Multiethnic Malaysia provides a unique case study of divergence in population aging of different sociocultural subgroups within a country. Malaysia represents 3 major ethnicities in Asia-the Malay, Chinese, and Indian. The 3 ethnic groups are at different stages of population aging, as they have undergone demographic transition at different pace amidst rapid social and economic changes. Between 1991 and 2010, the Malaysian population aged 60 and over has more than doubled from about 1 million to 2.2 million, and this is projected to rise to about 7 million or 17.6% of the projected population of 40 million by 2040. In 2010, the aging index ranged from 22.8% among the Bumiputera (Malays and other indigenous groups), to 31.4% among the Indians and 55.0% among the Chinese. Population aging provides great challenges for Malaysia's social and economic development. The increasing prevalence of noncommunicable diseases in older adults, coupled with the erosion of the traditional family support system has increased demands on health care services with an overwhelming need for multidisciplinary and specialized geriatric care. Following the adoption of the National Policy for the Elderly in 1995, issues of population aging have gained increasing attention, especially among researchers. There is an urgent need to increase public awareness, develop infrastructure, as well as support action oriented research that will directly translate to comprehensive and cohesive social strategies, policies, and legislation to protect not just the current older Malaysians but the future of all Malaysians.
PIP: Responses to questions relating to breastfeeding in the World Fertility Surveys of South Korea, Indonesia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Bangladesh are analyzed. Of these countries, the percentage of ever-married women who had breastfed in the last closed interval was between 94-99%, except for Malaysia (81%) and average number of months breastfeeding took place was from 16.5-19.2, except for Malaysia (7.3). The infant mortality rate in these countries was 33/1000 live births for South Korea, 45/1000 for Malaysia, 51/1000 for Sri Lanka, 137/1000 for Indonesia, 150/1000 for Bangladesh, and 152/1000 for Nepal. Responses, however, might vary according to different interview situations. Assuming that the reporting errors are of similar magnitude and direction, the relationship between duration of breastfeeding and the birth interval can be studied. But it is possible that breastfeeding was prolonged due to other reasons for which conception was delayed; thus the regression of breastfeeding duration on the birth interval is not as logical as the regression of the birth interval on the breastfeeding is, especially when habitual breastfeeding can be avoided. The negative relationship between breastfeeding and infant mortality does exist, assuming that a woman breastfeeds all her children for similar durations. Some breastfeeding differentials are place of residence (less for rural areas), education (reduces duration), and religion (Christians have shorter duration than Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists). In South Korea the mean length of breastfeeding of women aged 25-34 and 35-44 are 17.5 and 20.5, and women using contraceptives are 26% for 25-34 and 20% for 35-44. South Korea also has the highest level of breastfeeding, highest incidence of ever use of contraceptives, and a very low level of fertility. Nepal and Bangladesh have a high level of breastfeeding but since their contraceptive incidence is low, their fertility level remains high. Some areas of further research include influence of breastfeeding on infant and child mortality.
Disjunctive distributions across paleotropical regions in the Indian Ocean Basin (IOB) often invoke dispersal/vicariance debates. Exacum (Gentianaceae, tribe Exaceae) species are spread around the IOB, in Africa, Madagascar, Socotra, the Arabian peninsula, Sri Lanka, India, the Himalayas, mainland Southeast Asia including southern China and Malaysia, and northern Australia. The distribution of this genus was suggested to be a typical example of vicariance resulting from the breakup of the Gondwanan supercontinent. The molecular phylogeny of Exacum is in principle congruent with morphological conclusions and shows a pattern that resembles a vicariance scenario with rapid divergence among lineages, but our molecular dating analysis demonstrates that the radiation is too recent to be associated with the Gondwanan continental breakup. We used our dating analysis to test the results of DIVA and found that the program predicted impossible vicariance events. Ancestral area reconstruction suggests that Exacum originated in Madagascar, and divergence dating suggests its origin was not before the Eocene. The Madagascan progenitor, the most recent common ancestor of Exacum, colonized Sri Lanka and southern India via long-distance dispersals. This colonizer underwent an extensive range expansion and spread to Socotra-Arabia, northern India, and mainland Southeast Asia in the northern IOB when it was warm and humid in these regions. This widespread common ancestor retreated subsequently from most parts of these regions and survived in isolation in Socotra-Arabia, southern India-Sri Lanka, and perhaps mainland Southeast Asia, possibly as a consequence of drastic climatic changes, particularly the spreading drought during the Neogene. Secondary diversification from these surviving centers and Madagascar resulted in the extant main lineages of the genus. The vicariance-like pattern shown by the phylogeny appears to have resulted from long-distance dispersals followed by extensive range expansion and subsequent fragmentation. The extant African species E. oldenlandioides is confirmed to be recently dispersed from Madagascar.
For over 2 decades, until the economic crisis in mid-1997, Malaysia's rapid economic growth attracted an influx of foreign labor, mostly from Indonesia, Bangladesh, and the Philippines. In 1997 the number of registered workers was estimated at 1.2 million and undocumented ones at approximately 800,000. The influx created various problems, of which housing is one of the most serious, especially in the Kelang Valley. This paper examines the ways and means by which Indonesian workers, the largest group among foreigners, overcame their accommodation problem. Two types of settlements are identified, that is, illegal ones in the squatter areas and legal ones, which are largely in Malay Reservation Areas. The settlements, which signify Indonesians' success in finding a foothold in Malaysia, today have become a base for more in-migration.
Population ageing and labor out-migration are increasingly challenging normative intergenerational support systems and familial welfare in parts of Asia. Extant studies look at how migration affects the material wellbeing of sending-households, but less is known about how migration shapes the emotional health of non-migrants as origin and destination conditions evolve. This study examines how labor migration among adult children shape the emotional health of elderly parents in Indonesia, and how observed implications are modified by alternative care arrangements and different migrant destinations. Using panel data from 2101 respondents age 50+ in the 2007 and 2014 Indonesia Family Life Survey, and individual-level fixed effects regressions, this study finds that offspring's migration is associated with increased parental depression, net of covariates. Depressive outcomes are abated if resulting care deficits are offset by co-residence or daily interactions with adult children, or if children move to economically lucrative international destinations; however, having a child in Malaysia - a destination characterized by high informal labor employment - increased parental depression. These findings draw attention to the non-economic implications of migration and the distress experienced specifically by parents who lack intergenerational support and who have concerns about child's wellbeing at destination.
Attention has shifted to the development of villages in Europe and other parts of the world with the goal of combating rural-urban migration, and moving toward self-sufficiency in rural areas. This situation has birthed the smart village idea. Smart village initiatives such as those of the European Union is motivating global efforts aimed at improving the live and livelihood of rural dwellers. These initiatives are focused on improving agricultural productivity, among other things, since most of the food we eat are grown in rural areas around the world. Nevertheless, a major challenge faced by proponents of the smart village concept is how to provide a framework for the development of the term, so that this development is tailored towards sustainability. The current work examines the level of progress of climate smart agriculture, and tries to borrow from its ideals, to develop a framework for smart village development. Given the advances in technology, agricultural development that encompasses reduction of farming losses, optimization of agricultural processes for increased yield, as well as prevention, monitoring, and early detection of plant and animal diseases, has now embraced varieties of smart sensor technologies. The implication is that the studies and results generated around the concept of climate smart agriculture can be adopted in planning of villages, and transforming them into smart villages. Hence, we argue that for effective development of the smart village framework, smart agricultural techniques must be prioritized, viz-a-viz other developmental practicalities.
Coral cover on reefs is declining globally due to coastal development, overfishing and climate change. Reefs isolated from direct human influence can recover from natural acute disturbances, but little is known about long term recovery of reefs experiencing chronic human disturbances. Here we investigate responses to acute bleaching disturbances on turbid reefs off Singapore, at two depths over a period of 27 years. Coral cover declined and there were marked changes in coral and benthic community structure during the first decade of monitoring at both depths. At shallower reef crest sites (3-4 m), benthic community structure recovered towards pre-disturbance states within a decade. In contrast, there was a net decline in coral cover and continuing shifts in community structure at deeper reef slope sites (6-7 m). There was no evidence of phase shifts to macroalgal dominance but coral habitats at deeper sites were replaced by unstable substrata such as fine sediments and rubble. The persistence of coral dominance at chronically disturbed shallow sites is likely due to an abundance of coral taxa which are tolerant to environmental stress. In addition, high turbidity may interact antagonistically with other disturbances to reduce the impact of thermal stress and limit macroalgal growth rates.
For many threatened species the rate and drivers of population decline are difficult to assess accurately: species' surveys are typically restricted to small geographic areas, are conducted over short time periods, and employ a wide range of survey protocols. We addressed methodological challenges for assessing change in the abundance of an endangered species. We applied novel methods for integrating field and interview survey data for the critically endangered Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus), allowing a deeper understanding of the species' persistence through time. Our analysis revealed that Bornean orangutan populations have declined at a rate of 25% over the last 10 years. Survival rates of the species are lowest in areas with intermediate rainfall, where complex interrelations between soil fertility, agricultural productivity, and human settlement patterns influence persistence. These areas also have highest threats from human-wildlife conflict. Survival rates are further positively associated with forest extent, but are lower in areas where surrounding forest has been recently converted to industrial agriculture. Our study highlights the urgency of determining specific management interventions needed in different locations to counter the trend of decline and its associated drivers.
Many fisheries management and conservation plans are based on the genetic structure of organisms in pelagic ecosystems; however, these structures tend to vary over time, particularly in cyclic ocean currents. We performed genetic analyses on the populations of the pelagic fish, Megalaspis cordyla (Osteichthyes: Carangidae) in the area surrounding Taiwan during 2000-2001. Genotyping was performed on M. cordyla collected seasonally around Taiwan as well as specimens collected from Singapore (Malacca strait) and Indonesia (Banda Sea). Gonadosomatic indices (GSI) revealed that M. cordyla does not spawn near Taiwan. Data related to the mitochondrial control region revealed that the samples from Singapore and Indonesia represented two distinct genetic cohorts. Genotyping revealed that during the summer (June-August 2000), the Indonesian variant was dominant in eastern Taiwan (presumably following the Kuroshio Current) and in the Penghu region (following the Kuroshio Branch Current). During the same period, the Singapore genotype was dominant along the western coast of Taiwan (presumably following the South China Sea Current); however, the number dropped during the winter (December-February 2001) under the effects of the China Coast Current. Divergence time estimates indicate that the two genetic cohorts split during the last glacial maximum. Despite the fact that these results are based on sampling from a single year, they demonstrate the importance of seasonal sampling in unravelling the genetic diversity in pelagic ecosystems.
The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China (XUARC) harbors 47 ethnic groups including the Manchu (MCH: 0.11%), Mongols (MGL: 0.81%), Kyrgyz (KGZ: 0.86%) and Uzbek (UZK: 0.066%). To establish DNA databases for these populations, allele frequency distributions for 15 autosomal short tandem repeat (STR) loci were determined using the AmpFlSTR Identifiler PCR amplification kit. There was no evidence of departures from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) in any of the four populations and minimal departure from linkage equilibrium (LE) for a very small number of pairwise combinations of loci. The probabilities of identity for the different populations ranged from 1 in 1.51 × 1017 (MCH) to 1 in 9.94 × 1018 (MGL), the combined powers of discrimination ranged from 0.99999999999999999824 (UZK) to 0.9999999999999999848 (MCH) and the combined probabilities of paternal exclusion ranged from 0.9999979323 (UZK) to 0.9999994839 (MCH). Genetic distances, a phylogenetic tree and principal component analysis (PCA) revealed that the MCH, KGZ and UZK are genetically closer to the Han population of Liaoning and the Mongol population of Mongolia while the MGL are closer to Han, Japanese, Korean, Malaysian, Hong Kong Han and Russians living in China.
Benthic species, though ecologically important, are vulnerable to genetic loss and population size reduction due to impacts from fishing trawls. An assessment of genetic diversity and population structure is therefore needed to assist in a resource management program. To address this issue, the two-spined yellowtail stargazer (Uranoscopus cognatus) was collected within selected locations in the Indo-West Pacific (IWP). The partial mitochondrial DNA cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 and the nuclear DNA recombination activating gene 1 were sequenced. Genetic diversity analyses revealed that the populations were moderately to highly diversified (haplotype diversity, H = 0.490-0.900, nucleotide diversity, π = 0.0010-0.0034) except sampling station (ST) 1 and 14. The low diversity level, however was apparent only in the matrilineal marker (H = 0.118-0.216; π = 0.0004-0.0008), possibly due to stochastic factors or anthropogenic stressors. Population structure analyses revealed a retention of ancestral polymorphism that was likely due to incomplete lineage sorting in U. cognatus, and prolonged vicariance by the Indo-Pacific Barrier has partitioned them into separate stock units. Population segregation was also shown by the phenotypic divergence in allopatric populations, regarding the premaxillary protrusion, which is possibly associated with the mechanism for upper jaw movement in biomechanical feeding approaches. The moderate genetic diversity estimated for each region, in addition to past population expansion events, indicated that U. cognatus within the IWP was still healthy and abundant (except in ST1 and 14), and two stock units were identified to be subjected to a specific resource management program.
A recent dispersal of modern humans out of Africa is now widely accepted, but the routes taken across Eurasia are still disputed. We show that mitochondrial DNA variation in isolated "relict" populations in southeast Asia supports the view that there was only a single dispersal from Africa, most likely via a southern coastal route, through India and onward into southeast Asia and Australasia. There was an early offshoot, leading ultimately to the settlement of the Near East and Europe, but the main dispersal from India to Australia approximately 65,000 years ago was rapid, most likely taking only a few thousand years.
Population in urban centers in Kenya is increasing rapidly due to rural urban migration in search of better paying jobs. This migration has resulted in unauthorized settlements in the various urban centers. The income per capital of these people is less than a dollar a day. The amount of money is inadequate for survival and this has resulted into cultivating on open grounds for food crops. Unfortunately, these slums have come up along rivers, which carry, wastewater from household and industries. This wastewater is rich in heavy metals and the inhabitants of these areas use this contaminated water for irrigating their crops. The food crops from such areas have very high levels of heavy metals. The present study has screened Zea mays, Commelina bengalensis and Amaranthus hybridus for their ability to bioaccumulate these metals from contaminated soils using atomic absorption spectrophotometer (AAS). The results obtained showed that the C. bengalensis has high potential for removal of Cu, Pb and Cd metals as compared to the Zea mays and Amaranthus hybridus even though, results showed that C. bengalensis has a low potential for the removal of Zn as compared to Zea mays and Amaranthus hybridus.