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Viet Nam is challenged by extensive marine plastic pollution, however, remediation efforts are hampered by undefined sources to the coastal environment. This study surveyed the abundance, type, and source of beached plastic litter at seven beaches along the coast of Nha Trang, Viet Nam. A total of 4754 beached plastic litter items (>2 cm) yielded a mean abundance of 19.8 ± 19.5 items m-2 corresponding to 116 ± 226 g DW m-2. Our results demonstrate that plastic litter related to fishing and aquaculture constituted at least 62 % of the total by weight and 38 % by number, showing that these two sectors are responsible for a significant part of the plastic pollution along the coast. Hence, we argue that improved management of the fishing and aquaculture sectors could substantially reduce marine plastic pollution along Viet Nam's coast.

This article relates the long scientific life of the French catholic missionary, Father/Doctor Henri Fontaine. He is also a geologist, a palaeontologist, an expert on Paleozoic corals and an archeologist. The year 2018 marked his 94th birthday, 70th sacerdotal year and 64 years of his scientific career. He has devoted most of his life to scientific activities in East and Southeast Asia: from 1954 to late 1975 in Viet Nam as geologist-expert, from 1978 to 2013 in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam, within the framework of the Coordinating Committee for Coastal and Offshore Geoscience Programmes in East and Southeast Asia (CCOP) and afterwards as a volunteer once he had retired. Until 2018, he published nearly 300 articles about geology, palaeontology and prehistory, mostly as sole author or main author. Although he initially intended to be priest living among villagers somewhere in Asia, his life evolved, in spite of himself, following spiritual, political and scientific events.

Populations become increasingly feminized with age. Since older women are more vulnerable to poverty, they may find it more difficult than men to access health care. This study examines factors that may constrain older persons in Southeast Asia from meeting their health-care needs when sick. Our analysis of household survey data from Cambodia, the Philippines, and Viet Nam shows that women are more likely to have reported sickness or injury than men, a difference that is meaningful and statistically significant. While women in Cambodia and the Philippines are more likely to seek treatment than men, the gender difference is reversed in Viet Nam where stigma and discrimination associated with some diseases may more strongly deter women. The probability of seeking treatment rises with age more sharply for women than men in all countries. However, for the subsample of elders, the gender difference is not significant.

The exporting and subcontracting decisions of a panel of Vietnamese private small- and medium-sized enterprises is investigated. We find that among subcontractors, subcontracting is a supplementary rather than primary activity; the propensity to export increases with managers' or owners' knowledge of customs law; and, there is some evidence that subcontractors are more likely to have made product improvements while exporters are more likely to have adopted new processes or technologies. Our study provides useful insights into SME exporting and subcontracting strategies made more relevant by the expected reductions in trade costs associated with the World Trade Organization's Trade Facilitation Agreement.

Mangrove sediment stores a large quantity of organic carbon. However, its decomposition produces a significant amount of CO2, which can be further emitted to the atmosphere. The objective of the present study was to determine CO2 fluxes at the sediment-air interface of planted mangrove forests and adjacent bare sediment and determine how sediment characteristics, seasonal and tidal variations impact CO2 emissions. The results suggest sediment organic carbon content (TOC) was a key parameter influencing sediment properties beside others sediment characteristics such as grain-size and sediment water content. At the sediment-air interface, CO2 fluxes measured in the wet season were significantly higher (P

Economic impact assessments are increasingly important in the context of animal health and food safety, although much of the existing literature does not address the broader systems context in which disease transmission takes place. In this paper, we discuss the role of system dynamics modeling in addressing the value chain impacts associated with animal health and food safety issues. System dynamics methods hold promise as a means of capturing the complex feedbacks that exist between the biology, economics, and behavioral aspects of food safety and animal health systems. We provide a proof-of-concept of this approach in the context of food safety and animal health in the smallholder pig sector of Viet Nam. Results highlight the important tradeoffs that exist between policy objectives and the costs required to achieve them.

Shear strength of the soil is an important engineering parameter used in the design and audit of geo-technical structures. In this research, we aim to investigate and compare the performance of four machine learning methods, Particle Swarm Optimization - Adaptive Network based Fuzzy Inference System (PANFIS), Genetic Algorithm - Adaptive Network based Fuzzy Inference System (GANFIS), Support Vector Regression (SVR), and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), for predicting the strength of soft soils. For this purpose, case studies of 188 plastic clay soil samples collected from two major projects, Nhat Tan and Cua Dai bridges in Viet Nam have been used for generating training and testing datasets for constructing and validating the models. Validation and comparison of the models have been carried out using RMSE, and R. The results show that the PANFIS has the highest prediction capability (RMSE = 0.038 and R = 0.601), followed by the GANFIS (RMSE = 0.04 and R = 0.569), SVR (RMSE = 0.044 and R = 0.549), and ANN (RMSE = 0.059 and R = 0.49). It can be concluded that out of four models the PANFIS indicates as a promising technique for prediction of the strength of soft soils.

We examined the role of supply and demand side factors in the choice of household cooking fuel using a multilevel modeling approach that included the effects of spatial autocorrelation. The use of wood was found to be significantly associated with all forest types - whether they were natural or plantations; whether they were owned by households or other entities. Land under perennial crops was also positively associated with wood use. In peri-urban communes wood usage decreased over the years. In rural communes wood use however increased. This may partly be due to the natural transition from crop residues to wood. We find some evidence that given Viet Nam's successful small-holder plantation programs there may be places where movement up the energy ladder from wood to cleaner fuels has slowed down. In the future household factors are likely to continue being the dominant drivers of fuel switching. However, our study indicates that external interventions aimed at improving community conditions such as access to markets and highways can also facilitate households moving up the energy ladder. Our findings are of much relevance to the newly proposed policy paradigm of “making the clean available” as opposed to “making the available clean”.

International audience; The main objective of this pilot study, conducted in June 2015 in the Can Gio Mangrove Biosphere Reserve (Can Gio MBR, Viet Nam), was to develop an interdisciplinary approach to assess some key services provided by reforested mangroves subject to external pressures and varying management policies. We focused on the abundance of viruses, bacteria, endo-and epi-and macrofauna and the diversity of crabs in the mangrove and the exploitation of its resources. The main social finding was that the local inhabitants are aware of the levels of protection of the different zones within the Can Gio MBR and respect them. The core and the buffer zones seem to present a similar ecological status. Genotyping showed a low level of crab diversity although there were many different morphotypes. In the future, we need to understand the stakeholders' general perception of the biodiversity and environment changes by developing an integrated, multi-scale approach. (C) 2017 Academie des sciences. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

This paper provides the updated information on the level scheme of 172Yb nucleus studied via 171Yb(n t h , γ) reaction using the gamma–gamma coincidence spectrometer at Dalat Nuclear Research Institute (Viet Nam). The latter is used because of its advantages in achieving the low Compton background as well as in identifying the correlated gamma transitions. We have detected in total the energies and intensities of 128 two-step gamma cascades corresponding to 79 primary transitions. By comparing the measured data with those extracted from the ENSDF library, 61 primary gamma transitions and corresponding energy levels together with 20 secondary gamma transitions are found to be the same as the ENSDF data. Beside that, 18 additional primary gamma transitions and corresponding energy levels plus 108 secondary ones are not found to currently exist in this library and they are therefore considered as the new data.

Commercial production systems for wildlife increasingly involve closed-cycle captive breeding, in which effective regulation requires methods for verifying the provenance of stock. We compared the isotopic and elemental compositions of skin from wild and captive-bred pythons raised under different diet regimes in Indonesia and Viet Nam to examine the efficacy of using these techniques as a means of determining the source and origin of skins entering international trade. We found significant differences in both isotopic and elemental markers between wild and captive-bred snakes, as well as those from different geographic origins. Combinations of both techniques were able to discriminate between diet treatments and geographic origins with up to 100% accuracy. Moreover, our experimental manipulation of python diets confirmed that the application of specific diet regimes (or the addition of known elemental markers) for captive-bred snakes can create signatures specific to those animals, vastly improving the efficacy of these methods. Our study strongly suggests that the analysis of isotope ratios and elemental markers offers a powerful tool for verifying the provenance of reptile skins entering trade – but these methodologies will be most applicable (and cost-effective) for species with small populations of genuine conservation concern, rather than for large volume trade in species for which there is little conservation risk.

Investigating microplankton biomass and diversity under different climatological conditions is key to the understanding of cascading effects of climate change on nutrient cycles and biological productivity. Here we have used data collected during two contrasting summers along the coast of Viet Nam to show how climatological-driven changes can have a significant influence on the distribution of microplankton communities and their biomass via its impact on nutrient concentrations in the water column. The first summer in July 2003 followed a weak El-Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event and was characterized by weak coastal upwelling, in the second summer during July 2004, upwelling was normal. Very low silicate (SiO4) concentrations and SiO4:DIN ratios characterized the source water mass for upwelling in July 2004, and dynamic SiO4 to dissolved inorganic nitrogen ratios (SiO4:DIN) mainly below the Redfield-Brzezinski ratio and DIN to phosphate ratios (DIN:PO4 3−) below the Redfield ratio were a common feature off Viet Nam. Much higher particle concentrations and PSi/PC ratios during normal upwelling revealed major changes in the microplankton community structure among summers. Small dinoflagellates (10–20 µm) prevailed ubiquitously during reduced upwelling. During normal upwelling, the diatom Rhizosolenia sp. dominated the cell-carbon biomass in the silicate poor upwelling waters. Trichodesmium erythraeum dominated in the Mekong-influenced and nutrient depleted offshore waters, where it co-occurred with Rhizosolenia sp. Both species were directly associated with the much higher primary production (PP) and N2 fixation rates that were quantified in earlier studies, as well as with much higher diversities at these offshore sites. Along the coast, the correlation between Rhizosolenia sp. and PP rates was less clear and the factors regulating the biomass of Rhizosolenia sp. in the upwelling waters are discussed. The very low silicate concentrations in the source water mass for upwelling and the offshore deflection of the Mekong river plume likely triggered the observed ecological differences in the microplankton communities off Viet Nam in the normal upwelling season compared to the post ENSO conditions.

Access to credit is still one of the greatest obstacles to the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Viet Nam. To date, only 39% of SMEs have bank loans. To cater to SMEs’ need for financial sources, especially formal sources such as the banking system, the Vietnamese government has implemented a large number of supporting programs, including the credit guarantee scheme (CGS) for SMEs, which it established in 2001. Through collecting, synthesizing, and analyzing data, we aim to study the challenges involved in implementing CGSs for SMEs as well as the causes of their poor performance. The fundamental reasons we find include the strict and impractical conditions for issuing credit guaranteed loans; the lack of adequate professional competence of staff involved in the credit guaranteeing task; the fragmented relationship between the credit institution and the CGS; and the lack of a credit database platform that facilitates access to finance for SMEs by providing comprehensive and reliable creditworthiness.

However, internationally comparable information on financial literacy is still scarce. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development International Network on Financial Education (OECD/INFE) survey of adult financial literacy is a standardized survey instrument, but so far has mainly been implemented in higher-income countries outside of Asia. Our paper extends the literature by conducting the survey in a relatively low-income Asian economy — the Lao PDR — and analyzing the determinants of financial literacy and the effects of financial literacy on other behaviors. We also compare these results with those of our earlier study of financial literacy in Cambodia and Viet Nam. This study of the Lao PDR extends our research in the Cambodia-Lao PDR-Myanmar-Viet Nam (CLMV) region, and the survey was broadened to include more variables that could be used as effective instrumental variables for financial literacy to deal with possible endogeneity problems. This increases our confidence in our findings that financial literacy positively affects both savings and financial inclusion.

One of the less well-understood channels through which technology affects labor market outcomes is the creation of new types of work. In this paper, we investigate the emergence of new occupations by comparing various classifications of occupations and predicting probabilities to access them given workers’ characteristics. Systematic comparisons of successive lists of National Classification of Occupations in India, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Viet Nam find that most new job titles are primarily information and communication technology- and data-related positions within professional and associate professional occupational divisions. When utilizing microdata of India and Viet Nam, we find that emerging occupations, defined as occupation groups with new job titles, pay higher wages than nonemerging occupations. Further, when using logit models to predict chances of accessing emerging occupations given workers’ characteristics, the probability of success is greater for workers who are male, tertiary educated, urbanized, and employed in the service sectors. Adjusted predictions by education and sector show that access to emerging occupations is highest among tertiary-educated workers in services, and that chances of success vary greatly across different age groups.

In July 2014 Indonesia implemented a safeguard tariff on galvalume, a type of galvanized flat-rolled steel. Chinese Taipei and Viet Nam challenged the measure, mainly claiming that Indonesia’s administering authority failed to satisfy various substantive and procedural requirements of the GATT 1994 and the Safeguards Agreement. The Panel and AB found that the tariff was not a safeguard measure but rather was a simple increase in Indonesia’s applied rate. Interestingly, Viet Nam, the largest import supplier, is a member of a free trade area with Indonesia, meaning Viet Nam is not subject to the MFN rate. Viet Nam’s preferential tariff treatment likely influenced Indonesia’s decision to claim the action was a safeguard. Ironically, even though the Appellate Body essentially rejected its claims, the ruling benefits Viet Nam.

Viet Nam is at the beginning of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In order to grasp the opportunities that the revolution has brought about, and to successfully build the society of digital citizens, there must be the demand of enhancing the capacity and capability for students to meet international standards in terms of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) skills. Viet Nam was selected as one of the four countries (Viet Nam, Bangladesh, Fiji, and the Republic of Korea) to join UNESCO Bangkok’s “Digital Kids Asia Pacific (DKAP)” project, a comparative cross-national study with the aim to seek the understanding and address children’s ICT practices, attitudes, behaviors, and competency levels within an educational context. Thanks to the project, the Vietnamese research team completely conducted the survey in twenty (20) schools from five (5) provinces in Viet Nam. With the data on the digital citizenship competency levels of 1,061 10th grade students, the research team discovered the valuable findings to draw an initial big picture for Vietnamese policy makers, educators, and teachers about digital citizenship competencies of 15-year-old Vietnamese students.

The United Nations has proposed 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all stakeholders and the community. Either facing poverty, quality education, gender equality, increasing economic growth, innovating industry and infrastructure, environmental protection, or creating sustainable cities and communities, the mining industry is engaged. Southeast Asia consists of countries at various economic development stages that are increasingly integrating into trade, investment, and finance. The mining industry plays a critical role in Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Viet Nam, partly contributing to the increasing growth rates of the Gross Domestic Products in these countries for years. Mining companies are also top taxpayers and the biggest employers, although modern mining is using fewer laborers. However, mining in these countries faces challenges from its social and environmental impacts, misconceptions of the community and media, and the interference of civil societies, etc. Consequently, withdrawals of the mining licenses happen sometimes. The paper reviews how mining companies in Southeast Asia deal with the social acceptance of mining activities. Aspects such as economic development, culture, and social background are characterized.

OBJECTIVES: Understanding what drives consumer food choice in low- and middle-income countries with rapidly changing food environments is important in order to inform better interventions and food system policies. This study quantitatively and qualitatively assessed preferences for different food quality attributes including nutrition, energy, food safety (immediate), food safety (future), naturalness, taste, convenience, appearance, tradition, modernity/novelty, and price. METHODS: The exploratory mixed method study consisted of 264 randomly selected women aged 18–49 who participated in the quantitative survey. After participating in the quantitative survey, a subset of 40 respondents were randomly selected to attend focus group discussions on food preferences, food environments, and shopping behaviors. Food preferences and values were quantified using Best-Worst Scaling questions to elicit priorities and trade-offs among food quality attributes across four different food groups: leafy green vegetables, fruits, prepared foods, and snack foods (salty and sweet). All data collection took place in Thanh Oai District in Hanoi Province, Viet Nam. RESULTS: Food groups differ in the relative importance of each food quality attribute. Nutrition and food safety related attributes (naturalness, immediate and future food safety) were the most important for the green leafy vegetable and fruit food groups. While convenience and taste were most important for prepared foods and snack foods, respectively, with food safety (immediate) being the second most important in both food groups. Across all food groups price was consistently the least important attribute. Focus group discussions reinforced these results with additional insights particularly regarding trade-offs between nutrition and food safety that consumers face. CONCLUSIONS: In rapidly changing food environments such as peri-urban Viet Nam, a wide range of food attributes drive consumer decisions towards – or away from – each food group. With Best-Worst Scaling, we generated insights about food choice in a Southeast Asian environment. Our results can inform behavior change interventions and guide food system policies such as labeling and food safety in Viet Nam. FUNDING SOURCES: N/A.

This study was conducted to compare the exposure levels of five heavy metals via different pathways based on the field samplings and questionnaire surveys of children residing in an informal e-waste processing village and a reference village in Viet Nam. The findings revealed that levels of the total average daily intake (ADI) of the five heavy metals collected from a child at the exposed village were 3.90 times higher (p

Forest structure and biomass production of Kandelia obovata Sheue, H.Y.Liu & J.Yong mangrove plantations in Northern Viet Nam were investigated for 1- to 20-year-old stands. The measurements were implemented over the study plots which were set up in 1-, 5-, 6-, 7-, 8-, 9-, 10-, 18-, 19- and 20-year-old K. obovata plantations. Tree density, stem diameter at 30 cm height (D0.3) and tree height (H) were measured. These parameters increased with stand age from young to mature stage with the ranges from 3,700 ± 1,609 tree.ha−1 to 26,500 ± 1,153 tree.ha−1, 0.67 ± 0.18 cm to 8.73 ± 3.16 cm, and 0.46 ± 0.16 m to 4.12 ± 0.96 m for density, stem diameter at 30 cm height and stem height, respectively. Fifty trees were harvested to find an allometric relationship between tree size and dry mass. Allocation models were developed to estimate above ground biomass. The Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC), the root mean square error (RMSE), R2, and P-value of the models were calculated and compared to find the fitness models for biomass evaluation. The best correlation satisfied between D0.3*H and dry mass of tree components and total above ground biomass (AGB). Our results showed a rise in above ground biomass of 1- to 20-year-old K. obovata plantations, which ranges from 0.04 ± 0.02 Mg ha−1 to 115.39 ± 15.34 Mg ha−1. Of this, ~87% of the above ground biomass was represented by stems and branches. Above ground biomass and its components linearly increased with stand age. It was found that the biomass in the study area increased with an annual rate of 4.33 Mg ha−1 yr−1. These results provide a view of mangrove plantations in assessing the biomass of mangroves continuously from young to mature stages of reforestation.

Thirty-two surface sediment samples were collected in the Thanh Hoa coastal area, from the shore to a depth of 30 m. Grain sizes and the contents of 14 major and trace metals were measured with the goal of assessing the impact from the mainland to the coastal area of Thanh Hoa. The sand fraction ranged from 0.5 to 82.7%, and the mud fraction ranged from 17.3 to 99.5%. The contents of major and trace elements – namely, Fe, Cu, Pb, Zn, As, Cr, Co, Ni, Mn, Cd, Mo, Li, V, and Sn – in the sediments were assessed by comparison with Canadian environmental quality guidelines and indices. The concentrations of Cu, Pb, Zn, As, and Cr were higher than the interim marine sediment quality guidelines (ISQGs) benchmark but lower than the probable effect levels (PELs). The geo-accumulation (Igeo) indexes of As and Pb indicated moderate pollution; the enrichment factor (EF) indexes of Cu, Pb, Zn, Cd, As, Li, and Mn indicated minor to moderate enrichment; the contamination factor (CF) indexes of Fe, Cu, Pb, Zn, Cd, As, Co, Li, and Mn indicated moderate to considerable contamination, the CF showed considerable contamination for As and Pb in particular; the ecological risk factor (ER) indexes of Cd and As were moderate; and the degree of contamination (CD) of all 14 elements was high. On the basis of this preliminary environmental risk evaluation, the levels of some trace elements indicated potential issues for the Thanh Hoa coastal area, particularly near river mouths and the northern zone, where concentrations were higher. Thus, appropriate monitoring plans based on sound scientific knowledge are imperative for safe and sustainable development.

Aflatoxins, fumonisins and ochratoxin A that contaminate various agricultural commodities are considered of significant toxicity and potent human carcinogens. This study took a total dietary study approach and estimated the dietary exposure of these mycotoxins for adults living in Lao Cai province, Vietnam. A total of 42 composite food samples representing 1134 individual food samples were prepared according to normal household practices and analysed for the three mycotoxins. Results showed that the dietary exposure to aflatoxin B1 (39.4 ng/kg bw/day) and ochratoxin A (18.7 ng/kg bw/day) were much higher than recommended provisional tolerable daily intake (PTDI) values mainly due to contaminated cereals and meat. The exposure to total fumonisins (1400 ng/kg bw/day) was typically lower than the PTDI value (2000 ng/kg bw/day). The estimated risk of liver cancer associated with exposure to aflatoxin B1 was 2.7 cases/100,000 person/year. Margin of exposure (MOE) of renal cancer linked to ochratoxin A and liver cancer associated with fumonisins were 1124 and 1954, respectively indicating risk levels of public health concern. Further studies are needed to evaluate the efficiency of technical solutions which could reduce mycotoxin contamination as well as to determine the health effects of the co-exposure to different types of mycotoxins.

This paper uses new data to examine whether APEC achieved its aim of reducing trade transaction costs by 10% over the 2002–2010 period. An inversion of the familiar gravity model makes it possible to infer trade costs based on the observed pattern of trade and production across economies. Analysis of trade costs calculated in this way shows that although intra- and extra-APEC trade costs fell during the sample period, they did not do so substantially more quickly than elsewhere in the world. Indeed, the region taken as a whole did not meet the 10% reduction goal. However, a considerable number of individual economies not only met the goal, they greatly exceeded it. Consistent with their outward oriented development strategies and leverage of global and regional value chains, some APEC economies saw very rapid falls in their trade costs over the 2002–2010 period, Viet Nam being a standout performer. Overall, about one third of the forum's membership for which consistent data are available met or exceeded the 10% reduction goal. APEC's two Trade Facilitation Action Plans can therefore be seen as having had mixed records of success.

Management of solid waste, including the municipal solid waste (MSW), is a major challenge in urban regions of most part of the world, including Southeast Asia. Due to the lack of effective management programs, regulations, and policies; the waste is causing severe health hazard including several communicable diseases, bad odors, nuisance, and environmental impacts, such as, contamination of water, soil, and air. Most Southeast Asian cities are lacking efficient MSW management programs. Thus, in order to contribute to building a good dataset on MSW for the Southeast Asian region, we quantified solid waste generation and analyzed waste composition for Ho Chi Minh City. Ho Chi Minh City is a major urban region of Viet Nam in Southeast Asia. In Ho Chi Minh City, about 8,175 tons of solid waste was generated per day in 2014, consisting 6,800-7,000 of MSW, with 1.02 kg/capita/day generation of waste. The trend in MSW generation from 1992-2010 showed that 98,338 tons of MSW has been increasing every year. The MSW of Ho Chi Minh City contains 65-90% biodegradable matter. The major portion of MSW was food waste from 1.4 million households, 1,837 schools, and 12,000 hotels and restaurants. The current common practice of solid waste management in Ho Chi Minh City is landfilling. About 86% of the total solid waste was landfilled at two major landfill sites (PhuocHiep and Da Phuoc), and the rest 14% waste was recycled. Paper, plastic, metals, glass were the major waste being recycled with a quantity of 3364, 3794, 1124, and 384 tons/month, respectively. Further to support the MSW planning in Ho Chi Minh City, we analyzed gaps and SWOT (strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats) and provided recommendations to be incorporated in the action plans for efficient management of solid waste in Ho Chi Minh City.

Flood map nowadays is seen as an indispensable tool in urbanism, flood prevention and mitigation. For this reason, establishing flood map is mighty necessary for developing the socio economy of a river catchment. In recent years, creating this kind of map based on hydraulic models has been applied and proved good efficiencies in mitigating the consequences of flood catastrophes to human at many regions on the world. However, because of the lack of observed data in large catchments as well as developing countries, applying this work for these regions becomes a huge challenge for hydrologists. The insufficiency of meteo hydrological data, coarse resolution of topography, land cover data …brings many difficulties to choose a suitable model or decide a reasonable model structure for flood modelling in these catchments. This study via the flood modelling process at downstream of Vu Gia Thu Bon catchment, a coastal region in Viet Nam central will compare the differences between 1D model, 2D model, Quasi 2D model and 1D/2D coupling model for flood simulation. The study also presents the uncertainties of input data such as topography, land use, rainfall, and boundary condition when modelling flood events. These simulations are carried out on the modules of Mike by DHI software: Mike 11, Mike 21, Mike Flood. The results might show strong and weak points of each model. These could help modelers to get several judgments when selecting the model to build the flood map. This study is expected to give some usefulnesses for flood modeling in the coastal part of a big catchment.

We examine important changes in agriculture in Vietnam in the context of ongoing structural changes in the economy. We use a household-level panel dataset and a quantitative framework to document the extent and consequences of factor misallocation in agriculture during the period between 2006 and 2016. Despite rapid growth in agricultural productivity and a reallocation of factor inputs to more productive farmers, we find that misallocation across farmers remains high and increased during the period. Reallocation of factor inputs has not been strong enough to accommodate substantial changes in farm productivity over time. Our analysis also reveals important differences between the north and south regions.

In developing countries, a significant share of land transactions occurs among closely related parties and often does not entail any specific compensation (in-kind or monetary). Despite the prevalence of these non-market or informal transactions, the literature has paid little attention to the determinants and consequences of these exchanges. In this paper we shed light on the role land use certificates play on the agreed compensation of rental agreements when landlords, particularly those with weaker ex-ante tenure security (i.e. women), rent out land to their relatives in Viet Nam. We find that female-headed households who lease their plots to relatives are less likely to receive any type of payment, unless they possess a title for the plot they leased. A regional decomposition of our results shows that this effect is more predominant in the Northern regions.

This paper examines how the interaction of social trust and institutions, such as land administration, affects household economic decisions in Viet Nam. Using a panel dataset of rural households from 2008 to 2014, we show that negative consequences of the duration of land administration on agricultural investment have been lower in rural households with higher level of trust. Higher-trust households, when facing higher barrier from land administration, tend to invest more on agricultural land compared to low-trust households where household heads are male. We also find that high-trust households enhance land property rights when facing obstacles from land administration.

This paper investigates the effect of commodity prices, in particular rice and coffee, on the decision of migrating at the individual level. As most coffee production is sold by households for exports, we would expect that coffee price shocks would have a direct effect on the probability to migrate. On the other hand, we would anticipate that fluctuations in rice prices have little or no effect on migration decisions, given that rice is mainly produced for household consumption. We test these hypotheses drawing evidence from migration in Viet Nam. We show that the lower the price of coffee, the higher the likelihood of migrating. This evidence seems to suggest that migration acts as a shock-coping strategy. We find that rice prices have no effect on the probability of migrating. We further explore the extent of migrants’ self-selection and show that lower coffee prices increase the migration probability of individuals with lower education.

Highlights • Shows link between built landscape transformation and an animal health pandemic. • Demonstrates urban transition impacts on the precursor to human avian influenza. • Defines a transitional theory of urbanization and change. • Shows new empirical model for urban transition effects on disease or other issues. • Specifies planning actions on avian influenza and emerging infectious diseases., Recent concerns with pandemic outbreaks of human disease and their origins in animal populations have ignited concerns regarding connections between Emerging Infectious Diseases (EID) and development. As disasters, health, and infectious disease become part of planning concern (Matthew & McDonald, 2007), greater focus on household infrastructure and EID disease outbreaks among poultry is warranted. Following Spencer (2013), this study examines the relationship between the mix of household-scale water supplies, sanitation systems, and construction materials, and Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) among poultry in a developing country: Vietnam. Findings of our multivariate logistic regressions suggest that a non-linear, Kuznets-shaped urban transition (Spencer, 2013) has an independent effect on the outbreak of HPAI, especially as it relates to household-level sanitation infrastructure. We conclude that the Kuznets-shape development of household infrastructure characteristics in Vietnam play a significant role in explaining where poultry outbreaks occur. Using secondary data from the Census of Population and Housing, and the Agricultural Census at the District and Commune levels for the country of Vietnam, we performed logistic regression to test the relationship between outbreaks of HPAI in poultry and newly-developed “coherence indices” (Spencer, 2013) of household water supply, sanitation, and construction materials that measure nonlinear, transitional development. Results show that district-scale coherence indices are negatively and independently correlated with HPAI outbreaks, especially for sanitation. Findings also suggest that community-scale coherence of urban infrastructures is a powerful tool for predicting where HPAI poultry outbreaks are likely to occur, thereby providing health planners new tools for efficient surveillance.

The establishment of the Eastern Partnership (EaP) policy as a part of the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) sets new objectives for the deepening of cooperation between the EU and EaP countries, and the greater integration of the EaP based on shared norms, values and standards. Forming the eastern divide of the ENP, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia are considered official neighbors of the EU, although half of these countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia) do not lie on the immediate borders of the EU. However, these South Caucasian countries play an important transit role by connecting the EU with Central Asia and China. Hence, the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railroad, crossing Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey, establishes a significant link in the further development and integration of regional and global transit corridors stretching from China to Europe through Central Asia and the South Caucasus.

Traditional sampling strategies for paddy rice statistics rely on outdated list frames, incomplete holding information, or administrative data that are prone to numerous biases. The objective of this study is to test the utility of an area frame developed using remote sensing data in three pilot provinces—Savannakhet (Lao People’s Democratic Republic), Ang Thong (Thailand), and Thai Binh (Viet Nam). Direct estimates of total paddy rice area and production are calculated from area frame using two methods––one involving measurement of plot size using a Global Positioning System instrument and the other utilizing a digitized map of farmer-identified plot boundaries on a high-resolution Google Earth image. A third method involving the calculation of ratio estimates using independent mesh-level measures is compared with the first two methods involving direct estimates, and with the estimates generated from administrative data from the countries. Our study finds that ratio estimation significantly improves the level of precision of paddy rice statistics. Substantial deviations are also observed between official statistics and the statistics generated through direct estimation.

International audience; Vietnamese pottery appears to have been exported by the Indian Ocean Monsoon trade since medieval times. However, the number of identified Vietnamese stoneware/porcelain remains very small by comparison with Chinese productions (< 0.1%) and the question of mis-assignment remains open. In order to evaluate the potential of on-site identification, an assemblage of 13 ceramic shards recently excavated from the medieval port site of Qalhāt (Omani coast) assigned to Vietnamese and/or southern Chinese productions by using stylistic/visual criteria has been qualitatively analysed with a portable X-ray fluorescence instrument and a transportable Raman spectrometer and compared with data recorded on a large variety of reference shards excavated from different kiln places of the Hong River bank, Central Viet Nam, and from the Cù Lao Chàm shipwreck. In the glaze/body, the zirconium, rubidium and titanium contents allow distinguishing between Vietnamese and Chinese ancient/modern productions. The potassium vs. calcium glaze content is also very efficient for the differentiation between the Chinese and Vietnamese origins. Measurements confirm ∼80% of the assignments based on eyes examination. The manganese, Rare Earth and cobalt content also contribute to identify the production places. Comparison of the glaze sections and chemometrics are used for a final comparison of the production technology: slip, overglaze or underglaze décor, etc.

Over the last decade, developing Asia’s deeper global financial linkages have been accompanied by greater financial integration. As the region becomes more interconnected, a key priority is to ensure that the dynamic environment is supported by better coordinated and potentially consistent macroprudential policies to adequately control systemic risks. Within the context of global financial developments, this paper presents a general macroprudential policy framework that highlights important aspects to conducting policy. It also provides an overview of how some Asian economies, New Zealand, and the euro area implement their macroprudential policies. It reviews existing macroprudential policy frameworks of five high-growth developing economies — Cambodia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Viet Nam — identifying improvements and continuing challenges for their financial systems, which will likely grow more complex. Identifying and addressing key issues will help improve their existing macroprudential policy frameworks.

Chinese Taipei became one of the most successful economies in Asia after the WWII, and the country was one of the four Asian tigers together with the Republic of Korea, Chinese Hong Kong and Singapore. Their economic achievement was mainly originated from the development of SMEs which government policies were effectively implemented and brought strong impacts on technological progress. SMEs were able to obtain technologies through research and development, and technology transfer from developed countries with various cooperation programs. However, APEC economies notably Viet Nam, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines have achieved economic development and SME technological promotion, but they are not comparable with Chinese Taipei. This paper analyses Chinese Taipei government policies on SMEs, technological progress, and technology cooperation with developed countries. These areas are compared with other four APEC economies. It brings some suggestions how APEC can enhance SME technology cooperation with other countries.

Seagrasses are marine angiosperms and adapted to aquatic life several times independently. In tropical as well as in temperate regions they play an important role in the coastal ecosystem. Classification according to morphology remains difficult due to very similar adaptations to the aquatic lifestyle and small simple flowers which are often not even formed. Especially the Halophila genus (Hydrocharitaceae) forms a complex group with an unresolved taxonomy due to overlapping morphological characters and high plasticity leading to many misidentifications. Hence, this led to the hypothesis that phylogenetic analysis on the molecular level may resolve taxonomic classification. The aim of this study is to identify and unambiguously characterize Halophila species collected in Viet Nam using tree- and character-based analysis of rbcL and matK sequences. Results obtained from molecular data and leaf morphology indicate that there are at least three species found in Viet Nam. Topologies based on single locus or combined datasets were similar but not equal. Analysis of rbcL sequences showed lowest species resolution when only Halophila beccarii Aschers was resolved at the Halophila complex. matK shows better resolution with respect to H. beccarii and H. decipiens Ostenfeld. Combined rbcL and matK consensus trees showed the highest species resolution when all species form three distinct clades representative for three difference species including H. beccarii, H. decipiens, and H. ovalis (R. Br.) Hook. f.

Paragonimus bangkokensis and Paragonimus harinasutai, which are morphologically distinguishable species, often co-infect in the same crab intermediate hosts. Recent molecular phylogenetic analyses revealed that these two species are genetically close to each other and are considered as the sister species. While we have been studying Paragonimus adult worms obtained from the lungs of a cat experimentally infected with Paragonimus metacercariae which were morphologically identified as P. harinasutai collected from central Viet Nam, one out of 6 adult worms has grouped cuticular spines, which is a feature of P. bangkokensis. By molecular analyses, the CO1 sequence of this specimen was identical with that of P. bangkokensis, but the ITS2 and the D2 region of 28S rDNA sequences showed a two peak pattern. Then, PCR products of the ITS2 and the D2 region of 28S rDNA sequences were ligated to TOPO vector and subcloned to determine the heterozygosity. Two types of sequences were obtained from each ITS2 and D2 region of 28S; one was identical with P. harinasutai and the other with P. bangkokensis. Taking all these morphological and molecular data together, we identified this adult worm as a hybrid specimen of P. bangkokensis and P. harinasutai.

This study investigated the total, soluble and insoluble oxalate contents of the petioles and the leaves from two different cultivars, Mon Cham (purple stem) and Chia Voi (light green stem), of taro (Alocasia odora) grown in central Viet Nam. These cultivars were processed by wilting for 18 h, resulting in an overall 5.9% reduction of soluble oxalates and washing in cold water for 5 min, resulting in a 26.2% reduction in soluble oxalate content. Soaking the petioles and the petioles and leaves for 10 h in water kept at 36–38 °C resulted in a mean 69.5% reduction in the soluble oxalate content of the raw tissues. Boiling for 60 min was the most effective way to reduce the soluble oxalate levels in the cooked tissue. A mean 84.2% reduction in soluble oxalate in the petioles and the petioles and leaves was achieved after boiling for 60 min while mean reductions of 62.1% were achieved when both materials were boiled for only 10 min.

The paper analyzes the link between human capital and firm-level productivity in five Asian countries. It draws on a dataset of over 4,000 enterprises and considers both the prior educational attainment of workers and in-service training programs of enterprises. Differences between small, medium-sized, and large enterprises and between countries are also presented. The key finding is that both preservice education and in-service training are positively correlated with labor productivity. The productivity of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is enhanced by a higher level of skills and education of the workforce, just as it is with large firms. However, there are country differences. The policy implications are that competitiveness is enhanced both by raising the general level of education in the workforce and by encouraging enterprise-based training programs.

We analyze the link between nutrition and poverty in two Asian countries where monetary-based poverty reduction was especially successful. Thailand and Viet Nam are two emerging market economies where poverty rates are now below 10% and are declining further. Despite this success, it is not clear to what extent it has translated into similar improvements in the nutritional situation of the people, and especially of children. We find that under-nutrition continues to be a problem in Viet Nam with child underweight rates of 27% and therefore higher than headcount rates of the $1.25 poverty line. Also, Thailand, after the economic crisis, with 19% of children underweight, is still above the World Health Organization’s threshold. We investigate the factors that influence nutrition outcomes, measured as Z-scores of the weight-for-age indicator, by using Tobit regressions for four different groups of children, based on income (poor vs. non-poor) and nutrition (underweight vs. non-underweight). We find that poverty and income influence nutrition outcomes, but other factors such as mother’s height, education, migration and sanitation also affect nutrition. Coefficients of respective variables differ by poverty status. Our conclusion that non-monetary factors matter to reduce under-nutrition, and, therefore, monetary poverty reduction is not a sufficient condition, is further underlined by a prediction of future under-nutrition rates based on regressions. Also, we find that, even under the assumption of high growth, income growth alone will not be able to reduce under-nutrition to a level of low severity until the year 2030.

Background: Viet Nam is experiencing a health transition from infectious to chronic disease. Data on cardiovascular diseases, including strokes, are limited. Methods: Data were randomly collected from six communities in Da Nang, Viet Nam, on participant demographics, medical history, blood pressure, anthropometrics and health behavior using World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. Stroke symptoms were collected by self-report with the standardized Questionnaire for Verifying Stroke Free Status. Multivariate logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with the presence of stroke symptoms. Results: One thousand six hundred and twenty one adults were examined with a mean age of 52.0 years (±12.5 years), of which 56.1% were women. 27.3% of the participants were found to have hypertension, 26.2% used tobacco, and 16.1% were overweight. More than two-thirds of the participants with hypertension were unaware of their condition. Almost one fourth of the participants were identified by the questionnaire as previously experiencing at least one stroke symptom. Age, rural residence, and education were associated with the presence of stroke symptoms. Models adjusted for demographics found hypertension, high cholesterol, reported severe chest pain, former smoking, and being overweight to be associated with a higher prevalence of stroke symptoms. Conclusions: The high frequency of stroke symptoms in Da Nang calls for further evaluation and interventions to reduce hypertension and other risk factors for chronic disease in Viet Nam and other health transition countries.

Many Asian countries are undergoing transition from centrally planned to market-oriented economies. The People's Republic of China (PRC) and Viet Nam have been going through this transition since the 1980s, while Mongolia and the former Soviet republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan began their transition in the 1990s with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. On the other hand, Cambodia, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, and Myanmar, while they have begun reforms, are still in the early stages of transition. North Korea has probably made the least progress in this regard. This Special Issue on Transitional Economies aims to provide valuable insights for Asia's developing countries still in transition and to provide them with policy recommendations for avoiding the pitfalls of transition experienced in the 1990s.

The potential benefits of species mixture were investigated using pair-wise comparisons of four timber tree species in northern Viet Nam. Chukrasia tabularis, Canarium album, Michelia mediocris and Eucalyptus urophylla were grown in monocultures and in pair-wise mixtures. The trial was established as a randomized block design with each treatment replicated four times. Volume production gain or loss in mixtures was assessed by calculating a mixture index, which is defined as Relative Yield Total (RYT). At age 48 months, the trial indicated mixed performance with both positive and negative impacts of growing some species in mixtures compared to monocultures. The largest gain was shown in the mixture of a shade-intolerant species, Chukrasia with a more shade-tolerant species, Michelin (47% gain in relative yield), and Eucalyptus with Michelia (45% gain in relative yield) at the first 38 months. The other three mixtures tested, and which were not successful (i.e. had lower relative yields) at 38 months, was the mixture of all shade-intolerant species, including Chukrasia with Canarium, Canarium with Eucalyptus and Chukrasia with Eucalyptus. This suggests that species with different shade tolerances can form complementary pair-wise mixtures, but this changed significantly (P < 0.05) over the following 10 months. At age 48 months the RYT of Chukrasia with Michelia increased by 12%, those of Michelia with Eucalyptus decreased by 20% at 48 months compared to 38 months, suggesting that Eucalyptus should be thinned at around year 5 years. Likewise, the RYT of Michelia with Canarium declined significantly by 23% at 48 months. The RYT of other tested mixtures remained almost unchanged over time. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Water-soluble O-carboxymethyl glucomannan derivatives (O-CMG) with different degrees of substitution were synthesized successfully by reaction of a konjac glucomannan (isolated from the tubers of Amorphophallus paeoniifolius, one of the most abundant Amorphophallus species in Viet Nam forest) directly with monochloroacetic acid (MCA) without methanol. The structure of O-carboxymethyl glucomannan derivatives was characterized by FTIR, 1H, 13C and 1H–13C NMR-HSQC spectroscopy. The conditions for synthesizing of O-CMG derivatives were also evaluated. The results shown that the optimal conditions for carboxymethylation of glucomannan were pH 10, temperature of 60 °C for 3 h. The degree of substitution ( DS ¯ ) of O-substitution increased from 0.363 to 0.697 since the mass ratio (w/w) of glucomannan/monochloroacetic acid changed from 1/1 to 1/5.