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Dragon fruit is one of the most popular fruits in Asia. The current manual picking cannot fully meet the requirement of large-scale production in recent years, due to the labor-intensive task. Alternatively, the automated picking of dragon fruit can be expected to greatly reduce labor intensity. Among them, the vision system can be one of the most important parts of the picking robot. The commonly-used recognition cannot consider the complex growth posture of dragon fruit. The hard branches and complex postures of dragon fruit can make it difficult to achieve automatic picking. It is a high demand to distinguish the dragon fruit with the different postures, and then guide the robotic arm to approach the fruit in an appropriate path. In this study, a multi-pose detection of dragon fruit was proposed for the automatic picking using optimal YOLOv7-tiny model. 1 281 images of dragon fruit were taken in the field, including 450, 535, and 296 images under strong, weak, and artificial light conditions. The image datasets were then divided into 1 036 images for training, 116 images for validation, and 129 images for testing, according to three light levels. Among them, the light conditions were the largest influencing factor on the detection performance. A series of experiments were conducted using the dataset. Firstly, the detection performance was compared with the seven models in the YOLOv7 series. The optimal models were given for the different devices, in terms of the number of model parameters and detection performance. Secondly, the detection performance of the YOLOv7 series models was compared with the other target detection models. Finally, the YOLOv7-tiny model was deployed into the mobile device. Specifically, the depth camera was combined with the robotic arm in the field picking. The results showed that the YOLOv7-e6e model in the YOLOv7 series presented the highest precision of 85.0%, while the YOLOv7x model was the highest recall of 85.4%, and the YOLOv7 model was the highest mean average precision (mAP) of 89.3%. The YOLOv7-tiny model shared the least parameters, weight files, layers, and inference time of 6 × 106, 12MB, 255, and 1.8ms, respectively. It infers that the improved model was the most suitable for mobile devices, due to the fast inference speed. The detection precision of YOLOv7-tiny was 83.6%, the recall was 79.9%, the mAP was 88.3%, and the accuracy rate of classification for the multi-pose dragon fruits was 80.4%. Furthermore, the precision of YOLOv7-tiny increased by 16.8, 4.3, and 4.8 percentage points, respectively, whereas, the mAP increased by 7.3, 21, and 3.9 percentage points, compared with the YOLOv3-tiny, YOLOv4-tiny, and YOLOX-tiny. The precision of YOLOv7-tiny increased by 7.3, 4.2, 7.3, 6.5, 3.5, and 3.9 percentage points, respectively, compared with the YOLOv5s, YOLOXs, YOLOv4G, YOLOv4M, YOLOv5x, and YOLOXx. In addition, the mAP of YOLOv7-tiny increased by 8.2, 5.8, 4.0, and 42.4 percentage points, respectively, compared with the EfficientDet, SSD, Faster-RCNN, and CenterNet, indicating the high level of detection accuracy of YOLOv7-tiny model. The picking system of dragon fruit was constructed to verify by some picking experiments using the trained YOLOv7-tiny model. The experiment results show that the inference time of the vision system only accounted for 22.6% of the whole picking action time. The picking success rate of dragon fruits in the front view was 90%, indicating the higher performance of automatic picking than before. The conclusion can also provide technical support for fruit picking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International trade is essential to bridge the imbalance between supply and demand of materials along with different nations effectively, especially for critical raw materials such as tungsten that are highly geographically unequally distributed. However, the international trade flows and their complex networks that link those participating nations have remained largely unexplored, which leads to inexplicable concerns for materials' criticality and their supply risks. By integrating the material flow analysis and the complex network analysis, this study traces the global trade flows of tungsten in various forms ranging from primary products to scrap among 223 countries and regions annually from 2000 to 2018 and explores the evolution of participating countries' role involved in international trade networks from both physical and monetary perspectives. We found that (1) there are ~2673 thousand metric tons of tungsten feeding into supply chains globally during the 19 years, and about 96% of tungsten resources are re-allocated from Asia to the high-income regions; (2) the highincome countries gain the potential benefits from both the resources and economic perspectives and they import 72% of tungsten resources in the form of primary and semi-products from developing countries, meanwhile earning 87% of global tungsten trade value by exporting tungsten metal products with high value-added back to those tungsten resources suppliers. Under the growing national interconnections of global tungsten trade networks, this study urges more cooperative actions and targeted supply chain management among the participating countries to secure the tungsten supply and sustainability of the global tungsten cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional cooperation in Asia takes place in formal Regional Organizations (ROs) as well as in less formal Regional Fora (RF). In addition, unlike in other parts of the world, Asian regionalism mainly developed in one instead of two waves. Especially after the end of the Cold War, Asian countries created numerous ROs and RF. Over time, Asian states became members of several ROs and RF at the same time, thereby contributing to Asian regime complexity. Given that multiple memberships in regional cooperation agreements can place high demands on diplomatic and financial resources of member states, the fact that Asian states became members in between one and 17 ROs and RF is puzzling. This article investigates why Asian countries join regional cooperation agreements. Based on a theory-guided empirical analysis that combines quantitative and qualitative methods, it argues that hedging and economic interests are the main driving forces behind Asian regionalism and that these motivations are often interlinked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asian countries have high demand for US dollars and are sensitive to US dollar funding costs. An important, but often overlooked, component of these costs is the basis spread in the cross-currency swap market that emerges when there are deviations from covered interest parity (CIP). CIP deviations mean that investors need to pay a premium to borrow US dollars or other currencies on a hedged basis via the cross-currency swap markets. These deviations can be explained by regulatory changes since the GFC, which have limited arbitrage opportunities and country-specific factors that contribute to a mismatch in the demand and supply of US dollars. We find that an increase in the basis spread tightens financial conditions in net debtor countries, while eases financial conditions in net creditor countries. The main reason is that net debtor countries are, in general, unable to substitute smoothly to other domestic funding channels. Policies that promote reliable alternative funding sources, such as long-term corporate bond market, or stable long-term investors, including a "hedging counterpart of last resort," can help stabilize financial intermediation when US dollar funding markets come under stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rice is the most important food crop of the world. This has been the case historically and rice production is becoming increasingly relevant with demographic growth and shifting consumer preferences in parts of the world. Rice is being produced in highly diverse production systems with constantly evolving agronomic practices. These have developed from traditional subsistence-oriented rainfed to intensive market-oriented irrigated systems. Assessing future production trends and associated land use and management practices requires an understanding of the (historic) evolution of rice-based systems, including productivity trends, changes in system configurations, and pathways of change. We argue that rice systems' evolution during the past 50 years reflects a process of adaptation to a changing availability of production resources, evolving conditions of resource equilibria (synchrony or mismatch of production factor supply and demand), and the adoption of technological innovations. While having occurred country-specifically at different speed and to different extents, aggregated general trends seem to be fairly homogenous throughout most of Asia, converging in the emergence of high-input and highly mechanized systems. However, accelerating global-scale change processes, national- and regional-scale developments, but also changes in household-scale attributes and farmers' expectations currently entail system shifts toward a "new diversification" at farm-level, with highly site-specific agronomic practices and land use patterns. Manifestations of observed recent and expected future trends for rice production indicate a risk of severe shortages in rice supply. The embeddedness of change trends in land use and resilience theories are presented and implications and suggested situational-adapted research needs are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• First detailed bottom-up study with endogenous raw materials supply chain. • Dynamic analysis of lithium criticality with a wide diffusion of electric vehicles. • 75% of worldwide fleet is electric in a 2 °C scenario by 2050, mostly in Asia. • Cumulated Lithium demand is 53% of the current resources in a 2 °C scenario by 2050. • The absence of geological criticality does not hide certain forms of vulnerability. Integrated assessment models are generally not constrained by raw materials supply. In this article, the interactions between a wide diffusion of electric vehicles in the world transportation sector and the lithium supply are analysed in the Times Integrated Assessment Model (TIAM-IFPEN version). The lithium sector and a detailed representation of the transportation sector have been then implemented into the TIAM-IFPEN processes constituting the global energy system. Hence, the availability of this strategic material to supply the growing demand for low-carbon technologies in the context of the energy transition can be questioned. Incorporating an endogenous representation of the lithium supply chain allows investigating its dynamic criticality depending on several optimal technology paths that represent different climate and/or mobility scenarios between 2005 and 2050. It is the first detailed global bottom-up energy model with an endogenous disaggregated raw materials supply chain. Based on our simulations, the geological, geopolitical and economic dimensions of criticality are discussed. Four scenarios have been run: two climate scenarios (4 °C and 2 °C) with two shapes of mobility each: a high mobility where we consider the impact of urban dispersal with a huge car dependence/usage, and a low mobility in which the demand for individual road transport is lower due to a more sustainable urban planning and more public transport. The electric vehicles fleet should reach up to 1/3 of global fleet by 2050 in the 4 °C scenarios, while it could be up to 3/4 in the 2 °C scenarios both with high mobility, mostly located in Asian countries (China, India and other developing countries in Asia) due to the large presence of 2 and 3-wheelers. The penetration of electric vehicles has a major impact on lithium market. The cumulated demand over the period 2005–2050 reaches up to 53% of the current resources in the 2 °C scenario with a high mobility. These results tend to show an absence of geological criticality. Nevertheless, they have clearly highlighted other different forms of vulnerabilities, whether economic, industrial, geopolitical or environmental. A discussion about the future risk factors on the lithium market is done at a regional scale aiming at analysing more in-depth the impact of the electric vehicle on lithium market. Our study of this particular strategic material shows that the model could be a useful decision-making tool for assessing future raw material market in the context of the energy transition and could be extended to other critical raw materials for more efficient regional and sectorial screening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asia is known as an economic success story but for many people growth has not been inclusive. The increased mechanization of work and other trends are likely to deepen existing social inequalities. Skills can help address these challenges, but a new and broader perspective is needed in skills development policy. This article argues that while efforts to improve access and the quality of skills provision need to be revamped, greater attention should be focused on the impact of skills development in terms of improved employment and business outcomes. The extent to which skills are actually utilized and whether workers are rewarded for their skilling efforts are influenced by the context of work. A future skills policy aimed at achieving inclusive growth requires a more integrated perspective of enhancing the skills eco-system (both supply and demand) that goes beyond the traditional boundaries of skills policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the depth and breadth of ongoing demographic transformation in Asia and draw ramifications on future rice farming using long-run time-series data from 17 major rice-growing countries in Asia. We found that Asia is undergoing declining trends in women fertility, child mortality, family size, population growth, the proportion of the agricultural population, and involvement of youth in agriculture. On the other hand, rural out-migration, aging of the farming population, and urbanization show increasing trends. These emerging trends will have far-reaching impacts on future rice farming mediated through labor market, rice market, rice demand, and rice supply. Policymakers and scientists must anticipate more rapid demographic transformation in the future and implement necessary technological, institutional, policy, and strategic solutions to manage or cope with future demographic transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on previous research on agriculture and tourism linkages in developing countries, this study investigates such linkages in Cambodia's Siem Reap region, exploring whether local farmers have benefitted from the influx of tourists. While other studies have tended to focus on the demand side, the approach in this study is from the supply side, taking mainly the perspective of local farmers. A two-step qualitative methodology was used. In the first stage, officials and informal leaders identified key factors constraining such linkages and in the second stage a questionnaire was administered to individual farmers, asking them to rate constraints identified in the first step. The market, institutional and supply driven constraints encountered by local farmers in gaining entry to the tourism market are similar to those faced by farmers in other developing countries. These multi-dimensional limitations are interwoven in that the inability of farmers to supply the tourism market was found to be a function of both demand and supply factors, the latter mainly structural. The significance of this study is that it complements the existing literature with the perspective of farmers, giving a different angle in the study of tourism and agriculture linkages, and expands the geography where such linkages have been studied; a different country and a world renowned cultural heritage site. The findings provide useful insights for policy makers in Cambodia and beyond in their endeavours to improve agriculture–tourism linkages, thereby benefitting local farmers and assisting in poverty alleviation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Asia is undergoing a hydropower boom in river basins originating in the Third Pole. • This boom is driven by electricity flows between the mountains and megaregions. • We use a new, comprehensive hydropower database to map flows. • We analyze ten different hydro-powersheds in China, South, and Southeast Asia. • Findings offer new perspective on the boom and framework for energy analysis. Hydropower is booming in Asian river basins originating on the Tibetan Plateau and adjoining mountain ranges – often referred to as the "Third Pole." These plants generate significant power for Asia's megaregions; they also dramatically alter environments, economies, and livelihoods in mountainous regions. Yet, current understanding of these developments is limited to specific rivers or countries, obscuring the important relational drivers and characteristics of the boom. In this article, we deploy a novel powershed framework – defined as the material and socio-political infrastructure linking electricity supply and demand areas – to analyze and compare the regional power geographies that shape Third Pole hydropower development. Using this framework, we identify ten powersheds across China, Southeast Asia, and South Asia basins that incorporate the vast majority of new hydropower generation. Our analysis reveals a clear trend towards developing large-scale hydropower in the mountains for the purpose of exporting electricity to megaregions. These powersheds are complex and in flux, crossing political and basin boundaries in ways that defy traditional hydropower analyses. This article thus reveals power export to be the main driver of the boom and its characteristics; it also provides a framework for analyzing power geographies worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increments of labor market institutions, the potential problem caused by labor market rigidity is emerging within the four Asian tigers, namely, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. This study emphasizes the impact of labor market rigidity on economic performance in the four Asian tigers over the 1980-2010 period. Through the estimation of the aggregate production function, we find that labor market rigidity has a negative impact on output and economic growth. On the other hand, without imposing any labor market institutional adjustment that would lower the standard of labor conditions, the rises in country's competitiveness can serve as a balancing force to mitigate the negative impacts of labor market rigidity. A crucial insight for policymakers is to determine the most efficient method for giving labor effective protection without hurting economic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the trends, changes, and risks between long-short and long-only commodity funds in the U.S. It states that investors have been owning real assets and commodities to help protect themselves from long-term risks. It says that price of a futures contract in most commodities is not determined by arbitrage, rather through demand, supply, and inventory considerations. It also discusses the passive indexing strategies inn investment and the Asian currency crisis from 1997-1998.

The article discusses the legal implications of feedstock supply and project delivery, considered critical issues of bioenergy project development in Asia. It offers information on the terms of feedstock contracts which include price adjustments formulas, supply commitments, and enforceability of take-or-pay provisions. Furthermore, it discusses the project delivery structure, delivery and operation of project facilities, and the operate and maintain (O&M) contracts.

Abstract: Airbus and Boeing experienced a sharp increase in aircraft orders beginning in 2006 and continuing through 2007. When projecting the deliveries for those aircraft orders over the next several years, and after accounting for aircraft required for growth and expected aircraft retirements, a capacity glut is foreseen with supply exceeding demand by the 2011/2012 timeframe. This excess capacity will likely result in downward pressure on yields, especially in key long haul markets, such as those linking Europe and Asia. This paper examines the potential for such a capacity glut to occur. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The recent commodity price boom resulted from rising demand in the face of a long period of low supply growth and market distortions. Structural factors are expected to return international commodity prices to relatively high levels as the global economy recovers. The Asian and Pacific economies and the region's poor will be among the most exposed to a rebound in prices. The recent response to high commodity prices can be improved upon. At the global level, the priority for Asian and Pacific governments is to seek a commitment to lessening distortions favouring bio-fuels. At the regional level, there is a need to address the use of trade restrictions on food commodities in Asia, notably rice. At a national level, the long-term neglect of the rural economy warrants correction; and efforts to expand and make social safety nets more ‘market friendly’ are called for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares housing policies among the Asian Dragons and explains their convergence and divergence from the perspective of government intervention and the historical contingencies of the housing policies themselves. It argues that before the regional economic crisis, the four Little Dragons diverged over a spectrum within the liberalist type, whereas China constituted a marketised socialist system. Since the crisis, government intervention generally retreated, except South Korea, in order to resolve housing problems ensued by past policies and the changed economic circumstances. Overall, the intensity of subsidy is determined by the socio-political and economic roles of housing in the development processes, whereas regulatory and supply controls are attributable to supply and demand imbalance and the state ownership of land and development rights. [image omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fish demand patterns in nine Asian countries were investigated using a multistage budgeting framework allowing a disaggregated approach to analysing fish consumption. This paper highlights the heterogeneity of fisheries products in terms of species, sources and cultural responses of consumers, factors that are important in fish demand under the Asian setting. Specifically, fish demand by income groups were compared to determine how the low- and high-income households respond to price and income changes. Results showed that the estimated price and income elasticities of all fish types included in the study were relatively more elastic among the poorer households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]