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Disease phenotype of pediatric inflammatory bowel disease (PIBD) in children from the Asia-Pacific region differs from that of children from the West. Many parts of Asia are endemic for tuberculosis, making diagnosis and management of pediatric Crohn's disease a challenge. Current available guidelines, mainly from Europe and North America, may not be completely applicable to clinicians caring for children with PIBD in Asia due to differences in disease characteristics and regional resource constraints. This position paper is an initiative from the Asian Pan-Pacific Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (APPSPGHAN) that aims to provide an up-to-date, evidence-based approach to PIBD in the Asia-Pacific region. A group of pediatric gastroenterologists with a special interest in PIBD performed an extensive literature search covering epidemiology, disease characteristics and natural history, management, and monitoring. Attention was paid to publications from the region with special consideration to a resource-limited setting. This current position paper deals with surgical management, disease monitoring, immunization, bone health, and nutritional issues of PIBD in Asia. A special section on differentiating pediatric Crohn's disease from tuberculosis in children is included. This position paper provides a useful guide to clinicians in the surgical management, disease monitoring, and various health issues in children with IBD in Asia-Pacific region., (© 2023 Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology Foundation and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.)

In the 21st century, there is a growing Brazilian academic interest from professors and students in researching realities from Asia, especially in postgraduate courses in Language Arts, Philosophy and Human Science. The paper aims not only to point to a broader panorama of Centers, Nuclei, Programs, Research, Study and Work Groups, Thematic Sessions and Events with Asian themes in the aforementioned academic areas in Brazil, but also to make a brief analysis of the papers carried out in Work Groups and Thematic Sessions of the ANPTECRE and PPCIR (CONACIR) national congresses dedicated to realities of Asian origin, taking into account three criteria, i.e. Religious Studies methodologies used, the genres of authorship, and the religious traditions that were approached by these papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Code-switching is especially common within the Southeast Asian region which is home to a large number of bilinguals and multilinguals. Over the years, code-switching has been studied extensively, both in and out of Asia, via sociolinguistics, structural linguistics, and psycholinguistics. From the psycholinguistic perspective, code-switching is said to be the result of the co-activation of languages during the process of speech production for bilinguals. Grosjean's Language Mode and Green's Control Process Model are two psycholinguistic frameworks focusing on the psycholinguistic as well as interactional factors behind code-switching. However, past studies in this area were mostly experimental in nature. It is necessary to consider authentic production data to develop a greater understanding of the code-switching phenomenon especially within the Southeast Asian context due to its bilingual and multilingual communities. This conceptual paper aims to demonstrate how the interactional and psycholinguistic factors behind code-switching can be examined using authentic production data. In particular, a review of the literature pointed to the Conversation Analysis (CA) approach to code-switching as well as the concepts of triggered code-switching and primed code-switching as being relevant. Accordingly, this paper describes each construct in detail and provides suggestions on how they can be brought together in a single study on code-switching based on authentic production data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the determinants of formal microsaving (FMS), while also X-raying literature-documented conceptual sub-elements/sub-constructs of formal microsaving development (FMSD). This is with the intention to sensitize stakeholders as to what works for FMS and what doesn't. The paper also offers an overview of the state of research in this academic sub-domain, with suggestions/guides for related future research agenda. Analysis of 301 articles was undertaken using PRISMA. The paper's analysis affirms that the identified determinants were varied, using only a limited set of empirical methodologies. The geographical focus of most of the relevant studies were on Asia/Africa, with other regions largely ignored. The paper presents a novel review of the determinants of FMS. Also, the identified deconstructed sub-elements of FMSD could further sensitize researchers of its hitherto unknown multidimensional nature. Consequently, this could enhance the expansion of relevant empirical/theoretical knowledge with the additional possibility of initiating/influencing relevant global policy regeneration towards microsaving development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 25 years, Asia's economic rise has been extraordinary. Its share of global gross domestic product (GDP) has risen from 5.8% to 22.9%. The first phase of high economic growth — up to 1995 — saw Asia enter the global supply chain primarily with labor-intensive/low-cost manufacturing. Domestic consumption was a fairly low share of GDP; Asia was manufacturing mainly for consumption in the US and Europe. As such, it was primarily a rule-taker. In the second phase — from 1995 to 2020 — it gradually turned into an economic force joining the US and Europe in shaping the global economy, exercising significant influence upon the value chain, the cycles of the global economy, transport and logistics, the global capital markets and consumption patterns (consumer preferences and tastes). While not yet among the leading rule-makers, it had become difficult for policymakers (public and private) to make decisions without Asia's consent. To form an opinion of today's emerging third phase — post 2020 — the intriguing question is whether the Asian countries have adopted what may be termed Anglo-American economic thinking (basically, the primacy of the market). Or whether behind the curtain, the Asian economy works in its own way diverging from the American and British economic schools. Since demographics and sheer economic scale mean that Asia will dominate the global economy in the years to come, the nature of the Asian economy will be of crucial importance for the future global economy. The conclusion of this paper is that "Asia" in many respects differs — and fundamentally so — from market economy principles. How this prospect should be interpreted is also evolving, as circumstances change. Certainly, the repercussions of COVID-19 have not been the same in the US, Europe, East Asia and South Asia — and this may suggest that socio-political structures have a stronger impact on economic outcomes than economic theory teaches, thus calling into question the global validity of market economy principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Municipal wastewater treatment plants (MWWTPs) are considered essential to protect human health and aquatic systems. However, several studies in the scientific field have identified adverse environmental effects in these treatment units that involve challenges in the water industry. Therefore, this work has the following objectives: (1) to understand the global context in which MWWTPs operate and (2) to determine the thematic and geographic trend in scientific research. Through the "Publish or Perish" software, scientific articles indexed in the Scopus and Google Scholar databases during the period 2000 to 2020 were obtained. Specific terms were used: "Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants"; "Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants," so that all terms must be contained in the title of the document. Categorization was defined according to key concepts considered as adverse effects indicated in the literature and that involve common problems in the water industry at the municipal level. As a result, 1844 documents (papers, reviews, books, book chapters, citations, letters, theses, and conference papers) were retrieved and subjected to a process of refinement (discrimination) where only articles, chapters, conference papers, and reviews were considered. Finally, 800 articles were selected for further content analysis, identifying seven categories and 30 subcategories. The category of "Emerging contaminants" was the most relevant within the research topics, and the category with the least available research was "Air quality." The articles were also analyzed by economic region, identifying Asia with the largest number of studies on various topics. In conclusion, future research should be oriented towards management, energy, and air quality issues, because they are subjects of little research involving process efficiency, energy savings, and impacts on the quality of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Simple Summary: The quality of muscle plays an important role in improving the economic benefit of aquatic products. The paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera, BP) grows wildly in the south of Asia. In this experiment, grass carps (initial weight: 50.0 ± 0.5 g) were fed diets with the addition of 0%, 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% BP in a control diet (crude protein: 31%, crude fat: 3.8%) for 8 weeks. In conclusion, adding 5% BP did not affect the growth of grass carp. However, the supplementation of 10% BP could improve muscle quality through improving muscle hardness, reducing fat accumulation and muscle fiber diameter, at the cost of reducing growth performance. The present study investigated the effects of dietary paper mulberry (Broussonetia Papyrifera, BP) on growth performance, muscle quality and muscle growth-related mRNA expressions of grass carp. Fish (initial weight: 50.0 ± 0.5 g) were fed diets supplemented with 0% (control diet), 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% BP for 8 weeks. The results showed that increasing levels of paper mulberry linearly and quadratically decreased the special gain rate (SGR) and increased the feed conversion rate (FCR) of grass carp (p < 0.05). Significantly positive quadratic trends were found between paper mulberry levels and muscle crude fat or crude protein of grass carp (p < 0.05). In comparison to the control diet, the 10%BP and 15%BP groups had significantly decreased muscle crude fat and increased crude protein (p < 0.05). The levels of paper mulberry resulted in a linear and quadratic increase in water loss of grass carp muscle (p < 0.05), and all groups with paper mulberry supplementation were significantly higher than the control group (p < 0.05). Significant positive linear and quadratic trends were found between the paper mulberry levels and muscle fiber diameter or density of grass carp (p < 0.05). In comparison to the control diet, the significant differences were found in the 15%BP and 20%BP groups (p < 0.05). The muscle adhesiveness and hardness linearly and quadratically increased with the increasing levels of paper mulberry (p < 0.05), and both of which increased significantly when the level of paper mulberry reached 10% (p < 0.05). In addition, the increase in paper mulberry linearly and quadratically improved the expressions of myoblast determination protein (MyoD), myogenin (MyoG), paired box protein 7 (Pax7) and myostatin 1 (MSTN1) (p < 0.05). When the supplementation of paper mulberry reached 15%, the expressions of all these mRNAs were significantly higher than those of the control group (p < 0.05). In summary, adding 5% paper mulberry did not affect the growth of grass carp. However, the supplementation of 10% paper mulberry could improve muscle quality through improving muscle hardness, reducing fat accumulation and muscle fiber diameter, at the cost of reducing growth performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the growing demand for aquatic products, aquaculture has become a prominent means of meeting this demand. However, the selection of suitable sites for aquaculture remains a key factor in the success of any aquaculture operation. While various methods exist for site selection, geographic information system (GIS)-based multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) methods have emerged as the most widely utilized approach to identifying potential aquaculture sites. Following the guidelines of the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA), this paper presents a systematic review and meta-analysis of GIS-based MCE methods used in aquaculture sites selection. The objective of this study is to offer a comprehensive overview of existing research in this field and develop a general model for selecting sites for fish and shellfish aquaculture. The main findings indicate a growing number of studies utilizing GIS-based MCE in aquaculture site selection in recent years, with Asia being the leading continent in terms of publications in this domain. Among the journals publishing in this field, the Aquaculture journal stands out as the top publisher. Using consistent criteria across the reviewed studies, two models have been generated, each consisting of four sub-models: water quality, soil quality, infrastructure, and socioeconomic factors; and topography, environment, and physical parameters. These models can aid future researchers and assist decision-makers in identifying optimal locations for aquaculture development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study conducts a bibliometric analysis of 735 research papers on geomorphological mapping published in English between 2000 and 2021 using the Web of Science database. The analysis focuses on key metrics such as annual publication rates, journal distribution, common keywords, and frequently cited papers. The results demonstrate sustained investment in geomorphological mapping research over the past two decades, driven by advancements in data analysis, GIS technologies, and cross-institutional and cross-country collaboration. While European universities and research centers lead the field, researchers from Latin America and Asia are also making noteworthy contributions. However, research concentration remains largely in Europe, particularly at low altitudes. The study highlights the vital importance of investment in geomorphological mapping research and the benefits of collaboration to advance understanding and knowledge production. It also emphasizes the need for greater geographic and cultural diversity among researchers to ensure a more comprehensive and inclusive approach to research in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An alternative energy source such as solar is one of the most important renewable resources. A reliable solar radiation prediction is essential for various applications in agriculture, industry, transport, and the environment because they reduce greenhouse gases and are environmentally friendly. Solar radiation data series have embedded fluctuations and noise signals due to complexity, stochasticity, non-stationarity, and nonlinearity with uncertain and time-varying nature. Aside from being highly nonlinear, solar radiation is highly influenced by the environment and environmental parameters such as air temperature, cloud cover, surface reflectivity, and aerosols. In addition, the spatial measurements of these variables are not readily available. To tackle these challenges, it is necessary to consider data preprocessing techniques and to develop and test precise solar radiation predicting models at different forecast horizons. There is, however, controversy regarding the performance of such models in various studies. Comparisons are not conducted systematically among the different studies. Using a critical literature review, the authors hope to answer these questions and believe that further investigation of solar radiation can benefit researchers and practitioners alike. This study presents a comprehensive evaluation of solar radiation modeling using artificial intelligence in the last 15 years and provides a novel detailed analysis of the available models. The studies conducted in different climates of the world that were published in distinguished journals were considered (i.e., 90 papers in total) for this purpose. Newly discovered procedures for optimizing forecasts, data cleaning, feature selection, classification methods, and stand-alone or hybrid data-driven models for solar radiation prediction and modeling were evaluated. The results strikingly showed that the most used artificial intelligence methods were artificial neural network, adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system, and decision tree family of models. In addition, the extreme learning machine, support vector machine, and particle swarm optimization were the most used optimization techniques in solar radiation modeling. In terms of forecast horizons, the most common forecast horizon found in papers was on the daily scale (51% of studies), followed by the hourly scale (26%), and the least common was the monthly scale (18%). Based on the regional studies, the highest number of solar radiation papers originated from Asia, with Europe in second place and African countries in third place. An increasing trend in the number of papers from 2011 to 2015 was noted, and the second peak started from 2018 till the present. Under each section, a summary of findings is provided. The paper concludes with future thoughts and directions on solar radiation modeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the growth of local-currency bond markets in Emerging Asia and the institutional and policy challenges facing the region's economies for their further development. It presents an empirical analysis of the relationship between local-currency government bond (LCGB) market development and the components of financial development, using panel data for selected Emerging Asian economies. The analysis seeks to identify the key determinants for the development of LCGB markets. The results show that the depth of and access to both financial markets and financial institutions have a significantly positive impact on LCGB market development. Critical factors associated with local-currency bond market depth include macroeconomic variables, the exchange-rate regime, capital account openness and creditor rights. Based on these results, the paper offers policy directions for fostering the development of local-currency bond markets in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Danmaku, a real-time comment function covering the top of the video, appears from the right of the video like a bullet and slides out horizontally from the left, which is gaining popularity in Asia. In recent years, the research on the analysis of massive danmaku data has mushroomed. The danmaku data contains a host of valuable information, such as the emotional expressions, attitudes, and opinions of the people watching the video, which helps people quickly get the content and effect of the video. The information is more representative and comprehensive with the ever-increasing amount of danmaku data over time. However, extracting valuable danmaku from huge amounts of data is a challenging task. Therefore, in this paper, we introduce VisDmk, an interactive visual analysis system, to help to analyze video content and effect. VisDmk incorporates five views: the projection view to exhibit emotion distribution, the detail view to analyze specific danmaku information, the individual view to illustrate the difference between viewers, the theme-aware view to identify themes in different periods, and the video view to ascertain some inference within a video. Case studies and user observation were conducted to evaluate this system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper's recognition of the emerging phenomenon of cryptocurrencies. The rise of cryptocurrencies’ value available on the market and the growing recognition round the arena open some of demanding situations and concerns for business and commercial economics. The studies changed into realized by way of the technique description, literature evaluation, and carried out research. This paper discusses the primary developments inside the academic studies related to the Present Scenario of Cryptocurrency, a short overview of Cryptocurrency, cryptocurrencies through market capitalization, Cryptocurrencies Trending in Asia, Cryptocurrency in India, Cryptocurrency Exchanges, cryptocurrency rules internationally. Cryptocurrency inside the surroundings, and Cryptocurrency Security. The record also covers the responses of governments and imperative banks to this phenomenon and the modern nation of legal definitions of cryptocurrencies in chosen countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Welfare is a fundamental aspect of animal management and conservation. In light of growing public awareness and welfare concerns about captive elephants, there is an urgent need for comprehensive, globally coordinated efforts for Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) that participate in religious, logging, or tourist activities in range countries where the majority reside, and where welfare issues have been identified but not addressed. This review provides a comparative analysis of available animal assessment tools. Each offers distinct features for assessment that allow institutions to select criteria for specific needs and available resources. Most are applied to general animal welfare assessments, although some are tailored to particular species, including elephants. The tools span diverse formats, from digital to primarily paper-based assessments. Assessments operate at individual and institutional levels and across multiple welfare domains. Methodologies rely on keeper ratings or expert evaluations, incorporate numerical scoring and Likert scales for welfare grading, and encompass inputs including behaviors, health, and physiological indicators. For tourist camp elephants, one challenge is that the tools were developed in zoos, which may or may not have application to non-zoological settings. Digital tools and assessment methodologies such as keeper ratings face logistical challenges when applied across tourist venues. As with any tool, reliability, validity, and repeatability are essential and must address the unique welfare challenges of diverse captive settings. We propose that a holistic, context-specific, evidence-based, and practical tool be developed to ensure high elephant welfare standards in non-zoological facilities throughout Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to plan and evaluate the cost of the logistics in manufacturing tetra duplex board using prime grade and recycled materials. The real-world data for this study is obtained from one of the largest paper and board industries in Asia. The bi-objective problem is formulated by developing a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model considering the constraints related to raw material supplies, processing, and storage. The metaheuristic optimization techniques are applied based on the concept of epsilon dominance to balance the conflicting objectives to counter the complex problem in the real world of transportation for the ease of the decision-makers to make the best-informed decisions in the selection of raw material. The investigation results indicate that the cost of prime-grade material in the tetra duplex board supply chain is 71 percent higher than recycled fiber. Furthermore, this study can be extended by evaluating the environmental aspects of prime and recycled-grade transportation. Moreover, the logistics of the prime grade can further be narrowed down by investigating it in various modes of transportation such as highways, waterways, rail, and air. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a comparative study of top-ranked Asiatic region journals of Library and Information Science discipline. SCImago Journal and the country rank was used to determine the top-ranked Asiatic journals in the domain of library and information science. Initially, top 10 journals were considered which filtered based on the coverage and SJR Ranked. A total of 6 Journals were considered for further evaluation and comparison, which meets different parameters and criteria. A comprehensive scientometric study was also presented of these six journals. Further, the paper presents the publication patterns of these six top-ranked journals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper surveys the recent literature on the economic impacts of SARS, MERS, and COVID‐19, which Asian countries have experienced in the past two decades. In particular, we provide a detailed summary of how each of the past infectious diseases has impacted on the Asian economies and the extent of that impact. This paper also documents how the governments of Asian countries have responded to the COVID‐19 shocks with their economic policies, and discusses the effectiveness of these economic policies to mitigate the COVID‐19 shocks on their economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

B Keun Lee, Seoul National University: b This paper analyzes the propagation of shocks originating in the United States and Japan into countries of emerging Asia (EA) in terms of five asset classes. It compares the scale and nature of spillovers during the 2008-09 global financial crisis (GFC), the 2013 "taper tantrum" (TT), and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Further, the GFC was immediately followed by extraordinarily strong macro-stabilization measures across the world, rendering economic outcomes to reflect both GFC and dramatic policy reactions like the quantitative easing (QE) in 2009. [Extracted from the article]