The Overlooked Contributors to Climate and Biodiversity Crises: Military Operations and Wars.

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.

A dataset of blockade, vandalism, and harassment activities for the cause of climate change mitigation.

Environmental activism is crucial for raising public awareness and support toward addressing the climate crisis. However, using climate change mitigation as the cause for blockade, vandalism, and harassment activities might be counterproductive and risk causing negative repercussions and declining public support. The paper describes a dataset of metadata of 89 blockade, vandalism, and harassment events happening 13 countries in recent years. The dataset comprises three main categories: 1) Events, 2) Activists, and 3) Consequences. For researchers interested in environmental activism, climate change, and sustainability, the dataset is helpful in studying the effectiveness and appropriateness of strategies to raise public awareness and support. For researchers in the field of security studies and green criminology, the dataset offers resources to study features and impacts of blockade, vandalism, and harassment events. The Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics was employed to validate the dataset. Consequently, the estimated result aligns with the Mindsponge Theory's theoretical reasoning.

A dataset of Chinese drivers' driving behaviors and socio-cultural factors related to driving.

Given the high fatality rate due to road traffic accidents in China, understanding the factors influencing aggressive driving behaviors among Chinese drivers is essential to alleviate the problem. The paper describes a dataset of 1039 Chinese drivers' driving behaviors and the socio-cultural factors associated with the behaviors. The dataset was collected through an online survey. The dataset comprises five main categories: 1) driving information, 2) aggressive driving behaviors, 3) friend/peer influence, 4) family influence, and 5) socio-demographic information. The dataset is valuable for public health and transportation researchers to explore factors influencing drivers' driving behaviors and public safety in China. The dataset's construct validity was confirmed by the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics. Specifically, the analysis shows that safe driving behaviors are affected by information promoting safe driving that is passively and actively absorbed from friends/peers (friends/peers being role models and friends'/peers' support, respectively). The result is consistent with the Mindsponge Theory's information-processing mechanism in human minds.

How AI's Self-Prolongation Influences People's Perceptions of Its Autonomous Mind: The Case of U.S. Residents.

The expanding integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in various aspects of society makes the infosphere around us increasingly complex. Humanity already faces many obstacles trying to have a better understanding of our own minds, but now we have to continue finding ways to make sense of the minds of AI. The issue of AI's capability to have independent thinking is of special attention. When dealing with such an unfamiliar concept, people may rely on existing human properties, such as survival desire, to make assessments. Employing information-processing-based Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics on a dataset of 266 residents in the United States, we found that the more people believe that an AI agent seeks continued functioning, the more they believe in that AI agent's capability of having a mind of its own. Moreover, we also found that the above association becomes stronger if a person is more familiar with personally interacting with AI. This suggests a directional pattern of value reinforcement in perceptions of AI. As the information processing of AI becomes even more sophisticated in the future, it will be much harder to set clear boundaries about what it means to have an autonomous mind.

An analytical framework-based pedagogical method for scholarly community coaching: A proof of concept.

Working in academia is challenging, even more so for those with limited resources and opportunities. Researchers around the world do not have equal working conditions. The paper presents the structure, operation method, and conceptual framework of the SM3D Portal's community coaching method, which is built to help Early Career Researchers (ECRs) and researchers in low-resource settings overcome the obstacle of inequality and start their career progress. The community coaching method is envisioned by three science philosophies (cost-effectiveness, transparency spirit, and proactive attitude) and established and operated based on the Serendipity-Mindsponge-3D knowledge (SM3D) management framework (i.e., mindsponge thinking and Bayesian Mindsponge Framework analytics serve as the coaching program's foundational theory and analytical tools). The coaching method also embraces Open Science's values for lowering the cost of doing science and encouraging the trainees to be transparent, which is expected to facilitate the self-correcting mechanism of science through open data, open review, and open dialogue. Throughout the training process, members are central beneficiaries by gaining research knowledge and skills, acquiring publication as the training's product, and shifting their mindsets from "I can't do it" to "I can do it," and at the same time transforming a mentee to be ready for a future mentor's role. The coaching method is thus one of the members, for the member, by the members.•The paper provides the structure, operation method, and conceptual framework of the SM3D Portal's community coaching method, which is built to help Early Career Researchers (ECRs) and researchers in low-resource settings overcome the obstacle of inequality and start their career progress.•The paper presents three major science philosophies envisioning the establishment and operation of scholarly community coaching.•The paper employs the mindsponge theory and BMF analytics to construct a conceptual framework explaining how an environment is created to help shift members' mindsets from "I can't do it" to "I can do it."

Good ethics cannot stop me from exploiting: The good and bad of anthropocentric attitudes in a game environment.

Video games have the potential to be a tool for communicating pro-environmental values. The present study examines the correlation between players' environmental attitudes and their interaction with virtual natural resources. This study constructs Bayesian ordinal logistic models to analyze survey data of 640 Animal Crossing: New Horizon (ACNH) players from 29 countries. Results show that the frequency of catching in-game animals (fish and insects) is positively correlated with the level of human centeredness in environmental attitudes. In addition, less anthropocentric players tend to use more sustainable methods to collect woods in ACNH. Such a particular way of interacting with in-game animals and trees based on their species may be attributable to players' environmental attitudes and game designs. This paper discusses how game design can play a role in promoting pro-environmental behaviors and highlights the moral implications of interactions with non-human beings.

The psychological mechanism of internet information processing for post-treatment evaluation.

Digital healthcare has been greatly benefiting the public health system, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. In digital healthcare, information communication through the Internet is crucial. The current study explores how patients' accessibility and trust in Internet information influence their decisions and ex-post assessment of healthcare providers by employing the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) on a dataset of 1,459 Vietnamese patients. We find that patients' accessibility to Internet information positively affects the perceived sufficiency of information for choosing a healthcare provider, and their trust in the information intensifies this effect. Internet information accessibility is negatively associated with post-treatment assessment of healthcare providers, and trust also moderates this effect. Moreover, patients considering professional reputation important while making a decision are more likely to regard their choices as optimal, whereas patients considering services important have contradicting tendencies. Based on these findings, a concern about the risk of eroding trust toward Internet sources about healthcare information is raised. Thus, quality control and public trust-building measures need to be taken to improve the effectiveness of healthcare-related communication through the Internet and facilitate the implementation of digital healthcare.

Virtual tree, real impact: how simulated worlds associate with the perception of limited resources.

Video games have long been considered an effective educational tool. Environmental education studies have found that games positively affect the feeling of nature connectedness, producing pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. With growing urbanization, video games also provide chances to interact with nature. During the COVID-19 lockdown, Nintendo's Animal Crossing: New Horizon (ACNH) became a household name, with millions of copies sold worldwide. The article used the Bayesian multilevel model to analyze 640 survey responses of ACNH game players from various online communities. The correlations between the perception of limited resources and virtual planting and exploiting behaviors with the varying effect among ethnicities were explored. The findings suggested positive correlations between the perception and in-game actions among all ethnicities, regardless of whether the actions are planting or exploiting. While further evidence is needed, the findings suggest the restraints of game mechanics. To foster a pro-environmental culture, stakeholders can consider video games a novel technological aid to environmental education.

Introduction to Bayesian Mindsponge Framework analytics: An innovative method for social and psychological research.

The paper introduces Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics, a new analytical tool for investigating socio, psychological, and behavioral phenomena. The strengths of this method derive from the combination of the mindsponge mechanism's conceptual formulation power and Bayesian analysis's inferential advantages. The BMF-based research procedure includes six main steps, in which the mindsponge-based conceptualization and model construction is the key step that makes the method unique. Therefore, we elaborate on the fundamental components and functions of the mindsponge mechanism and summarize them into five memorable principles so that other researchers can capitalize directly. An exemplary analysis was performed using a dataset of 3071 Vietnamese entrepreneurs' decisiveness and perceptions of the likelihood of success/continuity to validate the method.•The paper provides five strong points of BMF analytics, originating from the good match between the mindsponge mechanism and Bayesian inference.•The paper also provides a step-by-step procedure for conducting BMF-based research.•The mindsponge mechanism's basic components and functions are elaborated and summarized into five core principles that can be applied directly for research conceptualization and model construction.

Good budget or good care: The dilemma of social health insurance in Vietnam.

OBJECTIVE: 2014 marked a rising public commitment to universal health coverage in Vietnam to eliminate the financial burden for patients, but there are lots of hindrances. It is evident that patients met difficulties to validate their insurances, so health insurance does not significantly address out-of-pocket payments issues. Furthermore, the unequal geographical distribution of hospitals in Vietnam has created an inequality between non-residing patients and residing patients; the former usually pay more. This calls into question how the validity of healthcare insurance and patient's residence could be related to patient's financial status and their satisfaction with health insurance. METHODS: Bayesian regression models are employed to analyze a data set of 1042 inpatients in hospitals of all levels in Northern Vietnam. RESULT: The results show that living in the same region as the hospital and having valid insurance is negatively correlated with the impoverishing risk. Regarding patients' satisfaction with health insurance, it is negatively correlated with having a residence in the same region as the hospital but positively correlated with higher socioeconomic status and insurance validity. Finally, on average, the satisfaction of patients who have already recovered from the illness and those who quit early is lower than that of patients who needed follow-up in medical care or stop in the middle. CONCLUSION: This article suggests that policymakers consider addressing the unequal geographical distribution of hospitals and healthcare quality to help patients avoid going to hospitals outside their regions, which may generate a financial burden for patients and lower their satisfaction with health insurance.

Top economics universities and research institutions in Vietnam: evidence from the SSHPA dataset.

Economic research is vital for creating more suitable policies to facilitate economic growth. Employing a combination of descriptive and Bayesian analyses, this paper investigates the research landscape of the economics discipline in Vietnam, in particular, the leading affiliations in the field and how these institutions compare to each other in terms of productivity, the number of lead authors, new authors and publications' journal impact factor. We also examine the differences in the authors' productivity based on their age and gender. The dataset extracted from the SSHPA database includes 1,444 articles. The findings show that among top producers of economic research in Vietnam, seven are universities, leaving only one representative of research institutes. These top producers account for 52% of research output among 178 institutes recorded in the database. We also find a correlation between a researcher's affiliation, sex, and scientific productivity in Vietnam's economic discipline. Overall, publications by male researchers outnumber those by female ones in most of the top affiliations. The findings also indicate that 40-44 is the age group with the highest scientific productivity. Researchers' collaboration, which is observed through co-authorship, is on the rise in all of the top eight economic research affiliations. However, the quality of current Vietnam's scientific works in the discipline is questionable. Therefore, it is suggested that in order to sustain scientific productivity, economic researchers might need to balance the quantity and quality of their contributions.

What have Vietnamese scholars learned from researching entrepreneurship? A Systematic review.

This study reviews the research landscape of entrepreneurship studies done by Vietnamese researchers from 2008 to 2018. A sample size of 111 articles from 108 academic outlets (journals, conferences proceedings, and book chapters) indexed in Web-of-Science and Scopus were extracted on the SSHPA database, then read and systematically classified into 15 topics. A systematic review reveals (i) a high frequency of research on various aspects of management, (ii) a lackluster focus on innovation and creativity in entrepreneurial activities, (iii) and worrisome cultural influences on the level of creativity. Overall, there was evidence of a detachment between the academic community and the entrepreneurial community. The research landscape shows there have not been enough studies done on the following aspects of entrepreneurship: technology application, poverty reduction, network development, internationalization, inter-generational transfer, and sex/gender.

Bayesian analysis for social data: A step-by-step protocol and interpretation.

The paper proposes Bayesian analysis as an alternative approach for the conventional frequentist approach in analyzing social data. A step-by-step protocol of how to implement Bayesian multilevel model analysis with social data and how to interpret the result is presented. The article used a dataset regarding religious teachings and behaviors of lying and violence as an example. An analysis is performed using R statistical software and a bayesvl R package, which offers a network-structured model construction and visualization power to diagnose and estimate results.•The paper provides guidance for conducting a Bayesian multilevel analysis in social sciences through constructing directed acyclic graphs (DAGs, or "relationship trees") for different models, basic and more complex ones.•The method also illustrates how to visualize Bayesian diagnoses and simulated posterior.•The interpretations of visualized diagnoses and simulated posteriors of Bayesian inference are also discussed.

Global Evolution of Research in Artificial Intelligence in Health and Medicine: A Bibliometric Study.

The increasing application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in health and medicine has attracted a great deal of research interest in recent decades. This study aims to provide a global and historical picture of research concerning AI in health and medicine. A total of 27,451 papers that were published between 1977 and 2018 (84.6% were dated 2008⁻2018) were retrieved from the Web of Science platform. The descriptive analysis examined the publication volume, and authors and countries collaboration. A global network of authors' keywords and content analysis of related scientific literature highlighted major techniques, including Robotic, Machine learning, Artificial neural network, Artificial intelligence, Natural language process, and their most frequent applications in Clinical Prediction and Treatment. The number of cancer-related publications was the highest, followed by Heart Diseases and Stroke, Vision impairment, Alzheimer's, and Depression. Moreover, the shortage in the research of AI application to some high burden diseases suggests future directions in AI research. This study offers a first and comprehensive picture of the global efforts directed towards this increasingly important and prolific field of research and suggests the development of global and national protocols and regulations on the justification and adaptation of medical AI products.

Artificial Intelligence vs. Natural Stupidity: Evaluating AI readiness for the Vietnamese Medical Information System.

This review paper presents a framework to evaluate the artificial intelligence (AI) readiness for the healthcare sector in developing countries: a combination of adequate technical or technological expertise, financial sustainability, and socio-political commitment embedded in a healthy psycho-cultural context could bring about the smooth transitioning toward an AI-powered healthcare sector. Taking the Vietnamese healthcare sector as a case study, this paper attempts to clarify the negative and positive influencers. With only about 1500 publications about AI from 1998 to 2017 according to the latest Elsevier AI report, Vietnamese physicians are still capable of applying the state-of-the-art AI techniques in their research. However, a deeper look at the funding sources suggests a lack of socio-political commitment, hence the financial sustainability, to advance the field. The AI readiness in Vietnam's healthcare also suffers from the unprepared information infrastructure-using text mining for the official annual reports from 2012 to 2016 of the Ministry of Health, the paper found that the frequency of the word "database" actually decreases from 2012 to 2016, and the word has a high probability to accompany words such as "lacking", "standardizing", "inefficient", and "inaccurate." Finally, manifestations of psycho-cultural elements such as the public's mistaken views on AI or the non-transparent, inflexible and redundant of Vietnamese organizational structures can impede the transition to an AI-powered healthcare sector.

An open database of productivity in Vietnam's social sciences and humanities for public use.

This study presents a description of an open database on scientific output of Vietnamese researchers in social sciences and humanities, one that corrects for the shortcomings in current research publication databases such as data duplication, slow update, and a substantial cost of doing science. Here, using scientists' self-reports, open online sources and cross-checking with Scopus database, we introduce a manual system and its semi-automated version of the database on the profiles of 657 Vietnamese researchers in social sciences and humanities who have published in Scopus-indexed journals from 2008 to 2018. The final system also records 973 foreign co-authors, 1,289 papers, and 789 affiliations. The data collection method, highly applicable for other sources, could be replicated in other developing countries while its content be used in cross-section, multivariate, and network data analyses. The open database is expected to help Vietnam revamp its research capacity and meet the public demand for greater transparency in science management.

The Dark Side of Female HIV Patient Care: Sexual and Reproductive Health Risks in Pre- and Post-Clinical Treatments.

This study examines the pre- and post-clinical issues in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) care and treatment for women and girls of high-risk population groups-namely sex workers, injecting drug users, women living with HIV, primary sexual partners of people living with HIV, adolescent girls who are children of these groups, and migrant young girls and women-in five provinces and cities in Vietnam. Through a sample of 241 surveyed participants and 48 respondents for in-depth interviews and 32 respondents in the focus group discussions, the study identifies multiple barriers that keep these groups from receiving the proper health care that is well within their human rights. Most respondents rated HIV testing as easily accessible, yet only 18.9% of the surveyed women living with HIV disclosed their infection status, while 37.8% gave no information at the most recent prenatal care visit. The level of knowledge and proper practices of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) care also remains limited. Meanwhile, modern birth control methods have yet to be widely adopted among these populations: only 30.7% of respondents reported using condoms when having sex with their husband. This increases the risks of unwanted pregnancy and abortion, as well as vulnerability to sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV transmission. On the other hand, HIV-related stigma and discrimination at health care settings are still pervasive, which create significant barriers for patients to access proper care services. Based on these results, six recommendations to improve SRH status of women and girls of populations at high risk are put forward.