Committees

AUSTRALIA – Second-Generation Diagnostic Achieves 98% Accuracy in Detecting Early Stage Ovarian Cancers AUSTRALIA – New Center Brings Australian and Chinese Researchers Together to Fight Infectious Diseases AUSTRALIA – Co-developing New Treatment Guidelines for Melanoma AUSTRALIA – Australia Leads World's First Global Effort to Improve Genetic Disorders Diagnosis CHINA – China Bans Illegal Food Additives to Reinforce Food Safety Control CHINA – China Steps Up Tighter Inspection in Food Safety CHINA – WHO and China to Do More for Chinese with Hearing Impairment CHINA – First TCM Drug for Arrhythmia CHINA – First Human-Human Transmission of Tick-Borne Disease Reported in China CHINA – Bird Flu Found in Chickens in Eastern China CHINA – First Bird Flu Death Reported for 2009, No Bird-flu Outbreak HONG KONG – Hong Kong Alerts New Bird Flu Outbreak INDIA – India Also Confirmed Bird Flu Incidence INDIA – India Plans 20 More Biotech Parks for Life Sciences Research KOREA – An Economic Share in Medical Tourism Market JAPAN – Brain Tissues Made from Stem Cells NEW ZEALAND – Newly Merged Research Institute Leverage Greater Synergy NEW ZEALAND – Kiwi's Green Plastic Well-Acclaimed in International Awards NEW ZEALAND – Sea Sponge Indigenous to NZ Could Reduce Chemo Side Effects PHILIPPINES – Ebola-Reston Virus Jumped Species SINGAPORE – Human Sewage, the Potential Source of Clean Energy SINGAPORE – No More Heart-stopping Incidents for Heart Patients SINGAPORE – China Milk Products Get All-Clear from Singapore SINGAPORE – Discovery of New Properties in Imidazolium Salts Yield Multi Applications SINGAPORE – S'pore Ranked World's Most Prolific for Eye Research Per Capita SINGAPORE – Outdoor Sun Reduces Incidence of Myopia in Children TAIWAN – University Hospital in Taiwan Collaborates with Neuralstem VIETNAM – Return of Bird Flu, Vietnam Runs High Risk of Human Infection VIETNAM – Conjoined Twins Successfully Separated VIETNAM – Rise in Off-Season Dengue Fever Cases NORTH AMERICA – Epilepsy Drugs Prescription to Carry Suicide Risk Warning NORTH AMERICA – U.S. Doctors Succeeded Near-total Face Transplant NORTH AMERICA – Vaccinating Pacific Girls against Cervical Cancer NORTH AMERICA – Manipulating Love and Emotions by Spray EUROPE – Cambridge Pips Oxford in Research EUROPE – Adapting Car Manufacturing Technology to Produce Synthetic Bone Implants EUROPE – Dioxin-tainted Irish Pork Products Recalled

After many years of rapid expansion, China’s growth is slowing to more sustainable levels and is rebalancing, with consumption becoming the main growth driver. This transition is likely to have negative effects on its trading partners in the near term. This paper studies the potential spillovers to the ASEAN-5 economies through trade, commodity prices, and financial markets. It finds that countries with closer trade linkages with China (Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand) and net commodity exporters (Indonesia and Malaysia) would suffer the largest impact, with growth falling between 0.2 and 0.5 percentage points in response to a decline in China’s growth by 1 percentage point depending on the model used and the nature of the shock. The impact could be larger if China’s slowdown and rebalancing coincides with bouts of global financial volatility. There are also opportunities from China’s rebalancing, both in merchandise and services trade, and there is preliminary evidence that some ASEAN-5 economies are already benefiting from these trends.

8 Fluctuations in the price of oil 1973–93 325 13.9 Oil production in the USA, USSR, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela 327 and Kuwait, 1954–92 14.1 Population structure of India in 1991 333 14.2 The states of India 334 14.3 Economic map of India 335 14.4 Rainfall and soil in India 336 14.5 Rice yields in selected countries, 1931–90 337 14.6 Location

China has proposed the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), initiating a key turning point in the international finance system. Unfortunately, its design at present is quite problematic, for several reasons: it limits participation by Western countries, effectively locking in China as the undisputed leader; the lack of a Board of Directors in residence; the potential for a conflict of interest if the AIIB will fund projects within China; the potential of China to use AIIB for political purposes; the relationship the AIIB will have with already-existing international financial institutions; and the potential for a weakening of “best practices” in order to compete against the other international finance institutions. For these reasons, it was the right decision for Japan not to join as a charter member in order to negotiate the MOU; nevertheless, Japan should maintain the option of joining the AIIB in order to have leverage over the architecture of the AIIB.

Is there a single East Asian welfare state model? How did economic policies, globalization, democratization, and economic crisis af- fect the welfare regimes of the East Asian societies? Previous studies on welfare states focused on western advanced societies. A few studies on the East Asian welfare states focused on Japan or other East Asian countries up to late 1980s. This paper is an exploratory study to expand the welfare state debates to East Asian societies (Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Philippines) since the late 1980s to 2005. During this period, these societies experienced post-industrialization, globalization, and democratization at a different pace, to a different degree, and, possibly, on different tracks. Based on a preliminary comparative analysis, I discussed that the East Asian wel- fare regimes showed a sign of increasing divergences in multiple dimensions. I argued that, among diverse factors, economic developmental strategies and the level of democratization influenced the path of wel- fare state development in recent periods.

The aim of this study was to investigate market structure and efficiency performance of the ASEAN banking market during the study period of 2011 - 2016. In order to assess the market structure of commercial banks in ASEAN, the Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HHI) was used while the efficiency performance which consists of technical efficiency, pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency were measured using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The results showed that the banking sector in Malaysia, Thailand and Philippines are moderately concentrated while the market structure of Singapore is highly concentrated, and the least concentrated banking market is Indonesia. On this note, the HHI results indicated that banks in Malaysia, Thailand and Philippines are operating in a monopolistic market and oligopolistic in the Singapore banking market. Generally, the most efficient banks were found in Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore with regard to technical efficiency scores. In the context of the sources of efficiency, the results of the study suggest that ASEAN banks are more scale efficient than pure technical efficiency. The findings imply that the bank management should target to utilize the banks inputs at the optimum level in order to keep their performance at the efficiency frontier.

Current status of imported parasitic infection among foreign workers in northern Taiwan (1999-2000).

Solar Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs) enable diffraction limited imaging of the basic physical structure of the solar atmosphere. Magneto-hydrodynamic considerations limit their size to about 0.03 arcsec. To observe them in the near-infrared 8-meter class telescopes are needed. The Chinese Giant Solar Telescope, or CGST, is such a near-infrared solar ELT. It is a Ring Telescope with an 8-meter outer diameter and a central clear aperture of about 6-meter diameter. At present various options for such a Gregorian type telescope are under study, like a continuous ring made out of segments or a multiple aperture ring made of 6 or 7 off-axis telescopes. The advantages of such a ring telescope is that its MTF covers all spatial frequencies out to those corresponding to its outer diameter, that its circular symmetry makes it polarization neutral, and that its large central hole helps thermal control while it provides ample space for MCAO and Gregorian focus instrumentation. We present the current status of the design of the CGST. Our thinking is guided by the outstanding performance of the 1-meter vacuum solar telescope of the Yunnan Solar Observatory which like the CGST uses both AO and image reconstruction. Using it with a ring-shape aperture mask the imaging techniques for the CGST are being explored. The CGST will have Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics (MCAO). The peculiarities of Atmospheric Wavefront Tomography for Ring Telescopes are aided by the ample availability of guide stars on the Sun. IR MCAO-aided diffraction limited imaging offers the advantage of a large FOV, and high solar magnetic field sensitivity. Site testing is proceeding in western China (e.g. northern Yunnan Province and Tibet). The CGST is a Chinese solar community project originated by the Yunnan Observatory, the National Astronomical Observatories, the Purple Mountain Observatory, the Nanjing University, the Nanjing Institute of Astronomical Optics and Technology and the Beijing Normal University.

In the midst of last century, during the war between KMT (Kuomintang) and CCP (Chinese Communist Party), a large number of KMT Chinese soldiers and their families retreated all the way from Yunnan, China to Myanmar and Northern Thailand (Thaibei). With their “anti-Communism” belief, the Chinese in Thaibei maintained close relationship with the Republic of China (Taiwan) for past decades, by receiving plenty of benevolent resources from the Taiwanese government and the general public. In Northern Thailand, Chinese school exists in each village. Local Students can learn Mandarin with Taiwanese textbooks in the traditional Chinese format. Parents are desirous of sending their children to study in Taiwan. However, during the past years, the abundant resources provided from CCP have changed the condition in the traditional anti-Communism area. China struck on Thaibei Chinese villages with the ground of “taking care of Thaibei compatriots.” The report has found that the resources from China are similar to those from Taiwan, including school admission offerings, overseas passports, scholarships, simplified Chinese textbooks, permanently stationed teachers, exchanges and training activities of teachers. Chinese people in Thaibei have different attitudes and perceptions towards China in different areas, positions and backgrounds. Receiving the resources from China has caused a huge controversy in the traditional pro-Taiwan Thaibei Chinese community. The sensitive problem between “pro-China” and “pro-Taiwan” groups is still difficult to be solved. By tracking the studying path of Thaibei students studying in China, this TV in-depth report discusses their motives of choosing China over Taiwan. It also analyzes Thaibei Chinese's tangle with China by investigating the controversy caused by China resources provided to Thaibei.

An analysis of intraspinal tumors in south Taiwan.

Since PRC has established its regime in 1949, the policies toward Taiwan have always existed. This was caused by the two civil wars. From Mao Zedong’s Military Liberation and Peaceful Liberation to Deng Xiaoping’s “Peaceful reunion, one country, two systems,” and then Jiang’s “Eight points,” Hu’s “Four points,” to today’s Hu’s “Six points.” PRC’s policy to unify China has always been changing. Besides, after transferring generationsof the chairman, the chairman’s political steadiness is also one of the points to see the development of the policy toward Taiwan. Especially his political announcement on the National Congress of Communist Party of China is an important index to see whether the chairman is able to handle internal political power and policies toward Taiwan. Therefore, the “Seventeen points” Hu Jintao had mentioned about Taiwan eventually became the point to research policies toward Taiwan. While Chen Shui-bian was governing, Taipei and Beijing had constant conflicts and intension, therefore the relationship between both sides was atfreezing point.Until 2008 when Ma Ying-jeou was elected as the president, he achieved his policy toward PRC, “No unity, no liberation, and no military actions.” This showed much goodwill to Beijing. On December 31st, 2008 Hu also announced his “Six points” in return as a feedback and expectation to Ma. On the other hand, Ma’s “Flexible diplomacy” policy and the signing of ECFA had earned PRC’s kind feedback and support. It seemed that the conversations between governments of both sides become warm and gentle. However, PRC is still blocks Taiwan from having development in international fields. For example, in 2007 the memo that WHO secretly signed with PRC exposed. In 2010, the Jiang Ping event happened in the 23rd Tokyo Film Festival. In 2011, the 22ndAsia-Pacific Annual Conference of Obstetrics and Gynecology which was hosted by Taiwan, PCR asked us to change the name into “China Taiwan.” From the above, we can see that PCR won’t allow the existence of “two China” or “China and Taiwan” on international stages. We can say no matter how PCR’s policy toward Taiwan changes, the core principles of “one China” and “Unified China” won’t change. As a result, PCR won’t give up its will to unify China.

Dengue is the most important mosquito-borne viral disease worldwide. Dengue virus (DENV) is a member of the genus Flavivirus and family Flaviviridae. DENV include four antigenically related viruses named dengue virus type 1 to 4 (DENV 1-4). Each of the four serotypes is able to cause disease with a full spectrum of clinical manifestation. DENV-1 is composed of five genotypes: genotype I is represented by viruses of Taiwan and Thailand; genotype II is represented by viruses of Thailand; genotype III is represented by strains of Malaysia; genotype IV is represented by viruses of Southeast Asia, South Pacific and Australia and genotype V is represented by viruses of America, Africa and Southeast Asia. Considering that Ribeirao Preto is an endemic city for this disease, it is of great importance to monitor the circulating viruses, which would allow the identification of new serotypes or subtypes that could be related to most severe cases of the disease. Phylogenetic analysis also allows a better assessment of the pattern of migration and evolution of these viruses.

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is an educational approach in which the target language is used as the medium to learn and teach both content and language. The widespread interest in CLIL can be seen in the increasing popularity of adopting it as a viable approach to promoting both content and language learning in Europe (Garcia, 2017; Ioannou Georgiou, 2012) and many English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) countries, for instance- Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand, and Vietnam (Lee & Chang, 2008).In this paper, we show how informational picture books are quality CLIL materials. The engaging narrative writing and meaningful illustrations in such books convey accessible factual and content knowledge, an important feature in line with CLIL-related goals. The powerful text-illustration synergy in picture books provides a supportive platform upon which to develop learners' language skills as well as to expand subject knowledge. Next, informed by CLIL theories and practices, a CLIL pedagogical framework is proposed to provide a simplified representation of the complexity and scope of the CLIL instructional sequences and content. The framework strives to achieve a balance between the content and language components in CLIL lessons. Based on the framework, a sample CLIL lesson is provided with instructional examples of how teachers could incorporate an informational picture book into their lessons to scaffold students' development of language, content knowledge, and learning skills. It is hoped that the framework and activities presented will encourage primary subject and language teachers in Taiwan and serve as a springboard for them to incorporate informational picture books in their CLIL lessons.

General Chairs Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vesela Pasheva, Technical University of Sofia, BulgariaAssoc. Prof. Dr. Palsan Sannasi Abdullah, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan, MalaysiaAssoc. Prof. Dr. Souad Merabet, University of MSB Jijel, Algeria Technical Program Committee Members Dr. Jiantou Gao, Chinese academy of sciences, ChinaDr. Pawel Jarka, Silesian University of Technology, PolandAssoc. Prof. & Dr. Ashok Chopra, Amity University Dubai, UAEDr. Maciej Gierada, Sandia National Laboratories, USADr. Tang Tengfei, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, ChinaDr. khan malook, University of Peshawar, PakistanDr. Pandiyarasan Veluswamy, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design, and Technology, IndiaDr. Peng YU, Southern University of Science and Technology, ChinaDr. Kumaran Vediappan, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, IndiaDr. Prasanna Kadirvelayutham, AVESTA BATTERY & ENERGY ENGINEERING, BelgiumDr. Ivailo Pandiev, Technical University of Sofia, BulgariaAssoc. Prof. & Dr. M. Seenivasan, Annamalai University, IndiaDr. Fatehah MOHD OMAR, Universiti Sains Malaysia, MalaysiaMs. Sutriningsih, Universitas 17 Agustus 1945 Jakarta, IndonesiaDr. Zeng Y., National Metrology Centre, A*STAR Research Entities, SingaporeMr. Chua Huang Shen, University of Wollongong Malasysia KDU, MalaysiaDr. Shaik Sharief Basha, Vellore Institute of Technology, India

Current statistic shows that Southeast Asia region has transformed as leading center for global Islamic financial industry. Indonesia and Malaysia are the leading countries for Islamic finance industry in the region. The study aims to provide a descriptive analysis of Islamic finance development in Souheast Asia countries, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei Darussala, Singapore, Thailand, and Philipine. The study focuses on the history and regulatory analysis for Islamic finance industry across jurisdiction. It finds that the regulation governs for Islamic financial institutions in each countries are varies. These differences will be a challenge in creation of Islamic finance integration as a part of ASEAN economic integration programm.