Cities and sustainability: Southeast Asian and European perspectives

While cities are considered to be inherently unsustainable, these urban human settlements will be where a majority of the population will be living in the next two to three decades. Among the ten largest cities in the world in terms of population sizes, three are in Southeast Asia alone and more than one in two people will be living in cities in 2025. These primate cities—Metro-Manila in the Philippines, Jakarta in Indonesia and Bangkok in Thailand—are seeing not only rapid rates of in-migration but also rapid expansion and urban sprawl. Such rapid rates of change pose growing challenges to Southeast Asian cities including smaller capital cities like Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh City and Singapore. The strongest challenge concern infrastructural provision and particularly that provided for urban transport and mobility. Urban traffic congestion is an issue that is common to most Southeast Asian cities including Singapore which has introduced relatively draconian policy measures to both contain the level of car ownership and the use of the car. A comparison with several European cities highlight where Southeast Asian cities can review their own urban transport policies. This paper focuses on the lessons that can be learnt from a comparative study of the infrastructural provision and public policies that are in place in Southeast Asian and European cities.     

Working Toward an Inclusive World

正The world has never been homogenous.Over the ages,the plurality of man has been blamed as the root of various conflicts.But it must also be acknowledged that it is through such diversity that mankind managed to compete and progress,ultimately contributing to what it is today.     

Is an Ideological Clash a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy?

正Amid the recurrence of the COVID-19contagion across the globe,prospects for forging coordinated and coherent multilateral cooperation remain abysmal.While the blame game over the virus origin still rages on,a new dimension of schism along ideological seams is becoming increasingly pronounced.Jingoistic drum beats accompanying abrasive geopolitical rhetoric have been gaining traction at the expense of international cooperation.     

Auto-communicating micro-Orientalism: articulating ‘Denmark’ in China at the Shanghai Expo

Using the concepts of auto-communication and micro-Orientalism, this article argues that nation branding at World Expos produces and propagates notions of difference and Otherness. We examine how Denmark presents itself in China, and how the message inevitably tells how the Danish authorities view the Chinese. Using the Danish ‘Welfairytales’ pavilion at the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, we show how the national self is performed in two versions. One attempts to communicate ‘the good Danish life’ to the Danes themselves, while the other claims Occidental superiority. The case shows how the Danish exhibition is performed and regulated as sustainable and authentic and how in spite of its seemingly dialogical and interactive layout, a number of auto-communicative and micro-Orientalist practices are enacted. This study is based on field participation, observations and interviews. Public sources of information are also used.     

A distinct Y-STR haplotype for Amelogenin negative males characterized by a large Y(p)11.2 (DYS458-MSY1-AMEL-Y) deletion

The use of STR multiplexes with the incorporated gender marker Amelogenin is common practice in forensic DNA analysis. However, when a known male sample shows a dropout of the Amelogenin Y-allele, the STR system falsely genotypes it as a female. To date, our laboratory has observed 18 such cases: 12 from our Y-STR database and six from casework. A study on 980 male individuals in the Malaysian population using the AmpFlSTR Y-filer has revealed a distinct Y-chromosome haplotype associated with the Amelogenin nulls. Our results showed that whilst the Amelogenin nulls were noticeably absent among the Chinese, both the Indians and Malays exhibited such mutations at 3.2 and 0.6%, respectively. It was also found that the Amelogenin negative individuals predominantly belonged to the J2e lineage, suggesting the possibility of a common ancestor for at least some of these chromosomes. The null frequencies showed concordance with the data published in Chang et al. [Higher failures of Amelogenin sex test in an Indian population group, J. Forensic Sci. 48 (2003) 1309-1313] on a smaller Malaysian population of 338 males which used a Y-STR triplex. In the current study, apart from the absence of the Amelogenin Y-locus, a complete absence of the DYS458 locus in all the nulls was also observed. This study together with the 2003 study has indicated a similar deletion region exists on the Y(p)11.2 band in all the 18 Y-chromosomes. Using bioinformatics, this deletion has been mapped to a region of at least 1.13 Mb on the Y(p)11.2 encompassing the Amelogenin, MSY1 minisatellite and DYS458 locus. Further, the Y-filer haplotypes revealed an additional null at Y-GATA H4 in two of the Indian males presented here.     

Anti-Terror In a Tangle?

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks that triggered the American "war on terror," a blanket term for all preemptive military strikes intended to reduce the threat terrorism posed to the U.S. homeland. It was foreshadowed by the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, which had brought about enormous sorrow, wanton destruction and civilian casualties to the Afghan nation before the American troops finally made their chaotic exit two decades later.     

A Communal ASEAN Outlook

The coming of age of China's dialogue relations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) after three decades has borne the most successful model of cooperation in the Asia Pacific. The largely economic-driven relationship has presented the world with a stable, resilient and symbiotic prototype of collaboration, albeit not without the occasional unyielding litmus test of mutual trust stemming from external maneuvers.     

The 2018 California Wildfires: Integration of Rapid DNA to Dramatically Accelerate Victim Identification

In November 2018, Butte County, California, was decimated by the Camp Fire, the deadliest wildfire in state history. Over 150,000 acres were destroyed, and at its peak, the fire consumed eighty acres per minute. The speed and intensity of the oncoming flames killed scores of people, and weeks before the fire was contained, first responders began searching through the rubble of 18,804 residences and commercial buildings. As with most mass disasters, conventional identification modalities (e.g., fingerprints, odontology, hardware) were utilized to identify victims. The intensity and duration of the fire severely degraded most of the remains, and these approaches were useful in only 22 of 84 cases. In the past, the remaining cases would have been subjected to conventional DNA analysis, which may have required months to years. Instead, Rapid DNA technology was utilized (in a rented recreational vehicle outside the Sacramento morgue) in the victim identification effort. Sixty-nine sets of remains were subjected to Rapid DNA Identification and, of these, 62 (89.9%) generated short tandem repeat profiles that were subjected to familial searching; essentially all these profiles were produced within hours of sample receipt. Samples successfully utilized for DNA identification included blood, bone, liver, muscle, soft tissue of unknown origin, and brain. In tandem with processing of 255 family reference samples, 58 victims were identified. This work represents the first use of Rapid DNA Identification in a mass casualty event, and the results support the use of Rapid DNA as an integrated tool with conventional disaster victim identification modalities.