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This study investigated the places of origin of international students and their distribution in the United States higher education. The data concerning the population of international students were obtained from the official website of International Institution of Education (IIE), and transferred into three maps using geographic information systems (GIS) software so that a more direct view of the data was available. The results of the study showed that (1) A larger proportion of international students come from Asian countries; (2) California, New York, and Texas are the top three states hosting international students; (3) most of the universities enrolling international students are located in the eastern part of the country; and (4) the states with already large international student populations experienced a faster growth in the population of international students over the past five years. Some implications for policy planning are discussed at the end of this paper.

The term "Asian values" became popular in the political discourse in the 1980s and 1990s. The most vocal proponents of Asian values are Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew and Malaysia's Mahathir and their deputies and government officials, as well as post-Tiananmen Chinese leaders. Most notable of all these three strands of the Asian values debate is the "Singapore School", which "comprises leaders who have articulated a defence of the Singapore regime, either in their personal or official capacities". This article discusses the origins and philosophical underpinnings of "Asian values" in the Singapore context and its relationship to civics education. First, it provides the historical context for the interest in Confucianism and Asian Values. It then looks at the role and use of Confucianism and Asian Values in Asia, before discussing the case of Singapore and Asian values. I explore the interconnections between changes in history, civics and social studies curricula, and the politics of the "Asian Values" discourse in Singapore which underpins these curricula. At the heart of the issue was the state's attempt to forge and articulate a Singaporean identity, and the role of citizenship/moral education in attaining this elusive nation building goal. (Contains 19 notes.)

Mycoheterotrophic plants can derive carbon from fungi rather than from photosynthesis. Habitat destruction and sensitivity to environmental perturbation may result in the loss of biodiversity including genetic variation of mycoheterotrophic plants. Burmannia nepalensis (Miers) Hook.f. (Burmanniaceae) is a mycoheterotrophic plant with a wide distribution across southern China and southern and eastern Asia. As part of our endeavor to reveal population genetic patterns of mycoheterotrophic plants, fifteen microsatellite loci were developed by RAD (restriction site-associated DNA) sequencing in 89 individuals from four populations of B. nepalensis. A total of 49 alleles were amplified. The number of alleles per locus ranged from two to six with an average of 3.3. The observed and expected heterozygosity per population varied from 0.000 to 1.000 and from 0.000 to 0.722, respectively. A transferability test showed that only one to five loci could be cross-amplified successfully in four other congeneric species of Burmannia. These markers can be used to reveal population genetic diversity in B. nepalensis, and will help to elucidate the evolutionary history and to enhance efforts for conservation of mycoheterotrophic plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, Zika virus (ZIKV) has been recognized as a significant threat to global public health. The disease was present in large parts of the Americas, the Caribbean, and also the western Pacific area with southern Asia during 2015 and 2016. However, little is known about the factors affecting the transmission of ZIKV. We used Gradient Boosted Regression Tree models to investigate the effects of various potential explanatory variables on the spread of ZIKV, and used current with historical information from a range of sources to assess the risks of future ZIKV outbreaks. Our results indicated that the probability of ZIKV outbreaks increases with vapor pressure, the occurrence of Dengue virus, and population density but decreases as health expenditure, GDP, and numbers of travelers. The predictive results revealed the potential risk countries of ZIKV infection in the Asia-Pacific regions between October 2016 and January 2017. We believe that the high-risk conditions would continue in South Asia and Australia over this period. By integrating information on eco-environmental, social-economical, and ZIKV-related niche factors, this study estimated the probability for locally acquired mosquito-borne ZIKV infections in the Asia-Pacific region and improves the ability to forecast, and possibly even prevent, future outbreaks of ZIKV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The palatal organ is a filter-feeding related organ and occupies a considerable proportion of the head of bighead carp (Hypophthalmichthys nobilis), a large cyprinid fish intensive aquaculture in Asia. In this study, we performed RNA-seq of the palatal organ during growth periods of two (M2), six (M6) and 15 (M15) months of age after hatching. The numbers of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were 1384, 481 and 1837 for M2 VS M6, M6 VS M15 and M2 VS M15 respectively. The following signaling pathways of energy metabolism and cytoskeleton function were enriched, including ECM-receptor interaction, Cardiac muscle contraction, Steroid biosynthesis and PPAR signaling pathway. Several members of collagen family (col1a1 , col2a1 , col6a2 , col6a3 , col9a2), Laminin gamma 1 (lamc1), integrin alpha 1 (itga1), Fatty acid binding protein 2 (fads2) and lipoprotein lipase (lpl), and Protein tyrosine kinase 7 (Ptk7) are candidate genes for growth and development of basic tissues of the palatal organ. Furthermore, taste-related genes such as fgfrl1 , fgf8a , fsta and notch1a were also identified, which may be involved in the development of taste buds of the palatal organ. The transcriptome data obtained in this study provide insights into the understanding functions and development mechanisms of palatal organ, and potential candidate genes that may be related to the genetic modulation of head size of bighead carp. [Display omitted] • Palatal organ is highly developed in bighead carp. • Transcriptomes of three developmental stages of palatal organ were compared. • Enriched genes and pathways coincide with its physiological functions. • These genes may be informative for molecular breeding of head size of bighead carp. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global climate change and COVID-19 epidemic in recent years have made the recovery and sustainable development of marine tourism an important topic for coastal international and regional economic and social development. Under the theme of "Asia's Development: Shared Ocean Economy", experts, scholars and business representatives from Asian countries in the field of marine civilization construction and marine tourism economy engaged in fruitful discussions at the Asia Conference on Marine Tourism 2022, revolving around "The Construction and High-quality Development of Marine Tourism Destination". This provides theoretical support as well as practical reference for the innovative development of marine tourism in Asia, and results in a broad consensus of cooperation, dialogue and win-win situation. The conference launched The Ningbo Initiative for Asian Marine Tourism Development , which advocates sharing sustainable development of marine economy, promoting exchange and mutual understanding of marine civilization, promoting common development of marine tourism, and building a community of marine destiny together. Besides, there was the Ningbo marine tourism promotion session, which presented the results of industry development such as the display of marine tourism equipment and the promotion of marine tourism projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Serious air pollution motivates governments to take control measures. However, specific emission reduction effects of various temporary emission reduction policies are difficult to evaluate. During the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Beijing in 2014, the Chinese government implemented a number of emergency emission control measures in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area to maintain the air quality in this region. This gave us an opportunity to quantify the effectiveness of the emission reduction measures separately and identify the efficient policy combinations for the reduction of major pollutants. In this study, we evaluated the impacts of specific emission reduction measures on the concentrations of two major air pollutants (PM 2.5 and O 3 ) under eight policy scenarios using the Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem). Comparing these scenarios, we found that the control policies against the primary PM 2.5 emission achieved the most significant results. Meanwhile, all the emission control measures raised the ozone concentrations in different degrees, which might be partly attributed to the changes of PM 2.5 concentration and the ratio of NO x and VOCs caused by the emission control measures. Our results suggest that, in VOC-sensitive areas like Beijing, emergency control measures focusing on primary PM 2.5 emission could lead to significant PM 2.5 reduction and relatively small ozone increase, and should be considered as a priority policy. Joint emission control at the regional scale is also important especially under unfavorable meteorological conditions.

Background:  The aim of the web-based Joint Asia Diabetes Evaluation (JADE) program is to establish a registry for quality assurance, monitoring, and evaluation., Methods:  The JADE electronic portal provides templates for data collection, supplemented by risk stratification, care protocols, and decision support. Herein, data from 3687 patients with Type 2 diabetes, enrolled over 15 months in 2007-2009 from seven Asian countries, are reported., Results: Of the patients, 46.1% were men, the median (range) age was 58 (15-93 years), and median disease duration was 6.5 (0-71) years; 16.2% had at least one cardiovascular-renal complication (10.0% coronary heart disease, 3.3% stroke, 3.1% peripheral vascular disease, 0.4% end-stage renal disease), 20.4% had diabetic retinopathy, 15.0% had sensory neuropathy, 7.5% had chronic kidney disease, and 20.7% of men had erectile dysfunction. Hypertension, dyslipidemia, and central obesity affected 84.6%, 76.8%, and 53.5% of patients, respectively. Treatment targets were HbA1c <7% in 35.3%, blood pressure <130/80 mmHg in 32.3%, and low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol <2.6 mmol/L in 34.0%. The rate of attaining one, two, and three targets was 38.7%, 23.4%, and 5.4%, respectively. Using the JADE Risk Engine, 60% of patients with clinical complications and 20% of those with multiple risk parameters were predicted to have a major event within 5 years. Older age, short disease duration, adherence to diet, control of other risk factors, and not smoking were independently associated with HbA1c <7% (all P < 0.05)., Conclusions:  It is possible to use a web-based protocol to establish a registry for risk stratification and facilitate early intervention., (© 2011 Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine and Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.)

Aims: The Joint Asia Diabetes Evaluation (JADE) Program is the first web-based program incorporating a comprehensive risk engine, care protocols, clinical decision and self-management support to improve ambulatory diabetes care. The aim was to validate the risk stratification system of the JADE Program using a large prospective cohort., Methods: The JADE interactive risk engine stratifies patients into different risk levels using results from an annual comprehensive assessment of complications and risk factors. We used a prospective registry consisting of 7534 Type 2 diabetic patients [45.6% men, median (range) age 57 years (13-92)] to perform internal validation of the risk engine., Results: The JADE Risk Engine categorized patients into four risk levels (from low to high): level 1, n = 4520 (6%); level 2, n = 1468 (19.5%); level 3, n = 4476 (59.4%); and level 4, n = 1138 (15.1%). After a median follow-up period of 5.5 years (mean +/- sd 5.4 +/- 2.81 years), 763 (10.1%) died, 1129 (14.9%) developed cardiovascular disease (CVD), 282 (3.7%) developed end-stage renal disease and 1400 (18.6%) had at least one of these events. Compared with risk level 1, levels 2, 3 and 4 were associated with 2.8-, 4.7- and 8.6-fold increased risk of clinical end-points. Risk levels 3 and 4 were, respectively, associated with 2.2- and 3.9-fold increased risk for all-cause death and 4.8- and 12.1-fold increased CVD risks., Conclusion: Based on results from a comprehensive assessment, the JADE Risk Engine successfully categorizes patients into different risk levels to guide clinical management.