Kidnap for Ransom in South East Asia

Kidnapping for ransom is not a new phenomenon. According to the Control Risk Group, an international risk consultancy, kidnappings of foreign nationals globally have increased by 275% over the past 10 years. High profile incidents such as the tourist kidnappings in 2000 by the Abu Sayyaf group, operating out of the troubled southern region of the Philippines, show that South East Asia has its own regionalised kidnapping hotspots. It is suspected that a high proportion of kidnappings are perpetrated by economically motivated crime groups but it is not possible to estimate with any degree of accuracy what percentage can be attributed to organised crime. This article will provide an overview of the problem, drawing upon existing literature available in the public domain. A typological discussion will show the critical differences between the various categories of kidnapping. The reliability of existing statistics, categorisation and recording of kidnapping for ransom will also be scrutinised, in particular for their variability across the region, to see whether this presents a barrier to a better understanding of the size and seriousness of the problem. As kidnapping for ransom incidents are becoming increasingly transnational in character, the final section will highlight the desirability of formulating and agreeing upon regional standardised definitions and counting rules for kidnap.     

Nexus between carbon emission,financial development,and access to electricity: Incorporating the role of natural resources and population growth

This study explores the nexus between financial development, access to electricity, and CO₂ emissions in Pakistan over the period from 1990 to 2015, incorporating the role of natural resources and population growth. We checked the stationarity of the data by using three different unit root tests (ADF, Phillip Pesaran, and DG‐FLS). Long‐ and short‐run elasticities have been determined through auto‐regressive distributive lag (ARDL) method. The empirical results confirmed that financial development and access to electricity increase CO₂ emissions and deteriorate the environmental quality. In addition, the population growth is responsible for growing CO₂ emissions in Pakistan, while natural resources have insignificant relation with CO₂ emissions. Furthermore, bidirectional causality exists between population growth and natural resources, whereas unidirectional causality is detected among financial development and CO₂ emissions, natural resources and population growth, and financial development and population growth. The newly developed findings suggest helpful policy implications to adequately address the issue of CO₂ emissions without compromising economic development.     

The applications of MicroCT in studying age-related tooth morphological change and dental age estimation: A scoping review

Conventional dental age estimation relies on destructive methods such as sectioning and staining, which are unpreferable when the tooth is required for evidential or archeological preservation. MicroCT is a non-destructive, high-resolution imaging technique that allows for accurate morphometrical measurement. Although microCT technology has been applied in a variety of dental studies, studies focusing on dental age-related change and dental age estimation based on microCT imaging remain lacking. Based on the question: “How has microCT technology been applied in studying human age-related tooth morphological change and dental age estimation studies?”, the authors conducted a scoping review in accordance with the Arksey and O'Malley (2005) and the PRISMA-ScR guidelines. A literature search using five major scientific databases identified 452 articles, with 11 full-text articles being eligible to be included in the scoping review. Furthermore, 6 out of the 11 studies performed dental age estimation modeling. An overview of the parameters used in the selected articles revealed a variety of tooth characteristics, such as pulp cavity to whole tooth volume ratio, secondary dentin, as well as the diameter of root canal orifice. The findings of this scoping review highlight the extent microCT is used in studying dental age-related changes, as well as the effectiveness of microCT in dental age estimation studies. This review serves as a guide for future forensic odontology age estimation studies.