The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic leads to e-commerce’s explosive growth with brands such as Shopee, Lazada, Tiki, Sendo and The Gioi Di Dong, etc. Since then, e-commerce activities have been going into practice in the life of every Vietnamese person and are constantly developing. The article presents the current situation of the e-commerce industry in recent years through discussion to analyze, evaluate and have a broader perspective on the development of e-commerce, thereby offering some development policies.

In today’s global higher education environment, international students represent not only an important source of external income for universities: the degree of cross-border student mobility also reflects the internationalization of higher education sector. Universities have engaged in efforts to sell themselves to prospective students and promotional videos are among the most widely used marketing tools for this purpose. This study reports the results of a study analyzing the content of 140 higher education promotional videos from 14 countries available on YouTube. (...) The results reveal that while the pattern of use of YouTube for two-waycommunication with viewers, information contents and appeal messages among sampled universities is fairly homogenous, some marked differences emerge when cultural background and global position ranking of the university are taken into account. The implications of these findings are that, although, transnational higher education has been profoundly globalized, culture still plays a significant role in marketing practice for the recruitment of mobile students. In addition, different universities have various student-targeted segments. These findings provide the basis of a series of recommendations for universities looking to optimize their use of YouTube and promotional video design to market to international students. (shrink)

The digital era brings various benefits to adolescents. However, operating on the digital environment without sufficient knowledge and skills will expose them to multiple types of risks, especially in the country with low digital safety education rate like Vietnam. The current study examines factors that can contribute to cultivating adolescents’ digital resilience using the information-processing reasoning of the Mindsponge Theory. A UNESCO dataset of 1061 Vietnamese high school students was analyzed using the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework analytics. It is found that (...) adolescents’ daily Internet usage frequency, parents’ Internet safety guidance, and teachers’ safety guidance are positively associated with digital resilience. However, the effects of parents’ and teachers’ Internet safety guidance on digital resilience are conditional on the daily Internet usage frequency. Parents’ guidance only enhances adolescents’ digital resilience if they use the Internet less than four hours per day. In contrast, the positive effect of teachers’ guidance on adolescents’ digital resilience becomes stronger when the students spend more time on the Internet (more than 1 hour). Based on these findings, we suggest that adolescents can learn to minimize risks and protect themselves by exposing more to the digital environment. Parents’ and teachers’ supports are important in enhancing adolescents’ capability to deal with digital threats, but types of supports need to be carefully considered to avoid reverse impacts on adolescents’ resilience. (shrink)

Since 2013, Vietnam has implemented a plan to reform the whole education sector. However, there is little understanding on the status of educational research in Vietnam, which may lay the foundation for such plan. Thus, this research aims to analyze the whole picture of educational research from Vietnam, as seen from the Clarivate Web of Science (WOS) database: 215 publications were recorded, ranging from 1991 to 2018. These 215 publications were further analyzed from five perspectives: 1) number of publications by (...) year; 2) research fields and levels of education; 3) top institutions with the highest number of publications; 4) international collaboration; and 5) quality. Some of the most notable results are: 1) the educational sciences in Vietnam have been still under-developed until recently; 2) among different research topics research among educational sciences, some (e.g., Vocational Education and Training or Early Childhood Education) seemed to be overlooked whereas others (e.g., Higher Education and Teaching and Learning) seemed to receive more attention from educational scholars; 3) all the most major education – specialized universities did not appear among the top five institutions with highest number of publications; 4) Australia, Thailand, the USA, New Zealand and China were the countries with the highest number of co-publications with Vietnamese researchers; and 5) The majority of publications belonged to low-ranked journals. Implications would be withdrawn for Vietnamese policymakers, education leaders, educational researchers and teachers in order to adjust their policies and/or action plans; thus, enhancing the performance and impacts of educational research in the future. (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)

Báo Khoa học & Phát triển ngày 23-2 đăng một bài ngắn nhưng thú vị và rất giá trị của TS Phạm Hiệp, viết về trải nghiệm và suy ngẫm qua nhận biết những phát kiến mới, nhỏ (nhưng “hạt tiêu”) trong công việc nghiên cứu khoa học.Bài viết rõ ràng phản ánh một dáng điệu tăng trưởng tư duy trong tổng thể tiếp cận nhận thức luận, một trong ba trụ cột quan trọng của triết học khoa học. Trong (...) bài viết ngắn để tiếp dòng suy nghĩ của TS Phạm Hiệp, bàn tiếp về tính “động” của thể trạng nhỏ (từ quan sát “tĩnh”) là việc đáng làm, tôn tạo tiếp giá trị bài vừa nói trên Khoa học và Phát triển. Qua đó, chân dung của thực tế tương lai có thể sẽ rất khác, mặc dù chỉ bắt đầu nho nhỏ mà thôi. (shrink)

Chúng ta có thể hiểu được phần nào động cơ dẫn đến sự xuất hiện của ‘Republic of Letters’, ‘Invisible College’ và các hiệp hội học thuật sau này trong thời kỳ đầu của khoa học hiện đại. Sự ra đời của các tạp chí khoa học đầu tiên có thể được xem là kết quả của một quá trình tiến hóa trong đó các nhà triết học và sử học tự nhiên cố gắng tìm cách cải thiện hiệu suất (...) và hiệu quả của việc lưu thông các thông tin khoa học. (shrink)

Tục ngữ Việt Nam có những câu như “Nhất nghệ tinh, nhất thân vinh” hay “Một nghề thì sống, đống nghề thì chết” để đề cao người biết một nghề và biết rất sâu, tới mức độ thành đạt, vinh quang với nghề.

Background: Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, published research from Vietnam related to the pandemic was analysed using bibliometrics. -/- Objectives: To examine the status of research on COVID-19 by authors from Vietnam. -/- Methods: The following bibliometric aspects were considered in the analysis: international collaboration, institutions from Vietnam and their partner institutions worldwide, subjects and topics, types of documents, and individual authors. The basis of the study was data obtained from the Scopus database between 2020 and 2021. The (...) data were analysed using Microsoft Excel, R, and VOSviewer, and the emerging trends illustrated through descriptive analysis and science mapping. -/- Results: Between 2020 and 2021, researchers from Vietnam co-authored 1034 documents related to COVID-19, amounting to 0.35% of the total of 296,148 such documents published worldwide as ascertained from the Scopus database. Vietnam’s top country collaborators in that research were USA, Australia, the United Kingdom, India, and Taiwan ROC. The top Vietnam institutions were Duy Tan University, Ton Duc Thang University, and the University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City. The research from Vietnam covered many subjects, from medicine and natural sciences to social sciences and economics. Eight clusters of topics related to COVID-19 were identified. In terms of citations, the most highly cited documents were the outcome of collaboration with international authors. Lastly, the study ranked top authors based on either the number of publications or the number of citations. -/- Conclusion: This study provides a preliminary picture of studies related to COVID-19 co-authored by researchers in Vietnam. The picture may help the Vietnam government in devising appropriate strategies for post-COVID-19 restoration of the country’s socio-economic status. (shrink)

Relationships with international students can be beneficial to higher education in terms of financial and human resources. For this reason, establishing and maintaining such relationships are usually pre-eminent concerns. In this study, we extended the application of the disconfirmation expectation model by incorporating components from subjective task value to predict the loyalty of international students toward their host countries. On a sample of 410 Vietnamese students enrolled in establishments of higher education in over 15 countries across the globe, we employed (...) structural equation model to construct the conceptual model. Our empirical findings revealed that while the roles of satisfaction and disconfirmation are still important as direct and indirect antecedents of international student loyalty, its most powerful predictors are the three components of subjective task value: attainment, utility and intrinsic. These insights result in a number of implications for actors on the higher ducation scene, such as heads of institutions and policy makers. (shrink)

Food security is one of the major concerns in the Philippines. Although livestock and poultry production accounts for a significant proportion of the country’s agricultural output, smallholder households are still vulnerable to food insecurity. The current study aims to examine how livestock production and selling difficulties affect smallholder households’ food-insecure conditions. For this objective, Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics was employed on a dataset of the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Data in Emergencies Monitoring (DIEM) system. We found that production and (...) selling difficulties significantly adversely affect food insecurity in the Philippines. However, their effects vary according to the severity of food insecurity. In particular, production and selling difficulties affect the households’ likelihood of eating less healthy and nutritious food equally. However, the production difficulties have more negligible impacts on the possibility of skipping meals and even ambiguous impacts on the likelihood of not eating for a whole day compared to the effects of selling difficulties. Moreover, we also found that the market plays a crucial role in facilitating not only livestock trading but also livestock production (e.g., purchase of feed and medicines). Based on these findings, we suggest that the livestock market needs to be expanded and regulated to maintain the balancing prices between livestock products and products and services used for livestock production, and facilitate the product-exchanging mechanism. (shrink)

Climate change has become one of the most pressing problems that can threaten the existence and development of humans around the globe. Almost all climate scientists have agreed that climate change is happening and is caused mainly by greenhouse gas emissions induced by anthropogenic activities. However, some groups still deny this fact or do not believe that climate change results from human activities. This essay discusses the causes, significance, and skeptical arguments of climate change denialism, as well as the roles (...) of scientists and science communication in addressing the issues. Through this essay, we call for the active participation of scientists in science communication activities with the public, the opening of new science communication sectors specified for climate change, and more attention to social sciences and humanities in addressing climate change issues. (shrink)

Công chúng kỳ vọng mỗi nghiên cứu đều phải cho những kết quả ấn tượng, trong khi trên thực tế, hầu hết các nghiên cứu chỉ có thể đưa ra những kết luận nhỏ bé, dè dặt. Liệu có gì sai ở đây không? (KH&PT; ngày 23/2/2024).

Rewilding exemplifies the change in mindset. It highlights the interconnectedness of all living things and prioritizes actions that support the long-term health of our planet. This shift fosters a more sustainable and balanced relationship with our environment, prioritizing ecological health and harmony over materialistic success.

Academia is a competitive environment. Early Career Researchers (ECRs) are limited in experience and resources and especially need achievements to secure and expand their careers. To help with these issues, this book offers a new approach for conducting research using the combination of mindsponge innovative thinking and Bayesian analytics. This is not just another analytics book. 1. A new perspective on psychological processes: Mindsponge is a novel approach for examining the human mind’s information processing mechanism. This conceptual framework is used (...) to construct models in studies. The framework is highly flexible and widely applicable for many different types of information processes. The mindsponge approach can help researchers discover interesting ideas or even formulate their very own theories when investigating psychosocial phenomena. This approach brings a fresh wind to the current landscape of social sciences and humanities (SSH). 2. Easy-to-follow analysis protocol: The Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF analytics) is useful in terms of computing and visualizing power but also easy to learn and apply. Contrary to being intimidating, the Bayesian analytics section of this book is presented in a reader-friendly manner with a detailed yet clear step-by-step procedure. Examples are from published BMF articles, allowing readers to immediately practice the method and quickly create their own applications. With educational purposes in mind, the book is very suitable for ECRs who are looking to innovate their research methods. 3. Advocating for low-cost, high-quality research: Doing science can be very costly. Mindsponge innovative thinking and BMF analytics help produce impactful studies using openly available data on online repositories. This is based on the authors’ previous works and experiences. The book presents examples of employing the open R package bayesvl on secondary data from different sources. With less financial constraints, researchers can have more freedom of thought to pursue their curiosity and creativity. ECRs in low- and middle-income countries may find this aspect crucial in their careers. 4. Support and collaboration: The authors share their insights from experiences in the academic publishing system to help readers get through the processes of manuscript writing and peer-reviewing more easily. The authors are also ready to support other researchers with further inquiries and collaboration opportunities at the following website, mindsponge(dot)info. This book is for: a) ECRs whose only abundant resources are their innovation capacity and strength of will; b) Researchers in SSH who want to explore a novel approach to thinking and study conducting; c) Low- and middle-income countries’ researchers looking for a cost-effective research protocol; and, d) Innovative thinkers who want to turn their interesting thoughts into good publications. (shrink)

The issue of climate change poses an important problem that requires immediate collaboration from everyone, including individuals, governments, and businesses. While consumption culture constitutes a significant proportion of greenhouse gas emissions, most of these emissions are caused by the consumption of the wealthiest. In this article, we will explore the challenges that consumer culture has exacerbated regarding climate change and propose that transitioning to a simpler and more sustainable lifestyle could be an effective solution in the fight against climate change. (...) Such transitions can be leveraged through the inspiration of celebrities (e.g., Keanu Reeves, Chow Yun-fat, Kristen Bell, Leonardo DiCaprio) that pursue simple, non-glamorous lifestyles that do not promote excessive consumerism. (shrink)

Marine and coastal ecosystems are crucial in maintaining human livelihood, facilitating social development, and reducing climate change impacts. Studies have examined how the benefit perception of aquatic ecosystems, knowledge, and emotion about climate change affect peoples’ support for marine protection. However, their interaction effects remain understudied. The current study explores the intricate interaction effect of the benefit perception of aquatic ecosystems, knowledge, and worry about climate change on marine protection support. Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics was employed on a dataset (...) of 709 stakeholders from 42 countries generated by MaCoBioS—a research project funded by the European Commission Horizon 2020. The statistical analysis shows that the impacts of benefit perception of ocean ecosystems, knowledge, and worry about climate change on marine protection support vary due to their interactions. Specifically, when stakeholders perceive ocean ecosystems to have little utility in mitigating climate change, greater climate change knowledge and concern are associated with a higher level of marine protection support. Nevertheless, in the scenarios where stakeholders perceive the benefits of ocean ecosystems, the effect of climate change knowledge becomes conditional on the worry level. If stakeholders are concerned about climate change, those with a greater level of climate change knowledge will associate with a higher level of marine protection support. Otherwise, greater climate change knowledge will result in lower support. These findings highlight emotion’s importance in directing climate change knowledge’s effect on marine protection support. Linking people’s “objects of care” to the consequences of climate change can help improve climate change communication effectiveness. (shrink)

Products made from animal fur and skin have been a major part of human civilization. However, in modern society, the unsustainable consumption of these products – often considered luxury goods – has many negative environmental impacts. This study explores how people’s perceptions of biodiversity affect their attitudes and behaviors toward consumption. To investigate the information process deeper, we add the moderation of beliefs about biodiversity loss. Following the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics, we use mindsponge-based reasoning for constructing conceptual models (...) and employ Bayesian analysis aided by Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms on a dataset of 535 Vietnamese urban residents. The results show that people’s preference for using products made from animal skin/fur is negatively associated with perceived consequences of biodiversity loss when they believe biodiversity loss is real and a major problem. In contrast, if urban residents believe biodiversity loss is unreal or not a significant issue, the association between perceived consequences of biodiversity loss and personal preference happens in the opposite direction. The same effects of biodiversity loss perception on people’s possession of skin/fur products was not found, indicating a more complex information process on behaviors compared to attitudes. Nevertheless, in the scenario that people believe biodiversity loss is not a significant issue, the higher the perceived consequences of biodiversity loss are, the greater number of animal-based products they likely own. Our results suggest that policymakers should not neglect the factor of personal belief besides knowledge and awareness in environmental campaigns. (shrink)

The rapidly declining biosphere integrity, representing one of the core planetary boundaries, is alarming. One of the most widely accepted measures to halt the rate of biodiversity loss is to maintain and expand protected areas that are effectively managed. However, it requires substantial finance derived from nature-based tourism, specifically visitors from urban areas. Using the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) on 535 Vietnamese urban residents, the current study examined how their biodiversity loss perceptions can affect their willingness to pay for the (...) entrance fee and conservation in protected areas. We found that perceived environmental degradation, loss of economic growth, loss of nature-based recreation opportunity, and loss of knowledge as consequences of biodiversity loss has indirect effects on paying willingness through the mediation of the attitude towards conservation. Especially, the perceived knowledge loss also has a direct positive influence on the willingness to pay for the entrance fee and conservation. In contrast, perceived loss of health is negatively associated with the attitude towards conservation. Based on these findings, we suggest that building an eco-surplus culture among urban residents can be a promising way to generate more finance from nature-based tourism for conservation in protected areas and ease the domestic government's and international organizations' funding allocations problems. (shrink)

Climate change, primarily driven by human activities, is becoming one of the most urgent global challenges of our time. Despite lingering doubts about climate change in some research documents, strong consensus within the scientific community still affirms that global surface temperatures have risen in recent decades. Over the past decade, significant efforts have been made by humans to address the climate change crisis, resulting in certain impacts in combating climate change and raising awareness about its consequences. However, the question remains: (...) Are we heading in the right direction to effectively address this crisis, or do we need to reconsider our approach? This essay will examine some of major achievements in the fight against climate change, the increasing awareness of its impacts, the escalating severity of the climate crisis, and whether our actions are on the right track or require reevaluation. (shrink)

Developing research groups within universities and science-technology institutions is one topic that gained a special interest in recent times. In this article, we will present our experience of building a research team in the field of Social Science at EdLab Asia Educational Research and Development Centre (EdLab Asia), a young research institute which achieved several initial results after one year of establishment: 14 published works in the journals from Clarivate WOS and Scopus list, between the time from Sept 2019 to (...) Sept 2020. This article will present the goals, strategies, structure, and operating principles of EdLab Asia. Policy implications for universities and science-technology institutions in educational science in particular, and social science in general will be mentioned at the end of this article. (shrink)

Open science has been a feature of academia in Vietnam for more than a decade, along with open education which has been in place since the late 2000s. Since then, with the assistance of numerous bottom-up initiatives, open science has flourished and permeated a variety of academic fields in Vietnam. However, it is still positioned on the periphery and there are avenues that could be explored to promote it and move it to the centre.

Trong bối cảnh nhận thức về các vấn đề môi trường như biến đổi khí hậu ngày càng tăng, xu hướng định nghĩa lại khái niệm “phát triển bền vững” ngày càng rõ nét hơn. Sự biến đổi này được thể hiện thông qua các dự án phục hồi môi trường và bảo tồn, như các sáng kiến kiến tạo lại các vùng thiên nhiên hoang dã.

Pacific Conservation Biology has officially published the manuscript. The article can be accessed using the following DOI:10.1071/PC23044.

The three learning modalities in nursing education are classroom meetings, skill laboratory practices, and clinical practice in hospital or community settings. In clinical internships, the collaborative self-directed learning method is highly encouraged among nursing students. The use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in clinical learning supports the implementation of evidence-based nursing and student-centered learning. The current study examines whether the relationship between social influence and ICT using intention is moderated by the daily duration of use and the number of (...) classmates being friends on social media. The Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics was employed on a dataset of 702 Moroccan nursing students. We found that social influence was positively associated with nursing students’ intention to use ICT for clinical learning during the internship. This positive association was positively moderated by the daily duration of social media usage and negatively moderated by the number of classmates being friends on social media. These findings underscore the potential of using social media platforms to facilitate the incorporation of ICT and social media in nursing education and training. However, the adverse effects of social media on students’ mental well-being also need to be acknowledged and managed appropriately. (shrink)

Bạn hiểu gì về đời thường của giới khoa học? Những suy nghĩ và quan sát hằng ngày của họ về thế giới xung quanh như thế nào? Họ hình thành các ý tưởng nghiên cứu ra sao? Họ nghĩ gì về các ứng dụng nghiên cứu của họ và của đồng nghiệp trong thực tiễn nói chung?

Today, many people have realized that the climate change and biodiversity loss issues lie in how and to what extent humans consume products for their lives in the Anthropocene era. Consumerism has pushed natural resource exploitation to its peak, and the depletion of resources is becoming increasingly prevalent. The beauty and personal care industry has a large market and high profits, especially in the high-income segment. However, this advantage also carries the risk of facing scrutiny, investigations, and criticism from civil (...) society organizations, environmental activists, and consumers. More than anyone else, the industry is vulnerable to the perils of unfavourable societal assessments, particularly the repercussions of consumer-led boycott actions. In this discourse, we suggest that, given the current circumstances, it is imperative for multinational beauty corporations to take a proactive role in allocating resources towards the development of sustainable agriculture practices. This entails not only advocating for the widespread adoption of environmentally conscious production methods but also dedicating efforts towards conducting research and innovation in the area of nature-friendly manufacturing techniques. Doing so will help demonstrate their commitment to the environment and actively provide convincing evidence to consumers of their social responsibility through emission reduction and biodiversity conservation activities. (shrink)

With growing global concerns about water scarcity and environmental sustainability, understanding the factors influencing individual water conservation behaviors is crucial. This study utilizes the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics to investigate the relationship between concerns of local issues and water conservation behaviors in a sample of 1831 residents in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. New Mexico is an arid region of which 90% faced severe drought driven by the most significant wildfire in state history and some of the driest months ever (...) recorded in 2022. The results show a positive association between the drought or water scarcity concern and the number of water conservation behaviors adopted. Likewise, the positive association between the concern about population growth and development and water conservation behaviors is also observed. However, further examination is needed due to the weak reliability of this relationship. In contrast, negative associations between concerns about water quality and water bills with water conservation behaviors are also identified. Based on these findings, the study discusses the potential of building the eco-surplus culture by improving information dissemination of water-saving methods and existing water-related issues in the local areas. (shrink)

Extant literature suggests a positive correlation between social trust (also called generalized trust) and life satisfaction. However, the psychological pathways underlying this relationship can be complex. Using the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF), we examined the influence of social trust in a high-violence environment. Employing Bayesian analysis on a sample of 1237 adults in Cali, Colombia, we found that in a linear relationship, generalized trust is positively associated with life satisfaction. However, in a model including the interactions between trust and education (...) level as well as between trust and socioeconomic status, generalized trust is found to be negatively associated with life satisfaction. In this non-linear relationship, both education level and socioeconomic status have moderating effects against the negative association between generalized trust and life satisfaction. In other words, less educated people living in worse socioeconomic conditions are more likely to have lower life satisfaction when they have higher levels of social trust. In contrast, highly educated people living in better socioeconomic conditions are more likely to have higher life satisfaction when they have higher levels of social trust. Due to the facilitating function of trust in information processing, lowering the rigor of the filtering system in a high-violence social environment will likely put an individual at risk. Based on our findings, we suggest that policymakers should consider the impacts of social contexts when advocating for increasing social trust. We also recommend that researchers carefully examine the psychological mechanism underlying an observed association before making suggestions for policymaking. (shrink)

Effective stakeholder engagement and inclusive governance are essential for effective and equitable ocean management. However, few cross-national studies have been conducted to examine how stakeholders’ economic and cultural benefit perceptions influence their support level for policies focused on ocean preservation. The current study aims to fill this gap by employing the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics on a dataset of 709 stakeholders from 42 countries, a part of the MaCoBioS project funded by the European Commission H2020. We found that economic (...) and cultural benefit perceptions are generally negatively associated with the policy support level. Regarding economic aspects, stakeholders considering transportation and shipping, renewable energy generation, and oil and gas provision as the most crucial benefits their countries’ oceans provide tend to obtain less support for policies focusing on ocean preservation. Meanwhile, for cultural aspects, perceiving recreation and tourism, aesthetic pleasure, mental health and well-being support, and sense of identity provision as the most important benefits provided by the country’s ocean are negatively associated with the policy support level. The perceived economic, cultural, and environmental tradeoffs when supporting policies focused on ocean preservation were discussed. Recommendations for improving the effective management of multi-use marine space are also provided to reduce the perceived competing interests among stakeholders. (shrink)

Food prices are a daily concern in many households’ decision-making, especially when people want to have healthier diets. Employing Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics on a dataset of 710 Indonesian citizens, we found that people from wealthier households are less likely to have concerns about food prices. However, the degree of health considerations in food consumption was found to moderate against the above association. In other words, people of higher income-based social classes may worry more about food prices if they (...) care more about the health impacts of their food choices. These findings provide more insights for policymakers on the psychological aspects of promoting the balance between finance and health in food consumption. (shrink)

Coral reefs provide substantial benefits to humans by generating biologically diverse ecosystems and reducing coastal hazards. However, in recent years, mass mortality of coral reefs due to bleaching has been witnessed in the ocean worldwide. Bleaching induced by the loss of the symbiotic relationship between algae and coral is mainly attributed to climate change. Marine protected areas (MPAs) can effectively prevent local disturbances but are less likely to conserve the coral reefs from global events like climate change. Other conservation and (...) restoration methods can be useful to protect and replenish the coral population temporarily, but whether they are feasible as sustainable conservation strategies is still equivocal. Coral reef mass mortality is not an exceptional occurrence but is linked to various instances of ecological loss, serving as an S.O.S. signal of severe prolonged climate extremes. (shrink)

This short piece of communication has the sole purpose of identifying some evidence, supporting our view regarding a possible missing environment-nurturing cultural value. Here, we attempt to examine the presence of cultural studies within the boundary of climate change research.

The nationwide economic reform in 1986 transformed Vietnam from a centrally planned economy to a socialist-oriented market economy. Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial spirits within the populace are suggested to fuel the structural changes. Despite the importance of entrepreneurship in Vietnam’s economy, studies in Vietnam mainly pay attention to the practical aspects of entrepreneurial activities and neglect the cognitive and theoretical aspects of entrepreneurship. Thus, the current study employs the information-processing perspective of the Mindsponge Theory to explore how entrepreneurs’ knowledge accumulation can (...) affect their perceived likelihood of business success. Bayesian analysis indicates that business-related experience positively affects entrepreneurs’ business success likelihood. Greater willingness/readiness to transform thinking, acting, and beliefs can improve the business success of entrepreneurs who study others’ failures carefully. However, for entrepreneurs who perceive learning from others’ failures as unnecessary, higher willingness/readiness to transform diminishes their chance of success. Based on these findings, we recommend Vietnamese entrepreneurs accumulate knowledge through experience, learning, and an open mind for better decision-making and innovation creation capabilities. However, the learning process should be selective. (shrink)

Scientists in anthropology, geography, and other fields within social sciences and humanities have long suggested that the environments in which people live deeply influence their cultural value systems and practices. Shota Shibasaki, Ryosuke Nakadai, and Yo Nakawake have built on this idea, demonstrating that local ecological characteristics shape the appearance of trickster animals in folklore. Based on their finding and the SM3D (Serendipity-Mindsponge-3D) knowledge management framework, we discuss how the individuals’ or groups’ ability to create cultural products depends on the (...) availability and accessibility of information from the surrounding environment. Due to biodiversity loss and climate change, such valuable resources for cultural creativity have been diminished. Thus, it is crucial to adopt biodiversity preservation and climate action as fundamental values of a progressive and humane culture. Only then can we continue to preserve and enhance the creative cultural capacity of society. (shrink)

The military-industrial complex, military operations, and wars are major contributors to exacerbating both climate change and biodiversity crises. However, their environmental impacts are often shadowed due to national security reasons. The current paper aims to go through the devastating impacts of military operations and wars on climate change and biodiversity loss and challenges that hinder the inclusion of military-related activities into environmental crisis mitigation efforts. The information blind spot induced by concerns about national security reasons jeopardizes the efforts to involve (...) the military-industrial complex and military operations in the global climate and biodiversity agendas. Besides that, many military-related challenges, such as specificity of operational requirements and lifecycles, dependence on fossil fuels, complex supply change, inadequate civilian technologies and innovations, and requirements of structural changes, can hinder emission reduction. Meanwhile, wars and conflicts not only threaten to drain all human and material resources available to tackle environmental problems but also inflict long-lasting destructions, pains, and trauma that can lead to hatred and distrust among nations and parties. With the rising hatred and distrust, global agreement and commitment to address climate change and biodiversity will hardly be achieved. Thus, promoting peace is the humanistic and planetary conscience. (shrink)

Value systems, goals, beliefs, and worldviews need to be changed to leverage the sustainability transformation within the human society, as they define how humans interact with nature, generate knowledge and technologies, and utilize natural and artificial resources. Therefore, the humanistic values of this era demand the inclusion of environmental sustainability, and building an eco-surplus culture is essential for the social transition away from eco-deficit dystopia. The Topical Collection welcomes viewpoints, reviews, and theoretical and empirical work.

This short piece of communication has the sole purpose of identifying some evidence, supporting our view regarding a possible missing environment-nurturing cultural value. Here, we attempt to examine the presence of cultural studies within the boundary of waste management research.

Extant literature suggests a positive correlation between social trust (also called generalized trust) and life satisfaction. However, the psychological pathways underlying this relationship can be complex. Using the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF), we examined the influence of social trust in a high-violence environment. Employing Bayesian analysis on a sample of 1237 adults in Cali, Colombia, we found that in a linear relationship, generalized trust is positively associated with life satisfaction. However, in a model including the interactions between trust and education (...) level as well as between trust and socioeconomic status, generalized trust is found to be negatively associated with life satisfaction. In this non-linear relationship, both education level and socioeconomic status have moderating effects against the negative association between generalized trust and life satisfaction. In other words, less educated people living in worse socioeconomic conditions are more likely to have lower life satisfaction when they have higher levels of social trust. In contrast, highly educated people living in better socioeconomic conditions are more likely to have higher life satisfaction when they have higher levels of social trust. Due to the facilitating function of trust in information processing, lowering the rigor of the filtering system in a high-violence social environment will likely put an individual at risk. Based on our findings, we suggest that policymakers should consider the impacts of social contexts when advocating for increasing social trust. We also recommend that researchers carefully examine the psychological mechanism underlying an observed association before making suggestions for policymaking. (shrink)

Vừa rồi, nguyên hiệu trưởng của trường ĐH Stanford, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, đã rút bài nghiên cứu khoa học trên Nature. Đây là một sự kiện ảnh hưởng đến độ tin cậy đối với các nghiên cứu khoa học trong công chúng. Vì thông báo rút bài minh bạch sẽ giúp giảm nhẹ tác động tiêu cực của việc rút bài đối với cộng đồng học thuật và công chúng nói chung, tôi đã sử dụng trí tuệ nhân tạo (Google (...) Bard) để kiểm tra xem các thông tin quan trọng liên quan đến việc rút bài đã được cung cấp hay chưa. (shrink)

Products made from animal fur and skin have been a major part of human civilization. However, in modern society, the unsustainable consumption of these products – often considered luxury goods – has many negative environmental impacts. This study explores how people’s perceptions of biodiversity affect their attitudes and behaviors toward consumption. To investigate the information process deeper, we add the moderation of beliefs about biodiversity loss. Following the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics, we use mindsponge-based reasoning for constructing conceptual models (...) and employ Bayesian analysis aided by Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms on a dataset of 535 Vietnamese urban residents. The results show that people’s preference for using products made from animal skin/fur is negatively associated with perceived consequences of biodiversity loss when they believe biodiversity loss is real and a major problem. In contrast, if urban residents believe biodiversity loss is unreal or not a significant issue, the association between perceived consequences of biodiversity loss and personal preference happens in the opposite direction. The same effects of biodiversity loss perception on people’s possession of skin/fur products was not found, indicating a more complex information process on behaviors compared to attitudes. Nevertheless, in the scenario that people believe biodiversity loss is not a significant issue, the higher the perceived consequences of biodiversity loss are, the greater number of animal-based products they likely own. Our results suggest that policymakers should not neglect the factor of personal belief besides knowledge and awareness in environmental campaigns. (shrink)

This short piece of communication has the sole purpose of identifying some evidence, supporting our view regarding a possible missing environment-nurturing cultural value. Here, we attempt to examine the presence of cultural studies within the boundary of water pollution research.

In May 2023, Fakhraee et al. published a research article titled “Ocean alkalinity enhancement through restoration of blue carbon ecosystems” in Nature Sustainability. In this essay, we discuss an assessment of the costs of restoring and maintaining the mangrove-seagrass ecosystems indicated in the article.

The study of Enrici et al. (2023) in Ecology and Society [1] is one of a few in-depth discussions of the significance of money on how people (including academics, politicians, and residents) understand the impact of humans on the environment. These insights are critical, especially given the urgency of understanding anthropogenic influences on the ecosystem in the face of the unpredictable dangers of climate catastrophe.

The article relates to “empirical ecocriticism” and has attracted the attention of many academics, political circles, and social groups for the global living environment. Schneider and Mayerson explore the topic of “climate fiction,” a literary genre focusing on climate related themes that has grown in popularity over the last decade. It is generally believed that this genre can create positive ecological-political impacts by providing climate information to the readers and helping them recognize the urgency of climate change.

In a recent study by Cai et al. about water shortages in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban areas, virtual water has become the central concept of the groundwater security strategy by suggesting increasing imports of water-intensive agricultural products instead of utilizing the depleted groundwater resources for production. However, despite reviewing the content, we could not see how the authors discussed the households’ economic and financial issues from both production and consumption perspectives.

As the world’s population grows and urbanization continues, the global waste crisis is becoming more severe, especially in developing countries. Without proper waste management, they may encounter various environmental and health risks. Biological technologies are regarded as promising waste management and recycling approaches in developing countries due to their cost-effectiveness and capability to handle diverse waste categories. One prominent technology in this aspect is the vermicomposting of organic waste utilizing the black soldier fly larvae. Nevertheless, significant financial resources are still (...) necessary to advance and expand biological waste treatment, which requires the participation of businesses. By examining waste management companies listed on the Vietnamese stock market, we highlight two challenges that hinder the adoption and scaling of the waste treatment system using black soldier flies and potentially other biological technologies in Vietnam. Specifically, the business regards the environmental services they offer primarily as a means to generate profit rather than as a genuine commitment to environmental preservation, and the values of companies operating in the environmental sector, particularly in waste management, have been significantly undervalued by the Vietnamese investing public. Therefore, we advocate for societal shifts toward the eco-surplus culture and apply the semiconducting principle of monetary and environmental values exchange to address the problem. (shrink)

The essay title is also the overarching content of the article published in Conservation Letters, August 2023. One of the article’s most notable findings is mentioned as follows: “Specifically, threatened vertebrate fauna with habitat capable of supporting highvalue productive lands received less protection and experienced greater habitat loss.”.

This short piece of communication has the sole purpose of identifying some evidence, supporting our view regarding a possible missing environment-nurturing cultural value. Here, we attempt to examine the presence of cultural studies within the boundary of air pollution research.