Activated carbon (AC) is a versatile and extensively employed adsorbent in environmental remediation. It possesses distinct properties that can be enhanced to selectively target specific pollutants through modifications, including chemical impregnation or incorporation into composite materials. In this study, porous calcium alginate beads (PCAB) were synthesized by incorporating AC and natural alginate through ion gelation in a Ca(II) ion-containing solution, with the addition of sodium lauryl sulfate as a surfactant. The prepared PCAB was tested for Cu(II) removal. PCAB exhibited a spherical shape with higher porosity and surface area (160.19 m2. g−1) compared to calcium alginate beads (CAB) (0.04 m2. g−1). The adsorption kinetics followed the pseudo-first-order model for PCAB and the pseudo-second-order model for CAB. The Langmuir isotherm model provided the best fit for adsorption on PCAB, while the Freundlich model was suitable for CAB. Notably, PCAB demonstrated a maximum adsorption capacity of 75.54 mg.g−1, significantly higher than CAB's capacity of 9.16 mg. g−1. Desorption studies demonstrated that 0.1 M CaCl2 exhibited the highest efficiency (90%) in desorbing Cu(II) ions from PCAB, followed by 0.1 M HCl and 0.1 M NaCl. PCAB showed efficient reusability for up to four consecutive adsorption– desorption cycles. The fixed-bed column experiment confirmed the match with the Thomas model to the breakthrough curves with qTH of 120.12 mg.g−1 and 68.03 mg.g−1 at a flow rate of 1 mL.min−1 and 2 mL.min−1, respectively. This study indicated that PCAB could be an effective adsorbent for Cu(II) removal, offering insights for further application and design considerations.

Consumer brand engagement has recently drawn attention for researches because of its importance in predicting brand loyalty. Meanwhile, social media is used as digital marketing tools for marketers to attract and engage younger consumers. This study aims to answer the question whether social marketing efforts by fashion brands on major social media platforms have influence on consumer brand engagement in the context of Vietnamese fashion brands. Social marketing efforts include five dimensions of entertainment, interaction, trendiness, customization and word-of-mouth. Although social marketing efforts has been examined in relationship with other important marketing concepts such as brand equity and customer equity (Godey et al., 2016; Kim and Ko, 2012), few studies have investigated its effect on consumer brand engagement, especially in fashion brands. Besides, Vietnam as an emerging market is witnessing considerable changes that social media brings to every field including fashion markets. It is noticeable that more and more fashion brands in Vietnam are trying to expand and advance their marketing strategies on social media to engage consumers. In this study, a self-administered online survey was delivered to Vietnamese consumers, which included 281 valid responses who followed Vietnamese fashion brands on Facebook or Instagram. The empirical results show that social media efforts engage consumers differently on brand engagement dimensions. The key finding indicates that entertainment and word-of-mouth are positively related to brand engagement in affective, cognitive and behavioral dimensions. Interaction is positively related to affective and behavioral brand engagements. Trendiness is positively related to behavioral brand engagement. Finally, customization is positively related to cognitive brand engagement.

For the whole process of circulation, distribution, application of the logistics system is a higher development step of transportation technology. Multimodal transport has linked all modes of transport together to serve the supply and consumption needs of the manufacturer. Currently, when e-commerce (EC) is on the rise, quality logistics and delivery services are the essential stages to achieve success in transactions. e-commerce today is no longer a fashion trend; it is an essential part of the retail industry. EC is changing the game of Logistics. The e-commerce world has been introducing many risks and complex issues that logistics and supply chain experts have never faced. E-commerce is the main impact on terminal logistics (last mile) and warehousing. However, it is also quite interesting to see how e-commerce is impacting airports and seaports. E-commerce is growing actively in Vietnam at a rate of about 25% per year, which is an excellent opportunity for business logistics services to get more orders. Moreover, the Vietnamese logistics market is small but has a high growth rate (20% - 25% / year). In recent times, this market is expected to change the face and grow faster due to the development of electronic retail in Vietnam and e-Logistics logistics trends in the world. However, to meet the requirements, to grasp the opportunities, logistics enterprises need to link to get a closed and synchronized service chain. So logistics companies need to increase information, respond faster, enhance technology to meet flexible processes, establish networks, and business links to meet changing needs. The article shows that the inadequacies and lack of cohesion between logistics service providers and e-commerce are limiting competitiveness, losing opportunities of enterprises, and the economy in the context of healthy industrial revolution 4.0. The assessment of the correlation and connectivity of logistics and e-commerce enterprises in Vietnam in the paper will contribute significantly to the development of Vietnam's economy in the period 2020-2025.

In the context of world economic integration, Vietnam's market-oriented economy is facing many opportunities and also many challenges. Market factors are gradually dominating and dominating economic activities, affecting overall economic achievements and in almost all production and consumption sectors. Shipping in general and shipping by the sea, in particular, is one of the economic sectors most affected by the process of openness and international economic integration. As government intervention in the economy decreases, the fluctuations in the total output of the economy, according to the cycle theory, are considered more. Continuous fluctuations and cyclical themselves are made up of variables related to the results of production and business of economic sectors, which transport goods by sea are one of them. Quantitative analysis is being used in many types of research on economic and financial fields in the world as well as in Vietnam. For a more holistic, comprehensive, and scientific view, the use of a powerful quantitative tool, it allows assessment of multidimensional relationships between macro variables and variables that reflect the industry's production results. The Vector Autoregression (VAR) is one of the reasonably standard quantitative models used to determine the multidimensional relationship between economic factors supposedly related to each other. Use this model to analyze the relationship between some key macroeconomic indicators and the volume of goods transported by sea in Vietnam. The author finds that there is a relatively close relationship between import and export turnover of goods and sea transport output. This result suggests many policy ideas to develop both international trade and shipping activities in Vietnam in the current period. On the other hand, the quantitative model used in the project can be applied at the enterprise level to help managers identify the impact of economic fluctuations on production and business results. On that basis, appropriate decisions will be made in the context of ongoing short-term economic fluctuations.

Da Nang is situated in central Vietnam and at convenient cross-roads of the railway and road systems as well as the airport. Moreover, the city has a deep-seaport system and well-invested infrastructure in connection with other transportation modes. It is a favorable condition for the city to move towards a Logistics Center for seaports serving the central region in particular and the whole region in general. This paper presents the current operating status in Danang seaports and analyses the necessary conditions to build a Logistics Center. Based on the experience of the other countries and the actual conditions, the article points out that it is necessary to strongly develop hinterland’s logistics services to create added value by building a Logistics Center and Dry ports system to effectively serve the operation of the seaports.

Along the 3,200km-long coastline, Vietnam has a significant number of seaports, which are relatively large and named as the keys to economic development. However, most ports are relatively small with obsolete facilities and poor supporting services. Among three largest ports countrywide, Ho Chi Minh City seaport has had the highest throughput and productivity per annum of the country for years, assumed the role of the major port in the south, where cargos and containers come and go from all industrial parks in the southern region. Situated on what was the outskirts but is now the outskirts or suburbs of Ho Chi Minh City, it has however shown some drawbacks, i.e., expansion of the port is not an option regardless of the high throughput. Apart from the inadequate infrastructure, ports are facing another setback due to backward pricing. The rapid increase in number of ports also created a “race to the bottom” situation, where Vietnam ports have reduced their price to attract customers. The direct results are lower service quality and an inability to reinvest into port development. Therefore, the restructuring of Ho Chi Minh City seaport system has been launched since 2006 whereby the plan not only resolves the limited size, obsolete facilities and traffic issues, but also becomes more efficient as the new port complex is located conveniently among the region’s industrial parks and export processing zones of Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong, Dong Nai, and Ba Ria – Vung Tau. In line with this plan, the paper will mainly aim to provide the outstanding constraints which Ho Chi Minh City seaport system faced, including illogical distribution among ports/terminals regardless the scale, capacity and geographic locations; ineffective and insecured mooring and anchorage buoys; undeveloped logistic services centres and lack of connecting infrastructure. As so, the recommendations for single issue will be provided.

In the trend of globalization, global citizenship, social responsibility,and sustainability are seen as the benchmark for assessing the sociology of schools. However, there are few formal definitions or concepts of global citizenship and convincing evidence of how global citizens engage in cultural activities at universities. Therefore, it is essential to research extensively and accurately to create concepts about global citizens in higher education. International higher education, social sciences,and business materials are considered to have integrated a deep understanding of global citizenship in the context of universities in general and business schools in particular. The recognition of the concept of global citizens through the moral and transformative lens is considered a practical solution when approaching this new and full of problems. This paper describes the learning of global citizens through social imagination, relationships,and reflexes. These qualities will help students develop complex and ambiguous global business thinking. The materials and knowledge considered in this paper are the basis for establishing ethical reasoning, sensitivity and value-based teaching in universities. These aspects will create new ways to integrate the concept of global citizens into training programs at business schools. Global citizen learning will create the necessary links of social responsibility with sustainable development and ethical principles when implementing the curriculum at business schools. Besides, the paper also outlines how to learn from global citizens and apply that learning method to teaching practice.

Currently, the 4.0 industrial revolution has influenced almost sectors entire the world. Chances, and challenges always are created in the fourth industrial revolution that has never faced in the past. Changing and renewing are necessary unless enterprises will come out of “playground” of the fourth industrial revolution. The navigational field which has not been outside the “playground” has suffered from numerous challenges currently. Although the possible advantages of marine industry only include the seaport system and government support, the challenges and barriers are the majority. Labor, database management, digital technologies, infrastructures, investment, and customer’s attractions are the existent trials of the maritime field. It is evaluated as the key major; logistics has followed the trend of expanding. In order to give general views for readers about the prevailing tendency, the author contributes by writing a small article. Although the fourth industrial revolution has originated many barriers, the development stages of the logistics industry in the revolution also are mentioned in the article. In order to write the article, consulting several sources such as books, newspapers, magazines, reports as well as other articles was necessary. Analysis, statistic, prediction, the application is the essential methods which were used to express the topic. The authors used the SWOT analysis method to assess opportunities and challenges for Vietnam's logistics industry in the early stage of the 4.0 revolution. Some recommendations for the sustainable and adaptive development of Vietnam's logistics industry have been proposed from the above analysis. The article consists of four root parts which are: firstly, the development stages of the logistics industry; secondly, the reality of logistics and supply chain management in 4.0 industrial revolution; thirdly, the expanding tendency of the Vietnam logistics industry; eventually, recommendations for Vietnam logistics industry to meet the world trend. Relating to the logistics sector and the fourth industrial revolution, the article will reflect the considerable development and opportunities of the logistics field during the 4.0 industrial revolution approaching period.

Introduction Customer co-creation – customers‘ active participation and interaction with the company during their consumption processes, has gained increasing attention in tourism industry (Bertella, 2014; Chathoth et al., 2016; Campos, 2015). For example, Finnair and Helsinki airport invited passengers to workshop for co-developing new service concepts to improve passenger experience (Loukas, 2013). Despite of the increasing enthusiasm at the firm‘s side, customers do not necessarily share the mindset and feel ready for cocreation. The success of value co-creation greatly depends on continuous collaboration between customers and companies (Chathoth et al., 2013), making knowledge regarding customers‘ engagement in value co-creation essential. However, insufficient research attention has been devoted to theorize and empirically investigate the drivers of cocreation behavior in tourism (Grissemann & Stokburger-Sauer, 2012). To address this research gap, we draw on the organizational socialization theory (Van Maanen & Schein, 1979) to propose and empirically test customer education as driving factor for tourists‘ co-creation behavior during their tours. Additionally, we propose customer readiness as a mechanism mediating the effect of customer education on value co-creation behavior, while such effect should depend on tourists‘ involvement with tourism. Background and hypotheses development Organizational socialization refers to the process by which a newcomer gradually absorbs values, abilities, expected behaviors, and necessary social knowledge for assuming an organizational role and for participating as an organizational member (Louis, 1980, p. 229–230). Similar to the organizational socialization perspective, customer socialization characterizes how customers develop skills, knowledge, and attitude relevant to the marketplace (Ward, 1975), which offers a lens to explain how service providers can assist customers and behave as effective co-creators in the service system (Claycomb, Lengnick-Hall, and Inks, 2001). Büttgen et al (2012) demonstrated that customer socialization by training tactic has more important influence on consistent beliefs of service quality than prior reinforcement experiences, which engenders co-production motivation, in turn, leading to coproduction behavior as distal outcome of the socialization tactic. Previous studies suggest favorable customer outcomes to derive from the provision of customer education (Damali et al., 2016). Thus, this study proposed customer education as a socializing tactic, which is mediated by customer readiness for co-creation, to determine tourists co-creation behavior. The concept of co-creation has gained increasing attention in tourism literature, which is often described as the tourist‘s active participation, engagement and interaction during the consumption experience (e.g., Bertella, 2014; So et al., 2014). As Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004, p. 8) stated, cocreation is ―the joint creation of value by the company and the customer, allowing the customer to co-construct the service experience to suit her context‖. Indeed, creating a favorable, memorable experience involves not only the service providers but also the tourism customers because customers are always the value co-creator (Vargo and Lusch, 2004). Challagalla and colleagues (2009) posit that firms can reach out to contact the customers to provide service after a sale is complete, rather than respond upon the customer‘s requests. In specific, Challagalla and et al. (2009) suggest the proactive service initiatives to consist of three dimensions, namely proactive prevention, proactive education, and proactive feedback seeking. In this study, the three key forms of proactive post-sales services proposed by Challagalla et al. (2009) provides a foundation that helps us to conceive customer co-creation behavior and define the dimensions underlying customer co-creation behavior of tourism services. Customer education, according to Meer (1984), involves learning activities that are organized and sustained by a firm to impart attitudes, knowledge or skills to customers or potential customers. Meanwhile, customer co-creation readiness (CCR) as a customer‘s condition or state in which he/she feels prepared to collaborate with service provider in value co-creation behavior, indicated by role clarity, ability and motivation to co-create (Meuter et al., 2005). Proper socialization process helps customers understand the product or service process as well as their role in performing service tasks, which not only could prevent customer‘s disruptive behaviors during the service process but also facilitate service flow and productivity (Rollag, 2012). Taken together, we propose the following hypotheses: H1: customer education will have a positive effect on customer co-creation behavior H2: Customer co-creation readiness will mediate the positive effect of customer education on customer co-creation behavior. Further, we postulate that tourist‘s product involvement is a boundary condition that constrains the positive effect of customer socialization. Socialization process does not always have much weight on tourists because the influence of socialization on each individual depends on tourists‘ individual characteristics (Van Maanen & Schein, 1979). Some tourists are highly interested in traveling whereas some consider traveling as a dessert in their meal. In line of this sense, we suggest the following hypothesis: H3: Product involvement will negatively moderate the mediation effect of customer co-creation readiness on co-creation behavior. Methodology The survey was posted on several well-known travel forums and referral networks. After eliminating invalid surveys, the authors obtain 300 valid questionnaires. Table 1 presents the sample characteristics. Customer education are measured by four items adapted from Bell and Eisingerich (2007). Product involvement depicts a customer‘s inherent needs, values, and interest towards tourism and is measured by ten items from Zaichkowsky (1985, 1994). Customer co-creation readiness is measured as a reflective first-order and reflective second-order construct by three dimensions: role clarity, ability, and motivation with 12 items adapted by Dellande et al. (2004) and Meuter et al. (2005). Customer co-creation behavior is measured as a reflective second order and reflective first order construct constituted by three dimensions of co-creation behavior with 12 items developed based on the review of concerns in the pre-site, on-site and post-site from several famous travel agencies. Results Measurement validation of constructs from construct reliability, convergent validity to discriminant validity were examined; and the results are provided in the table 2, indicating measurement validation requirements are satisfactory. Then, hypotheses testing was performed. In each analysis, we control variables, including customer gender, previous transaction experience with the travel agency (EP), and social desirability (SD), which are expected to have potential influence on co-creation behavior. H1 predicts a positive relationship between customer education and value co-creation. In support of H1, the analysis shows that customer education positively relates to co-creation of customers (β = 0.272, p = 0.043, R2adjusted= 0.292). Gender (β =-0.170, p<0.001) and SD (β =0.141, p=0.011) are negatively and positively related to customer co-creation behavior respectively. To test the mediating effect of customer readiness on the relationship between customer education and customer co-creation behavior, we used the PROCESS Macro (model 4) developed by Hayes‘s (2013) and estimated the effects with a bootstrap sample of 5000 cases. The indirect effect test indicates that customer education had a significantly positive effect on customer co-creation via the mediation of customer readiness for co-creation (0.312; 95% bootstrap CI [0.157, 0.517]) because the confidence interval did not include zero. The results support H2. Gender also has a significant effect on customer co-creation (β =-0.189, p <0.05). H3 postulated that product involvement will moderate the mediation effect of customer readiness. We used the PROCESS macro model 8 established by Hayes (2013) to test the moderated mediation. The conditional indirect effect test shows that customer readiness significantly mediates the influence of customer education on customer co-creation behavior, regardless of the level of product involvement (zero was not included in the confidence intervals). Nonetheless, customer education on customer co-creation behavior via customer readiness is significant and stronger in low level of product involvement (0.281; 95% bootstrap CI [0.186, 0.398]) but weaker in high level of product involvement (0.128; 95% bootstrap CI [0.029, 0.256]). Therefore, H3 is supported. Among the controlled variables, gender is the only significant predictor of customer co-creation behavior (β =-0.158, p<0.05). In a summary of dominant results of control variables, gender is significant in all three of the tested hypotheses; particularly, female shows a higher level of co-creation behavior than male. Conclusion we introduced organizational socialization theory to the literature on co-creation of tourism context and explored the effect of firms‘ education effort to socialize customers in co-creation activities. We found customer education as a socialization tactic and then conducting an empirical study by collecting data from several travel agencies to investigate the effect of firms‘ socialization tactic on customer co-creation. The results suggest that customer education could promote customer co-creation through customer readiness as a mediator. We also investigated whether the effect of socialization tactic differs on the different levels of product involvement. The results show that customers with high involvement were less influenced by customer education than those with low involvement.

In recent years, much interest has been devoted to bio-fuels because of their beneficial effects on environment, agriculture and economic development. Raw vegetable oil – a kind of bio-fuels, still exits many downsides, is potential renewable fuel replaced for ever-exhausted fossil fuel. In this report, vegetable oil which is available in the South of Vietnam such as raw coconut oil is studied by heating up different temperature with the aim at decreasing its high viscosity and density and meeting the fuel requirements. The experiments are conducted on heated coconut oil (HCO) and fossil diesel oil (DO) using an 80hp of small marine diesel engine. The results of engine performance as using DO and HCO included engine power (Ne), specific fuel consumption (SFC), thermal efficiency (TE), emission characteristics such as carbon monoxide (CO), unburned hydrocarbon (HC), smoke, nitrogen oxides (NOx) at internal feature are measured. The experiment results show higher SFC, CO, HC and smoke emissions, and lower TE, and NOx emissions for HCO with respect to DO. In addition, this study also reveals that, 1000C of HCO is said to be the most suitable heating temperature as getting the engine performance equals to DO.

Road network in the Mekong Delta is mostly coastal and river routes, then they are often flooded when the floods come in. As a result, the foundation and pavement are destroyed, reduced life expectancy, resulting in unsafety in traffic, cost of maintenance and repairs…. This paper establishes the technical conditions for the calculation on the flexible pavement working in the wet conditions (so flooded) based on the maximum usage of available materials in the provinces in the Mekong Delta. Simultaneously, we propose the flooded flexible pavement under the current climate change conditions.

Education reform is being deployed in Vietnam in the direction of developing learner’s competencies in which integrated teaching is viewed as a practical, effective way to achieve educational goals. However, Vietnamese teachers are not familiar with integrated teaching. Therefore, instructing teachers in how to design integrated lessons and how to implement integrated teaching is necessary and meaningful. This article presents some measures to help teachers design and teach integration in Mathematics.

A basidiomycetous wood rotting fungus Pleurocybella porrigens (angel wings) has been well known as an excellent edible mushroom and named as Sugihiratake, in Japanese common name based on its morphological and ecological features. This mushroom has been favorably consuming by Japanese people. In 2004, an outbreak of serious acute encephalopathy exclusively occurred in patients with chronic kidney diseases after the intake of this mushroom. Thereafter, many researchers have conducted to examine the factor of onset of the encephalopathy, but the exact factors that induced the encephalopathy still remain unclear. Matsumoto et al. (2005) reported the mushroom specimens from different geographical areas in Japan were grouped into two distinct clusters based on ITS rDNA sequences. Vegetative growth of P. porrigens is extremely slow even cultivation on natural media surveyed and its physiological characteristic gives a disadvantage for the development of various fields of researches on this mushroom. Thus, we attempted to find a medium accelerating the vegetative growth of P. porrigens for further research to elucidate the possible association between its chemical constituent(s) and the onset of encephalopathy. Fifteen isolates of P. porrigens collected from different geographical areas in Japan were cultivated on PDA. The growth of the isolates was extremely slow as we know and most tested isolates formed mycelia look like those often observed in the cultivation of basidiomycetous ectomycorrhizal fungi. Among them, we chose five isolates based on the ranking of their higher growth rates. The top five isolates were cultured in five kinds of liquid media, PD medium, MY medium, Carrot medium, Ohta’s medium for ectomycorrhizal fungi (Ohta, 1990) and Amazake medium (Ishihara, 2007), and on a solid medium, PDA, at 20℃ in the dark. The dry biomasses of the isolates cultured in the liquid media were determined after 6 weeks of the stationary cultivation whereas the growth rates of the isolates cultured on PDA were compared by the colony diameter after 8 weeks of the cultivation. Among the tested liquid media, PD medium was the most suitable medium for their biomass growth (17 mg dry mycelium/flask - 127 mg dry mycelium/flask) and followed by Ohta’s medium (13 mg dry mycelia/flask - 79 mg dry mycelia/flask), MY medium (10 mg dry mycelium/flask - 72 mg dry mycelium/flask), Amazake medium (8 mg dry mycelium/flask - 47 mg dry mycelium/flask) and Carrot medium (4 mg dry mecelium/flask - 18 mg dry mycelium/flask). The average biomass growths of the isolates cultured in the synthetic medium, Ohta’s medium were 20-92% of those of the isolates cultured in PD medium. No correlation was observed between the cultivation in PD medium (liquid medium) and that on PDA (solid medium). Extremely large biomass variation was observed among the same isolates cultured on the same kind of the liquid medium. Large variation in colony features associated with their growth rates was also observed among the isolates cultured on PDA. These results suggest that PD medium would be a suitable one for most researches and Ohta’s medium for researches requiring clarity of its chemical constituents. The above results also indicate that the Japanese population of P. porrigens has large variation in vegetative growth although we have not yet examined whether the tested isolates comprise cryptic species or not.