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In this work, we study the ability to use hand gestures for human-machine interaction from wrist-worn sensors. Towards this goal, we design a wrist-worn prototype to capture RGB video stream of hand gestures. Then we built a new wrist-worn gesture dataset (named WiGes) with various subjects in interaction with home appliances in different environments. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first benchmark released for studying hand gestures from a wrist-worn camera. We then evaluate various CNN models for vision-based recognition. Furthermore, we deeply analyze the models that produce the best trade-off between accuracy, memory requirement, and computational cost. We point out that among studied architectures, MoviNet produces the highest accuracy. Then, we introduce a new MoviNet-based two-stream architecture that takes both RGB and optical flow into account. Our proposed architecture increases the Top-1 accuracy by 1.36% and 3.67% according to two evaluation protocols. Our dataset, baselines, and proposed model analysis give instructive recommendations for human-machine interaction using hand-held devices.

The objective of this paper presents an identification of single water tank system by Genetic Algorithm (GA), a comparison control quality of two controllers sliding mode control (SMC) and fuzzy sliding mode control (FSMC) and a design of real-time fault detection and diagnosis for the system. The entire system has been modeled and tested by Matlab/Simulink toolbox.

AbstractThe Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is pivotal in firm governance and is tasked with policy implementation and maximizing shareholder benefit. However, predicting CEO behaviour remains challenging, especially when considering CEO power (CEOP). Hence, this study explores the link between CEOP and firm risk-taking (FRT) in selected firms on the stock market in Vietnam from 2010 to 2020. Utilizing the Entropy weight methodology, a CEOP index combines structural, ownership, and expert power indicators. The SYS-GMM approach mitigates potential endogeneity issues, revealing a positive correlation between CEOP and FRT. Interestingly, CEO risk aversion increases in state-owned firms’ participants, suggesting heightened supervision. Moreover, each characteristic of the CEOP index uniquely influences FRT. The findings offer theoretical and practical insights for enhancing governance and supervision mechanisms to optimize stakeholder benefits.

Climate change has gained an increasing trend and has become an international issue, and sustainable energy technologies have been considered the best solution for it that needs new researchers’ focus. Hence, the article examines the impact of sustainable energy technologies such as renewable electricity output on climate change (carbon dioxide emissions) in E7 countries. The article also investigates the impact of renewable energy (RE) consumption, energy use, urbanization, energy import, and industrialization on the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in E7 countries. The secondary data has been gathered using secondary sources such as World Development Indicators (WDI) from 2001 to 2020. The study has used the Method of Moments Quantile Regression (MMQR) to check the linkage among the variables. The results indicated that the renewable electricity output and RE consumption are negatively associated with CO2 emissions in E7 countries. The results also indicated that energy usage, industrialization, energy import, and urbanization positively correlate with CO2 emissions in E7 countries. This research guides the policymakers in developing the policies related to the adoption of sustainable energy technologies to control climate change.

Sustainable development goals call for urgent action with an aim to spur socio-economic growth along with the protection of the environment and resources. However, these goals are difficult to be achieved when finances are not mobilized to mitigate harmful resources. In return, numerous green bond manifestations appeared in the market, which are viewed as a bridge to have successful implementation of sustainable development goals. Therefore, the study is aimed to explore the relevance of green bonds, financialization, and sustainable environmental change mitigation technologies for environmental change in ASEAN economies. The initial outcomes confirm the long-run cointegration association between study variables and also explore the slope heterogeneity and cross-sectional dependencies. To explore the causal connections between the study variables, the current study employs CS-ARDL technique. The study finds significant contributions of sustainable environmental change mitigation technologies and green bonds in the reduction of pollution, hence improving climate quality. The short-run infers similar results with relatively lower magnitudes of coefficients as compared to the long-run. Negative error correction terms are used to confirm the stability of the model, which implies sustained convergence towards “steady-state equilibrium” in case of expected deviations. The results offer practical implications and recommendations.

Human development is crucial for a country's prosperity, reflecting its economic growth and social progress. This study examines how using renewable energy can boost human development across 77 countries, including high-income and 33 middle-income, from 2000 to 2019. This paper employs the panel-corrected standard error (PCSE) model to generate appropriate outcomes for the existence of heteroscedasticity, serial correlations, and sectional dependencies (CD). The results reveal a positive link between renewable energy adoption and human development across three dimensions-health, education, and income. This connection holds for various renewable sources like hydropower, solar, and wind energy. Additionally, when the research sample is separated into high- and middle-income nations, we find differing impacts of renewable energy on human development dimensions, such as hydro energy has a negative impact on the income dimension in high-income countries; meanwhile, the solar, wind, and hydro energy are insignificant or less pronounced in middle-income countries. This study highlights the importance of renewable energy for human development but emphasizes the need for tailored approaches considering income levels and specific renewable energy sources. Based on findings, theoretical and practical implications have been proposed to promote the use of renewable energy towards sustainable development goals.

Diclofenac (DCF) is a synthetic, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug. It is a persistent chemical that resists biological degradation and is difficult to completely remove by conventional wastewater treatment plants (WWTP). In recent years, various advantage oxidation processes (AOPs), including photocatalytic processes such as the TiO2/UV process, have been applied for DCF treatment in wastewater. In this study, a heterogeneous photocatalysis process combined with H2O2 was applied for DCF removal in synthesized wastewater. The results show that the optimum conditions for DCF removal by the photocatalysis process were a pH of 6.5 and an initial TiO2 concentration of 1 g/L. The removal efficiency of DCF at a concentration of 50 mg/L by the photocatalysis process was 65.25 % after a 150-min reaction time. A combination photocatalysis process with H2O2 can enhance DCF removal efficiency. The DCF concentration in solution was completely reduced after 150 minutes of reaction time by the UV/TiO2/H2O2 process. The optimum initial H2O2 concentration for this study was 10 ml/L.

Poverty reduction is considered as the top priority of governments and international institutions. At the same time income inequality is a far-reaching concern especially in emerging nations. US former president even labelled income inequality and poverty are the challenges of our times. Theoretically there are different views on the impact of microfinancing and financial inclusion on income inequality and poverty, hence, it is interesting to evaluate these estimations in Vietnamese context from 1986 to 2020. The researchers have applied the Bayesian Auto-regressive Distributed Lags (BARDL) model and exposed that microfinancing, financial inclusion, educational loans increase income equality and reduces poverty. Based on the evidences, the paper implies that government institutions must focus on microfinancing and financial inclusion aspects to facilitate poor and boost prosperity which ultimately brings income equality. First published online 21 November 2023

This research analyzes the nexus between the leader and the company's willingness to take risks in the case of Vietnamese companies. Corporate governance procedures rely heavily on the leader to carry out the company's most important objectives and maximize returns to shareholders. However, leadership does not always conform to scholarly expectations. Consequently, non-financial firms listed on Vietnam's stock market from 2010 to 2020 are analyzed to determine the association between leadership and the extent of willingness to take risks. Using the SYS-GMM method to control for endogenous confounds, this investigation reveals that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between leader authority and the extent of willingness to take risks. In particular, a willingness to take risks in pursuit of more profits increases as the leader's level of authority decreases. However, companies become less risk-taking as their leader's authority grows. Consequently, the study's key contributions are implications for setting up governance and oversight systems, particularly leader power, to maximize stakeholder interests.

This paper investigates the role of board characteristics in the relationship between tax avoidance behavior and corporate risk tolerance to elucidate the importance of corporate governance mechanisms. The applied methodology is System-GMM for 334 listed corporations in Vietnam from 2008 to 2020 to avoid endogenous problems in our models. The main findings are that higher (lower) corporate risk-taking is related to higher (lower) corporate tax avoidance if the size of the board of directors and the supervisory board are larger (lower) than six and three members, respectively. Furthermore, if the board independence ratio is lower than 48.63%, an increase in corporate risk-taking leads to increased tax avoidance. Our results support the argument that the influence of corporate risk-taking on tax avoidance behavior is governed by governance structure. Therefore, the practical implications will be towards building the optimal governance mechanism for enterprises in Vietnam.