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Summary: This article tests the role of social learning in the modernization of a rural nonfarm industry, using data from a paper-manufacturing village that was transformed from a traditional handicraft industry into a modern industrial cluster. Knowledge diffusion through kinship networks is shown to have played a significant role in the dissemination of mechanized production by helping the followers to overcome subjective risk during the initial investment stage. The financial support through kinship networks also had a demonstrably positive impact on the diffusion of the technology, which removed financial constraints on the initial fixed investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This study examines the recent dynamics in the rapidly growing handmade paper industry in Nepal. The paper argues that the industry is sustainable from social responsibility as well as natural resources and economic perspectives. Five principle sources of socially responsible practices are identified: (1) traditional commitment to community development, (2) fair trade codes of conduct, (3) corporate social responsibility, (4) the industry’s business service organization (Nepal Handmade Paper Association), and (5) the general policy and legal framework. The paper concludes with a discussion of this industry as a case study of “positive deviance” and with lessons for contemporary innovation systems theory and for development policy and practice. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: In this paper, we analyze the diffusion and adoption of paper making machinery in the Indonesian pulp and paper industry, from 1923 till 2000. We develop a machine level index of technological sophistication (mach), which measures the technological distance of each paper machine to the world technological frontier. The data reveal a pattern of rapid technological catch up. But catch up was not an industrywide phenomenon. Some modern firms installed state-of-the-art machinery, while others installed older vintages. The paper argues that industrial policy has played an important role in the speed and nature of diffusion of paper making machinery. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: Qualitative and quantitative methods are applied to assess the impact of CIFOR’s political economy research on the Indonesian pulp and paper sector. Key-informant interviews triangulated by trend-series tests suggest important influence through advocacy intermediaries and counterfactuals of slower adoption of improvements. Effects on conservation set-asides, overcapacity, and plantation establishment are estimated to avert loss of 76,000–212,000hectares of natural forest (135,000 under main assumptions). Application of an economic-surplus framework for environmental benefits of forest conservation and avoided implicit wood subsidies finds benefits of US$19 to US$583 million (US$133 million main estimate), compared with US$500,000 of direct research costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper uses data from the 2003/04 Cambodia Household Socioeconomic Survey to investigate the effects of property rights to land. Plots held with a paper documenting ownership in rural Cambodia are found to have higher productivity and land values than other plots, while property rights have weak effects on access to credit. The paper also investigates whether the introduction of private property rights leads to decreased availability of common property resources. The data offers only weak support for this hypothesis. The general insight is that policies to strengthen land property rights can have important, positive effects on the rural economy, even in an environment of low state capacity. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The CPR school has successfully rebutted Hardin''s pessimistic Tragedy of the Commons model. However, in recent years, critics have focussed on the inward orientation and lack of contextual analysis characterising the writings of the CPR school.Oakerson [A Model for the analysis of common property problems. Working Paper R86-13. Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University, 1986] and Ostrom [Governing the Commons. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990] have detailed the list of variables that have to be studied to understand the mechanics of collective action. However, these factors are internal to the community. Recent critics'' point out that the actions of individual agents are also influenced by the alternatives embedded outside the system. These variables are collectively labelled contextual factors.In our paper, we have analysed the case of a fishermen''s cooperative in the Calcutta Metropolitan District to show how the historic and economic context shapes targets of resource users and affects the feasibility of alternative courses to achieve the target by determining opportunity and transaction costs of actions. This indicates the importance of contextual factors in explaining the formation and evolution of the resource regime. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The study of market power in the primary foods industry is of high interest to policymakers seeking to help develop low-income countries, due to its potential source to create market inefficiencies and hamper economic development. Recent studies have provided ample empirical evidence, that market power has been increasing nearly continuously since the 1980s. Nevertheless, due to the (un)availability of firm-level data, most research is constrained to analyzing firms within industries of a few high-income with a particular focus on manufacturing and service sectors. This paper proposes to remedy this gap in the literature by using aggregate data contained within the Eora Input-Output Tables and a procedure based on Generalized Maximum Entropy to provide estimates of the markup for the primary foods industry (defined as the agriculture, hunting, logging and fishing industries) for 43 countries in Asia. We document a large heterogeneity based on a country's income level classification. Furthermore, measures of globalization are seen to significantly reduce markups. Opening up to trade might therefore be an attractive option to policymakers seeking to stimulate economic efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid internet penetration and technological advancements have facilitated accessibility to internet-enabled devices globally. Since Asia lacks comprehensive data on internet addiction among college students, this review aims to estimate its pooled prevalence. This was a systematic review and meta-analysis. Searches were conducted in PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL, and MEDLINE from their inception through August 2022 using terms appropriate to internet addiction and Asian countries/territorial for publications in English peer-reviewed journals. The studies included those done on current college students and provided unambiguous indicators of the threshold of internet addiction. The pooled prevalence was calculated through a random-effects meta-analysis by RStudio software, and I 2 statistic was used to assess heterogeneity. The Joanna Briggs Institute critical appraisal checklist was used for quality assessment. Overall, between 2007 and 2021, 39 papers comprising 45 effect sizes and totaling 58,058 participants met the inclusion criteria. The pooled prevalence of internet addiction among Asian college students was 24.3% (95% confidence interval: 19.8%–29.5%, Q = 6234, df = 44, τ2 = 0.79, I 2 = 99.29%), and strikingly, this percentage increased over time. A high degree of heterogeneity was seen, and no publication bias was found. To our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive review report on Asian college students, which found that one-fifth suffer from internet addiction. The findings emphasize the significance of multidisciplinary prevention and management strategies to mitigate the harmful effects of internet addiction. Further research is warranted to develop a standardized diagnostic tool for a more precise estimation of internet addiction among this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the relationship between corruption and operational efficiency of airports in Asia, by analyzing a panel dataset of 26 Asian airports over the 2003–2019 period. Our estimation results for Asia confirm the findings for other regions that there exists a negative association between the operational efficiencies of airports and the corruption level in the country. Airports owned, operated and/or managed by government corporations (100% government) are the most affected, in that they experience significant loss of efficiency when located in a high corruption country. The residual variable factor productivity (RVFP) from the Air Transport Research Society (ATRS) airport benchmarking reports is used as measure of airport operational efficiency. Regression analyses are applied to evaluate the relationship between airport efficiency and corruption. The results are robust to alternative corruption indexes. The findings of this paper have important policy implications for the management of large public infrastructure projects and airport governance reforms in Asia. • We assess the impact of corruption on airport efficiency in Asia. • The dataset covers 26 airports located in 10 Asian countries over the 2003–2019 period. • Residual Variable Factor Productivity is used as measure of airport efficiency. • Analyses show a negative association between airport efficiency and corruption in Asia. • Corruption impacts are stronger for airports under public corporations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ecosystem services (ES) approach has been widely applied for assessing nature's values and human-nature links. Over the past two decades, this research approach has experienced remarkable growth, exerting global influence on the sustainability policy agenda. Recent literature indicates that North America, Europe, East Asia, and Australia are major contributors to ES research, while other regions are progressing at a slower pace. Many countries in these regions remain under-represented due to various factors, including but not limited to knowledge transfer gaps, disparities in research capacities, as well as distinct needs and challenges among researchers in the Global North and South. Although the ES literature in Asia is growing in topics, methodologies, quality and quantity, many Asian researchers, especially Early Career Researchers (ECRs), still face problems typical of the Global South while conducting ES research. In this paper, we outline four major challenges from the perspective of ECRs. They include: 1) Inequality in career prospects and capacity-building, 2) Inequality and challenges in data access & knowledge transfer, 3) Circulation of research findings in global scientific publishing, 4) Challenges in funding. This perspective paper draws special attention to the challenges faced by ECRs in ES research in Asia. By presenting recommendations, we strongly advocate that the research community work together to make ES research a level playing field for ECRs like ourselves working in Asia and elsewhere. • We provide an overview of the inequalities in scientific production on Ecosystem Services in Asia. • From an early career perspective we highlight four key categories young researchers face difficulties in. • These include: career prospects & capacity-building, data access & knowledge transfer, access to publishing, and funding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the dichotomous world of sanitation management in Coimbatore, India. Sanitation management is a process of safely managing and disposing human excreta and wastewater. As it flows from the private sphere to the public, many actors have social aspirations and discriminate according to class, thus maintaining a dichotomous world – the purity (clean, orderly, simple, and aesthetically appealing) and the pollution (filthy, dirty, poor, complex) – in their everyday struggle to manage. The paper examines the micro-politics of actors using the lens of 'purity and pollution' as they engage in managing sanitation in Coimbatore. It combines semi-structured, and in-depth interviews with sanitation workers, government officials and private companies. The paper reveals that government and international agencies take a narrow view of sanitation management, embeds its approach on the stigmatic practice, and adopts a backdoor form of governance in the city. The lens of purity and pollution reveals structurally distinct, mutually reinforcing, and dynamic approaches by actors to keep sanitation a 'matter out of place' and limit opportunities to professionalize the workers. It calls for an inclusive sanitation governance that do not separate between the imported sanitation fixtures and the socially embedded practices, rather contextualises sanitation management practices. • Sanitation management has been a 'matter out of place' for development. • The paper applies a 'purity and pollution' lens to understand sanitation. • It reveals the social stigma, cost-sensitivity, and backdoor sanitation governance. • It calls for a paradigm shift in the approach to sanitation management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 5th Asia Partnership Conference of Regenerative Medicine (APACRM) was held online on April 7, 2022 to promote regulatory harmonization of regenerative medicine products throughout Asia. The recognition of domestic regulatory guidelines within each country and region and the underpinning rationales are important initial steps toward the harmonization of regulations. The 5th APACRM featured open dialog regarding non-clinical, quality and environmental impact assessment settings for cell and gene therapy products through presentations from the industry and panel discussions with regulatory agencies. The latest updates on regenerative medicine fields in each country and region were also introduced. This paper summarizes the proceedings of the 5th APACRM for public dissemination to foster future discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• There is a paucity of COVID-19 related mental health publications in lower middle-income countries. • Existing research in mental health are mostly online community survey to measure different domains of psychopathology in the context of COVID-19. • There is gross scarcity of original high quality research in Afro-Asian LMIC countries. Lower middle - income countries of Africa and Asia have accommodated a large portion of the world's population, where mental health research has been under-prioritized. This study aimed to review all published research on mental health issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic in lower middle - income countries of the Afro-Asian region. A search was conducted in the PubMed and PubMed Central databases using the terms "mental health," "psychiatric disorders," "COVID-19", "coronavirus," "Asia," "Africa," "Lower Middle-income countries." All articles published in the English language until 3rd July 2020 were included. A total of 133 papers were found in lower-middle-income countries of Africa (n = 11) and Asia (n = 122), which discussed various aspects of mental health in the context of COVID-19. Most of the studies are cross-sectional studies that addressed mental morbidities, psychological reactions, stress, coping among the general population, and focused groups (healthcare workers, students, elderly, patients). Researchers attempted to develop and validate tools that measure certain psychological constructs (fear, anxiety) concerning COVID-19. Online surveys were the primary modality of researching this COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 related mental health research is scarce in lower-middle-income countries of Africa and Asia. Available researches suggest that mental health challenges during this COVID-19 pandemic are enormous and need attention. There is a need for policy and recommendations to deal with the mental health challenges in lower middle - income countries of Africa and Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The causes presented in the literature of the middle-income trap are generic, emphasizing the quality of the legal institutions of the country, demographic problems, the lack of social infrastructure, poor macroeconomic policies, etc. were already present in developing countries when they were growing fast. Besides, the income interval used on the studies on the trap was too large. • Instead of promoting the growth, the liberalizing reforms, which were more radical in Latin America than in Asia, caused an increase in the interest rate and dismantled the mechanism that neutralized the Dutch disease – both facts leading to the chronic overvaluation of the exchange rate, which represented a competitive disadvantage of the companies utilizing the best technology available. • In the economic literature, it is well established that the currencies of the commodity-focused economies tend to be appreciated in the long run because they face the Dutch disease. On the other hand, central banks in the region tend to define a high interest rate around which they organize their monetary policy so as to attract foreign capital and "grow with external savings" – this representing a second major cause of overvaluation of the national currencies of Latin American countries. • The main conclusion of the research is that, in the period of 1980–2016, the Latin American countries didn't fall into middle-income but a liberalization trap; the reason why they have fallen into quasi-stagnation while Asian countries did not lie in the liberal reforms. Opening trade in countries that have the Dutch disease meant dismantling the pragmatic mechanisms that neutralized it; financial liberalization limited the ability of countries to control distorted flows of capital and created conditions for the increase in the interest rate. • The instrument to neutralize the Dutch disease on the domestic market side were import tariffs on manufactured goods. To the extent that they were just neutralizing the Dutch disease, they were not protectionist – they were just giving the local manufacturing industry equal conditions of competition with the companies of other countries. If the import tariffs on manufactured goods were higher than what was required to neutralize the Dutch disease, they would be also protectionist. This paper offers an alternative explanation to the slow-down observed in the growth of developing countries. Instead of a middle-income trap what happened was a liberalization trap. Growth didn't happen because countries turned middle-income, but happened in a given period, around the 1980s, when these countries faced a serious foreign debt crisis and were constrained to open their economies. The studies on the middle-income trap have adopted a broad income interval and were unable to offer new historical facts that explained why these countries stop growing fast. Differently, this paper shows that the trade liberalization and the financial liberalization that started in the 1980s involved the dismantling of the mechanism that neutralized the Dutch disease and the change from low to high interest rates – both facts leading to a long-term or chronic overvaluation of the exchange rate that made the manufacturing industry non-competitive and caused deindustrialization and low growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As technology continues to play an integral role in our daily lives, concerns regarding the appropriate and healthy use of screen time have prompted health organizations and authorities worldwide to establish guidelines and recommendations. This paper comprehensively summarizes existing recommendations and guidelines for screen time use from various countries, highlighting key similarities, differences, and emerging trends. However, there is a dire need to expand the existing repertoire of guidelines and recommendations to different age groups and strategies depending on user engagement for healthy screen time use. • The existing repertoire of guidelines and recommendations for healthy screen time use. • There is a need to expand the existing repertoire of guidelines and recommendations to different age groups. • Pros and cons of Shut down laws for screen use and need for enhancing preventive measures. • The efforts should be made to evolve guidelines for adults screen users. • Collaboration to be fostered among stakeholders is crucial for promoting healthy technology use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 4th Asia Partnership Conference of Regenerative Medicine (APACRM) was held online on April 15, 2021, to promote regulatory harmonization of regenerative medicine products throughout Asia. Recognizing domestic regulatory guidelines within each country and region, and their underpinning rationales, is an important initial step toward a convergence of regulations. The 4th APACRM consisted of an open dialog with regulatory agencies regarding nonclinical and quality settings for cell therapy products (CTPs) through industry presentations and panel discussions with regulatory agencies. The latest updates on regenerative medicine fields in each country and region, and specific regulatory schematics in Japan, were also introduced. The objective of this paper is to summarize the proceedings of the 4th APACRM for public dissemination and to foster further discussion in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Disaster recovery and resettlement discourses and practices are purportedly secular. • In Cagayan de Oro, Philippines, post-disaster efforts had clear religious overtones. • Catholic trustees undertook disaster management roles for which they had no expertise. • They used the resettlement of survivors to render certain people and landscapes more governable. • Their actions emphasize the role of religious organizations in producing particular development subjects. In post-disaster situations where there is a weak government, opportunities arise for so-called non-state actors to re-imagine, re-create, and govern portions of society and landscapes. The process of resettling survivors is an improvement project in which certain actors and institutions assume the functions and authority of a shadow state. This paper studies the activities of Catholic trustees in disaster relief and resettlement in Northern Mindanao, Philippines after Tropical Storm Sendong, and asks how and to what ends they engage with purportedly secular humanitarian efforts. It is based on fieldwork in Cagayan de Oro, which used an ethnographic approach and qualitative methods. The intentions motivating trustees' interventions, and the selection of activities, reveal clear Christian undertones. This unsurprising finding suggests Catholic trustees "saw like a church"; there was a demonstrated intent to govern, in the Foucauldian sense of governmental rationality, guided by the exercise of old and new pastoral power, largely mirroring a Christian social mission. Through their actions, trustees (re)asserted the historical hegemonic position of the Catholic Church in Philippine society. This framing of disaster management challenges mainstream secular discourses and practices of development and disaster management and their treatment of faith-based organizations as just another development actor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Paucity of rigorous research for hemodynamics measured with fNIRS. • Two recent papers which fit inclusion criteria were reviewed. • Paucity in research relating to fNIRS and hemodynamics for mindfulness in Asians. Mindfulness interventions have been increasingly incorporated into clinical settings. Evidence supporting mindfulness practices are predominantly established in Western populations. Neurophysiological evidence has not been established to support the effectiveness of mindfulness practice in Asian populations. Greater understanding of the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying mindfulness would enable hemodynamics as measured by fNIRS to be used to monitor mindfulness practice as an adjunct to psychotherapy with Asian clients. Research relating to fNIRS and hemodynamics for mindfulness in Asians was reviewed. The inclusion criteria for this review were recent publications in peer-reviewed journals from 2008 to 2018, with the search terms 'fNIRS', 'hemodynamics' and 'mindfulness', for studies in Asia. Databases included Medline, PubMed, PSYCINFO, Google Scholar and SCOPUS. Initial searches yielded 86 results. Five duplicated articles were removed, and remaining abstracts were screened; and assessed for eligibility against the structured performa. Three full text papers which fit the inclusion criteria were included in the current review. This review highlighted the paucity of rigorous empirically validated research for hemodynamics as measured with fNIRS for mindfulness practice in Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Example of observed and simulated postseismic time series and test of mechanisms controlling the postseismic deformation, afterslip along the northern part of the upper flat, the ramp and the flower flat of the Main Himalayan Thrust (blue) or a combination of afterslip along the northern part of the upper flat and the ramp of the MHT and a viscous relaxation controlled by a low viscosity body centered on the lower flat of the MHT (red). The simulated time series are respectively drawn in blue and red. • Postseismic deformation of the 2015 Gorkha earthquake with GNSS time series. • Modeling shows afterslip along the northern part of upper flat and ramp of the MHT. • Modeling shows afterslip or a viscous relaxation along the lower flat of the MHT. The postseismic deformation consecutive to the April 25, 2015 Gorkha earthquake (Mw 7.9) is estimated in this paper based on a cGNSS network installed prior to the earthquake and supplemented by 6 cGNSS stations installed after the main shock. Postseismic displacement are obtained from daily time series corrected for interseismic deformation and seasonal variations. The maximum postseismic displacement is found north of the rupture area, where locally it reached 100 mm between the date of the earthquake and late 2016. The postseismic deformation affects the northern part of the rupture area but not the southern part, along the southern part of the Main Himalayan Thrust (MHT). Three hypotheses for the mechanisms controlling postseismic deformation are tested through numerical simulations of the postseismic time series: (i) viscous relaxation, (ii) afterslip, or (iii) a combination of these two mechanisms. We can exclude postseismic deformation controlled by viscous relaxation of a thick deformation zone along the northern and lower flat of the MHT. However, it is impossible to discriminate between postseismic deformation controlled by either afterslip along the MHT (northern part of the rupture zone, crustal ramp, and lower flat of the MHT) or a combination of afterslip along the MHT (northern part of the rupture zone, crustal ramp) and viscous relaxation controlled by a thin (∼3–4 km thick) low-viscosity body centered on the lower flat of the MHT. The occurrence of afterslip along the northern part of the upper flat of the MHT and its longitudinal variations have been established thanks to the densification of GNSS network by our team presented in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is there an alternative model to small family farming that could provide sustainable livelihoods to millions of resource-constrained and often non-viable smallholders in developing countries? Could group farming constitute such an alternative, wherein smallholders voluntarily pool land, labour and capital to create larger farms that they manage collectively? In South Asia, for instance, over 85% of farmers are small and increasingly female. Potentially, group farming could provide them economies of scale, a dependable labour force, more investible funds and skills, and greater bargaining power with governments and markets. But can this potential be realised in practice? In particular, can group farms economically outperform small family farms? A rare opportunity to test this is provided by two experiments begun in the 2000s in the Indian states of Kerala and Telangana. Constituted only of women, the groups lease in land to farm collectively, sharing labour, the cost of inputs, and the returns. But the states differ in several respects, including the technical support the groups receive, and their institutional base, composition, land access and cropping patterns. Based on the author's primary sample surveys in both states, this paper compares the productivity and profitability of group farms with that of small individual family farms in the same state. Kerala’s groups perform strikingly better than the predominantly male-managed individual farms, both in their annual value of output per hectare and annual net returns per farm, while in Telangana group farms perform much worse than individual farms in annual output, but are equivalent in net returns. In both states, groups do much better in commercial crops than in traditional foodgrains, where the largely male-managed individual farms, owning good quality land and with longer farm management experience, have an advantage. The factors underlying the differential performances of Kerala and Telangana, and the lessons learnt for possible replication, are also discussed. Overall, the paper demonstrates that group farming can provide an effective alternative, subject to specified conditions and adaptation of the model to the local context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Increasing evidence is becoming available on the aetiology and management of fevers in Asia; the importance of these fevers has increased with the decline in the incidence of malaria. Aims To conduct a narrative review of the epidemiology and management of fevers in South and South-East Asia and to highlight gaps in our knowledge that impair evidence-based health policy decisions. Sources A narrative review of papers published since 2012 on developments in fever epidemiology, diagnosis and treatment in South and South-East Asia. The papers that the authors felt were pivotal, from their personal perspectives, are discussed. Content We identified 100 studies. Among the 30 studies (30%)—including both children and adults—that investigated three or more pathogens, the most frequently reported fever aetiology was dengue (reported by 15, 50%), followed by leptospirosis (eight, 27%), scrub typhus (seven, 23%) and Salmonella serovar Typhi (six, 20%). Among four studies investigating three or more pathogens in children, dengue and Staphylococcus aureus were the most frequent, followed by non-typhoidal Salmonella spp, Streptococcus pneumoniae , Salmonella serovar Typhi, and Orientia tsutsugamushi . Increased awareness is needed that rickettsial pathogens are common but do not respond to cephalosporins, and that alternative therapies, such as tetracyclines, are required. Implications Many key gaps remain, and consensus guidelines for study design are needed to aid comparative understanding of the epidemiology of fevers. More investment in developing accurate and affordable diagnostic tests for rural Asia and independent evaluation of those already on the market are needed. Treatment algorithms, including simple biomarker assays, appropriate for empirical therapy of fevers in different areas of rural Asia should be a major aim of fever research. Enhanced antimicrobial resistance (AMR) surveillance and openly accessible databases of geography-specific AMR data would inform policy on empirical and specific therapy. More investment in innovative strategies facilitating infectious disease surveillance in remote rural communities would be an important component of poverty reduction and improving public health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Close-to-community (CTC) providers have been identified as a key cadre to progress universal health coverage and address inequities in health service provision due to their embedded position within communities. CTC providers both work within, and are subject to, the gender norms at community level but may also have the potential to alter them. This paper synthesises current evidence on gender and CTC providers and the services they deliver. This study uses a two-stage exploratory approach drawing upon qualitative research from the six countries (Bangladesh, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique) that were part of the REACHOUT consortium. This research took place from 2013 to 2014. This was followed by systematic review that took place from January–September 2017, using critical interpretive synthesis methodology. This review included 58 papers from the literature. The resulting findings from both stages informed the development of a conceptual framework. We present the holistic conceptual framework to show how gender roles and relations shape CTC provider experience at the individual, community, and health system levels. The evidence presented highlights the importance of safety and mobility at the community level. At the individual level, influence of family and intra-household dynamics are of importance. Important at the health systems level, are career progression and remuneration. We present suggestions for how the role of a CTC provider can, with the right support, be an empowering experience. Key priorities for policymakers to promote gender equity in this cadre include: safety and well-being, remuneration, and career progression opportunities. Gender roles and relations shape CTC provider experiences across multiple levels of the health system. To strengthen the equity and efficiency of CTC programmes gender dynamics should be considered by policymakers and implementers during both the conceptualisation and implementation of CTC programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on rural field research in three provinces of Northeast Thailand, the paper seeks to understand the ways in which life course, generational, era-defining and developmental change intersect, and why rural smallholders and smallholdings continue to persist notwithstanding deep structural change. We outline the creative ways that households and their members have sought to address the scissor effects of declining land holdings, rising needs, reduced relative returns to agriculture, and often precarious non-farm work. We posit, drawing on this work from Thailand, that while Asia’s ‘truncated agrarian transition’ goes some way to explaining the current empirical fact of persistent smallholders, we raise doubts whether the rural development agenda of modernisation, marketisation and rural exit will have the traction that governments and some scholars anticipate. A focus on production obscures how rural livelihoods also embody acts of consumption, care, reproduction and redistribution. Our study finds that the current experience of occupational multiplicity where households’ livelihoods comprise farm and non-farm, commoditised and quasi-subsistence, in situ and ex situ , production and care, and reproduction and redistribution will likely also persist, if non-farm occupations remains classically precarious and social safety nets thinly woven. The paper contributes to debates over agrarian and rural livelihood transitions in Asia, and sheds explanatory light on why the farm-size transition has not taken hold. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this review was to investigate the prevalence of depression in people with epilepsy (PWE) in different countries in Asia.Methods: We searched the electronic database PubMed on June 13, 2017 for articles in English that included the following search terms: "epilepsy" AND "depression" AND "country name" for all Asian countries since 1947. Relevant original studies from Asia were included if they reported the prevalence of depression in PWE. Papers studying special populations (e.g., elderly, veterans, etc.) were not included. In addition, experts in epilepsy field were invited from some Asian countries for an in-depth assessment.Results: Six hundred eighty-seven papers were reviewed and 26 related studies were included in this study. Depression is highly prevalent in PWE in different countries in Asia and the prevalence rates are consistent with rates reported in the literature from other countries: overall, about 25% of PWE suffer from depression.Conclusion: In Asian countries, as elsewhere, depression is common in PWE. High quality data is scarce in many countries and validated screening tools [e.g., Neurological Disorders Depression Inventory for Epilepsy (NDDI-E)] to appropriately investigate the prevalence of depression in PWE are still lacking in many languages. Considering the high prevalence of depression among PWE, routine and periodic screening of all PWE for early detection and appropriate management of depression would be a reasonable approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Recent literatures examine the short-run effects of natural disasters on household welfare and health outcomes. However, less advancement has been observed in the use of self-reported data to capture the short-run disaster–development nexus in least developed countries’ with high climatic risks. This self-identification in the questionnaire could be advantageous to capture the disaster impacts on households more precisely when compared to index-based identifications based on geographical exposure. In this paper, we ask: “what are the impacts on household income, expenditure, asset, and labor market outcomes of recurrent flooding in Bangladesh?” We examine the short-run economic impacts of recurrent flooding on Bangladeshi households surveyed in year 2010. In 2010 Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES), households answered a set of questions on whether they were affected by flood and its likely impacts. We identify treatment (affected) groups using two measures of disaster risk exposure; the self-reported flood hazard data, and historical rainfall data-based flood risk index. The paper directly compares the impacts of climatic disaster (i.e., recurrent flooding) on economic development. We further examine these impacts by pooling the data for the years’ 2000, 2005, and 2010 and compare the results with our benchmark estimations. Overall, we find robust evidence of negative impacts on agricultural income and expenditure. Intriguingly, the self-reported treatment group experienced significant positive impacts on crop income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is currently only limited empirical research and theoretical conceptualisation of the role of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) in the economies of Asia within economic geography or elsewhere in the wider social scientific literature. This paper argues that existing theoretical understandings of KIBS are inadequate to conceptualise the nature of ongoing KIBS development in Asian economies – both emerging and mature – and seeks to address this absence by developing a theoretical framework that draws on a range of existing theoretical approaches within and beyond economic geography. To do this, it proposes the concept of ‘service capitalism’, developed from work concerned with varieties of capitalism (VoC), variegated capitalism and advanced service industries. The paper elaborates its theoretical argument by presenting research into two forms of Asian service capitalism through two case studies examining respectively the specific nature of Japanese KIBS and the development of KIBS in China. Using the case studies, it demonstrates how service industry development in both these Asian economies exhibits distinctive characteristics that are a consequence of both local institutional, corporate, and socio-cultural contexts but are also interconnected the wider global economy in complex ways. The paper thus presents a significant and disruptive challenge to existing theories of KIBS development as based on the western experience, and contemporary deployments of the varieties of capitalism and variegated capitalism approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Asian Forensic Sciences Network was formed in 2008 by a small group of six forensic institutes from six countries in Asia, with the vision to create a common platform for scientists in the region to come together to advance forensic science, raise quality standards, and foster collaboration. Since its inception, the network has experienced remarkable growth, now comprising 70 member institutes from 18 countries across Asia. An Annual Meeting & Symposium, hosted by a member institute each year, serves as a cornerstone event for the network. In addition, the network runs nine technical workgroups covering areas in Crime Scene Investigation, Digital Forensics, DNA, Fingerprint, Forensic Medicine, Illicit Drugs, Questioned Document, Toxicology, and Trace Evidence, alongside a dedicated Quality Assurance and Standards Committee. These workgroups and committee work in tandem with the AFSN Board to formulate strategies aligned with the network's core objectives. This paper chronicles AFSN's journey over the past fifteen years, highlighting the pivotal role of the Board and the Workgroups, as well as the dedicated passion and unwavering commitment of the members in shaping the network through numerous activities. • AFSN was formed in 2008 by 6 forensic institutes from 6 countries in Asia. • It now comprises 70 member institutes from 18 countries. • It has 9 Technical Workgroups and 1 Quality Assurance and Standards Committee. • AFSN publishes peer-reviewed newsletter ForensicAsia. • Different member institutes host the AFSN Annual Meeting & Symposium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The agronomy–livestock–forestry nexus is critical as it influences ecosystem services, food production, and land use. Asia, a diverse and technologically dynamic region, faces disparities in agronomy tech adoption. Studies emphasize agronomy and forestry's pivotal role in determining livelihoods in the region. Challenges like rising food demand, land scarcity, climate change, and biodiversity loss require innovative solutions. Digital technologies offer enhanced productivity, sustainability, and resource management opportunities, defining the era of smart agriculture and forestry. This work presents a Systematic Literature Review (SLR), which examines the potential for using digital technology in agronomy and forestry across Asian countries and evaluates evidence of the potential benefits for practitioners and the environment. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) method guided the choice of relevant publications. Of the 375 papers located in Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) databases, only 24 were considered relevant to the research questions. In the agronomy and forestry sectors in Asia, the adoption of digital technologies has the potential to contribute toward the promotion of biodiversity, the preservation of ecosystem services, improved labor efficiency, risk reduction, and the promotion of climate change resilience. Geospatial tools, modeling tools, decision support systems, Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), and the Internet of Things (IoT) have emerged as prominent technologies driving these positive outcomes. The study lists evidence from various articles supporting these benefits, although most demonstrate indirect causation. This underscores the need for more direct experiments to establish the broader contribution of digital technologies as well as provide evidence showing farmer uptake and the potential negative impacts of implementation. The findings from this study offer a comprehensive view of the potential use of digital technologies for agronomy and forestry in Asia, as well as evidence of their potential benefits. It gives stakeholders valuable information on digital technologies and provides a springboard for future studies regarding the application of digital technology in agronomy, animal husbandry, and forestry. [Display omitted] • Digital solutions can mitigate the impact of uneven tech adoption on livelihoods in Asia's agronomy and forestry sectors. • Presents SLR provide the evidence of benefits for practitioners and environment. • Key technologies include geospatial tools, modeling tools, decision support systems, UAS, IoT. • Digital tech enhances Asia's agronomy/forestry by improving biodiversity, labor and risk management. • Provides information for stakeholders and highlighting research potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary There has been a major expansion of social security programs in India during the last 15 years or so, along with wider recognition of economic and social rights. This paper discusses five programs that can be seen as partial foundations of a possible social security system for India: school meals, child care services, employment guarantee, food subsidies, and social security pensions. The record of these programs varies a great deal between Indian states, but there is growing evidence that they make an important contribution to human well-being, and also that the achievements of the leading states are gradually spreading to other states as well. Much scope remains for extending these efforts: despite the recent expansion, India’s social security system is still very limited in international perspective. The paper also discusses some general issues of social policy in India, such as the arguments for universalization versus targeting and the value of a rights approach to social security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As population grows considerably in the world, the correlation between intensity of population in urban areas and energy intensity becomes an important issue in energy field. This paper aims at examining the effects of urbanization on energy intensity for 10 Asian countries by employing annual data from 1990 to 2014. The Asian countries are Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam, respectively. To this end, the paper, first, follows cross-sectional dependence and heterogeneity tests. Then, the paper conducts unit root and cointegration tests, cointegration analyses and causality analyses. Finally, the paper estimates the short run parameters as well as long-run parameters to capture the possible dynamic relationships among variables. This paper, thus, employs energy intensity as dependent variable and GDP per capita, the square of GDP per capita, urbanization, and ruralization as regressors within the relevant models and explores that there exists a long-run relationship of energy intensity with GDP per capita, the square of GDP per capita, urbanization, and ruralization in panel data. The paper, later, observes additional explanatory variables of export, renewable energy consumption and nonrenewable energy consumption, and, concludes that (i) the urbanization variable has significant influences on energy intensity in the short-run and long-run, (ii) despite the some differences in cross-sectional estimations, the Asian panel data, overall, yield negative impact of urbanization on energy intensity. The latter output indicates that the urbanization path increases the energy productivity in Asian panel models. Within this scope, the paper presents some policy proposals related to the reduction of energy intensity in Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a new measure of structural change labeled the effective structural change (ESC) index, and applies it to study the effects of structural change on economic growth, using a sample of 19 Asian economies for the period from 1970 to 2012. This new approach provides an effective tool to examine growth effects of structural change. The paper’s findings suggest the importance of reforms to foster productivity-enhancing structural change and need for strategies to overcome their short-term costs. The paper also indicates that ESC can be used as a useful indicator for monitoring the impacts of structural reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how migration infrastructure conditions migrant mobilities within receiving states. The paper examines two infrastructural case studies, language testing and housing markets, in relation to Asian ‘middling’ migrants, that is, the relatively educated and skilled but not elite, who arrive in Australia on temporary visas. The analysis highlights the interplays and dependencies of different ‘logics of operation’ (Xiang and Lindquist, 2014) of infrastructure in relation to these migrants’ status mobilities and housing mobilities within the receiving society. The paper draws on data from in-depth narrative interviews with migrants to also understand how infrastructure produces perceptions and meaning-making around the migration process. This analysis reveals that, in this empirical context, migration infrastructure produces varied kinds of spatio-temporal insecurity as much as it mediates mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microplastics (MPs) are non-biodegradable substances that can sustain our environment for up to a century. What is more worrying is the incapability of modern technologies to annihilate MPs from om environment. One ramification of MPs is their impact on every kind of life form on this planet, which has been discussed ahead; that is why these substances are surfacing in everyday discussions of scholars and researchers. This paper discusses the overview of the global occurrence, abundance, analysis, and remediation techniques of MPs in the environment. This paper primarily reviews the event and abundance of MPs in coastal sediments and agricultural soil of three major Asian countries, India, China, and Japan. A significant concentration of MPs has been recorded from these countries, which affirms its strong presence and subsequent environmental impacts. Concentrations such as 73,100 MPs/kg in Indian coastal sediments and 42,960 particles/kg in the agricultural soil of China is a solid testimony to prove their massive outbreak in our environment and require urgent attention towards this issue. Conclusions show that human activities, rivers, and plastic mulching on agricultural fields have majorly acted as carriers of MPs towards coastal and terrestrial soil and sediments. Later, based on recorded concentrations and gaps, future research studies are recommended in the concerned domain; a dearth of studies on MPs influencing Indian agricultural soil make a whole sector and its consumer vulnerable to the adverse effects of this emerging contaminant. [Display omitted] • Film & fibre shaped microplastics (MPs) are more abundant in India, China and Japan. • Plastic mulching is the root cause of major MPs pollution in soil and sediment. • Estuarian soil/sediment are more prone to MPs pollution than terrestrial and coastal. • FT-IR is highly used for MPs identification; mass spectrometry & microscopy are least. • MPs work as a vector for metals, PPCPs, surfactants and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much has been written and theorized about public relations practice and the ways in which practitioners view themselves and their work. But little of the available international research has embraced the worldviews and perspectives of practitioners operating in the rapidly developing countries of South East Asia, which include Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, its sister state, Malaysia, the nearby international business hub, Singapore, the increasingly vigorous yet still tightly controlled one-party state of Vietnam, the business-friendly but politically fragile Thailand, and Asia’s only majority Christian nation, the Philippines. The broad social, political, economic and cultural diversity to be found among these major member countries of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) arguably may have important implications for the ways in which public relations programs should be conducted in these locations. This paper reports on a doctoral research project conducted among public relations practitioners working across the ASEAN region, giving glimpses into how successful operators in these locations view their work, their working environments and the challenges they face in seeking to balance sensitive considerations of localism, regionalism and globalism in increasingly fluid cross-cultural environments. The concerns they report confirm some general observations around ‘cultural difference’ raised previously in other quarters, but also highlight more strongly some particular pre-occupations including sensitivities around political power, personal values conflicting with the values of clients, employers and target publics, the importance of understanding local linguistic issues, the distinctiveness of local media systems, and pressures arising from rapidly increasing pace of life in countries of the region. The paper argues that local and regional issues of this nature deserve greater recognition by public relations scholars as a step toward the development of more truly inclusive international theories and models over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) plays an important part in the economic growth of developing Asia and logistics capability is a crucial factor in FDI location choice. Till today, research investigating Logistics Performance (LP) and FDI in Asia are still lacking and rather inconclusive and not standardised. Using a total of 31 Asian countries covering 2007 through 2017, the study critically investigates the impact of LP on FDI using static panel regression method. The results demonstrate that while LP significantly impact FDI, there is a threshold effect of institutional quality in the LP-FDI relationship. Specifically, this paper found that the impact of LP on FDI varies across the perceived level of institutional quality i.e., the effect is positive only before certain threshold level of institutional quality, after which the effect of LP on FDI is reversed. This finding suggests that the LP-FDI nexus is contingent on the perceived level of institutional quality, thus supporting the idea that innovations (i.e., creativity and flexibility embedded within a sound institutional framework) is potent in delivering long-run LP-FDI development in Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though a deeper financial integration and higher economic and financial stability are the prime goals of many Asian policymakers, no researcher has studied the relationship between integration and (in)stability in Asia. To fill this gap in the literature, this paper investigates the causality between financial integration and macroeconomic and financial instability. To this end, we use the Generalized Method of Moments to estimate a set of dynamic panel data models for a block of Asian countries over the period 2000–2017. Our estimation results show that there is a bidirectional causal relationship between financial integration and instability in Asia. Moreover, we find that financial integration causes instability in output and credit markets. The overall results show that macroeconomic and financial instability in Asia leads to financial disintegration. More specifically, the volatilities of the exchange rate and output growth cause financial fragmentation. Furthermore, we underscore the role of coordinated fiscal and monetary policies in offsetting the adverse effect of financial integration on macroeconomic and financial stability in Asia. Finally, the global financial crisis of 2008 has increased financial disintegration and instability in Asia. Our findings might help Asian policymakers to choose their policy targets when integrating into the global financial system. • There is bidirectional causality between financial integration and instability. • Financial integration leads to instability in output and credit markets in Asia. • In general, economic and financial instability leads to financial disintegration. • The volatilities of exchange rate and output growth cause financial fragmentation. • Coordinated policies might offset the adverse effect of integration on stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Sen’s entitlement thesis rooted in social contract theory has been used to explain access to food, and is used by states to design social protection programs as transfer entitlements to diffuse food insecurities. Social protection programs have now burgeoned in several countries as a strategy to enable the poor to overcome risks, vulnerabilities and poverty. These social protection programs have inclusion and exclusion errors, which current theorization attributes mainly to political clientalism, social vulnerability, elite capture, targeting inefficiency, leakages and corruption, lack of information transparency and improper designing of social protection programs. This paper argues that the errors are due to a more fundamental assumption made in application of social contract and entitlement-based approach to social protection programing. It identifies an uncritical application of Sen’s entitlement thesis to social protection programs, as leading to inclusion and exclusion errors. The main problematic, the paper shows is that the social contract-led entitlement thesis works within the domain of formal rights situated within the state-citizen relations, and as such, misses out on the non-formal entitlements and non-state influences that impact materialization of social protection programs in practice. Evidences from flood prone Bahraich, Uttar Pradesh, India indicate that non-state rules linked with clientele and patronage relations, moral and local political economies trump over formal rights to mediate social protection entitlement outcomes. Rather than abstract state-citizen social contract, it is the moral contracts of reciprocal exchanges with influential patrons embedded in the moral economy of the villages that ultimately ground the social protection entitlement claims of poor villagers. Conceptualizing this process of access as cultures of entitlement, the paper builds a framework for reinterpretation of entitlements and their outcomes, suggesting a recalibration of application of Sen’s entitlement thesis to social protection programs. In conclusion it argues that Sen’s entitlement thesis which is pitched at transfer of economic resources through social protection from the state to the poor is inadequate. Learning from social movements currently leading the transparency and accountability struggles in India, it calls for an instituting and recognition of accountability as new cultural resource and entitlement. In conclusion it argues that information, and accountability as new cultural entitlements, when mobilized through collective agency of the poor can potentially challenge the current cultures of entitlements evidenced in this paper that presently underlie social protection outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1980s, many developing countries have introduced policies to promote seed industry growth and improve the delivery of modern science to farmers, often with a long-term goal of increasing agricultural productivity in smallholder farming systems. Public, private, and civil society actors involved in shaping policy designs have, in turn, developed competing narratives around how best to build an innovative and sustainable seed system, each with varying goals, values, and levels of influence. Efforts to strike a balance between these narratives have often played out in passionate discourses surrounding seed rules and regulations. As a result, however, policymakers in many countries have expressed impatience with the slow progress on enhancing the contribution of a modern seed industry to the overarching goal of increasing agricultural productivity growth. One reason for this slow progress may be that policymakers are insufficiently cognizant of the trade-offs associated with rules and regulations required to effectively govern a modern seed industry. This suggests the need for new data and analysis to improve the understanding of how seed systems function. This paper explores these issues in the context of Asia's rapidly growing seed industry, with illustrations from seed markets for maize and several other crops, to highlight current gaps in the metrics used to analyze performance, competition, and innovation. The paper provides a finite set of indicators to inform policymaking on seed system design and monitoring, and explores how these indicators can be used to inform current policy debates in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Recognizing that enterprises operate at varying levels of informality, this paper evaluates the determinants of their degree of informality. Reporting a 2012 survey of 300 informal microenterprises in the city of Lahore in Pakistan, the finding is that the key predictors of their level of informality are the characteristics of the entrepreneur and enterprise, rather than their motives or the wider formal and informal institutional compliance environment. Lower degrees of informality are associated with women, older, educated, and higher income entrepreneurs and older enterprises with employees in the manufacturing sector. The paper concludes by discussing the theoretical and policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary This paper examines how the efficacy of energy-saving policies can be improved through learning. Effective allocation of energy-saving targets is key to achieving China’s reduction targets for energy intensity. Despite growing research interest in the energy-saving target allocation system, details regarding the logic and rationale behind the modifications to the system since the 11th FYP period remain unclear. This paper contributes to the previous literature by applying the concept of policy learning to an analysis of how and from what sources the Chinese government has learned to improve its energy-saving target allocation system over the 2006–13 period. Our study finds that the Chinese government has developed a distinct policy style of “learning from multiple sources” that involves three primary sources: previous experience, local practice, and expert knowledge. Although the extant literature has previously identified these three sources of learning, most of this literature has focused on only one—or at most two—sources of learning at any given time. The uniqueness of policy learning in the energy-saving target allocation system consists of the co-existence of these three sources of learning in one case. This learning-oriented policy style is characterized by reflexivity, which allows current policies to be adjusted in a timely manner in order to alleviate prospective risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that one of the fundamental forces shaping contemporary periurban political and spatial change in Asia is the rapid escalation of land values. These land price increases present state actors with acute opportunities and challenges, leading them to develop new strategies of land management that seek to exploit urbanization processes in the interest of extending state power. Specifically, governments in much of Asia have sought to monetize land—to use government powers of land management to realize substantial increases in land values, in order to extend state power either by directly extracting revenue for government from land development, or by distributing the profits of land development to powerful corporate backers of the state. Focusing attention on this comparative political economy of land monetization can therefore provide powerful explanatory insights into emergent patterns of social and spatial inequality and political contestation. The paper further compares state land monetization strategies in Jakarta, Chongqing, and Kolkata, and uses the findings to sketch out a comparative framework for understanding these strategies and their implications for spatial and political development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy and resource consumption has been expanding quickly with the rapid growth of Asian cities, which has resulted in increased greenhouse gas emission and waste generation. The promotion of low-carbon industries is an urgent global issue that extends to Asia as well. To reduce carbon dioxide emission substantially, industries must not only introduce energy-saving technologies but also use low-carbon raw materials and fuel, such as recyclable wastes and carbon-neutral biomass. This paper presents the concept of a “hybrid industry,” that is, an industry whose processes utilize not only fossil resources but also recycled and renewable resources as much as possible. This study examines the feasibility of hybrid industries through the promotion of urban symbiosis in cities in three Asian countries with different circumstances: Kawasaki in Japan, Ulsan in Korea, and Shenyang in China. Asian cities are in the midst of shifting from dumping wastes to incineration. However, in view of the carbon reduction effect of recycling as well as the cost for recycling and appropriate treatment of wastes, the potential of hybrid industries that use combustible municipal wastes as input should be considered. In this study, the potential for carbon dioxide reduction as well as the costs of promoting hybrid industries are evaluated. The results highlight that promoting hybrid industries generates significant environmental benefits for the three cities, and there are important factors that affect the cost-effectiveness of hybrid industries, including the spatial density of waste generation, composition of wastes, relative labor cost for collection and pre-treatment of wastes compared with construction cost of an incinerator and avoided costs through product and fossil resource substitution, and the willingness of citizens to separate wastes. Finally, key drivers for promoting hybrid industries through urban symbiosis in Asian cities are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Waste-to-Energy (WtE) technologies seem to be an option to tackle the growing waste management problems in developing Asia. This paper presents a quantitative assessment of the environmental and economic attributes of two major WtE technologies: landfill gas to energy (LFG-to-energy) and incineration in Thai cities. Net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, net fossil resource consumption and net life-cycle cost (LCC) were used as the basic indicators for measuring performance of these two technologies from a life cycle perspective. The assessment found that at the current efficiency level, both the LFG-to-energy project and the incineration facility contribute to GHG mitigation and fossil resource savings as compared to the Business as Usual (BAU) practice. However, the financial returns from these operations are very low and insufficient to compensate the costs. The paper argues that substantial improvements of WtE plants can be made by adopting proper management practices, enhancing the efficiencies of energy production. Such upgrading would further reduce GHG emissions, increase fossil resource savings and strengthen the financial performance to the benefit of local governments. The authors recognize the potential of incorporating other treatment options along with WtE technologies, for moving towards more sustainable waste management approaches like integrated waste management systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on research on landslide risk reduction in Nepal and the impacts of the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 in southern Thailand, this paper considers how risk, in the context of natural hazards, is produced by processes of social and economic transformation; understood and experienced by vulnerable groups; and framed by governments and experts. In so doing, we propose an agenda for more effective disaster risk management. We open the discussion by exploring the spatiality of risk, vulnerability and opportunity in the two research contexts, in particular, why people live in hazardous places and the processes that explain the intersection of human settlement and livelihoods on the one hand, and risk on the other. The paper then turns to consider the way that "risk"-and the framing and prioritisation of risk(s) by governments, experts and by vulnerable groups themselves-plays a role in setting the disaster risk management agenda. Underpinning this is the hidden question of what evidence is used-and valued-in the identification and delineation of risk. In order to understand disaster vulnerability, we argue that it is necessary to look beyond the immediate "hazardscape" to understand the wider risk context both spatially and structurally. Effective disaster risk management requires not only an appreciation of the different framings and understandings of risk, but a true integration of knowledge and expertise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Never before have network airlines been so exposed and vulnerable to low-cost carriers (LCCs). While LCCs had 26.3% of all world seats in 2013, Southeast Asia had 57.7% and South Asia 58.4% – and these figures will only increase. There are many consequences of LCCs on network airlines, including inadequately meeting the expectations of customers, so increasing dissatisfaction, and not offering sufficient value-for-money. Clearly, it is fundamentally important for Asian network airlines to respond appropriately to LCCs. This paper looks at the strategic capability of 22 of the top Asian network airlines in competing with LCCs, which is achieved by analysing questionnaire data from these airlines in terms of 37 competitive responses across six distinct response categories. It is crucial to note that this paper only concerns their capability in competing with LCCs, and it does not consider their overall strength. This paper also investigates how strategic capability varies by Asian sub-region and by airline performance, with performance examined in two respects: by perceived performance and actual performance. The results show that strategic capability varies widely, with Vietnam Airlines possessing the strongest strategic capability to compete with LCCs and SilkAir the weakest. Of others that compete heavily with LCCs, Malaysia Airlines and Garuda Indonesia have strong capabilities, while Philippine Airlines does not. However, all three need to more forcefully respond to LCCs. As a whole, network airlines within Southeast Asia have the greatest strategic capability, and Northeast Asia the weakest. There is a reasonably strong correlation between strategic capability and both actual and perceived performance, which suggests that those airlines with strong strategic capabilities should achieve strong overall performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of the proximity of Persian Iran to Afghanistan, the main opium producer in the world, drug use especially opium use has a long history in Iran. Opium and its residues are the traditional drugs while heroin, heroin Kerack , norgesic, temgesic, and methamphetamine use and injection have emerged more recently. In recent decades, heroin smoking and injection have presented challenges to the Persian health policy makers to accept and develop the internationally-approved programs of drug use treatment and harm reduction. The current paper summarizes the overall picture of main drugs used and the history of establishing the nationwide movement of drug use treatment and harm reduction programs after the 1979 revolution until the end of 2014. The paper concludes that Persian Iran has a well-developed healthcare system in the provision of drug use treatment and harm reduction programs in the south-west of Asia especially the Persian Gulf region. These therapeutic and harm reduction-related programs are required to be strengthened by opium supply reduction and eradicating drug production in Afghanistan. The provision of prevention programs, drug education via mass-media, employment and inexpensive leisure activities are required in Iran. In addition, conducting household surveys of the prevalence of drug use and evaluating the clinical effectiveness and treatment outcomes of the provided drug treatment and harm reduction programs are required. National and regional collaborations are rigorously suggested to manage supply reduction along the borders and implement demand reduction inside the borders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considerable variation has been observed in the course and outcome of schizophrenia. With regard to epidemiology of schizophrenia, papers from different Asian countries have reported findings which are in contrast with literature from the western countries. In this background we undertook a narrative review of literature regarding course and outcome of schizophrenia in Asian countries. We conducted Medline search for English-language papers on long-term course and outcome of schizophrenia conducted in Asia in the past 3 decades. We also reviewed data pertaining to Asian countries from the World Health Organization's International Study of Schizophrenia (ISoS). In addition to ISoS, we retrieved 14 reports from 9 Asian countries. While ISoS used comparable methodology across the countries, non-ISoS studies differed substantially in their aims, sampling, follow-up rates and assessment tools used for studying the course and outcome. Overall, the percentage of patients who experienced clinical and functional outcome in the Asian countries were largely comparable to those in the western studies. We observed significant variations in the long-term outcome and mortality in schizophrenia even among the Asian countries. In conclusion, there is substantial variation in the long-term course and outcome and mortality across different Asian countries. The reason for this remains unexplored. Cross-national studies exploring biological and cultural explanations for this variation may provide clues, which may have heuristic, translational and public-health significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Genetic identification is a public health care concern for management of familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) associated cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. This study presents the spectrum and distribution of LDLR, APOB, PCSK9 gene mutations in Asia. Databases were searched for English papers from 1950 to 2019. The spectrum of the variants was investigated in 8994 FH families in 48 Asian countries. We determined the frequency of variants, zygosity, and clinical features. Twenty countries have studied LDLR variants. A total of 629 mutations were reported and twenty variants were accounted as common variants in different populations. China, Japan, India and Taiwan constituted 68% of published articles. The most frequent mutation was reported in Japan but was not common in other countries. Other missense variants accounted for 50% of the mutations, frameshifts 19%, and nonsense 11%. The pooled frequency of variation was estimated in 1867 individuals. Approximately 67% of Iranian families were homozygous.,The common variant was p.Ser130Ter. p.Arg3527Trp in APOB was common among 184 heterozygous patients; the common variant of PCSK9 was p.Glu32Lys. This is the first systematic review of LDLR, APOB, PCSK9 mutations in FH patients in Asia. These findings underscore the need to fill in the gap of studies on different populations in Asia. It also underlies the importance of early detection and management to decrease atherosclerosis and cardiovascular risk in different ethnicities. Image 1 • This systematic review provides information on LDLR, APOB, PCSK9 variants in Asia. • Among 8994 FH families in 48 Asian countries, 629 LDLR variants were reported. • Twenty variants were reported as the common variants in Asia. • The frequency and distribution of the variants were high in East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Income convergence among countries has become an important topic in international economics. This paper uses a new unit root test, namely the Fourier Unit Root test with Break, to examine income convergence in nine Asian countries. It has grouped the countries into three regions in Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia and has chosen three major economies in each of the three areas for empirical analysis. The empirical findings indicate that there is relatively greater income convergence in the South Asia and that there is a mixed trend of income convergence and income divergence in Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia. • A new time series econometric approach for investigating income convergence. Economic convergence of West African states. • There are two convergences in the Northeast Asia, namely income convergence between China and Japan and income convergence between South Korea and Japan. • Income divergence between Indonesia and Thailand, income convergence between Bangladesh and India, income convergence between Pakistan and India and income convergence between Bangladesh and Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Asia's share of global demand for natural gas has increased from 13 to 18 per cent over the past decade, and the overall consumption has nearly doubled. At the same time, there is a growing gap between regional natural gas demand and supply, with increasing reliance on imports. Regional liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports are forecast to increase by 60 per cent by 2030, and natural gas has been described as Asia's “fuel of the future”. Asian LNG importers seek to diversify their supplier mix as much as possible to lower the prices and to reduce economic vulnerability to future disruptions or the failure of any one producer to provide adequate supplies. This paper explores major regional importers' approaches to LNG import diversification between 2002 and 2012 and explains why patterns of LNG imports differ between states and over time. The focus of the paper is on five largest LNG importers in the region: China, India, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]