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Throughout human history, people have always produced waste, but during the last century, this has shown explosive growth. Globally, a combination of rising incomes, urbanization, the development of new, cheap materials, and changing lifestyles have driven the growth of products that were designed to be used for only limited periods of time producing a totally unprecedented amount and variety of waste. However, this development has not affected all people in similar ways. Waste has been a marker of unprecedented but unbalanced efficiency, wealth and power, and conflict. Five articles address waste as a function of conflicts in areas in various places in Europe and Asia. Collectively, these papers shed an unusual light on the twentieth century world through a collection of cases, in which conflicts have tended to exacerbate challenges of waste, either by increasing the quantity of weapons and their (often toxic) remains, or by creating contexts in which the confrontation with adversaries often relegated environmental, social and health-related consideration to the backstage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A call for papers on sustainability in small and medium-sized business enterprises in Asia and Africa.

This paper describes the challenges facing urban planning higher education institutions in the global South that engage with knowledge production, education and training and the ways they are tackling urban equality concerns. Drawing on interviews with urban pedagogues and practitioners, and examining institutional histories across Asia and Africa, we use a five-point framework to analyse these challenges: what to teach, how to teach, whom to teach, who teaches and where to teach. We find that different institutional arrangements and choices made by educators affect the answers to these questions in different ways. These questions are also closely connected to the questions of planning "for what", and planning education "to what end", and relate to concerns regarding values and processes and to outcomes for urban equality in the South. Considering these cases together offers an opportunity to contribute to a Southern dialogue on the evolution of planning education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper breaks new ground by looking at the role played by merchant empires, such as the Dutch East India Company (VOC), in shaping European interactions with the non-Western world. It offers a critique of the English School's state-centric narrative of the expansion of international society by looking to how the VOC and its expansion in Asia influenced developments within Europe. As a non-state actor, the VOC developed networks of trade and power, which were intertwined with the Dutch struggle against Iberian hegemony. As this paper shows, the development of international law, sovereign equality and European international society needs to be understood as being constituted through these colonial encounters. Looking to the VOC as a merchant empire presents a more nuanced approach to the expansion narrative that recognises that states, empires and early modern companies developed in a co-evolutionary manner. This critical approach calls for the recognition of international society as an ongoing process formed by the contestation of hybrid cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper enquires into how effectively "regional transboundary water governance" functions in resolving ecological problems associated with shared water resources. It compares three cases in Asia—the Irtysh River, Aral Sea, and Mekong River basin. Previous scholarly work on the hydro-politics of these three cases within social science disciplines, especially political science and international relations, focuses heavily on the dimension of "hegemonic power disparity between state actors" (from the weaker parties' points of view) and/or the "economic or strategic benefits of development either defending or criticizing" (from the more powerful—often the polluters'—point of view). To contribute to existing research, this paper intends to enlarge the analytical scope and use the formation of regional environmental governance to grasp a broader picture of the complexity and interconnectivity of ecological issues, regional history, and politics. For analysis, we investigated the multilevel gaps in environmental communication at three different levels, exploring both the conflictual and cooperative relationships amongst all actors involved, namely (a) state-to-state relations: hydro-hegemonism due to the power disparity in historical and political contexts; (b) society level: authoritarian environmentalism between politics and citizens; and (c) global inter-connectivity or distance from (or the absence of) the application of international norms. We argue that all three cases, albeit at various degrees, equally exhibit the potential to fill the multidimensional gaps to ensure more functional, effective, and equitable regional hydro-governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the most remarkable events in the world during the last half-century has been the notable economic growth, social transformation and poverty reduction that has taken place in Asia. The March 2002 issue of the 'Journal of Asian & African Studies,' contains nine papers, authored by economists, sociologists and anthropologists, covering five countries in the region including India, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. These papers suggest that rather than making land reform the centerpiece of the strategy for rural development and poverty reduction, the government should give priority to investments in physical and social infrastructures, agricultural research and technology transfer and enforcement of contractual arrangements and property rights. The paper by Saurabh Sinha, Michael Lipton and Shahin Yaqub is closely related to the Baulch and McCulloch paper in that it also is concerned with transitory changes in household welfare.

The article discusses the pattern of the upper level of the world city network of knowledge as published in a series of earlier papers. The authors' aim is to update the findings and relate to the general world city discussion. The article addresses how the structure of the world cities of knowledge network has changed since 2000 in favour of south-east Asian and south European cities. The authors use bibliometric data on the world's 100 largest cities measured in terms of research output. The article also discusses the concept of world cities as an understanding that many cities are global service centres.

This paper investigates the nonlinear relationship between tourism and economic growth using a balanced sample of 58 countries in three continental samples (Africa, Asia, and Latin America) for the 2003–2017 period. First, we document an asymmetric threshold effect of tourism on economic growth. By utilizing an endogenous threshold regression model, we show that a single tourism threshold cutoff exists and that tourism receipts influence growth only till the threshold cutoff point in all three continental samples; however, this influence is nonexistent past the threshold point. Second, a quantile effect decomposition shows separate marginal effects for the tourism and economic growth relationship across the growth distribution. By using an unconditional quantile regression approach, we show that compared to their regional cohorts, slow- and medium-growth African countries, slow-growth Asian countries, and medium-growth Latin American countries exhibit substantially higher economic growth benefits from tourism. We explain these empirical observations and discuss their policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Source separation plays a pivotal role in sustainable and integrated Municipal Solid Waste Management (MSWM) and in achieving a circular economy in Asia. However, it is still not an official practice, and many cities continue to utilise open dumping, involving receiving mixed waste without pre-treatment. This paper, therefore, examines the advantages of source separation of MSW and explores the main factors for success in the planning and implementation of official source separation programmes in cities in Asia. Analysis of the results for two case studies in India and Japan could be used to strengthen capacities of policymakers in designing and implementing official source separation systems to facilitate material recovery and achieve sustainable development in Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the issues on the restrained revolution of the newspaper industry in Asia. Press Foundation of Asia director Amitabha Chowdhury says that Asian newspaper is unable to maximize its revolution as it lack some powerful catalysts including lower newspaper price, market identification, and media design. It states that despite having press freedom, some constitutions in Asia are being suspended for emergency conditions; thus, shows press freedom to be on the hands of the government. It adds that the industry also faces economic problems such as finance for newsprint, modern equipment, and their own plants and the purchasing power of customers. It explores the conditions of newspaper industries in various Asian countries including Burma, Ceylon, and Philippines.

Schools provide an ideal setting for early, accessible intervention according to research conducted in developed countries for adolescents experiencing adverse mental health (MH). Many schools in South Asia, however, lack structured and standardized school counselling services. Research indicates that where services do exist, students are reluctant to access them due to perceived high risks and low benefits in MH help seeking. This paper explores the challenges experienced in MH provision from the perspective of school counsellors. A qualitative approach was chosen, and three main themes emerged from the data using the thematic analysis: negative perceptions of MH and counselling, the unwillingness to invest in MH services, and the challenges inherent in the system itself. The findings reveal cultural implications behind these challenges and suggest grassroots level initiatives that can be implemented within schools to reduce the barriers to service provision without the need for legislative changes at a national level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigrants have created better living standards by emigrating, and they also contribute to their homeland in one of two ways: by visiting as tourists or by sending remittances back home. In this paper, we examine the nexus between these two crucial channels: remittance inflows and emigrants' visits home. We model the emigrants' visits back home and show that remittances inflows per emigrant have a strong impact on emigrants' visits home. However, the relationship is mixed among different regions. For emigrants from Africa and Latin America and Asia, the remittances have a negative impact on home visits, indicating that emigrants send more money and skip visiting their homes subsequently. For emigrants from MENA, there is a significant positive impact of the remittance inflows on home visits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020 created dangerous public health conditions which pressured governments and health systems to respond in a rapid and effective manner. However, this type of rapid response required many governments to bypass standing; bureaucratic structures of health sector administration and political governance to quickly take; essential measures against a rapidly evolving public health threat. Each government's particular; configuration of governmental and health system decision-making created specific structural and functional challenges to these necessary centrally developed and coordinated strategies. Most East Asian governments (except Japan) succeeded relatively quickly in centralizing essential disease control and treatment initiatives in a timely manner. In contrast, a number of European countries, especially those with predominantly tax-based financing and politically managed health delivery systems, had greater difficulty in escaping bureaucratic governance and management constraints. Drawing on data about these governments' early stage COVID-19 control experiences, this article suggests that structural changes will be necessary if low-performing governments are to better respond to a pandemic. This paper also summarizes other relatively successful strategies. By adopting such strategies, nations can help overcome structural bureaucratic and administrative obstacles in responding to further waves of COVID-19 or similar future pandemic events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the relentless logic of commodification has served to undermine a key element of the social cement of contemporary capitalism: home ownership. In addressing this issue, the paper explores the development of the post war ‘social project’ of home ownership with particular reference to mature home ownership societies such as the USA, Japan, Britain and Australia. The paper then outlines the new fault lines and fractures which have emerged in post-crisis home ownership systems and the way in which a more vigorous, financialised private landlordism has emerged from the debris of the subprime meltdown. A key argument is that in a new and more intensified process of housing commodification, the social project promise of home ownership for a previous generation has shifted to a promise of private landlordism for current generations. In summary, the social project of Keynesian-embedded liberalism has been undermined by the economic project of neoliberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Paddy is an essential nutrient worldwide. Rice gives 21% of worldwide human per capita energy and 15% of per capita protein. Asia represented 60% of the worldwide populace, about 92% of the world's rice creation, and 90% of worldwide rice utilization. With the increase in population, the demand for rice is increased. So, the productivity of farming is needed to be enhanced by introducing new technology. Deep learning and IoT are hot topics for research in various fields. This paper suggested a setup comprising deep learning and IoT for monitoring of paddy field remotely. The vgg16 pre-trained network is considered for the identification of paddy leaf diseases and nitrogen status estimation. Here, two strategies are carried out to identify images: transfer learning and deep feature extraction. The deep feature extraction approach is combined with a support vector machine (SVM) to classify images. The transfer learning approach of vgg16 for identifying four types of leaf diseases and prediction of nitrogen status results in 79.86% and 84.88% accuracy. Again, the deep features of Vgg16 and SVM results for identifying four types of leaf diseases and prediction of nitrogen status have achieved an accuracy of 97.31% and 99.02%, respectively. Besides, a framework is suggested for monitoring of paddy field remotely based on IoT and deep learning. The suggested prototype's superiority is that it controls temperature and humidity like the state-of-the-art and can monitor the additional two aspects, such as detecting nitrogen status and diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the population transition model for Vietnam, based on Grover's five stages of population transition. Compatible with the transitional model of Western Europe and other advanced Asian countries, this process in Vietnam has some significant differences: (a) the initial shift or transition of fertility of the population in Vietnam is later than in Asian countries by about 13 years while compared to Europe it is nearly 108 years later; and (b) while the period of initial transition of mortality in Vietnam may not be very different from other Asian countries, it is more than 100 years later than in European countries, especially those in Western Europe. One of the main factors influencing the late transition of Vietnam's population process is, of course, colonialism and the consecutive wars (1945–1954 and 1955–1975). After 1975, Vietnam's population was stable as industrialisation and urbanisation led to the development of health services, education and an urban lifestyle, as well as effective population policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the Asian Coalition for Community Action (ACCA) programme that was initiated by the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR) in 2009. ACCA seeks to catalyze and support community initiatives, citywide upgrading and partnerships between community organizations and local governments. By January 2012, it had helped fund initiatives in 708 settlements in 153 cities in 19 different Asian nations. In each city, small grants support community-led initiatives that encourage citywide networks to form, where members share skills with each other and learn to negotiate with their local governments. Further support was available as local governments engaged and then came to support this process, including the formation of jointly managed community development funds. The paper also describes how the design of ACCA drew on earlier work, and ends with a reflection on what has been learnt with regard to more effective ways of reducing urban poverty. This explores the two underlying dimensions: first, the creation of institutions based on relations of reciprocity; and second, the strengthening of relations between low-income community organizations such that they can create a synergy with the state. One key lesson is the need for financial systems that allow the urban poor to be the key agents in addressing their problems and in bringing in city governments to work with them. This collaboration can lead to the urban poor being recognized as legitimate and highly productive residents and citizens of the city. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper describes people’s process, community networks and platforms of work between communities and professionals in Asia; also how these networks, which have reduced the isolation of low-income and disadvantaged communities, have built their confidence, produced finance to support their priorities, legitimized and capacitated their organizations and catalyzed effective action. Networked and informed community groups are increasingly able to lead development processes and work together with government agencies, politicians and other stakeholders, from academics to NGOs. By being unified through a common group or association, community members gain strength in numbers and shared financial capital, opening up many more opportunities than if they worked individually. By giving examples of national networks of the urban poor in Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Mongolia and elsewhere, this paper seeks to demonstrate the value of networks in supporting a people’s process of development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper suggests that what may appear to be insoluble problems of urban poverty and exclusion in Asian cities can be solved; and that the greatest force to do this already exists, in rough form, in the people who experience that poverty and exclusion themselves and have the greatest motivation to change it. It notes how most government programmes and formal development interventions ignore this force or seek to suppress it, so it remains a potential, not an actual, force for change. The paper describes how the Asian Coalition for Community Action (ACCA) programme, using a few simple tools and conditions and a modest, flexible budget, is trying to unlock that force at scale, opening up new space, new collaborations and new possibilities that are beginning to resolve these problems. The paper describes several of the tools and conditions that are part of the ACCA intervention – the support for collective processes, partnerships, finance and land tenure; for many initiatives on the ground; for moving to work at city scale; for communities prioritizing what gets support; and for building a platform for negotiation and partnership in each city. These are helping people to solve their problems and pave their own literal and metaphorical pathways to freedom, and to legitimate and valued citizenship in their cities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper describes how the Asian Coalition for Community Action (ACCA) programme seeks to use finance to augment community-driven development processes in 19 nations and enable their scaling up to the city and national levels. The lack of accessible and flexible finance is a key stumbling block for the majority of community development processes in Asia. The paper begins by examining how this programme approaches the issue of finance in the wider context of community-driven upgrading, and elaborates the role that community networks can play in encouraging collective activities. It then explains how community finance leads to the establishment of community development funds (CDFs), financial platforms made up of contributions from different sources, including community savings, ACCA seed funds and contributions from local/national government or other actors. These both encourage collaboration and increase the scale of what can be done. The paper gives examples of how CDFs can operate at different levels: locally, between groups of communities with shared problems and goals; on a citywide scale (107 citywide funds are now in operation); or at a national level, as in the Philippines, Cambodia and Sri Lanka. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the comparative research we present here as the introduction to a set of case studies, we first assess the quality of democratic procedures, content and outcomes in eight countries in the Asia-Pacific region on the basis of quantitative and qualitative data. Second, we investigate whether, to what extent, and how democratic qualities relate to one another. These investigations are carried out by applying an analytical framework that we developed elsewhere. In contrast to our previous empirical findings demonstrating that all the qualities go hand in hand, that participation and competition are the main determinants of democratic qualities, and that the democratic qualities form a funnel of causality, the present study suggests a different set of conclusions. In the Asia-Pacific region, the democratic qualities are weakly related to one another, do not form a funnel of causality, and participation and competition are not the main drivers of democratic quality. The data presented in the empirical section of the paper claim the existence of an Asia-Pacific exceptionalism. By carefully examining the cases included in our sample, we provide a detailed explanation for why, at least as far as democratic qualities are concerned, the Asia-Pacific region may be exceptional and unique. We reach the conclusion that responsiveness could be achieved by a transition from a rule by law – often coupled with the prominence of patronage, patrimonialist practices and privileges for the elite – to a proper rule of law. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper focuses on recent developments in ‘ideal-typical’ welfare analysis, including findings on East Asia, Eastern Central Europe and, for the first time, Latin America. The characteristics of a new ideal-typical welfare regime in large parts of Latin America are singled out, looking at key features of major welfare state systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper considers how to make pro-poor climate change adaptation more effective in the city of Chittagong. Drawing on discussions with residents in informal settlements and interviews with staff from government agencies, NGOs and donors, it shows the lack of connection between the formal institutional structure for disaster preparedness and the groups most at risk from extreme weather disasters and their community level actions. There is no clear definition of roles among local government agencies with regard to climate change adaptation. Although there is a donor-funded programme to reduce poverty and disaster risks, this is not being implemented in the settlements most at risk from landslides. Neither are there any measures underway to address the needs of the residents in these high risk settlements, in part because of the financial weakness of local government. Nor is there much support for this from national government – since national climate change adaptation policy does not consider urban adaptation and strengthening urban government capacity to reduce the vulnerability of the extreme poor as a priority. NGOs undertake programmes for community-based disaster risk reduction but their scale and scope are limited by not being integrated into local government. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The amount of e-waste is growing rapidly in developing countries, and the health and environmental problems resulting from poor management of this waste have become a concern for policy makers. In response to these challenges, a number of Asian developing countries have been inspired by policy developments in OECD countries, and have drafted legislations based on the principle of extended producer responsibility (EPR). However, the experiences from developed countries show that a successful implementation of EPR policies requires adequate institutions and sufficient administrative capacity. Even advanced countries are thus facing difficulties. This paper concludes from existing literature and from the authors’ own observations that there seems to be a mismatch between the typical policy responses to e-waste problems in developing Asia and the capacity for successful implementation of such policies. It also notes that the e-waste situation in developing Asian countries is further complicated by a number of additional factors, such as difficulties in identifying producers, import of used electronic products and e-waste (sometimes illegal), and the existence of a strong informal waste sector. Given these challenges, the authors conclude that comprehensive EPR policy schemes of the kind that have been implemented in some advanced countries are not likely to be effective. The paper therefore proposes an alternative phase-in approach whereby developing Asian countries are able to move gradually towards EPR systems. It argues that this approach would be more feasible, and discusses what could be the key building blocks of each implementation stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The findings of recent studies into relocation by German companies are puzzling: companies relocate because they are willing to cut costs, but entrepreneurs and managers seem to have failed to predict further and sometimes fatal costs associated with relocation. This paper sheds light on why relocation has become a general trend among German companies, despite those inefficiencies and costs. It points to the role of the discourse in creating the myth of relocation as a strategy to reduce costs. Discourse can in fact help to diffuse ideas independently of their empirical truth and give voice to influential actors who are able to induce isomorphic processes. In order to give an account of why companies' decisions to relocate have become so popular in Germany, regardless of their economic soundness, the paper draws on an analysis of German newspapers and business press that were published between January 1990 and July 2005. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses ecological issues concerning urban development. It addresses the conflicts associated with the achievement of less ecologically damaging patterns of urban development. Observations on progress of water and sanitation in urban areas in Asia and Africa are presented. The factors behind city growth are also cited.

It is widely recognised that the 21st century is seeing a geopolitical shift in global power relations towards Asia, particularly China. This has led Australia to officially embrace Asia as its regional home. But the neoliberal economic logic underpinning this embrace leads to a narrowly transactional conception of Australia’s relationship to Asia, governed by an opportunity/threat dichotomy. By contrast, this article describes Sydney’s Chinatown today as an increasingly hybrid, porous and transnational space of uneven and mixed-up, embodied Asian-Australianness. Juxtaposing the dynamic on-the-ground reality of this contemporary Chinatown with government discourse on Australia’s relationship to Asia, as exemplified by the 2012 White Paper Australia in the Asian Century, illuminates that Australia is not yet at home in Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plastic waste circularity is a priority at a global level. Sustainable development goals (SDGs) set the ways to go, and the circular economy principles underlined the 'green' strategies to be employed. However, in practice, there is still much to do, especially in developing countries, where open burning and open dumping still represent the common way of plastic waste disposal. This review aims to analyse current plastic waste circular approaches in low-middle income settings. Seven countries were selected based on the economic level and data availability from the authors, and analysed to collect and critically discuss the actions implemented at a city level. Examples of waste minimization and recycling strategies, selective collection systems and public campaigns are reported from Africa, Asia and Latin America. First, a background analysis related to physical and governance aspects of municipal solid waste management systems of the chosen settings was conducted. The assessment was focused on the treatment processes or minimization actions. Then, the applicability of the projects to achieve the SDGs was commented on. The outcomes of the research underline the need to: (1) scale up small-scale and pilot projects, (2) disseminate good practices in more low- to middle-income settings, (3) create synergies among international partners for further replications in cities. Urgent solutions to plastic waste pollution are needed. The review presented practical actions to be implemented now to boost plastic waste circularity in developing cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between urbanization and development is a vital policy concern, especially in Africa and Asia. This paper reviews the arguments and evidence for whether rapid urban population growth can help to raise living standards. The main finding is that the development effects of urbanization and the magnitude of agglomeration economies are very variable. There is no simple linear relationship between urbanization and economic growth, or between city size and productivity. The potential of urbanization to promote growth is likely to depend on how conducive the infrastructure and institutional settings are. Removing barriers to rural–urban mobility may enable economic growth, but the benefits will be much larger with supportive policies, markets and infrastructure investments. Cities should use realistic population projections as the basis for investing in public infrastructure and implementing supportive land policies. Governments should seek out ways of enabling forms of urbanization that contribute to growth, poverty reduction and environmental sustainability, rather than encouraging (or discouraging) urbanization per se. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper develops a conceptual framework for increasing understanding of how teachers can contribute to a sustainable bullying-free learning environment in schools. Based on a review and analysis of extant literature, the paper argues for the facilitating roles of mindful social emotional learning implementation and teacher–student relationship quality in building and sustaining a bullying-free learning environment, which can impact the victim of a bullying act, the bully and their peers. The analysis leads to the research and practical implications that conclude the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents an analysis of the growth and diversification of international involvement in urban planning and development in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Over the past decade, a multiplicity of mainly intra-Asian connections have emerged alongside the continued involvement of Western donor aid. The paper shows how various forms of international finance capital, development capital and local capital vie for influence amongst a loose assemblage of alliances and conflicts linking elements of the Cambodian government, international donors and Cambodian and intra-Asian private-sector actors. The paper highlights the on-going efforts of government–private-sector alliances to ‘world’ Phnom Penh and to assert a greater claim to its significance in the world. These desires are seen to have overridden plans produced in partnership with the development sector. Attention is drawn to the intra-Asian mobilities through which these processes operate and which, in doing so, contribute to the on-going unsettling of existing geographies of urban knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An introduction is presented which discusses the articles within the issue on topics including urban renewal, urban planning and urban growth throughout Asia.

This paper examines how growing conservatism among Muslims in Malaysia has been manifested in the architecture and urban design of Putrajaya, Malaysia’s new capital. Rather than drawing on vernacular design traditions or developing a design idiom that recognises a religiously and ethnically diverse population, the state has recently adopted a fantasy Middle Eastern style for secular national buildings in Putrajaya. In this paper, recent architectural change is examined as a manifestation of social, political and religious trends as well as a demonstration of how Putrajaya’s design can reinforce existing social hierarchies and legitimise the ideological agenda of the state. It is suggested that there are various reasons for the adoption of ‘High Islam’ that relate to broader transnational religious change, Malaysian identity politics and nation-building, and lingering influences of the colonial occupation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines three controversies that revolve around the Hong Kong government's efforts to privatise components of its property assets in the years following the Asian financial crisis in 1997. While the rolling back of welfare and privatisation of public goods are typical features of the 'neo-liberal turn', the consequences of and responses to these processes are highly contingent upon specific historical experience and social practices. By examining the narratives of different actors over the course of these controversies, this paper aims to elucidate the contradictions and mutual entanglements between the ideology of neo-liberalism and everyday discourse and how the contestation in each of the three cases worked to reshape and ultimately to preserve the existing regime of legitimation. It also illustrates how the long-running 'laissez-faire' principles of Hong Kong's colonial period have contributed to the ongoing absorption of political critique, thus exposing the limits of 'people power'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increasingly significant role that English language teaching (ELT) is playing in Asian contexts, it is important to gain a better understanding of the use of English as a medium of intercultural communication in Asia. In doing so, ELT practices may be better able to adapt themselves to the intercultural communicative needs of local contexts. This paper argues that an essential element in fostering successful intercultural communication is developing cultural awareness as part of ELT pedagogy. To illustrate this, a case study of Thailand is presented examining English use, English teaching policy and practice, and local cultural attitudes towards ELT. This then leads to suggestions on how locally relevant intercultural communicative practices can form part of ELT classroom pedagogy in Thailand with the aim of developing learners' cultural awareness. It is argued that similar analyses may be applied to other Asian contexts, which may share features with the Thai context. This can lead to the development of teaching practices, which through engaging learners in intercultural reflection will result in English language users who are better able to manage intercultural communication through English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to comprehensively analyze the literature focused on frequency of the presence of the accessory renal arteries in the human body. A systematic analysis of papers has been made. With regard to ethnicity, the incidence of accessory renal arteries fluctuates from 4% in a Malaysian population to 61.5% in a Brazilian population. The frequency is lowest in eastern and southern Asia (from 4% to 18.4%). In some, not ethnically homogenous populations, wide span of occurrence of accessory renal arteries is described (e.g. American - averaging from 18% to 28.8%). A higher frequency of accessory renal arteries was observed in fetuses compared to adults. Moreover, differences in the presence and number of accessory renal arteries reported in different papers are a consequence of type of visualizing technique used in research - especially when computed tomography and anatomical dissection were compared. The increasing number of surgical interventions, especially where laparoscopic methods are concerned, underlines the importance of such knowledge especially to surgeons, interventional radiologists, nephrologists, and vascular surgeons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Special Issue takes on a new cross-regional comparison between Southern Europe and East Asia in an attempt to identify ‘new politics’ of welfare state adjustments. Departing from the previous literature that overemphasized regional peculiarities of East Asian and Southern European welfare states, our Special Issue highlights family resemblances – among Italy, Japan, Korea and Spain. We argue that these four welfare states – often labelled as ‘familialist’ – share key common characteristics, which in turn experienced very similar policy problems in recent years. Interestingly, despite their initial similarities, these four countries have been trying to cope with new policy problems in different ways. In this process, some are clearly becoming less familialist. The main aim of this introductory article is to demonstrate the theoretical advantages based on the new cross-regional comparison. This article proceeds in three steps. First, it establishes the usefulness of the concept of family resemblances in our cross-regional comparison. Second, it presents a brief historical account of recent policy differences across the four countries going beyond familialism and shows that the existing theories fail to account for the new divergences. Third, it provides the overview of the Special Issue by explaining the research puzzles each paper tackles. We argue that these four welfare states, which are moving beyond familialism to varying degrees, represent heuristically helpful cases to explore the effects of both domestic and international political factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the context of foreign news in the U.S. and in Asian countries. It says that there are many complaints in the influences of the media in the third world countries, in which cultural imperialism and one-way traffic are attached to the flow of information. It mentions that foreign media content's usage is expected to a cause an extinction of cultural traditions. It states that the U.S. succeeded in obtaining the position as the birthplace of the mass communications research. It adds that the amount of Asian newspapers' foreign coverage is based partly on the ties between the individual nation and the superpowers.

This paper provides another look at the response of the Asian summer monsoon (ASM) to insolation forcing and oceanic feedback during the Holocene, using a fully coupled general circulation ocean–atmosphere model forced by Earth’s orbital variations. The model results revealed a recurrent circumglobal teleconnection (CGT) pattern in the summertime (June–July–August) mid-latitude circulation of the Northern Hemisphere during the Holocene. The CGT index showed a decreasing trend before ~5 ka BP and a slight increasing trend afterwards, affected by the combined effects of summer insolation, Indian summer monsoon (ISM), North Atlantic and Indian Ocean–western Pacific Ocean sea surface temperature (SST). The CGT showed a close relationship with ASM precipitation and surface air temperature during the Holocene and, therefore, could act as a bridge linking the ASM to insolation, high-latitude forcing (North Atlantic SST), and low-latitude forcing (tropical Ocean SST). We emphasize that the mid-latitude atmospheric circulation has been a key factor for the evolution of the ASM during the Holocene. In addition, the CGT provides a viable explanation for the out-of-phase relationship in the moisture evolution but an in-phase relationship in the speleothem δ18O between arid central Asia and the ISM region during the Holocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifying and explaining changes in the prehistoric material and social world is one of the greatest research interests in archaeology, palaeoclimate and environmental science. In the last two decades or so, a considerable number of studies have made significant contributions to the associated disciplines in eastern Asian archaeology. However, due to the more specialised scientific approaches and the rapid accumulation of new excavation materials, it becomes increasingly difficult for scholars to examine and correlate research outputs from different areas and achieve a holistic picture of the past. Using eastern Asian archaeology as an example, this Special Issue aims to break down the disciplinary boundaries and present the current research debate on how to correlate different climate, environmental and social changes and explain human past. One of the fundamental issues is the lack of adequate chronological resolution to order various archaeological events. To tackle this, a large number of radiocarbon dates, primarily derived from short- lived materials, are provided in the Special Issue. A great variety of changes in local environment, agricultural practice, animal husbandry, technologies, migration, demography and social organisations are revealed in the following papers but there are two profound drivers to all of these changes. One is the broad climate change since the start of the Holocene and the other is the communication between the West and the East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the reform trajectory of financial supervision in South Korea after the 1980s, focusing on external and internal political–economic factors. Research results indicate that the changed economic landscape led the government, which once utilized financial supervision as a tool to support industrial policy, to alter its aims and pursue the development of the financial market itself. During this transformational process, the 1997 Asian financial crisis functioned as a powerful stimulus for the reform of the previous supervisory system. The process was also marked by social actors’ efforts to affect related policies and the government’s efforts to control the reform process, as well as confrontations between organizations that supported contradictory reform plans. A multi-strategy approach including in-depth interviews with a senior staff member from a government financial regulatory agency, literature reviews, and secondary data collection, was adopted in order to enhance the validity and reliability of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Climate change is putting low-lying coastal zones at increased risk, through higher sea levels and changes in the weather. Deltas are subsiding, compounding such risks. Confirming past research, we find roughly 10 per cent of the world's population and an even higher share of its urban population are located in coastal areas under 10 metres in elevation (LECZ10), with Asia dominating these statistics. However, according to our estimates for 2015, the deltaic LECZ10 is 2.6 times as densely populated and 1.7 times as built-up as the non-deltaic LECZ10. The deltaic LECZ10 accounts for only 0.35 per cent of the world's land, but over 10 times the population share (279 million people). Population and built-up area growth rates remain higher in the deltaic LECZ10, and especially its cities. Indeed, for 1990–2015 the urbanization rate of the deltaic LECZ10 is double that in the non-deltaic LECZ10. Given the path dependency of urbanization, this risks locking in maladaptive settlement patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers how resilience thinking and, in particular, its emphasis on learning has been applied in 10 cities in Vietnam, India, Thailand and Indonesia. Applying a “shared learning” approach in the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) has helped to create or strengthen networks, build appreciation for complexity and uncertainty among stakeholders, provide a space for deliberating concepts such as vulnerability and resilience, and build knowledge and capacities for stakeholders to engage and represent their own interests. Shared learning approaches face considerable challenges navigating politicized urban environments, in which the nature and value of existing systems − and therefore the value of building resilience − are contested. This article suggests that deliberate, strategic intervention by facilitators may contribute to more transformative change on behalf of equitable, socially just outcomes – and thus cautions against seeing urban climate vulnerability as a technical challenge, or shared learning as a “toolkit” for building resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recent years have seen increased academic attention in urban studies on the flows of city artefacts and images. Conceptualised as ‘immutable mobiles’, the Macao Pavilion and its associated objects on show at Shanghai Expo 2010 are examined for the ways they encouraged and regulated uniformed flows of people and city images. Specifically, these immutable mobiles projected Macao’s lofty dreams of paradoxical affinity to and difference from mainland China—the city is a steadfast Special Administrative Region of China, but the immigration flow of Chinese citizens has been tightly regulated. This paper unpacks the ways in which urban actants articulate and perform such contradictory imaginings of the (im)mobilities of this post-colonial territory. Accordingly, it provides a basis for further study of post-colonial conditions in Macao, and adds to post-colonial research on mobilities in and of Chinese urban spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Aiwha Ong and Nancy Chen’s anthology Asian Biotech (Duke, 2010) wonderfully and incisively captures the initial results of a period of intense investment throughout much of Northeast, South and Southeast Asia in the most recent two to three decades in the emerging biosciences, grouping its collection of papers according to broad thematic clusters. Documenting a series of diverse, changing practices with respect to the use of bodies and human tissues in clinical trials, the related establishment of blood and tissue storage facilities, and even cutting-edge efforts to work with HESC technologies, the volume offers a comprehensive view of a rapidly emerging field in a part of the world that has only recently begun to appear as a major contributor to global techno-scientific activity, with state actors frequently leading the mobilization efforts. Juxtaposed against this thematic content, this review seeks to place the volume in conversation with a longer history, especially existing work in the history of the life sciences, which has until now been dominated by accounts of laboratories primarily based in the West. Rich with implications for a changing ethical practice driven by material changes in medical and scientific practice, Asian Biotech initiates any number of debates to open up a new field of inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In many land-scarce Asian cities, planning agencies have sought to reduce space for the dead to release land for the living, encouraging conversion from burial to cremation over several decades. This has caused secular principles privileging efficient land use to conflict with symbolic values invested in burial spaces. Over time, not only has cremation become more accepted, even columbaria have become overcrowded, and new forms of burials (sea and woodland burials) have emerged. As burial methods change, so too do commemorative rituals, including new on-line and mobile phone rituals. This paper traces the ways in which physical spaces for the dead in several east Asian cities have diminished and changed over time, the growth of virtual space for them, the accompanying discourses that influence these dynamics and the new rituals that emerge concomitantly with the contraction of land space. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objective. The aim of this paper is to assess the effects of premenstrual symptoms on quality of life as measured by the impact symptoms have on women's activities of daily life (ADL). Study design. Cross-sectional survey. Population-based, face-to-face interview with 1202 women aged 15-49 years recruited by random sampling in cities of Hong Kong, Pakistan and Thailand. Main outcome measures. Checklist of 23 premenstrual symptoms, sociodemographic and lifestyle variables, ADL: overall impact of premenstrual symptoms on ADL and impact on each of six ADL areas. Regression analysis measured the impact of premenstrual symptoms and sociodemographic factors on ADL. Results. Premenstrual physical and mental symptom domains had similar negative effects on ADL. Seventy-four percent of women were not affected or minimally affected in ADL, 17% had a clinically significant effect on ADL and 9% were severely affected in ADL. ADL were predominantly affected by premenstrual symptom severity. Oral contraceptive pill users and women living in Pakistan reported less impact on ADL, while married women report more impact of symptoms on ADL. Conclusions. The severity of premenstrual symptoms was found to have a significant impact on ADLs with the type of activity affected, reflecting how women predominantly spend their time in the different cultures studied [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. This paper aims to explore women's experiences of premenstrual symptoms in three Asian countries and the factors affecting the prevalence of these symptoms. Study design. Cross-sectional survey. A sample of 1202 women aged 15-49 years were recruited by random sampling in Hong Kong, Pakistan and Thailand. Main outcome measures. The interviewer used a questionnaire with a checklist of 23 premenstrual symptoms, sociodemographic and lifestyle variables. Results. The most prevalent symptoms were joint, muscle and back pain, cramps, abdominal pain and breast tenderness. The severity of symptoms was directly proportional to duration (months affected) (R = 0.85). Significant effects on symptom duration, severity, index of age (linear and quadratic effects), educational level and parity were found by multiple regression. There were also differences between countries for certain symptoms. Conclusions. Physical symptoms are an important component of premenstrual syndromes. These have been shown to be psychobiological in nature. Further analysis will examine the impact on the quality of life and the relationship with existing classificatory systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People today live within the context of a globalized world with people of many cultures and religions living together. This intermixing of peoples, cultures, societies and religions creates the opportunity for different religions and thoughts to combine into new perspectives and develop a more relevant Christianity. The basic tenets of Asian culture, religion and thought can instruct and develop theology so that theology can remain relevant to our modern world. In particular, the Asian understanding of Chi can nurture a stronger theological perspective of the Holy Spirit. This paper will examine Chi and illustrate the similarities it shares with the Holy Spirit to work towards a pneumatology which will encourage people to live harmoniously and peacefully with one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Most studies agree that mental illness brings a heavy objective and subjective burden of care on the family and especially the caregivers. However, very little attention has been paid to the wider context in which this burden is shaped and sustained. Material: In-depth interviews were conducted with 11 caregivers in Hong Kong and Taiwan and subsequent analysis identified four major themes: mystical knowledge beyond understanding, persistent self-blame and lay explanation, inertia of caregivers and non-responsive service system, and unsatisfying encounters with medical staff. Discussion: The results of the study indicate that these families did not get the services they needed. In spite of recounting many system failures, most respondents attributed their situation to tragedy and misfortune at personal and family levels. Such a discourse is closely connected to a wider context of health and social care. The Hong Kong subjects complained more, felt more helpless, and had more persistent self-blame and lay explanation than the Taiwanese subjects. Conclusions: To reduce such experiences, this paper calls for inclusive policies for the family, new education strategies and reflections on the roles of mental health professionals in empowerment and advocacy beyond conventional treatment, counseling and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]