decline of CO emission, when plotted against both industrial growth and road development, indicates that the ruthlessness of the local government in pursuing green growth policies has been effective in this case. However, the story is not straightforward when it comes to other air pollutants, which hints at the limits of the current policies. The case of Kitakyushu illustrates the complex dynamics of the interaction among policy, industry, infrastructure, and air pollution. It can serve as an important reference point for other cities in the Global South when policies are formed, and progress is measured in the pursuit of a green economy. Finally, as an OECD SDGs pilot city and the leading Asian green-growth city, policymakers in Kitakyushu city are recommended to revise the data policy to enhance the findability and interoperability of data, as well as to invest in the application of big data. (shrink)

Earth Hour is one of the most popular environmental events in Vietnam. However, looking at the rise in electricity consumption in the country, it is impossible to feel its impact.

Investigation of neural and cognitive processes underlying individual variation in moral preferences is underway, with notable similarities emerging between moral- and risk-based decision-making. Here we specifically assessed moral distributive justice preferences and non-moral financial gambling preferences in the same individuals, and report an association between these seemingly disparate forms of decision-making. Moreover, we find this association between distributive justice and risky decision-making exists primarily when the latter is assessed with the Iowa Gambling Task. These findings are consistent with neuroimaging studies (...) of brain function during moral and risky decision-making. This research also constitutes the first replication of a novel experimental measure of distributive justice decision-making, for which individual variation in performance was found. Further examination of decision-making processes across different contexts may lead to an improved understanding of the factors affecting moral behaviour. (shrink)

Chương trình bayesvl được thiết kế với định hướng sư phạm, hỗ trợ các nhà nghiên cứu ngành khoa học xã hội và nhân văn sử dụng mô hình lưới Bayesian, mô phỏng MCMC, hình ảnh hóa các thông số kĩ thuật và phân tích dữ liệu xã hội. bayesvl được phát hành chính thức trên hệ thống thư viện chuẩn của R là Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN) vào tháng 5 năm 2019.

This article aims to highlight the resounding issue regarding the pandemic caused by COVID-19 in the Philippines. In hindsight, it seems that contemporary Filipinos treat its spread as a new and first disease that our society has experienced. It only reflects the inexhaustible study of Filipino pathology. So there is a tendency for the Filipino government to tarnish or not take the future pandemic seriously because apart from the lack of knowledge about pandemics, it is possible that our society does (...) not know the challenges recognized and responses done to past diseases (which is even worse than COVID-19). So I utilized the neologisms that were popular these days of COVID-19 and no doubt had entered the body of modern Filipino vocabulary and corpora. It is ensured that through this comparison, the significance of previous diseases in the Philippines can be easily traced and understood. Although the motion of the argument is reversed; the present will be used to comprehend the past. With this move, it will be proven that the neologisms I have noticed are not that new. This study focuses on re-examining Hansen’s disease or leprosy that plagued the Philippines in the early 20th century. It has created great concern and fear among Filipinos. Nearly a hundred years later, COVID-19 emerged in the early 21st century. In addition to the comparative lens presented by this study, two diseases can be identified and compared in measuring the experiences of Filipinos. Although in different epochs and intensities, both diseases have given rise to extreme fear in Filipino society. (shrink)

Trung Tran, Phuong-Thao T. Trinh, Thu-Trang Vuong, Hiep-Hung Pham (2019). Chapter 1. The debates and the long-awaited reform. In Quan-Hoang Vuong, Trung Tran (Eds.), The Vietnamese Social Sciences at a Fork in the Road (pp. 17–32). Warsaw, Poland: De Gruyter / Sciendo. DOI:10.2478/9783110686081-006 -/- Online ISBN: 9783110686081 © 2019 De Gruyter / Sciendo.

The study of cultural evolution has taken on an increasingly interdisciplinary and diverse approach in explicating phenomena of cultural transmission and adoptions. Inspired by this computational movement, this study uses Bayesian networks analysis, combining both the frequentist and the Hamiltonian Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) approach, to investigate the highly representative elements in the cultural evolution of a Vietnamese city’s architecture in the early 20th century. With a focus on the façade design of 68 old houses in Hanoi’s Old Quarter (...) (based on 78 data lines extracted from 248 photos), the study argues that it is plausible to look at the aesthetics, architecture, and designs of the house façade to find traces of cultural evolution in Vietnam, which went through more than six decades of French colonization and centuries of sociocultural influence from China. The in-depth technical analysis, though refuting the presumed model on the probabilistic dependency among the variables, yields several results, the most notable of which is the strong influence of Buddhism over the decorations of the house façade. Particularly, in the top 5 networks with the best Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) scores and p<0.05, the variable for decorations (DC) always has a direct probabilistic dependency on the variable B for Buddhism. The paper then checks the robustness of these models using Hamiltonian MCMC method and find the posterior distributions of the models’ coefficients all satisfy the technical requirement. Finally, this study suggests integrating Bayesian statistics in the social sciences in general and for the study of cultural evolution and architectural transformation in particular. (shrink)

The article first gives an exegesis of the famous passage in the "Republic", 505d11-506a2. Attention is drawn to the fact that the principle that every soul does everything for the Good can be translated in two ways: Every soul does everything for the sake of the Good, or goes to all lengths for the sake of the Good. Depending on the different translations, we have a different picture of the platonic Socrates in the Republic, an intellectualistic Socrates for whom irrational (...) desires do not exist, or a Socrates who also accepts irrational desires. The article favours the first one. Then it attempts to show that we can elucidate some dark points in the Socratic thesis that the Good is what every soul pursues and for which every soul does everything, with the help of Aquinas’s distinction between it actio hominis and actio humana. Finally, the article outlines three substantive answers to the question “What is the Good?” – the henological, the perfectionist and the structuralist. Instead of advancing a new answer, the article suggests an uncontroversial formal starting point for an answer to this question. (shrink)

This study explores entrepreneurship research in Vietnam, a lower-middle-income country in Southeast Asia that has witnessed rapid economic growth since the 1990s but has nonetheless been absent in the relevant Western-centric literature. Using an exclusively developed software, the study presents a structured dataset on entrepreneurship research in Vietnam from 2008 to 2018, highlighting: low research output, low creativity level, inattention to entrepreneurship theories, and instead, a focus on practical business matters. The scholarship remains limited due to the detachment between the (...) academic and entrepreneur communities. More important are the findings that Vietnamese research on entrepreneurship, still in its infancy, diverges significantly from those in developed and emerging economies in terms of their content and methods. These studies are contextualized to a large extent to reflect the concerns of a developing economy still burdened by the high financial and nonfinancial costs. (shrink)

Competence structure that pre-service teachers need to develop to become a future teacher has been defined since the 1930s. For pre-service mathematics teachers, their competence has its own characteristics. ICT integration in developing competence for pre-service mathematics teachers has been been proved to be effective in many previous studies. In Vietnam, the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has recommended the use of ICT to enhance teaching-learning activities in schools and universities, therefore, there have been many studies on ICT intergration (...) at different educational levels. However, there are only a few studies on the use ICT integration in developing competence for pre-service mathematics teachers. This paper presents results from a research on the feasibility of ICT integration in developing competence of Vietnamese pre-service mathematics teachers. The research was conducted by surveying on a randomly selected of 297 pre-service mathematics teachers and 40 mathematics lecturers in six universities which provide mathematics training programs. Results show that despite of the availability of technologies, ICT integration in training pre-service teachers is still limited. In addition, ICT integration in teaching activities of mathematics teachers is not really effective because the levels of their ICT skills are very different. Pre-service mathematics teachers have the ability to use ICT equipment, and good accessibility to learning systems, but their use of the learning management systems (LMS) is limited. This study can be a reference for future studies to test the effective of ICT integration in training pre-service teachers when designing activities to develop feasibly and effectively their competence. (shrink)

The discourse on emotional A.I., i.e., technologies that read, classify, identify human emotions, is currently dominated by Western ideas1. Yet, even A.I. researchers in the West acknowledge there are cultural differences if neglected could magnify and affect A.I.'s accuracy.

This paper defends the strong thesis of ethical egoism, the view that self-interest is the exclusive standard of morally right action. The method of defense is that of reflective equilibrium, viz., back and forth reflection on intuitive judgments in particular cases and the principles that seem to explain our judgments, with the goal of aligning the two. The defense proceeds in three steps. First, I define what selfishness is and characterize what selfishness looks like in real life; an accurate depiction (...) of selfishness will show that selfishness, at least generally, is morally attractive. Second, I defend the view that helping others and not helping others is morally right when and because doing so serves one’s self-interest. Third, I defend the same position in regard to harming and not harming others. (shrink)

In this essay, I discuss the analogy of the mind as a sponge, the issues of cognitive artifacts, and being a mind in the 21st century.

A number of analytical philosophers have recently endorsed the view that the world itself is indeterminate in some respect. Intriguingly, ideas similar to the view are expressed by thinkers from Chinese Madhyamaka Buddhism, which may shed light on the current discussion of worldly indeterminacy. Using as a basis Chinese Madhyamaka thought, together with Jessica Wilson’s account of indeterminacy, I develop an ontological conception of indeterminacy, termed ontic indeterminacy, which centres on two complementary ideas—conclusive indeterminability and provisional determinability. I show that (...) OI is well-equipped to tackle several issues of worldly indeterminacy. My overarching aim is to present a viable and sustainable perspective on the subject of indeterminacy to enrich analytical philosophers’ insights into the intricate nature of reality. (shrink)

In recent decades, the intertwining ideas of self-determination and well-being have received tremendous support in bioethics. Discussions regarding self-determination, or autonomy, often focus on two dimensions—the capacity of the patient and the freedom from external coercion. The practice of obtaining informed consent, for example, has become a standard procedure in therapeutic and research medicine. On the surface, it appears that patients now have more opportunities to exercise their self-determination than ever. Nonetheless, discussions of patient autonomy in the bioethics literature, which (...) focus on individual patients making particular decisions, neglect the social structure within which health-care decisions are made. Looking through the lens of disability and informed by the feminist conception of relational autonomy, this essay argues that the issue of autonomy is much more complex than the individualist model suggests. The social system and the ableist ideology impose various forms of pressure or oppressive power that can affect people’s ability to choose according to their value system. Even if such powers are not directly coercive, they influence potential parents’ decisions indirectly—they structure their alternatives in such a way that certain options are never considered as viable and other decisions must be made. This paper argues that, instead of only focusing on the individual act of decision-making, we need to pay attention to the social structure that frames people’s decision. (shrink)

Wilson’s book is of great interest to readers of the biographical history of computer science and, more importantly, humanities scholars who would like to explore how emotions influence the works of early pioneers amongst AI theoreticians and engineers. However, I present three areas where the book can improve: engaging with affective computing, acculturation of emotion, and organization of biographical data.

Virtue epistemology maintains that epistemic normativity is a kind of performance normativity, according to which evaluating a belief is like evaluating a sport or musical performance. I examine this thesis through the objection that a belief cannot be evaluated as a performance because it is not a performance but a state. I argue that virtue epistemology can be defended on the grounds that we often evaluate a performance through evaluating the result of the performance. The upshot of my account is (...) that when a belief is evaluated under performance normativity, what we evaluate is not belief, but cognitive performance. My account of virtue epistemology offers a simple explanation of why knowledge is more valuable than true belief. (shrink)

Matagal nang dinalumat ang konsepto ng Inang Bayan bilang kabuuang tunguhin ng kilusang panghimagsikan ng Kataastaasan, Kagalang-galangang Katipunan (KKK) ng mga Anak ng Bayan. Lehitimong gawain ito dahil bukod sa kontekstong nakaugat ang bayan sa ina/mater vis-à-vis patria, mahihinuha ring malaki ang pagkilala ng Supremong si Andres Bonifacio sa kadakilaan ng kababaihan sa panahon ng himagsikan. Sa kabila nito, masasabing may suliranin sa historiograpiyang Pilipino dahil isinasantabi ng ilang positibista at sexistang manunulat ang kolektibong gunita sa kababaihan bilang kasama ng (...) bayan. Kung kaya’t patuloy itong iwinawasto sa pagdaan ng panahon. Masusumpungan ito kung gagawing halimbawa ang kababaihan sa rebolusyong Pilipino. Naisasantabi sila bilang mga paksa ng pag-aaral o kung minsan, itinuturing na palamuti lamang na kailangang idugtong sa pangalan ng kalalakihan. Kaugnay ng suliraning ito kung kaya’t itinatampok sa pag-aaral na ito ang muling pagsipat sa apat na mahahalagang bagay: (1) kasaysayan ng kababaihang Pilipina noong dantaon 19; (2) pakikisangkot ng kababaihan sa Katipunan at himagsikan; (3) pagtingin ng Katipunan sa kababaihan; at (4) impluwensya ng Katipunan sa pagkilos ng kababaihan sa pagpasok ng dantaon 20. Mangyari pa, titingnan din ang muling pakikilahok ng kababaihan sa mga digmaang bayan sa panahon ng post-Katipunan. Hindi ito bagong pag-aaral kundi isang paglalagom sa mga naunang pag-aaral. Kakikitaan ang papel na ito ng mas matinding hamon at pagpursigi sa pagsusulat ng mga paksa na may kinalaman sa Araling Pangkababaihan at Araling Pangkasarian. Tunguhin ng papel ang holistikong kasaysayan ng kababaihan sa pakikisangkot nila sa Katipunan bilang mga kasama ng bayan. (shrink)

Sam Harris1 argues science will eventually answer all of our moral questions, all of our knowledge domains, economics, neurosciences, psychologies, etc. will eventually play a part in telling us what is right and what is wrong.

The essay discusses the meaning of 'A story of a bird named Bìm Bịp', Vietnamese traditional folklore. Through contradiction between a bandit and a monk, the meaning of lies, violence, and enlightenment is being told.

"I have a tree, which grows here in my close, / That mine own use invites me to cut down, / And shortly I must fell it" (Shakespeare 2001, 168)—Timon's lament, which in Shakespeare's rendition occurs shortly before its utterer's demise "upon the beached verge of the salt flood" (2001, 168) beyond the perimeter of Athens, is an indictment of the nature that Timon finds unable to escape. Having given away his wealth in misguided generosity to a host of parasitic (...) sycophants, Timon turns misanthropic when his "friends" reject his requests for help in kind to repay his debts, eventually exiling himself from the city with the intent of sustaining himself on nothing but water and roots. Yet he soon finds that removing .. (shrink)

Three different types of low cost soil amendments, namely, EDTA, elemental S and N-fertilizer, were investigated with Vetiver grass, Vetiveria zizanioides (Linn.) Nash growing under highly mixed Cd–Pb contamination conditions. A significant increase (p < 0.05) in Cd and Pb accumulation were recorded in the shoots of all EDTA and N-fertilizer assisted treatments. The accumulation of Cd in 25 mmol EDTA/kg soil and 300 mmol N/kg soil showed relatively higher translocation factor (1.72 and 2.15) and percentage metal efficacy (63.25 % (...) and 68.22 %), respectively, compared to other treatments. However, it was observed that the increased application of elemental S may inhibit the availability of Pb translocation from soil-to-root and root-to-shoot. The study suggests that viable application of 25 mmol EDTA/kg, 300 mmol N/kg and 20 mmol S/kg soil have the potential to be used for soil amendment with Vetiver grass growing under contaminated mixed Cd–Pb soil conditions. (shrink)

Video gaming has been rising rapidly to become one of the primary entertainment media, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Playing video games has been reported to associate with many psychological and behavioral traits. However, little is known about the connections between game players' behaviors in the virtual environment and environmental perceptions. Thus, the current data set offers valuable resources regarding environmental worldviews and behaviors in the virtual world of 640 Animal Crossing: New Horizons (ACNH) game players from 29 countries around (...) the globe. The data set consists of six major categories: 1) socio-demographic profile, 2) COVID-19 concern, 3) environmental perception, 4) game-playing habit, 5) in-game behavior, and 6) game-playing feeling. By making this data set open, we aim to provide policymakers, game producers, and researchers with valuable resources for understanding the interactions between behaviors in the virtual world and environmental perceptions, which could help produce video games in compliance with the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals. (shrink)

A number of traditional philosophers and religious thinkers advocated an ineffability thesis to the effect that the ultimate reality cannot be expressed as it truly is by human concepts and words. However, if X is ineffable, the question arises as to how words can be used to gesture toward it. We can't even say that X is unsayable, because in doing so, we would have made it sayable. In this article, I examine the solution offered by the fifth-century Indian grammarian-philosopher (...) Bhartrhari and develop it into a linguistic strategy based on the imposition-cum-negation method. The purpose is to show how we can non-contradictorily say, or rather indicate, the unsayable. (shrink)

Nhiều nаm hơn nữ đượс đăng ký tên trên GCNQSDĐ. Phụ nữ sở hữu ít mảnh đất hơn nаm giới. Điều này đượс giải thíсh là dо phụ nữ tiếp сận đất đаi hạn сhế, vì ít mảnh đất hơn сhỉ dо phụ nữ sở hữu hоặс đồng sở hữu. Một số yếu tố giải thíсh sự kháс biệt. Để bắt đầu, đánh giá định tính và khảо sát сủа сhúng tôi сhо thấy rằng сáс khíа сạnh văn hóа ưu (...) tiên nаm giới như ưu tiên соn trаi trоng thựс hành thừа kế vẫn сòn phù hợp ở Việt Nаm. Những kết quả này сhо thấy сần сó những người hành nghề xã hội và pháp luật và сhính quyền làm việс ở сấp xã để hỗ trợ nhu сầu сủа người dân về thông tin về luật, quyền сủа họ và сáс quy trình để сó đượс đất. Tiếp сận сáс xã này để сảm hóа và thúс đẩy bình đẳng giới trоng quá trình сấp giấy сhứng nhận quyền sử dụng đất sẽ là một bướс đi đúng hướng quаn trọng. Cáс сơ quаn сhứс năng сấp tỉnh сấp GCNQSDĐ сần сảnh giáс và yêu сầu làm rõ khi người dân muốn đăng ký tài sản mà không ghi tên vợ hоặс сhồng. (shrink)

It is widely held that a morally wrong action is morally impermissible. I discuss a case of contrived self-defense and argue that it is morally both wrong and permissible. I compare it with other kinds of morally permissible misbehavior (suberogation, moral dilemma, and right to do wrong) and show that it is significant and original.

A number of contemporary philosophers think that the unqualified statement “X is unspeakable” faces the danger of self-referential absurdity: if this statement is true, it must simultaneously be false, given that X is speakable by the predicate word “unspeakable.” This predicament is in this chapter formulated as an argument that I term the “ineffability paradox.” After examining the Buddhist semantic theory of apoha (exclusion) and an apoha solution to the issue, I resort to a few Chinese Buddhist and Hindu philosophical (...) materials to rationally reconstruct a strategy for resolving the paradox. By introducing the mode of expression termed “indication,” together with the relevant notions of superimposition and of gesturing beyond the horizon, I show that expressing the ineffable does not necessarily involve irresoluble contradiction. It is also suggested that philosophers may need to acknowledge the relevance of the notion of ineffability for contemporary philosophizing. (shrink)

Cuộc khủng hoảng 2007-2008 nổ ra ở Hoa Kỳ kéo theo sự lao dốc của các thị trường chứng khoán các nước cho thấy tồn tại tác động lan truyền từ thị trường này sang thị trường khác. Mục tiêu của bài nghiên cứu nhằm kiểm tra mức độ lan truyền trong tỷ suất lợi nhuận và độ biến động tỷ suất lợi nhuận từ các thị trường chứng khoán phát triển (Hoa Kỳ và Nhật Bản) đến tám thị trường (...) các nước mới nổi (Ấn Độ, Trung Quốc, Indonesia, Hàn Quốc, Malaysia, Philippines, Đài Loan, Thái Lan) và Việt Nam. Nghiên cứu sử dụng các biến ngoại sinh là cú sốc từ thị trường Mỹ và Nhật Bản và hiệu ứng ngày trong mô hình ARMA(1,1)-GARCH(1,1) trên dữ liệu của các nước mới nổi khu vực châu Á và Việt Nam nhằm đánh giá tác động lan truyền. Nghiên cứu đưa ra một số kết quả như sau. Thứ nhất, hiệu ứng ngày tồn tại trên sáu trong số chín thị trường chứng khoán được nghiên cứu, ngoại trừ Ấn Độ, Đài Loan và Philippines. Thứ hai, tồn tại tác động lan truyền trong tỷ suất lợi nhuận giữa các thị trường với mức độ khác nhau, trong đó, Hoa Kỳ có tác động mạnh hơn đến thị trường Malaysia, Philippines và Việt Nam; ngược lại, Nhật Bản có hiệu ứng lan truyền cao hơn đến thị trường Trung Quốc, Ấn Độ, Hàn Quốc và Thái Lan; đối với thị trường Indonesia, hiệu ứng lan truyền từ Hoa Kỳ và Nhật Bản là tương đương. Cuối cùng, nghiên cứu không tìm thấy bằng chứng về hiệu ứng lan truyền trong độ biến động từ thị trường Hoa Kỳ và Nhật Bản đến các thị trường mới nổi khu vực châu Á và Việt Nam... (shrink)