Within the research community, it is generally accepted that consent processes for research should be culturally appropriate and tailored to the context, yet researchers continue to grapple with what valid consent means within specific stakeholder groups. In this study, we explored the consent practices and attitudes regarding essential information required for the consent process within hospital-based trial communities from four referral hospitals in Vietnam. We collected surveys from and conducted semi-structured interviews with study physicians, study nurses, ethics committee members, and (...) study participants and family members regarding their experiences of participating in research, their perspectives toward research, and their views about various elements of the consent process. In our findings, we describe three interrelated themes related to the consent process: words and regulation; reimbursement, suspicions, and joining; and responsibilities. In general, stakeholders had highly varied perspectives of nghiên cứu and researchers used varying levels of detail regarding all aspects of the study in the consent process to build trust with and/or promote potential research participants’ choices about taking part in research. Findings additionally highlight how researchers felt that offering financial reimbursements in a hospital setting, where payment for services was routine, would be unfamiliar to participants and could raise suspicions about the research. Participants, however, focused their discussions on reimbursement or alternative reasons for joining the study, such as health related benefits or altruism. Finally, participants often relied on their physician to help them decide about joining a study or not. Further research is needed to understand how researchers and participants make sense of and practice consent, and how that impacts participants’ decision-making about research participation. To promote valid consent within this context, it is important to engage with hospital-based trial communities as a whole. The data from this study will inform future research on consent, guide the revisions of consent related policies within our research sites and point to several larger issues surrounding researcher-participant expectations, communication, and trust. (shrink)

The Coronavirus disease pandemic of 2019 is a vast worldwide public health hazard, impacting people of all ages and socioeconomic statuses. Vaccination is one of the most effective methods of controlling a pandemic like COVID-19. This study aims to investigate the relationship between the number of vaccination injections and fear of COVID-19 and test whether beliefs benefit from vaccination COVID-19 mediate the effect of fear of COVID-19 on the number of vaccination injections. A total of 649 Vietnamese adults were enrolled (...) online to finish answering, including scales The Health Belief Model (HBM) and The Fear of COVID-19 (FCV-19S), consisting of 340 (52.4%) males and 309 (47.6%) females. The data were analyzed using variance, regression, and a simple mediation model. The total score of COVID-19 fear wasM= 22.26,SD= 5.49. Vietnamese fear of COVID-19 was at a medium level. Our results suggest that 18- to 20-year-olds are more fearful of COVID-19 than others. People who received the first dosage exhibited a greater fear of COVID-19 than those who received the second dose and were not inoculated. Additionally, the beliefs benefit of vaccination COVID-19 has a role in the relationship between the number of vaccination injections and fear of COVID-19. During the pandemic, adults in Vietnam are more afraid of COVID-19 than during prior outbreaks. Besides, the Vietnamese populace demonstrated a considerable demand for and high acceptability of the COVID-19 vaccine. The current study indicates that psychological counselors and therapists should counsel clients on the value of vaccination and address the fear of COVID-19 as public understanding of the benefits of vaccines increases. To further clarify the effect of this issue on the correlation between fear of COVID-19 and the number of vaccinations, the results of this study indicate that the existing vaccine communication factor for COVID-19 vaccination should be modified to increase confidence in the benefits of immunization. (shrink)

Motivated by a call for risk discourse research in non-Western settings, this study examines how Vietnamese road safety video advertisements are constructed and interpreted. Following a literature review of risk and gender, the study first sets out socio-semiotic multimodal analysis of video advertisements to detail how concepts of risk and gender are constructed. Afterwards, I take an ethnographic-based approach in a series of interviews with professional Vietnamese women to gain insights into these concepts. Findings of the study reveal the expected (...) female roles as wives and mothers in Vietnamese advertising as interpreted by Vietnamese women. The study contributes to an understanding of risk in this Asian setting and opens up the potential for a critical, interpretive approach to risk discourses that are grounded in lived experiences. (shrink)

Four important virtues of a woman in the Confucian perspective include Works (being chaste, monogamous, and a virgin when married), Comportment (beauty), Speech, and Conduct (morality, Ethics). These virtues have profoundly influenced the conception of the role of women in traditional Vietnamese culture. Excessive focus on family roles and traditional values limits women's opportunities and rights in the public, political and economic spheres. However, in recent years, Vietnam has made significant progress in realizing gender equality. Investments in education, legal rights, (...) and economic and social development have opened up many opportunities for women to participate in the public sector and contribute to the country's development. In this article, we will focus on clarifying issues such as: Presenting and analyzing four important women's virtues from the point of view of Confucianism in the Pre-Qin period; Finding answers to the questions raised and pointing out the contribution of four important women's virtues from a Confucian point of view in realizing gender equality in Vietnam. (shrink)

The Five Elements Theory is one of the earliest theories in the history of Chinese philosophy. The birth of the doctrine marked a turning point in the process of perception of the world with the five basic elements of metal, wood and water, fire and earth. These five factors are perceived in the form of experience, the level of awareness is still rudimentary, and the most general characteristics of matter have not yet been generalized. However, with the two laws of (...) the Five Elements of mutual birth, the five opposite elements complement each other when explaining the formation, development and transformation of the material world. These are two laws that are applied to explain the laws from nature, to society and the human body. The Five Elements Theory shows that things and phenomena in the universe and society do not stand still, but are always moving, changing and rotating constantly. In this article, we will focus on clarifying the dialectical thought of the theory of the Five Elements in nature, society and in the human body. The article will open up a new approach to the theory of the Five Elements and the next research direction is the application of the theory in oriental medicine. (shrink)

A Teoria dos Cinco Elementos é uma das primeiras teorias na história da filosofia chinesa. O nascimento da doutrina marcou uma virada no processo de percepção do mundo com os cinco elementos básicos de metal, madeira e água, fogo e terra. Esses cinco fatores são percebidos na forma de experiência, o nível de consciência ainda é rudimentar e as características mais gerais da matéria ainda não foram generalizadas. No entanto, com as duas leis dos Cinco Elementos do nascimento mútuo, os (...) cinco elementos opostos se complementam ao explicar a formação, desenvolvimento e transformação do mundo material. São duas leis que se aplicam para explicar as leis da natureza, da sociedade e do corpo humano. A Teoria dos Cinco Elementos mostra que coisas e fenômenos no universo e na sociedade não ficam parados, mas estão sempre em movimento, mudando e girando constantemente. Neste artigo, nos concentraremos em esclarecer o pensamento dialético da teoria dos Cinco Elementos na natureza, na sociedade e no corpo humano. O artigo abrirá uma nova abordagem para a teoria dos Cinco Elementos e a próxima direção de pesquisa é a aplicação da teoria na medicina oriental. (shrink)

The view of human in Confucian philosophy in Pre Qin Dynasty arose not only from the change in socio-economic conditions but also from the deterioration of social morality. Facing that situation, thipkers of this period began to study human to come up with solutions to help the rulers stabilize society. Despite the presence of past studies on the topicand views on people in Confucian philosophy during the Pre Qin period, there (xists gaps for further research. This study attempted to understand (...) through a document review and extensive in-depth research procedure the theoretical underpjnnings of the perspectives on the origin of man, on human nathře, on hụman rples and positions and on educating people in order to develop perfect people and maintain civil order in society. The methodology used was documehtation research and content analysis of the data collected. The document reséafch method was particularly helpful in investigating categorizing and analyzing physical sources, most commonly written documents in the social, public or dígital world. The study found out that the Confucianism represents a legitimate doctrine of the Pre Qin philosophy to build social stability social harmony and peace. The Confucianists of Pre Qin also advocated the need for a personal cultivation, cultivation of the body, family, country, and the whole world, and use it as the basis of the methodology for governing the country. Howeyer, for this purpose, the study recommends that people need to be educated to know the way to be human. (shrink)

BackgroundObtaining informed consent for intravenous thrombolysis in acute ischemic stroke can be challenging, and little is known about if and how the informed consent procedure is performed by neurologists in clinical practice. This study examines the procedure of informed consent for intravenous thrombolysis in acute ischemic stroke in high-volume stroke centers in the Netherlands.MethodsIn four high volume stroke centers, neurology residents and attending neurologists received an online questionnaire concerning informed consent for thrombolysis with tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA). The respondents were (...) asked to report their usual informed consent practice for tPA treatment and their considerations on whether informed consent should be obtained.ResultsFrom the 203 invited clinicians, 50% (n = 101) completed the questionnaire. One-third of the neurology residents (n = 21) and 21% of the neurologists (n = 8) reported that they always obtain informed consent for tPA treatment. If a patient is not capable of providing informed consent, 30% of the residents (n = 19) reported that they start tPA treatment without informed consent. In these circumstances, 53% of the neurologists (n = 20) reported that the resident under their supervision would start tPA treatment without informed consent. Most neurologists (n = 21; 55%) and neurology residents (n = 45; 72%) obtained informed consent within one minute. None of the respondents used more than five minutes for informed consent. Important themes regarding obtaining informed consent for treatment were patients’ capacity, and medical, ethical and legal considerations.ConclusionThe current practice of informed consent for thrombolysis in acute ischemic stroke varies among neurologists and neurology residents. If informed consent is obtained, most clinicians stated to obtain informed consent within one minute. In the future, a shortened information provision process may be applied, making a shift from informed consent to informed refusal, while still considering the patient’s capacity, stroke severity, and possible treatment delays. (shrink)

The Florilegium Coislinianum, from which we are editing the chapter dealing with words beginning with the letter?, is a large Byzantine anthology, dating back to the 9th-10th cent. Its manuscript tradition has been exhaustively explored for the first time in this article and our edition is based on 11 manuscripts, dated from the 10th to the 14th cent. We also compared the Florilegium Coislinianum with the Sacra Parallela and the Loci Communes.

The monumental Florilegium Coislinianum can be dated in the 9th-10th century and originally contained all the letters up to Omega, but now the most complete manuscript, Parisinus gr. 923, ends at Psi. Hitherto only the third book has been made available in a critical edition, while the rest of the anthology is still not accessible in a printed version. This article presents the critical edition of the second book, containing some interesting fragments attributed e.g. to a certain Leontius the Damascene, (...) to Athanasius of Alexandria and to John Chrysostom. (shrink)

Following a bi-cylindrical model of geometrical dynamics, our study shows that a 6D-gravitational equation leads to geodesic description in an extended symmetrical time–space, which fits Hubble-like expansion on a microscopic scale. As a duality, the geodesic solution is mathematically equivalent to the basic Klein–Gordon–Fock equations of free massive elementary particles, in particular, the squared Dirac equations of leptons. The quantum indeterminism is proved to have originated from space–time curvatures. Interpretation of some important issues of quantum mechanical reality is carried out (...) in comparison with the 5D space–time–matter theory. A solution of lepton mass hierarchy is proposed by extending to higher dimensional curvatures of time-like hyper-spherical surfaces than one of the cylindrical dynamical geometry. In a result, the reasonable charged lepton mass ratios have been calculated, which would be tested experimentally. (shrink)

Xunzi's sociopolitical views were created during the Spring and Autumn period (Sheng-Hsi, C. 1975). Xunzi’s philosophical thought was born with the aim of transforming society from chaos to prosperity by improving people's awareness. Xunzi’s views also had certain influences on the social period in which he was living with certain contributions. In this article, the author will focus on clarifying the socio-political views of Xunzi through such issues as identity point of view, views on human nature, and views on society (...) from the perspective of history and philosophy. (shrink)

The relationship between greenwashing and visitors' green behavior remains an under-researched topic in the tourism and hospitality literature, despite evidence of the harmful effect of greenwashing on the reputation and competitive advantage of organizations. This study extends attribution theory into the green context to develop a research framework for investigating the interrelationship between greenwashing, green trust, and green word-of-mouth (WOM), especially the roles of green trust and connectedness to nature. We conducted a survey of 289 visitors staying in four- and (...) five-star hotels in Vietnam. The findings indicated that hotels should avoid greenwashing due to its negative impact on visitors' green trust and green WOM. Moreover, the study found that greenwashing had an indirect and negative influence on green WOM based on visitors' green trust. Importantly, the research revealed the value of connectedness in moderating green attitudes and behaviors among visitors. (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 deforestation research.

This study explores the connection between greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions disclosure and the competitive performance of family firm (FAFI) in the ASEAN-6 region (specifically Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam). It investigates whether GHG emissions disclosure acts as a mediating factor and evaluates the moderating influences of ESG initiatives and corporate governance (COGO) structures. Grounded in a dataset of 3255 firm-year observations from publicly listed enterprises between 2020 and 2024, sourced from Refinitiv Eikon, we applied maximum likelihood structural (...) equation modeling to examine the proposed links. The findings indicate that FAFI tends to exhibit lower GHG emissions disclosure. GHG emissions disclosure harms competitiveness and serves as a mediator in the relationship between FAFI attributes and competitive performance. ESG practices have moderated the link between GHG emissions disclosure and competitiveness and have been moderated by COGO. This study provides actionable insights for FAFI in ASEAN. Thereby, it suggests ways to improve their competitiveness through GHG emissions management. The results highlight the significance of strong ESG initiatives, especially in the emissions phase, and underscore the important role of effective COGO in optimizing the value-creation potential of ESG. This research has added to our understanding of FAFI in ASEAN. The study has deeply analyzed how FAFI, GHG emissions disclosure, ESG, competitiveness, and COGO connect in ASEAN. The paper has clarified that GHG emissions disclosure acts as a mediator, and ESG activities have a moderating effect. The research has demonstrated how certain COGO mechanisms affect the strength of that moderating effect. (shrink)

Research has shown the importance of engaging in networking behaviors for employees’ career success. Networking behaviors can be seen as a proactive way of creating access to career-related social resources and we argue that this type of proactive career behaviors might be particularly relevant for freelancers who cannot depend on an organizational career system supporting their further development, yet whose careers are characterized by high levels of uncertainty and unpredictability. To date, however, our understanding of how freelancers, being a category (...) of workers that are deprived of an organizational context of support for career development, can safeguard their employability, is limited. Therefore, this study addresses this gap and investigates whether freelancers’ networking behaviors are positively associated with career outcomes, through the mediating role of the need for relatedness fulfillment and employability-enhancing competencies. Hypotheses are tested via Structural Equation Modelling using a sample of 1,874 freelancers from Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The results generally support our hypotheses, providing evidence for a significant association between networking behaviors and need for relatedness fulfillment, and between networking behaviors and employability-enhancing competencies. Moreover, we found a significant association between need for relatedness fulfillment and employability-enhancing competencies, being the mediators in our research model and the outcomes of career satisfaction and future career opportunities. Implications for career development in the contemporary workplace are discussed, with particular attention for need for relatedness fulfillment, employability, and sustainable careers of freelance workers. (shrink)

This paper applies a proposed modified stochastic fractal search algorithm (MSFS) for dealing with all constraints of optimal reactive power dispatch (ORPD) and finding optimal solutions for three different cases including power loss optimization, voltage deviation optimization, and L-index optimization. The proposed MSFS method is newly constructed in the paper by modifying three new solution update mechanisms on standard stochastic fractal search algorithm (SSFS). The first modification is to keep only one formula and abandon one formula in the diffusion process (...) while the second modification and the third modification are used in the first update and the second update. In two updates of SSFS, solutions with low quality are updated with high probability while other solutions with high quality do not get chances to be updated. This manner results in the fact that some promising solutions around the high quality solutions can be missed. In order to tackle this restriction, the second modification of MSFS is to newly update the worst solutions in the first update and the best solutions in the second update. In the third modification, all existing formulas of SSFS in the two updates are abandoned and the same new proposed technique is used for updating such solutions in two updates. Compared to SSFS, the three modifications can bring advantages to MSFS such as using smaller number of produced solutions per iteration, spending shorter execution time, finding better optimal solutions, and owning more stable search ability. Furthermore, the proposed method also sees its effectiveness and robustness over SSFS by testing on IEEE 30-bus system and IEEE 118-bus system with three different single objectives for each system. The proposed method can find less minimum, average, and maximum for all the cases in addition to faster search speed. Besides, the proposed method is also compared to other methods such as PSO-based method group, GA-based method group, DE-based method group, and other recent methods. Result comparisons also indicate that the proposed method can be more efficient than almost all these methods with respect to less minimum and smaller values of control parameters. As a result, evaluation of the performance of the proposed method is that it should be used for seeking solutions of ORPD problem. (shrink)

Background and aim With the increasing interest in lifestyle, health and consequences of unhealthy lifestyles for the healthcare system, a new kind of solidarity is gaining importance: lifestyle solidarity. While it might not seem fair to let other people pay for the costs arising from an unhealthy lifestyle, it does not seem fair either to punish people for their lifestyle. However, it is not clear how solidarity is assessed by people, when considering disease risks or lifestyle risks. The aim of (...) this study was to investigate the degree of solidarity with lifestyle as well as with other factors that are related to health outcomes—for example, old age—and the relation between this degree of solidarity and various characteristics. Methods This cross-sectional study is part of the Dutch longitudinal SMILE study. Data on the degree of solidarity with different lifestyles and old age, and the relation between the degree of solidarity and various demographic and other variables were obtained in a questionnaire survey. Results Solidarity with smokers and overweight people was moderate, as was solidarity with older people. Respondents were ambivalent about athletes. Respondents who were younger, male and highly educated, and those with a healthy lifestyle, a small social network, high quality of life and an internal locus of control, showed low solidarity. Conclusions Solidarity with an unhealthy lifestyle and old age is moderate and the degree of solidarity varies among the different subgroups. (shrink)

The ongoing coronavirus 2019 pandemic caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 has resulted in a severe ramification on the global healthcare system, principally because of its easy transmission and the extended period of the virus survival on contaminated surfaces. With the advances in computer-aided diagnosis and artificial intelligence, this paper presents the application of deep learning and adversarial network for the automatic identification of COVID-19 pneumonia in computed tomography scans of the lungs. The complexity and time limitation (...) of the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction swab test makes it disadvantageous to depend solely on as COVID-19’s central diagnostic mechanism. Since CT imaging systems are of low cost and widely available, we demonstrate that the drawback of the RT-PCR can be alleviated with a faster, automated, and reduced contact diagnostic process via the use of a neural network model for the classification of infected and noninfected CT scans. In our proposed model, we explore the benefit of transfer learning as a means of resolving the problem of inadequate dataset and the importance of semisupervised generative adversarial network for the extraction of well-mapped features and generation of image data. Our experimental evaluation indicates that the proposed semisupervised model achieves reliable classification, taking advantage of the reflective loss distance between the real data sample space and the generated data. (shrink)

Ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC) is gaining popularity due to its superior mechanical properties, including high strength, toughness, durability, and excellent seismic performance. However, the risk of explosive spalling in UHPC structures exposed to fire poses a significant challenge, fundamentally hindering comprehensive studies on fire safety and limiting the broader engineering applications of UHPC. In this study, the mixture proportion of UHPC was developed and optimized by comparing the usage of yellow river and standard sands, different types of chemical admixtures, and different (...) curing regimes. Furthermore, a sensitive case study was also conducted to optimize the calcined bauxite content to improve UHPC's fire resistance. For these purposes, 189 UHPC cubes, incorporating variations in particle types, superplasticizer types, and curing regimes, were tested under three thermal levels, such as 200℃,400℃, and 600℃. The microstructural evolution of heated cube specimens was then observed using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) examination. Calcined bauxite was then considered to replace the standard sand to improve the fire resistance of UHPC and enhance the residual compressive strength of cube specimens under thermal conditions. For this purpose, 0%, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, and 100% calcined bauxite content was designed as six case studies. Furthermore, the degradation of UHPC strength was also investigated for the corresponding six case studies by conducting the uniaxial compressive experiments. Finally, the microstructural evolution under both thermal conditions and calcined bauxite content was observed and discussed. (shrink)

Since the regional level has become important in European politics, it is necessary to examine the specifity of the regions. This contribution is a first attempt to develop a model to measure 'regional specifity' for the ten criteria which are most often used to define regions in academic literature. A first application of the model makes clear the characteristics of those regions and gives an understanding of the process of regionbuilding as well. Most regions with a certain degree of political (...) autonomy do have a specificity on more criteria than those regions without any autonomy. These empirical data give a scientific basis to the thesis that regional specificity is constructed by regional authorities. (shrink)

In the Netherlands, in 2002, euthanasia became a legitimate medical act, only allowed when the due care criteria and procedural requirements are met. Legally, an Advanced Euthanasia Directive can replace direct communication if a patient can no longer express his own wishes. In the past decade, an exponential number of persons with dementia share a euthanasia request with their physician. The impact this on physicians, and the consequent support needs, remained unknown. Our objective was to gain more insight into the (...) experiences and needs of Dutch general practitioners and elderly care physicians when handling a euthanasia request from a person with dementia. We performed a qualitative interview study. Participants were recruited via purposive sampling. The interviews were transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using the conventional thematic content analysis. Eleven general practitioners and elderly care physicians with a variety of experience and different attitudes towards euthanasia for PWD were included. Euthanasia requests appeared to have a major impact on physicians. Difficulties they experienced were related to timing, workload, pressure from and expectations of relatives, society’s negative view of dementia in combination with the ‘right to die’ view, the interpretation of the law and AEDs, ethical considerations, and communication with PWD and relatives. To deal with these difficulties, participants need support from colleagues and other professionals. Although elderly care physicians appreciated moral deliberation and support by chaplains, this was hardly mentioned by GPs. Euthanasia requests in dementia seem to place an ethically and emotionally heavy burden on Dutch GPs and elderly care physicians. The awareness of, and access to, existing and new support mechanisms needs further exploration. (shrink)