Search results for: Asian immigrants

Authors: A. S. Salimzhanova, J. C. Sardinas, O. A. Yanovskaya

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The objective of this research work is to discuss the concept of green growth in the Republic of Kazakhstan introduced by its government in the National Sustainable Development Strategy with the objective of transition to a resource-efficient, green economy. We believe that emerging economies like Kazakhstan can pursue a cleaner and more efficient development path by introducing an environmental tax system based on resource consumption rather than only income and labor. The key issues discussed in this article are the eco-efficiency, which refers to closing the gap between economic and ecological efficiencies, and the structural change of the economy toward green growth. We also strongly believe that studying the experience of East Asian countries on green reform including eco-innovation and green solutions in business is essential to the case of Kazakhstan. All of these will raise the status of Kazakhstan to the level of one of the thirty developed countries over the next decades.

Keywords: economic strategy, green growth, green solutions, natural resource management, environmental tax system

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Authors: M. F. Miah, A. Chakrabarty

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Two popular and highly valued fish, Stinging catfish (Heteropneustes fossilis) and Asian catfish (Clarias batrachus) are considered for observing genetic enhancement. Cross breeding was performed considering wild and farmed fish through inducing agent. Five RAPD markers were used to assess genetic diversity among parents and offspring of these two catfish for evaluating genetic enhancement in F1 generation. Considering different genetic data such as banding pattern of DNA, polymorphic loci, polymorphic information content (PIC), inter individual pair wise similarity, Nei genetic similarity, genetic distance, phylogenetic relationships, allele frequency, genotype frequency, intra locus gene diversity and average gene diversity of parents and offspring of these two fish were analyzed and finally in both cases higher genetic diversity was found in F1 generation than the parents.

Keywords: Heteropneustes fossilis, Clarias batrachus, cross breeding, genetic enhancement

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Authors: Jonardan Koner, Avinash Purandare

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In today’s globalized world international business is a very key area for the country's growth. Some of the strategic areas for holding up a country’s international business to grow are in the areas of connecting Ports, Road Network, and Rail Network. India’s International Business is booming both in Exports as well as Imports. Ports play a very central part in the growth of international trade and ensuring competitive ports is of critical importance. India has a long coastline which is a big asset for the country as it has given the opportunity for development of a large number of major and minor ports which will contribute to the maritime trades’ development. The National Economic Development of India requires a well-functioning seaport system. To know the comparative strength of Indian ports over South-east Asian similar ports, the study is considering the objectives of (I) to identify the key parameters of an international mega container port, (II) to compare the five selected container ports (JNPT, Chennai, Singapore, Dubai, and Colombo Ports) according to user of the ports and iii) to measure the growth of selected five container ports’ throughput over time and their comparison. The study is based on both primary and secondary databases. The linear time trend analysis is done to show the trend in quantum of exports, imports and total goods/services handled by individual ports over the years. The comparative trend analysis is done for the selected five ports of cargo traffic handled in terms of Tonnage (weight) and number of containers (TEU’s). The comparative trend analysis is done between containerized and non-containerized cargo traffic in the five selected five ports. The primary data analysis is done comprising of comparative analysis of factor ratings through bar diagrams, statistical inference of factor ratings for the selected five ports, consolidated comparative line charts of factor rating for the selected five ports, consolidated comparative bar charts of factor ratings of the selected five ports and the distribution of ratings (frequency terms). The linear regression model is used to forecast the container capacities required for JNPT Port and Chennai Port by the year 2030. Multiple regression analysis is carried out to measure the impact of selected 34 explanatory variables on the ‘Overall Performance of the Port’ for each of the selected five ports. The research outcome is of high significance to the stakeholders of Indian container handling ports. Indian container port of JNPT and Chennai are benchmarked against international ports such as Singapore, Dubai, and Colombo Ports which are the competing ports in the neighbouring region. The study has analysed the feedback ratings for the selected 35 factors regarding physical infrastructure and services rendered to the port users. This feedback would provide valuable data for carrying out improvements in the facilities provided to the port users. These installations would help the ports’ users to carry out their work in more efficient manner.

Keywords: throughput, twenty equivalent units, TEUs, cargo traffic, shipping lines, freight forwarders

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Authors: Kate Allman, Heather Maranges, Elise Dykhuis

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Moral Growth Mindset (MGM) is the belief that one has the capacity to become a more moral person, as opposed to a fixed conception of one’s moral ability and capacity (Han et al., 2018). Building from Dweck’s work in incremental implicit theories of intelligence (2008), Moral Growth Mindset (Han et al., 2020) extends growth mindsets into the moral dimension. The concept of MGM has the potential to help researchers understand how both mindsets and interventions can impact character development, and it has even been shown to have connections to voluntary service engagement (Han et al., 2018). Understanding the contexts in which MGM might be cultivated could help to promote the further cultivation of character, in addition to prosocial behaviors like service engagement, which may, in turn, promote larger scale engagement in social justice-oriented thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. In particular, college may be a place to intentionally cultivate a growth mindset toward moral capacities, given the unique developmental and maturational components of the college experience, including contextual opportunity (Lapsley & Narvaez, 2006) and independence requiring the constant consideration, revision, and internalization of personal values (Lapsley & Woodbury, 2016). In a semester-long, quasi-experimental study, we examined the impact of a pedagogical approach designed to cultivate college student character development on participants’ MGM. With an intervention (n=69) and a control group (n=97; Pre-course: 27% Men; 66% Women; 68% White; 18% Asian; 2% Black; <1% Hispanic/Latino), we investigated whether college courses that intentionally incorporate character education pedagogy (Lamb, Brant, Brooks, 2021) affect a variety of psychosocial variables associated with moral thoughts, feelings, identity, and behavior (e.g. moral growth mindset, honesty, compassion, etc.). The intervention group consisted of 69 undergraduate students (Pre-course: 40% Men; 52% Women; 68% White; 10.5% Black; 7.4% Asian; 4.2% Hispanic/Latino) that voluntarily enrolled in five undergraduate courses that encouraged students to engage with key concepts and methods of character development through the application of research-based strategies and personal reflection on goals and experiences. Moral Growth Mindset was measured using the four-item Moral Growth Mindset scale (Han et al., 2020), with items such as You can improve your basic morals and character considerably on a six-point Likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). Higher scores of MGM indicate a stronger belief that one can become a more moral person with personal effort. Reliability at Time 1 was Cronbach’s ɑ= .833, and at Time 2 Cronbach’s ɑ= .772. An Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was conducted to explore whether post-course MGM scores were different between the intervention and control when controlling for pre-course MGM scores. The ANCOVA indicated significant differences in MGM between groups post-course, F(1,163) = 8.073, p = .005, R² = .11, where descriptive statistics indicate that intervention scores were higher than the control group at post-course. Results indicate that intentional character development pedagogy can be leveraged to support the development of Moral Growth Mindset and related capacities in undergraduate settings.

Keywords: moral personality, character education, incremental theories of personality, growth mindset

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Authors: Etibar Guliyev

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The breakdown of the Soviet Union in 1991 has led to a considerable rise in the religious self-consciousness of Muslim population of the Central Asia. Additionally, huge amount of money spent by various states further facilitated the spread of religious ideas. According to some sources, Saudi Arabia spent 87 billion dollars to propagate Wahhabism abroad during two decades, whereas the Communist Party of the Soviet Union spent just over 7 billion dollars to spread its ideology worldwide between 1921 and 1991. As the result, today once a remote area from international politics has turned into third major source of recruitment of fighters for global terrorist organizations. In order to illustrate to scope of the involvement of the Central Asian residents in international terrorist networks it is enough to mention the name of Colonel Gulmorod Khalimov, the former head of the Tajik special police forces who served as ISIS war minister between 2016 and 2017. The importance of the topic stems from the fact that the above-mentioned republics with a territory of 4 million square km and the population of around 80 million people borders Russia, Iran Afghanistan and China. Moreover, the fact that political and military activities motivated with religious feelings in those countries have implications not only for domestic but also for regional and global political relations and all of them has root in politics of religions adds value to the research. This research aims to provide an in-depth analyses of the marked features of the state policies to regulate religious activities and approach this question both from individual, domestic, regional and global levels of analyses. The research will enable us to better understand what implications have the state of religious freedom in post-Soviet Muslim republics for international relations and the rise of global jihadi terrorism. The paper tries to find a linkage between the mentioned terror attacks and underground rise of religious extremism in Central Asia. This research is based on multiple research methods, mainly on qualitative one. The process tracing method is also employed to review religious policies implemented from 1918-1991 and after the collapse of the Soviet Union in a chronological way. In terms of the quantitative method, it chiefly will be used in a bid to process various statistics disseminated in academic and official sources. The research mostly explored constructivist, securitization and social movement theories. Findings of the research suggests that the endemic problems peculiar to authoritarian regimes of Central Asia such as crackdown on the expression of religious believe and any kind of opposition, economic decline, instrumental use of religion and corruption and tribalism further accelerated the recruitment problem. Paper also concludes that the Central Asian states in some cases misused counter-terrorism campaign as a pretext to further restrict freedom of faith in their respective countries.

Keywords: identity, political Islam, religious extremism, security, terrorism

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Authors: Rin Li Si Samantha

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The arts and cultures of Southeast Asia, particularly ancient or precolonial Southeast Asia, are commonly understood via two distinct theories: Indianisation and localisation. Indianisation takes Southeast Asia as a region to be cultural satellites or even colonies of a great Indian civilisation; Philip Rawson, in his 1967 book The Art of Southeast Asia, is to a large degree a proponent of this perspective. Localisation, a theory which has gained much traction in contemporaneous discourse, chooses instead to privilege local continuities and agencies in selectively accepting and adapting foreign influences to give form to new, syncretised traditions. The art historian Fiona Kerlogue’ similarly-named Arts of Southeast Asia, published in 2004, takes this perspective as its bedrock. This essay compares the many opposing ideological commitments of Rawson and Kerlogue: Indianisation versus localisation, evaluation versus explanation, and antiquity versus entirety. In the end, it reconciles the two as hallmarks of their time periods and is complementary in the pursuit of a holistic study of the art history of Southeast Asia.

Keywords: art history, Southeast Asia, Indianisation, localisation, precolonial, orientalism, comparative analysis, text

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Authors: E. Erdogan, H. A. Erdogan

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FengShui, an old Chinese discipline, dates back to more than 5000 years, is one of the design principles that aim at creating habitable and sustainable spaces in harmony with nature by systematizing data within its own structure. Having emerged from Chinese mysticism and embodying elements of faith in its principles, FengShui argues that the positive energy in the environment channels human behavior and psychology. This argument is supported with the thesis of quantum physics that ‘everything is made up of energy’ and gains an important place. In spaces where living and working take place with several principles and systematized rules, FengShui promises a happier, more peaceful and comfortable life by influencing human psychology, acts, and soul as well as the professional and social life of the individual. Observing these design properties in houses, workplaces, offices, the environment, and daily life as a design paradigm is significant. In this study, how FengShui, a Central Asian culture emanated from Chinese mysticism, shapes design and how it is used as an element of sustainable design will be explained.

Keywords: Feng Shui, design principle, sustainability, philosophy

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Authors: Febi Eka Putri, Prabowo Anggorono

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Human Trafficking has become a threat in the global phenomenon, including Indonesia as a country adopting democracy to uphold the human rights value. Indonesia is classified as a source of trafficking in persons which dominate by women and children for sexual exploitation and forced labor purposes. In this case, Indonesia has committed to combat trafficking in persons by enacted domestic law to criminalize all types of human trafficking in domestic and international level. Tracing to the efforts, we cannot just simplify it, however, in 2016 Indonesia has placed as a tier 2 country because the government does not fully achieve the minimum standard by U. S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act due to only making efforts as progress. While as a part of ASEAN member, Indonesia has signed ASEAN Human Rights Declaration but when it comes to Human Trafficking issue, there is only few ASEAN member who has ratified ASEAN Convention on Trafficking in Persons, in particular Women and Children such as Singapore, Cambodia, and Thailand. This brings the evidence to structuring the role of Indonesia to combat human trafficking.

Keywords: Indonesia, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), human trafficking, Tier 2 country

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Authors: Simao E. Luis

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From the 1960s to the 1990s, the social-psychological framework of language attitudes that emerged from the Canadian research tradition was very influential. Integrativeness was one of the main variables in Gardner’s theory because refugees and immigrants were motivated to learn English and French to integrate into the Canadian community. Second language (L2) scholars have expressed concerns over integrativeness because it cannot explain the motivation of L2 learners in global contexts. This study aims to investigate student motivation to learn English as a foreign language in Mozambique, and to contribute to the ongoing validation of the L2 Motivational Self System theory in an under-researched country. One hundred thirty-seven (N=137) university students completed a well-established motivation questionnaire. The data were analyzed with SPSS, and descriptive statistics, correlations, multiple regressions, and MANOVA were conducted. Results show that many variables contribute to motivated learning behavior, particularly the L2 learning experience and attitudes towards the English language. Statistically significant differences were found between males and females, with males expressing more motivation to learn the English language for personal interests. Statistically significant differences were found between older and younger students, with older students reporting more vivid images of themselves as future English language users. These findings have pedagogical implications because motivational strategies are positively correlated with student motivated learning behavior. Therefore, teachers should design L2 tasks that can help students to develop their future L2 selves.

Keywords: English as a foreign language, L2 motivational self system, Mozambique, university students

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Authors: Maria Casoria

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Throughout the last decade developing countries have been undergoing substantial reforms to promote the establishment of competition regimes, as consequence of the trade liberalization and the spread of a ‘competition awareness movement’ across the globe. The legislative trend affected the whole Asia. Notwithstanding the existence of extensive joint ventures, cartels and other collusive business relationships in this geographical area, almost all the countries have already passed or are committed to enforce specific laws in the field. The study dwells into legal solutions adopted in the five sub-regions in which the continent is commonly divided –i.e. Central, East, South, Southeast, and Western Asia- and, using a comparative methodology, shed lights on the main differences and similarities in place. The final outcome of the analysis is that, despite the undeniable divergences of approach, what links together the legislation in force in the region is the unveiled influence exercised by the European Union competition regulation. Consequently, in order to properly evaluate the deterrence of the rule of law in the sector concerned, it is fundamental to scrutinize the major role played by the EU and its policy for the evolution of pro-competitive practices in the continent.

Keywords: Asia, competition law, differences and similarities, European union, influences

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Authors: Sami Michael Ayodele

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Cordyceps are members of the fungi family Cordycepitaceae which are formally in Clavicipitaceae. They parasitize the larvae and adults of different susceptible arthropods. They are highly priced and have been reported to be highly medicinal. Cordyceps have been used for centuries in traditional medicine in China and other Asian countries. Survey studies were carried out to determine the presence of Cordyceps and another entomopathogenic fungal floral in North Central Nigeria for two consecutive years. Thirty samples were collected, twenty-eight were identified, and two were unidentified. Most identified species belong to Ophiocordyceps species (20samples), Cordyceps species (4samples) and Isaria species (4samples). The species identified were: Cordyceps pseudomilitaris, Cordyceps tuberculata, Cordyceps cylindrical, Ophiocordyceps nutans, O. criminals, O. oxycephala, O. kniphofioides and Isaria sinclairii. The morphological and microscopic features of the collected and identified species were similar to those reported in other countries. This is the first official report on the presence of Cordyceps species in Nigeria. Further collections from different ecological regions of Nigeria will show the richness of the floral diversity of these entomopathogenic and medicinal mushrooms in Nigeria.

Keywords: cordyceps, entomopathogenic, medicinal, North Central, Nigeria

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Authors: Stéphanie Looser, Walter Wehrmeyer

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Given the limited research on Small and Mediumsized Enterprises’ (SMEs) contribution to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and even scarcer research on Swiss SMEs, this paper helps to fill these gaps by enabling the identification of supranational SME parameters and to make a contribution to the evolving field of these topics. Thus, the paper investigates the current state of SME practices in Switzerland and across 15 other countries. Combining the degree to which SMEs demonstrate an explicit (or business case) approach or see CSR as an implicit moral activity with the assessment of their attributes for “variety of capitalism” defines the framework of this comparative analysis. According to previous studies, liberal market economies, e.g. in the United States (US) or United Kingdom (UK), are aligned with extrinsic CSR, while coordinated market systems (in Central European or Asian countries) evolve implicit CSR agendas. To outline Swiss small business CSR patterns in particular, 40 SME owner-managers were interviewed. The transcribed interviews were coded utilising MAXQDA for qualitative content analysis. A secondary data analysis of results from different countries (i.e., Australia, Austria, Chile, Cameroon, Catalonia (notably a part of Spain that seeks autonomy), China, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong (a special administrative region of China), Italy, Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, UK, US) lays groundwork for this comparative study on small business CSR. Applying the same coding categories (in MAXQDA) for the interview analysis as well as for the secondary data research while following grounded theory rules to refine and keep track of ideas generated testable hypotheses and comparative power on implicit (and the lower likelihood of explicit) CSR in SMEs retrospectively. The paper identifies Swiss small business CSR as deep, profound, “soul”, and an implicit part of the day-to-day business. Similar to most Central European, Mediterranean, Nordic, and Asian countries, explicit CSR is still very rare in Swiss SMEs. Astonishingly, also UK and US SMEs follow this pattern in spite of their strong and distinct liberal market economies. Though other findings show that nationality matters this research concludes that SME culture and its informal CSR agenda are strongly formative and superseding even forces of market economies, nationally cultural patterns, and language. In a world of “big business”, explicit “business case” CSR, and the mantra that “CSR must pay”, this study points to a distinctly implicit small business CSR model built on trust, physical closeness, and virtues that is largely detached from the bottom line. This pattern holds for different cultural contexts and it is concluded that SME culture is stronger than nationality leading to a supra-national, monolithic SME CSR approach. Hence, classifications of countries by their market system or capitalism, as found in the comparative capitalism literature, do not match the CSR practices in SMEs as they do not mirror the peculiarities of their business. This raises questions on the universality and generalisability of management concepts.

Keywords: CSR, comparative study, cultures of capitalism, small, medium-sized enterprises

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Authors: Jessica Da Silva

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This paper examines France as a microcosm of the rise of right-wing populism in the broader European context. The attack on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper is arguably, a reaction to the aggressive European secularism spreading throughout Europe that sees its true enemy in the growth of extremist and violent interpretations of Islam. With each terrorist attack, the popularity of anti-immigrant policies and ideologies increases. What ultimately drives movements like the French National Front are the concepts of monoculture and ethnic identity. This paper analyses the character of right-wing populist parties using the National Front as a case study. Such parties generate anxiety and resentment by fomenting an irrational fear of the ‘other’. In this way, populists promote their identity on the basis of xenophobia, Islamophobia, and practices of social exclusion against targeted out-groups. They position immigrants and foreigners as ‘others’, claiming they are a threat to native cultures and a source of social and economic strife. Ultimately, right-wing populism exerts a negative influence over the democratic framework in Europe and opposes the European Union’s integration project. Right-wing populism attacks this supranational model because of its alleged inefficiency and departure from what it considers to be 'authentic' European traditions and citizenship. In this context, understanding the rise of radical right-wing populist parties is extremely important for the future of Europe, democracy and multiculturalism.

Keywords: cultural identity, Europeanization, front national, immigration, integration, Islamophobia, multiculturalism, nationalism, right-wing populist parties, xenophobia

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Authors: Michael Picard

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This proposal offers to shed light on the changing legal geography of the global waste economy. Global waste recycling has become a multi-billion-dollar industry. NASDAQ predicts the emergence of a worldwide 1,296G$ waste management market between 2017 and 2022. Underlining this evolution, a new generation of preferential waste-trade agreements has emerged in the Pacific. In the last decade, Japan has concluded a series of bilateral treaties with Asian countries, and most recently with China. An agreement between Tokyo and Beijing was formalized on 7 May 2008, which forged an economic partnership on waste transfer and mining. The agreement set up International Recycling Zones, where certified recycling plants in China process industrial waste imported from Japan. Under the joint venture, Chinese companies salvage the embedded value from Japanese industrial discards, reprocess them and send them back to Japanese manufacturers, such as Mitsubishi and Panasonic. This circular economy is designed to convert surplus garbage into surplus value. Ever since the opening of Sino-Japanese eco-parks, millions of tons of plastic and e-waste have been exported from Japan to China every year. Yet, quite unexpectedly, China has recently closed its waste market to imports, jeopardizing Japan’s billion-dollar exports to China. China notified the WTO that, by the end of 2017, it would no longer accept imports of plastics and certain metals. Given China’s share of Japanese waste exports, a complete closure of China’s market would require Japan to find new uses for its recyclable industrial trash generated domestically every year. It remains to be seen how China will effectively implement its ban on waste imports, considering the economic interests at stake. At this stage, what remains to be clarified is whether China's ban on waste imports will negatively affect the recycling trade between Japan and China. What is clear, though, is the rapid transformation in the legal geography of waste mining in East-Asia. For decades, East-Asian waste trade had been tied up in an ‘ecologically unequal exchange’ between the Japanese core and the Chinese periphery. This global unequal waste distribution could be measured by the Environmental Stringency Index, which revealed that waste regulation was 39% weaker in the Global South than in Japan. This explains why Japan could legally export its hazardous plastic and electronic discards to China. The asymmetric flow of hazardous waste between Japan and China carried the colonial heritage of international law. The legal geography of waste distribution was closely associated to the imperial construction of an ecological trade imbalance between the Japanese source and the Chinese sink. Thus, China’s recent decision to ban hazardous waste imports is a sign of a broader ecological shift. As a global economic superpower, China announced to the world it would no longer be the planet’s junkyard. The policy change will have profound consequences on the global circulation of waste, re-routing global waste towards countries south of China, such as Vietnam and Malaysia. By the time the Berlin Conference takes place in May 2018, the presentation will be able to assess more accurately the effect of the Chinese ban on the transboundary movement of waste in Asia.

Keywords: Asia, ecological unequal exchange, global waste trade, legal geography

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Authors: Zhuo Jing-Schmidt, Jun Lang

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Numeral classifiers are common in Asian languages. Research on numeral classifiers primarily focuses on noun classifiers that quantify and individuate nominal referents. There is a scarcity of research on event quantification using verb classifiers. This study aims to understand the semantic and conceptual basis of event quantification in Chinese. From a usage-based Construction Grammar perspective, this study presents a corpus analysis of event quantification in Chinese. Drawing on a large balanced corpus of contemporary Chinese, we analyze 667 NOUN col-lexemes totaling 31136 tokens of a productive numeral classifier construction in Chinese. Using collostructional analysis of the collexemes, the results show that the construction quantifies and classifies dramatic events using a theater-based conceptual metaphor. We argue that the usage patterns reflect the cultural entrenchment of theater as in Chinese conceptualization and the construal of theatricality in linguistic expression. The study has implications for cognitive semantics and construction grammar.

Keywords: event quantification, classifier, corpus, metaphor

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Authors: Arijit Chakraborty, Anirban Roy

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The Indian peninsula is strategically located in the Asian subcontinent with the Himalayas to the North and Oceans surrounding the other three directions with annual monsoons which takes care of water supply to the rivers. The total river water discharge into the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea is 628 km³/year and 274 km³/year, respectively. Thus huge volumes of fresh water meet saline water, and this mixing of two streams of dissimilar salinity gives rise to tremendous mixing energies which can be harvested for various purposes like energy generation using pressure retarded osmosis or reverse electrodialysis. The present paper concentrates on analyzing the energy of mixing for the rivers in Goa. Goa has 10 rivers of various sizes all which meet the Arabian Sea. In the present work, the 8 rivers and their salinity (NaCl concentrations) have been analyzed along with their seasonal fluctuations. Next, a Gibbs free energy formulation has been implemented to analyze the energy of mixing of the selected rivers. The highest and lowest energies according to the seasonal fluctuations have been evaluated, and this provides two important insights into (i) amount of energy that can be harvested and (ii) decision on the location of such systems.

Keywords: Gibbs energy, mixing energy, salinity gradient energy, thermodynamics

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Authors: Norbert Csizmadia

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The 21st Century's main power centers are the cities. More than 52% of the world’s population lives in cities, in particular in the megacities which have a population over 10 million people and is still growing. According to various research and forecasts, the main economic concentration will be in 40 megacities and global centers. Based on various competitiveness analyzes and indices, global city centers, and city networks are outlined, but if we look at other aspects of urban development like complexity, connectivity, creativity, technological development, viability, green cities, pedestrian and child friendly cities, creative and cultural centers, cultural spaces and knowledge centers, we get a city competitiveness index with quite new complex indicators. The research shows this result. In addition to the megacities and the global centers, with the investigation of functionality, we got 64 so-called ‘fusiononopolis’ (i.e., fusion-polis) which stand for the most decisive economic power centers of the 21st century. In this city competition Asian centers considerably rise, as the world's functional city competitiveness index is being formed.

Keywords: economic geography, human geography, technological development, urbanism

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Authors: Zainal Abedin

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Introduction: Reproductive health is one of the major priorities of global health and is a fundamental and inalienable part of women’s health due to childbearing, and it is closely associated with nutritional status. Objective: This study was done to assess reproductive health behavior and nutritional status of reproductive-age ethnic women residing in plain land. Method: It was a cross-sectional study conducted among conveniently selected 120 reproductive-aged ethnic women at three Upazila of Rajshahi District. Nutritional status was determined by the WHO cut-off value of BMI for the Asian population. Results: About 88% of respondents noticed that they seek treatment in response to disease, and most of them seek treatment from the pharmacy attendant. Two-thirds of women used contraceptives, and 76% of women received antenatal care visits from Govt health centers, private clinics, and NGO clinics, but 86% of respondents delivered at home. In terms of nutritional status, 70% were normal, 23% underweight, and 7% overweight. Conclusion: Though most of them were normal regarding nutritional status but one-fourth were still underweight. Local pharmacy/quack-dependent treatment should be reduced.

Keywords: reproductive health behavior, nutritional status, plain land, ethnic women

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Authors: Mette Evelyn Bjerre

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Nordic Exceptionalism is a racial paradigm that inhibits a critical examination of structural discrimination and the daily experiences of minority-racialised Danes. As a result, the category ethnic-Danish is a White hegemonic construct that limits access for multiracial ethnic Danes irrespective of their multigenerational Danish heritage. An anti-immigrant public discourse and frequent racialisation as ‘other’ in social interactions are part of a boundary-making process that sustains White hegemony and excludes multiracial ethnic Danes from a collective national identity. With an analysis of interview data with 40 multiracial ethnic Danes, this research finds that the understanding of race as a category and the salience of race for multiracial ethnic Danes has changed over time concurrently with demographic changes and a heightened awareness of racialisation processes. The older generation is more likely to conform to White hegemony by trivialising racialised experiences. In contrast, younger multiracial ethnic Danes have the knowledge and cultural capital to challenge Whiteness actively. They do this by claiming their multiracial identity as a crucial part of their Danish identity and acknowledging race as a social fact that impacts their lives. Many young multiracial participants also dispute that the public immigration debate is race-neutral and is active in organisations supporting immigrants and refugees. These findings suggest that young multiracial Danes are uniquely positioned to push public discourse toward a better understanding of how Whiteness is integral to national identity and advocate for a broader Danish identity type that challenges White hegemony and Nordic exceptionalism.

Keywords: multiracial Danes, nordic exceptionalism, racial identity, white hegemony

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Authors: Yasaswi Vengalasetti, Jacob Eisenach, Jay Bhattacharya

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Seroprevalence studies can provide an estimation of the Infection Fatality Rate (IFR), the probability of death given infection. Measuring the seroprevalence and reported deaths of an area within a given time frame an IFR can be estimated. With this IFR calculation, we can then observe COVID-19 death figures in different countries around the world and estimate the number of cases since the onset of the pandemic. There is a large range for estimated COVID-19 infections across different countries. This ranged from 0.659 million infections in Hong Kong to 277 million infections in India. The largest estimated share of the population infected is 63% in Peru and the lowest is 3% in Norway. For younger populations, COVID-19 is most fatal in South America; for older populations, it is most fatal in North America. The Asian regions stand out with significantly lower IFRs in older populations: at 80 years old, COVID-19 is about three times as fatal than in South Asia and about twelve times as fatal than in East Asia. The weighted average for the share of the population infected, the sum of infections divided by the sum of populations across all countries, is 23%.

Keywords: epidemiology, seroprevalence, covid-19, infection fatality rate

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Authors: Maria Luisa Boninelli

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This study wants to explore the effects of a mediated intervention program in a primary school. The participants where 120 students aged 8-9, half of them Italian and half immigrants of first or second generation. The activities consisted on the cognitive enhancement of the participants through Feuerstein’s Instrumental Enrichment, (IE) and on an activity centred on body awareness and mediated learning experience. Given that there are limited studied on learners in remedial schools, the current study intented to hypothesized that participants exposed to mediation would yiel a significant improvement in cognitive functioning. Hypothesis One proposed that, following the intervention, improved Q1vata scores of the participants would occur in each of the groups. Hypothesis two postulated that participants within the Mediated Learning Experience would perform significantly better than those group of control. For the intervention a group of 60 participants constituted a group of Mediation sample and were exposed to Mediated Learning Experience through Enrichment Programm. Similiary the other 60 were control group. Both the groups have students with special needs and were exposed to the same learning goals. A pre-experimental research design, in particular a one-group pretest-posttest approach was adopted. All the participants in this study underwent pretest and post test phases whereby they completed measures according to the standard instructions. During the pretest phase, all the participants were simultaneously exposed to Q1vata test for logical and linguistic evaluation skill. During the mediation intervention, significant improvement was demonstrated with the group of mediation. This supports Feuerstein's Theory that initial poor performance was a result of a lack of mediated learning experience rather than inherent difference or deficiencies. Furthermore the use of an appropriate mediated learning enabled the participants to function adequately.

Keywords: cognitive structural modifiability, learning to learn, mediated learning experience, Reuven Feuerstein, special needs

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Authors: Khan Sarfaraz, Mohammad Ali Mia

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Money laundering and other financial crime have become a global threat in recent years, impacting both developed and poor countries. In developing countries like Bangladesh, it is more difficult to combat financial crime than in developing countries because of the inadequate regulatory environment and vulnerable financial system. Bangladesh's central bank issues guidelines to facilitate the implementation of the prevention of the money laundering act. According to the guideline of Bangladesh Bank, all financial institution has to develop anti-money laundering policy to ensure the safety and soundness of their institutions. The paper aims to focus on the role of authorized agencies in combating financial crime. In this paper, the latest trends in financial crimes have been discussed from global and Asian perspectives. The preventive measures for money laundering and other financial crimes have been discussed elaborately. So far, financial crime is a sophisticated and dynamic crime, and criminals continuously took innovative processes to use the financial system to launder money. The study will take a step in pointing out new techniques, effects and challenges of financial crime in Bangladesh.

Keywords: financial crime, illegal money transfer, online gambling, money laundering, authorized agencies

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Authors: Sayed Hadi Sadeghi

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This research study examines the current state of support services for e-network practice in an Australian and an American university. It identifies information that will be of assistance to Australian and American universities to improve their existing online programs. The study investigated the two universities using a quantitative methodological approach. Participants were students, lecturers and admins of universities engaged with online courses and learning management systems. The support services for e-network practice variables, namely academic support services, administrative support and technical support, were investigated for e-practice. Evaluations of e-network support service and its sub factors were above average and excellent in both countries, although the American admins and lecturers tended to evaluate this factor higher than others did. Support practice was evaluated higher by all participants of an American university than by Australians. One explanation for the results may be that most suppliers of the Australian university e-learning system were from eastern Asian cultural backgrounds with a western networking support perspective about e-learning.

Keywords: support services, e-Network practice, Australian universities, United States universities

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Authors: S. Jahani, V. Choopankareh

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Many people lost their life caused by environmental pollution every year. The negative effects of environmental crises appear to be much higher in Asian countries. The most important environmental issue in the developing countries and especially in Tehran, to our best knowledge, is air pollution that has affected many aspects of life in society. Environmental topics related to technology’s development have been salient issues among the main concerns of designers. Green facades are the most considerable solutions which designers and architectures are focused on, all over the world. But there are lots of behavioral and psychological problems about this point. In this line, this excavation has tried to reveal the cultural and psychological influences of green façade in developing countries like Tehran. Green façades in developing countries are so useless, although they are so expensive. As a matter of fact, users consider green facade as a decorative item. This research is an attempt to recognize the reasons which show green façades as worthless element. Also, some solutions are presented to promote green façades in the developing countries as an intrinsic solution. There are so many environmental threats, especially about air pollution, for a city as Tehran, which might be solved by green facades.

Keywords: air pollution, developing countries, effects, green facades

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Authors: Sumalee Tientongdee

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The pre-service teacher training program at Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University, Bankgok Thailand has been provided for undergraduate students for more than 80 years. It was established as the first teacher college in the country. The pre-service teacher program in science education is considered as one of the new training programs to prepare pre-service teacher to teach science in secondary school level. The need of program assessment is strongly important. Therefore, this study was conducted to gain the opinions and recommendations from the principals, in-service teachers, and mentoring teachers from the partnership schools of Bangkok. The invited 120 participants for the annual meeting was hold in May 2017. The focus group discussion and questionnaires were used to collect the data during the reflection session. The content analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data. The results showed that the pre-service teacher training program in science education should improve students’ creative thinking skill, service mind, personality, and attitudes toward teaching science career. Also, the future science teachers must be able to teach in English to have more opportunities to teach science in Southeast Asian countries.

Keywords: pre-service teacher training program, reflection, science education, Suan Sunandha Rajabhat university

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Authors: Jessie André

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In the past 10 years, more studies have begun exploring the psychological impact of those who have been subjected to and have adopted two different cultures. Currently, there is no existing literature regarding how individuals with a bicultural identity navigate their often-conflicting cultures on topics such as sexual pleasure and sexual scripts. The purpose of this study was to explore how first-generation Afro/Black Caribbean-American women navigate their multiple cultural identities with regards to sexual pleasure and sexual scripts. This study contains an exploration of participants self-described challenges, attitudes, and beliefs associated to how they navigate and experience their sexuality. This research study uses an explanatory, qualitative method design with semi structured interviews to answer the primary and secondary research question. Research findings indicate that the later the age of immigration, the stronger their ties were to the culture from their country of origin, which affected their self-assessments of sexual desirability and sexual self-esteem. Findings also suggest that even though women who immigrated at a younger age had higher rates of difficulty navigating and identifying with their adopted culture’s sexual mores. These women also reported lower ratings of comfort voicing sexual desires and concerns to their partner and had lower self-ratings of feeling connected to their cultural identity. These participants had challenges utilizing the dual and conflicting sexual mores and rules they received from U.S. society and their country of origin, resulting in less pleasurable sexual experiences. Whereas women who immigrated at an older age reported having more pleasurable sexual experiences.

Keywords: bicultural identity, sexual pleasure, first-generation immigrants, afro/black caribbean-American

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Authors: Nurtati Soewarno, Dian Duhita

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The existence of civilization from the past is recognized by the left objects such as monuments, buildings or even a town. The relics were designed and made well, using the good quality material so it could persist a long period of time. At this moment, those relics are cultural heritage that must be preserved and the authenticity maintained. Indonesia, a country consist of various tribes with many cultural heritages, one of them is the city of Lasem. Lasem city lies in the northern part of Central Java since the Majapahit kingdom era (13th century) poses as a busy harbor city and a trading center. Lasem is one of the residences of Chinese immigrants in Java, seen by the domination of Chinese architectural building styles. The residential was built since the 15th century and the building has the courtyard which is different from other China’s building in another part of Java. This city loses ground since the trade activity experience difficulties during the Japanese colonial era and continues after the Indonesian independence time. Many Chinese people left Lasem city and let the buildings empty not maintained. This paper will present the result of observation to Chinese architectural style buildings in Lasem city which still hold out until this moment. Using typo morphology method, the case study is chosen based on the transformation type. The occurring transformation is parallel with adaptive reuse concept as an effort to revitalize the existence of the buildings. With this concept, it is expected that the buildings could be re functioned and the glory of the foretime Lasem city could be experienced again. Intervention from the local government is expected, issuing regulations, hoping the new building functions won’t ruin the cultural heritage but instead beautifies it.

Keywords: adaptive re-use, brown field area, building transformation, Lasem city

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Authors: Shipra Shukla, Gaurav Chaudhary, S. K. Tewari, Mahesh Pal, D. K. Upreti

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Cassia tora L. is widely distributed in tropical Asian countries, commonly known as sickle pod. Various parts of the plant are reported for their medicinal value due to presence of anthraquinones, phenolic compounds, emodin, β-sitosterol, and chrysophanol. Therefore a sensitive analytical procedure using UHPLC-ESI-MS/MS was developed and validated for simultaneous quantification of five phenolic compounds in leaf, stem and root extracts of Cassia tora. Rapid chromatographic separation of compounds was achieved on Acquity UHPLC BEH C18 column (50 mm×2.1 mm id, 1.7µm) column in 2.5 min. Quantification was carried out using negative electrospray ionization in multiple-reaction monitoring mode. The method was validated as per ICH guidelines and showed good linearity (r2 ≥ 0.9985) over the concentration range of 0.5-200 ng/mL. The intra- and inter-day precisions and accuracy were within RSDs ≤ 1.93% and ≤ 1.90%, respectively. The developed method was applied to investigate variation of five phenolic compounds in the three geographical collections. Results indicated significant variation among analyzed samples collected from different locations in India.

Keywords: Cassia tora, phenolic compounds, quantification, UHPLC-ESI-MS/MS

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Authors: Xitong Liu, Yutong Huang, Shu-Ching Yang

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The phenomena of hypergamous and hypogamous marriages have become popular due to the imbalanced sex ratio caused by Chinese social preference for sons. Our research explores the spillover effect of husbands' lifestyles on their wives' marital satisfaction in China. Both personal and spouse lifestyle elements are utilized to develop regression models to study husbands' spillover effects on women's marital satisfaction. With data from China Family Panel Study and Stata for analysis, we tested our hypothesis that both smoking and substance use by a spouse will negatively impact women's marital satisfaction. Our empirical findings suggest that substance use has negative implications on marriage satisfaction. In particular, husbands' substance use is more critical to wives' marriage satisfaction than wives' behaviours. Conversely, another behavior indicating bad habits, the number of times the spouse drank alcohol, had no significant effect on the wife's marital satisfaction. We concluded our investigation and provided future implications for scholars in the family economics field.

Keywords: Asian/Pacific Islander families, family economics, housework/division of labor, spillover

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Authors: Neha Toppo

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Plans and programs for successful secondary education are incomplete without the inclusion of teaching English as an important area. Even after sixteen years of the formation of Jharkhand as a separate state, the students are still struggling to achieve quality education of English. This paper intends to account the present condition of teaching English in Jharkhand board secondary level schools through discussion on various issues of English language teaching, language need and learning challenges of its students. The study is to analyze whether the learning environment, teaching methods and materials, teaching resources, goals of language curriculum are appropriately convincing for the students of the board or require to be reanalyzed and also to provide appropriate suggestions for improvement. Immediate attention must be drawn towards the problem for benefitting those students, who despite their knowledge and talent are lagging behind in numerous fields only due to the lack of proficiency in English. The data and discussion provided are on the basis of a survey, in which semi structured interview with teachers, students and administrators in several schools including both rural and urban area has been taken. Questionnaire, observation and testing were used as important tools. The survey has been conducted in Ranchi district, as it covers large geographical area which includes number of villages and at the same time several towns. The district primarily possesses tribes as well as different class of people including immigrants from all over and outside Jharkhand with their social, economical strata. The observation makes it clear that the English language teaching at the state board is not complementing its context and the whole language teaching system should be re-examined to establish learner oriented environment.

Keywords: material, method, secondary level, teaching resources

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