This paper investigates firm heterogeneity in total factor productivity across Vietnam domestic private sector with sixteen manufacturing subindustries over the period 2010-2016, with a focus on labor size and based on total factor productivity (TFP); including TFP level, TFP distance, and TFP dispersion. Our results indicate that, in the private sector, labor heterogeneity on productivity are very dependent on specific manufacturing sectors, and on type of TFP. From an industrial policy perspective, there is hence productivity related reason on why Vietnamese policy makers should prefer large and extremely large firms over small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in some manufacturing and vice versa. Our results provide a support for both SMEs and large private consortiums, depending on specific manufacturing sectors. In addition, since there is a strong evidence to suggest that labor heterogeneity in TFP exists in some manufacturing sectors, the rationality behind policies to support SMEs and large firms at every manufacturing sectors seems to be questionable.

Supply chain integration is a key factor in improving business performance. Despite this growing interest, little research has highlighted this issue that will determine the survival of many companies. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the supply chain integration practices (SCMP) and the financial and operational performance of Tunisian manufacturing companies. To achieve this, a questionnaire was used as a research tool for data collection. Multiple regression analysis using SPSS26 software was used to answer study questions and examine study hypotheses. According to research, SCMP includes customer relationship management (CRM), supplier relationship management (SRM), buyer-supplier collaboration (BSC), joint knowledge creation (JCK), level of information sharing (IS), goal congruence (GC) , risk management (RM), internet usage (IU), quality management (QM) , except information quality (IQ), collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment practices (CPFR), and just-in-time (JIT), are all significantly related to the financial and operational performance of the companies surveyed. Some recommendations are proposed to help managers better manage knowledge throughout the supply chain.

A new series of 4-amino-4H-1,2,4-triazole derivatives, 3a-f and 5a-f were synthesized by using various aryl aldehydes and ketones. FT-IR, ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR and mass spectral studies were characteristic of the synthesized compounds. These new compounds were screened in male wistar rats and compared with the standard drug for their anticonvulsant activity against maximal electroshock seizure (MES) model. Compounds 3b and 5d of this sequence were found to be the most active. The same compound did not demonstrate neurotoxicity at the administered maximum dose (100 mg / kg) and these compounds showed good protection compared to other compounds.

Large-scale wind turbines mostly use Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT) as the transmission system, which is highly efficient. However, it comes with high complexity and cost too. In contrast, the small-scale wind turbines that are available in the market offer a one-speed gearing system only where no gear ratios are varied, resulting in low efficiency of harvesting energy and leading to gears failure. In this research, an unsupervised machine-learning algorithm is proposed to address the energy efficiency of the automatic transmission system in vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT), to increase its efficiency in harvesting energy. The aim is to find the best adjustment for VAWT while the automatic transmission system is taken into account. For this purpose, the system is simulated and tested under various gear ratios conditions while a centrifugal clutch is applied to automatic gear shifting. The outcomes indicated that the automatic transmission system could successfully adjust the spinning in line with the wind speed. As a result, the obtained level of harvested voltage and power by VAWT with the automatic transmission system are improved significantly. Consequently, it is concluded that automatic VAWTs, equipped with the machine-learning capability can readjust themselves with the wind speed more efficiently.

This study aims to examine the effects of the business environment and supply chain governance on business strategies and their impact on the performance of state-owned enterprises in Indonesia. Using Partial Least Square (PLS) and quantitative research, this study took state companies management and commissioners as the respondents. The study concludes that the business environment has a positive and significant effect on business strategy, and supply chain governance has a positive and significant effect on business strategy. Moreover, the results show that the business environment influences corporate performance, and supply chain governance has an effect on corporate performance. Business strategy influences corporate performance, and business strategy can mediate the influence of the business environment on corporate performance. Lastly, business strategy can mediate the influence of supply chain governance on corporate performance. The results theoretically confirm the supply chain governance in business practice and practically encouraged the company management to develop risk-management and effective internal controls to create competitive business climate and more agile supply chain management.

This paper addresses the minimization of makespan for the permutation flow shop scheduling problem with blocking and sequence and machine dependent setup times, a problem not yet studied in previous studies. The 14 best known heuristics for the permutation flow shop problem with blocking and no setup times are pre-sented and then adapted to the problem in two different ways; resulting in 28 different heuristics. The heuristics are then compared using the Taillard database. As there is no other work that addresses the problem with blocking and sequence and ma-chine dependent setup times, a database for the setup times was created. The setup time value was uniformly distributed between 1% and 10%, 50%, 100% and 125% of the processing time value. Computational tests are then presented for each of the 28 heuristics, comparing the mean relative deviation of the makespan, the computational time and the percentage of successes of each method. Results show that the heuristics were capable of providing interesting results.

Machine vision systems are among the novel tools proven to be useful in different applications, among which monitoring and controlling manufacturing processes is one of the most important ones. However, due to the complexity resulted from high-dimensional image data and their inherent correlations, the acquisition of traditional statistical process control tools seems inapplicable. To overcome the shortcomings of the traditional methods in this regard, a statistical model is proposed in this paper which utilizes the concepts of both the PCA-based T2 control chart and the classification methods to develop a tool capable of controlling an image-based process. By defining the warning zones, collected data taken from an image-based process are classified into more than the two classes related to in-control and out-of-control processes. This helps practitioners to define rules to make it easier to realize when the process is getting out of control. Through simulation, the accuracy performance and the speed of four different types of classifiers including linear discriminant analysis (LDA), quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA), kth nearest neighbors (KNN), and support vector machine (SVM) are assessed in different scenarios, based on which the functionality of the proposed approach is evaluated in in-control and out-of-control conditions.

The COVID-19 outbreak has illustrated the wide range of issues that supply networks confront when they are subjected to major interruptions. The supply networks for vaccines are no exception. To get out of this pandemic, it's critical to identify and address problems with the COVID-19 vaccine supply chain (VSC). This work identifies 13 challenges and prioritizes those. The findings provide stakeholders and government policymakers with realistic advice for developing a better VSC. This paper proposes a methodology based on fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (Fuzzy-AHP) with the use of triangular fuzzy numbers for prioritizing VSC barriers. It has been found that the impact of poor health worker training facilities becomes maximum with the highest weightage. Moreover, the managerial implication of the results is also provided, which will be useful for VSC sectors to take suitable decisions to overcome these obstacles.

This paper analyzes the causal relationship between the banking system development and the real estate market in Vietnam from 2004:Q3 to 2018:Q4, with the use of the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model as the analysis method. In Vietnam, there is no empirical study on this issue. Therefore, the paper is the first empirical evidence for the relationship between the banking system development and the real estate market in Vietnam. The research results show that the banking system development (measured through the domestic credit to the private sector) and the real estate market had a positive causal relationship in both short and long terms. In addition, the paper found a statistically significant impact of the global financial crisis on the banking system development and the real estate market in Vietnam, which is a new discovery compared with previous studies.

This study analyses the association between CEO characteristics and financial performance as well as the role that a firm’s governance system may play in enhancing financial performance in the Jordanian context. To achieve this purpose, 2251 firm-year observations were collected from firms listed on the Amman Stock Exchange from 2009-2022. Overall, the results show that there is a positive and significant association between CEO tenure and firm performance. The results also show that the CEO compensation is positively linked with firm performance. However, CEO age and ownership are found to be insignificantly associated with firm performances. Regarding the moderating role of governance quality, the result shows a positive and highly significant impact on CEO tenure and CEO age. Otherwise, whether the quality of governance is high or low, it does not affect the CEO’s compensation and ownership. This study recommends firms listed on the Amman Stock Exchange changing their policy regarding CEO compensation by, for example, including stock options to enhance firm performances.