Tanisa Tawichsri, Thiti Tosborvorn, Suparit Suwanik
et al.
In politically divided environments like Thailand, affective polarization (AP) and social distrust threaten democratic stability and hinder consensus-building. Using an original survey (N = 2,016) conducted in 2021 during intense political turmoil, we examine how perceived ideological differences and media consumption shape AP. Our findings show that perceived—rather than actual—ideological differences drive out-group animosity, affecting trust in policymaking, political discourse, and attitudes toward justice. We also highlight the role of echo chambers created by the consumption of one-sided media that exaggerates polarization and amplifies hostility toward the out-group.
South Asia. Southeast Asia. East Asia, Social Sciences
The problems of the historical past associated with the military expansion of the Japanese Empire in Asia in the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries still have a negative impact on the relations between Japan and its former colonies, as well as countries occupied during World War II. At the same time, the residents of Taiwan, who were under Japanese control for the longest period (1895–1945), have not retained in their memory the sharply negative image of the “Japanese occupiers” specific for other countries that were also directly dependent on the Japanese Empire. The article examines approaches to assessing Japanese colonial rule in contemporary Taiwan, the role of the educational and enlightenment policies of the authorities in the formation of historical memory among the island’s residents. Using the content of history textbooks, exhibitions at historical museums and memorials as an example, the work traces the connection between the interpretations of different periods of Taiwanese history (the Japanese period and the rule of the Kuomintang) and studies their influence on the perception of modern Japan in Taiwanese society.
South Asia. Southeast Asia. East Asia, Bibliography. Library science. Information resources
Indonesia, the largest economy in Southeast Asia, is actively seeking to strengthen its position in the global energy system. With its accession to BRICS in 2025, the country has gained a unique opportunity to expand cooperation with the world’s leading developing economies, such as China, India, Brazil, South Africa, and Russia. One of the promising areas of such collaboration is hydrogen energy, which is regarded as a key component of the energy transition and the achievement of climate goals.
Hydrogen, particularly “green” hydrogen, produced through electrolysis powered by renewable energy, is becoming an increasingly important vital resource for decarbonizing industry, transportation, and power generation as well. Indonesia, endowed with abundant renewable energy resources, aims to become a significant player in the emerging global hydrogen economy, which is gradually gaining momentum. The country is already implementing ambitious projects and collaborating with some BRICS members to develop hydrogen infrastructure.
This article examines the current state of hydrogen energy in Indonesia, its strategic initiatives, and the prospects for cooperation with other BRICS nations. Additionally, it provides an analysis of challenges and opportunities that the country faces on this path.
South Asia. Southeast Asia. East Asia, Bibliography. Library science. Information resources
The Hasse principle in number theory states that information about integral solutions to Diophantine equations can be pieced together from real solutions and solutions modulo prime powers. We show that the Hasse principle holds for area-minimizing submanifolds: information about area-minimizing submanifolds in integral homology can be fully recovered from those in real homology and mod n homology for all $n\in \mathbb{Z}_{\ge 2}$. As a consequence we derive several surprising conclusions, including: area-minimizing submanifolds in mod n homology are asymptotically much smoother than expected, area-minimizing submanifolds are not generically calibrated, and products of area-minimizing submanifolds are not generically area-minimizing. We conjecture that the Hasse principle holds for all geometric variational problems that can be formulated on chain space over different coeffiicients, e.g., Almgren-Pitts min-max, mean curvature flow, Song's spherical Plateau problem, minimizers of elliptic and other general functionals, etc.
Africa holds the world's highest solar irradiance yet has <2% of global photovoltaic (PV) capacity, leaving 600 million people without electricity access. However, climate change impacts on its 10 TW potential remain understudied. Using four decades of ERA5 reanalysis data (1980-2020) at 0.25 degree resolution, we quantify the contributions of key climate factors to historical changes in African PV potential through multivariate decomposition. Continental PV potential increased by 3.2%, driven primarily by enhanced solar radiation (+1.2 degree Celsius, contributing -23%). East Africa gained >6% from radiation enhancement, while North Africa declined by 0.5% as extreme heat (+2 degree Celsius) overwhelmed radiation benefits. Critically, stability analysis using the coefficient of variation (CV) reveals that high-irradiance subtropical zones are highly variable (CV=0.4), in contrast to stable equatorial regions (CV=0.1), challenging the assumption that resource abundance ensures reliability. These findings reframe Africa's solar strategy: North Africa requires prioritizing heat-resilient technology over capacity maximization; subtropical zones demand grid-storage co-investment; and East Africa presents globally competitive opportunities for rapid, stable deployment. By resolving spatiotemporal heterogeneities and quantifying climate-driver contributions, our analysis provides an actionable framework for climate-resilient solar deployment, critical for Africa's energy transition and climate mitigation.
Michael A. Bekos, Giordano Da Lozzo, Fabrizio Frati
et al.
A well-known result by Kant [Algorithmica, 1996] implies that n-vertex outerplane graphs admit embedding-preserving planar straight-line grid drawings where the internal faces are convex polygons in $O(n^2)$ area. In this paper, we present an algorithm to compute such drawings in $O(n^{1.5})$ area. We also consider outerplanar drawings in which the internal faces are required to be strictly-convex polygons. In this setting, we consider outerplanar graphs whose weak dual is a path and give a drawing algorithm that achieves $Θ(nk^2)$ area, where $k$ is the maximum size of an internal facial cycle.
Modern fire management systems increasingly rely on satellite data and weather forecasting; however, access to comprehensive datasets remains limited due to proprietary restrictions. Despite the ecological significance of wildfires, large-scale, multi-regional research is constrained by data scarcity. Russian diverse ecosystems play a crucial role in shaping Eurasian fire dynamics, yet they remain underexplored. This study addresses existing gaps by introducing an open-access dataset that captures detailed fire incidents alongside corresponding meteorological conditions. We present one of the most extensive datasets available for wildfire analysis in Russia, covering 13 consecutive months of observations. Leveraging machine learning techniques, we conduct exploratory data analysis and develop predictive models to identify key fire behavior patterns across different fire categories and ecosystems. Our results highlight the critical influence of environmental factor patterns on fire occurrence and spread behavior. By improving the understanding of wildfire dynamics in Eurasia, this work contributes to more effective, data-driven approaches for proactive fire management in the face of evolving environmental conditions.
AbstractIn the 19th century, the massive growth of commercial whaling transformed the face of the Pacific, causing widespread ecological destruction, but also creating new links between island and shoreline communities across the region. By exploring that history from the mobile viewpoint of whaleships as they crossed and re-crossed the ocean, this essay seeks to develop a ‘liquid area’ approach to 19th century transformations in the Asia-Pacific region. Such an approach, I argue, shifts the historical focus to communities that are commonly regarded as ‘remote’ and peripheral to narratives of national history. It helps us to see how the people of these communities responded actively and creatively to the incursions of global capitalism, and how they became participants in networks of interaction and exchange which spanned the region from Chile and Peru to Hawaii, Japan, the Bering Sea coast and the many islands of Oceania.
The Mekong River Basin, a lifeline for millions in Southeast Asia, faces a multifaceted challenge: balancing cooperation for sustainable development with the competing geopolitical interests of regional and global powers. This paper explores the Mekong Cooperation Frameworks (MCF), a web of partnerships between the Mekong countries and external actors. This paper delves into the strengths and weaknesses of various MCF frameworks, including the Mekong River Commission (MRC), Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), Mekong-Ganga Cooperation (MGC), Mekong-Japan Cooperation (MJC), Lower Mekong Initiative (LMI), Mekong-Lancang Cooperation (MLC), and Mekong- Republic of Korea Cooperation (Mekong-ROK). Each framework offers unique approaches to infrastructure development, water resource management, and socio-economic progress, but also faces limitations. Beyond existing frameworks, this paper also provides suggestions for the characteristics of successful Mekong-Russia Cooperation (MRUC) within the MCF.
The author further analyses the complex geopolitical landscape of the Mekong region. The Mekong countries must navigate the influence of China, a major player in infrastructure projects and water management, while also engaging with the United States, Japan, and other regional powers. Frameworks like the LMI and Friends of the Lower Mekong appear to counter China's dominance, while the MLC raises concerns about transparency in water resource management.
This paper proposes some recommendations to ensure the Mekong River remains a symbol of regional cooperation and prosperity. Strengthening the MRC through enhanced regulatory power and fostering greater regional cooperation on water management and environmental protection is crucial. The author also emphasizes leveraging existing ASEAN mechanisms for collective action and advocating for a unified approach to the Mekong.
Conclusively, this paper argues that navigating the geopolitical complexities of the Mekong region requires a delicate balancing act. By fostering cooperation within the MCF, strengthening regional institutions, and advocating for a unified approach, the Mekong countries can ensure the Mekong River serves as a bridge for a sustainable and prosperous future.
South Asia. Southeast Asia. East Asia, Bibliography. Library science. Information resources
Telle une peau de Sagrin, qui rétrécit en séchant, le contentieux susceptible de censure du juge de cassation s’est rétréci au cours du temps, comme conséquence de l’édiction de lois qui distrayaient du juge de cassation des contentieux spécifiques. Or, c’est précisément au travers de l’office du juge de Cassation que la Cour Suprême remplit traditionnellement son rôle de garante de la bonne application de la règle de droit par les Cours et Tribunaux. Cet article identifie les écueils à l’accomplissement effectif, par la susdite Cour, de sa mission de contrôle de la bonne application de la loi par les juridictions de fond et montre l’impact de la non-diffusion des décisions judiciaires, celles de la Cour suprême en particulier, sur l’unité et la prévisibilité du droit.
Asia and Eurasia, Africa, Pacific Area, and Antarctica
We have developed the world's first canopy height map of the distribution area of world-level giant trees. This mapping is crucial for discovering more individual and community world-level giant trees, and for analyzing and quantifying the effectiveness of biodiversity conservation measures in the Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon (YTGC) National Nature Reserve. We proposed a method to map the canopy height of the primeval forest within the world-level giant tree distribution area by using a spaceborne LiDAR fusion satellite imagery (Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI), ICESat-2, and Sentinel-2) driven deep learning modeling. And we customized a pyramid receptive fields depth separable CNN (PRFXception). PRFXception, a CNN architecture specifically customized for mapping primeval forest canopy height to infer the canopy height at the footprint level of GEDI and ICESat-2 from Sentinel-2 optical imagery with a 10-meter spatial resolution. We conducted a field survey of 227 permanent plots using a stratified sampling method and measured several giant trees using UAV-LS. The predicted canopy height was compared with ICESat-2 and GEDI validation data (RMSE =7.56 m, MAE=6.07 m, ME=-0.98 m, R^2=0.58 m), UAV-LS point clouds (RMSE =5.75 m, MAE =3.72 m, ME = 0.82 m, R^2= 0.65 m), and ground survey data (RMSE = 6.75 m, MAE = 5.56 m, ME= 2.14 m, R^2=0.60 m). We mapped the potential distribution map of world-level giant trees and discovered two previously undetected giant tree communities with an 89% probability of having trees 80-100 m tall, potentially taller than Asia's tallest tree. This paper provides scientific evidence confirming southeastern Tibet--northwestern Yunnan as the fourth global distribution center of world-level giant trees initiatives and promoting the inclusion of the YTGC giant tree distribution area within the scope of China's national park conservation.
Victor Adewopo, Sylvia Worlali Azumah, Mustapha Awinsongya Yakubu
et al.
Cybercrime is a growing concern in West Africa due to the increasing use of technology and internet penetration in the region. Legal frameworks are essential for guiding the control of cybercrime. However, the implementation proves challenging for law enforcement agencies due to the absence of a dedicated and effective regional institutional follow-up mechanism. This study conducted a systematic literature review focusing on West Africa's prevalence of cybercrime, governing policies, regulations, and methodologies for combating cybercrime. West-Africa countries face significant cybercrime challenges, exacerbated by inadequate resources and a dearth of security experts. This study pinpoints potential cybercrime prevention strategies, such as leveraging the Triage framework and broadening research to cover pivotal areas like cyber aggression and cyberbullying. Our research findings highlight the urgency for policymakers and law enforcement agencies to devise more efficient prevention strategies and policies. Overall, this study provides invaluable insights into the state of cybercrime in West Africa to guide the formulation of potent prevention and intervention strategies.
Natural Language Processing (NLP) of news articles can play an important role in understanding the dynamics and causes of violent conflict. Despite the availability of datasets categorizing various conflict events, the existing labels often do not cover all of the fine-grained violent conflict event types relevant to areas like the Horn of Africa. In this paper, we introduce a new benchmark dataset Conflict Events in the Horn of Africa region (CEHA) and propose a new task for identifying violent conflict events using online resources with this dataset. The dataset consists of 500 English event descriptions regarding conflict events in the Horn of Africa region with fine-grained event-type definitions that emphasize the cause of the conflict. This dataset categorizes the key types of conflict risk according to specific areas required by stakeholders in the Humanitarian-Peace-Development Nexus. Additionally, we conduct extensive experiments on two tasks supported by this dataset: Event-relevance Classification and Event-type Classification. Our baseline models demonstrate the challenging nature of these tasks and the usefulness of our dataset for model evaluations in low-resource settings with limited number of training data.
Aloysius Ochasi, Abdoul Jalil Djiberou Mahamadou, Russ B. Altman
There is an ongoing debate on balancing the benefits and risks of artificial intelligence (AI) as AI is becoming critical to improving healthcare delivery and patient outcomes. Such improvements are essential in resource-constrained settings where millions lack access to adequate healthcare services, such as in Africa. AI in such a context can potentially improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and accessibility of healthcare services. Nevertheless, the development and use of AI-driven healthcare systems raise numerous ethical, legal, and socio-economic issues. Justice is a major concern in AI that has implications for amplifying social inequities. This paper discusses these implications and related justice concepts such as solidarity, Common Good, sustainability, AI bias, and fairness. For Africa to effectively benefit from AI, these principles should align with the local context while balancing the risks. Compared to mainstream ethical debates on justice, this perspective offers context-specific considerations for equitable healthcare AI development in Africa.
The article deals with the problem of discrimination of ethnic Koreans living in Japan (Zainichi Koreans), who face it in various forms – from psychological harassment to direct intimidation and insults. The author shows the historical background of this problem and comes to the conclusion that the ambiguous legal status of Koreans in Japan, the biased attitude of the Japanese towards Koreans, the issue of “hate speeches” that has aggravated in the last decade, the discrimination of “Korean schools” in Japan and other aspects of the problem are largely determined by the negative historical legacy in Japanese relations with the countries of the Korean peninsula. The division of the Korean peninsula also has its influence, which is reflected in the split of the Korean diaspora and mutual hostility between its two poles, oriented towards the North or the South of Korea. The Japanese dislike of North Korea, which in their eyes is a source of direct military threat, manifests itself in the discriminatory policy of the government and local authorities towards “Korean schools”, which exclude these schools from the public financial support system.
South Asia. Southeast Asia. East Asia, Bibliography. Library science. Information resources
The article traces the history of the creation and current activities of the periodical edition/journal published by the ICCA RAS “China in World and Regional Politics. History and Modernity”. The author describes the scientific merits of the founders of the periodical – prominent Russian scientists A.G. Yakovlev and B.T. Kulik, and characterizes the stages of its development: from an internal collection of scientific articles of one department to a scientific journal recognized both in Russia and abroad. The article presents topics of the research, which results appeared on the pages of the journal, names their leading developers and emphasizes the fact that the range of the analyzed problems is very broad and it continues to expand in accordance with the requirements of the current situation and scientific research carried out by the ICCA RAS.
South Asia. Southeast Asia. East Asia, Bibliography. Library science. Information resources
Takehiko Nose, Tomotaka Katsuno, Takuji Waseda
et al.
A drifting wave-ice buoy, which was configured by mounting the OpenMetBuoy on an ad hoc floating platform that we named Medusa, was deployed at the Lützow-Holm Bay (LHB) marginal ice zone in Antarctica on 4 Feb 2022 during the 63rd Japanese Antarctica research expedition. The wave-ice buoy, Medusa-766, survived the Antarctica winter as the measurement duration reached 333 days. During the winter months, it was located deep in the ice cover with the shortest distance to the ice-free Southern Ocean over 1,000 km; at this time, there was evidence of ocean wave signals at the buoy position. Using the directional wave spectra obtained from the ECMWF's reanalysis, we show that the Medusa-766 observed waves were likely generated by an extratropical cyclone in the Southern Ocean. Wave-induced ice breakup potential for such an event could extend 100s km into the ice field. When Medusa-766 was in LHB in the summer months, it did not detect sizeable wave energy despite the low sea ice concentration extent even during on-ice waves events. Characterising the considerable differences in the wave attenuation at LHB is needed to elucidate the relative contribution of ocean waves to the unstable LHB fast ice. The success of Medusa-766 demonstrates the robustness of the general design, hardware, firmware, and the high sensitivity of the sensor used. The result is promising for future LHB wave-ice interaction research.