The Eurasian Economic Union and Silk Road Tourism: Qualifying Resources, Amplifying Messages

The promotion of tourism can often be a dichotomy of national and intra-regional interests, especially when countries are a part of an economic regional grouping. The vast Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), which stretches from the Caspian Sea to the western borders of China, comprises five large countries all of which are situated along the ancient Silk Road. Although an ancient historical route, its modern development is still very much in its infancy, with countries in the region eager to develop their own capabilities to not only attract international visitors but also capture important a significant share of the rapidly growing tourism marketplace. This chapter uses the (Ritchie and Crouch, in The competitive destination: a sustainable tourism perspective, CABI, Wallingford, UK, 2003) destination competitive model to assess the travel and tourism opportunities that exist across the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The significance of this study, lies in the proposition that Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) as a regional grouping has the potential to emerge as a dynamic tourism destination. At the heart of such a believe will be the inherent need for countries to leverage their qualifying resources and amplify in unison key developmental factors such as the safety, location, interconnectedness of the different destinations within and more broadly the competitive elements of costs and exchange rates

Method to Minimize the Errors of AI: Quantifying and Exploiting Uncertainty of Deep Learning in Brain Tumor Segmentation

Despite the unprecedented success of deep learning in various fields, it has been recognized that clinical diagnosis requires extra caution when applying recent deep learning techniques because false prediction can result in severe consequences. In this study, we proposed a reliable deep learning framework that could minimize incorrect segmentation by quantifying and exploiting uncertainty measures. The proposed framework demonstrated the effectiveness of a public dataset: Multimodal Brain Tumor Segmentation Challenge 2018. By using this framework, segmentation performances, particularly for small lesions, were improved. Since the segmentation of small lesions is difficult but also clinically significant, this framework could be effectively applied to the medical imaging field

Heterogeneous Value of Water: Empirical Evidence in South Korea

Anthropogenic pressures have exacerbated self-sustaining river services, and growing concerns over sustaining river system become global problematic issues that lead us to implement river restoration projects. Of those projects, governing diverse needs and desires from stakeholders for those who have various water values are key elements of identifying the success of the project. In fact, the Korean government has had concern over restoring the rivers which brings to construct 16 weirs in four major rivers and may fail to achieve main goal of the project, which is to ameliorate water quality. In this study, principle component analysis and multinomial logit model were executed to investigate major socioeconomic variables to influence water values in terms of sustainability in Korea. Evitable evidences have been found that age, income, education level, and city dwelling are the most effective variables to estimate water values. In addition, a monotonous water development project and a myopic view could cause major dejection across the nation and may lead to the failure of water governance. Unfortunately, the latter may be observed in Korea as one of the reasons for the recent amplification of major conflicts

Site-specific fabrication of a melanin-like pigment through spatially confined progressive assembly on an initiator-loaded template

Melanin-like nanomaterials have emerged in surface biofunctionalization in a material-independent manner due to their versatile adhesion arising from their catechol-rich structures. However, the unique adhesive properties of these materials ironically raise difficulties in their site-specific fabrication. Here, we report a method for site-specific fabrication and patterning of melanin-like pigments, using progressive assembly on an initiator-loaded template (PAINT), different from conventional lithographical methods. In this method, the local progressive assembly could be naturally induced on the given surface pretreated with initiators mediating oxidation of the catecholic precursor, as the intermediates generated from the precursors during the progressive assembly possess sufficient intrinsic underwater adhesion for localization without diffusion into solution. The pigment fabricated by PAINT showed efficient NIR-to-heat conversion properties, which can be useful in biomedical applications such as the disinfection of medical devices and cancer therapies. © 2023. The Author(s).TRU

Economic development along the New Silk Road: A vehicle for driving sustainable tourism

For over two millennia, the Silk Road has been instrumental in linking Asia in the east, with Europe in the west. It has served as an important route of integration, exchange, conflict, and economic and political dialogue. In 2013, the Chinese government made an important first step to revitalize this ancient region by establishing the “New Silk Road”, also known as the Belt and Road Initiative. At the heart of this developmental plan, lies an extensive range of land and marine-based infrastructural projects that seek to ignite new trade and business activity along the road. A key aspect of this development are new opportunities to grow the region’s already impressive tourism sector. As such, the aim of this study is to assess not only what role the New Silk Road Initiative will play in growing tourism activity in the region, but also to provide several practical policy suggestions that both governments and industry can adopt in the future. In particular, we suggest that to continuously boost the strategic projects that best represent New Silk Road’s interests, countries need to constantly endeavor on infrastructural developments that have paved the way for the steady growth in trade between the countries, hence realizing BRI’s goal of developing closer trading links between and among member countries

Lactoferrin-polyphenol composite nanocoating with enhanced chemical stability and cell-compatibility

Lactoferrin is a functional whey protein that exhibits beneficial bioactivities to human health. To utilize the wide range of lactoferrin's biomedical advantages, much effort has been devoted to developing lactoferrin coating strategies. However, lactoferrin coating has been still limited to the conventional protein modification techniques, which hamper the practical applications of lactoferrin. Here, we demonstrate lactoferrin composite nanocoating by layer-by-layer assembly with lactoferrin and Fe(III)-tannic acid complex. The simple immersive processes are able to deposit lactoferrin composite nanolayers on planar substrates with precise thickness tuneablility. Also, the optimized deposition condition for lactoferrin composite nanocoating is applicable to particulate substrates. Further, lactoferrin composite nanocoating shows enhanced nanofilm stability against pH changes and digestive enzyme treatments, and improves cell compatibility greatly, compared to that of Fe(III)-TA complex. We envisage that lactoferrin composite nanocoating not only paves the way for exploiting full potential of lactoferrin's bioactivities, but also leads to stimulating the tailored design of composite nanomaterials containing multiple enzymes for customized applications in nanomedicine and nanobiosensor. © 2023FALS

The Role of the Belt and Road Initiative in Driving Tourism in the Post COVID-19 Era

As the Central Asian region emerges from the grips of the COVID-19 pandemic, it can look ahead with a sense of optimism. Nestled within its confines, lie many unique tourist attractions that provide a variety of year-round quality experiences, which can form the catalyst for sustainable economic growth over the long-term. This study examines the important role the Tourism sector can play in driving economic growth along in the Central Asian corridor. It also details the key policy initiatives that Governments can look to implement and in particular, the role the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) plays in driving key infrastructural projects that enhance the level of connectivity to tourism markets in the region. In addition to this, our study assesses what the potential green growth developmental agenda might look like for the tourism sector. Our research showed that the BRI will potentially prove to be the largest infrastructure project in history, enormously affecting the growth of tourist industries in the regions including and surrounding the Silk Road In these regions, institutional growth and social change, both affected by technological developments, will likely drive the growth of tourism industries. The BRI provides the backbone to these developments

Biocompatible CaTiO3-PVDF composite-based piezoelectric nanogenerator for exercise evaluation and energy harvesting

Biocompatible energy-harvesting platforms can significantly promote the development of self-powered devices to improve the human lifestyle. However, the low power of these devices is a bottleneck and requires an alternative power source. Herein, we have developed calcium titanate (CTO) perovskite-based polymeric composite (polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF)) as a piezoelectric nanogenerator (PENG) to be used as a power source. X-ray tomography images confirm that CTO particles are well dispersed inside the PVDF matrix. It is realized that the electrical output of the device increases with the addition of CTO in PVDF. The maximum device performance was observed for 8 wt. % CTO-PVDF composite film with an output voltage of 20 V, current of 250 nA, and power density of 0.19 μW/cm2 at 108 Ω. The PENG delivered a consistent output and could charge commercial capacitors demonstrating its potential as a sustainable power source. Moreover, the biocompatibility of CTO-PVDF film was validated by NIH3T3 cells. The CTO-PVDF composite-based PENG device was installed in the heel area to collect the signal generated from the skipping practice of individuals. The digital signal processing techniques and the artificial neural network (ANN) were utilized to detect the skipping patterns. Such a self-powered activity tracker unit will correctly monitor human health, preventing severe chronic conditions such as knee pain, calf strain, and plantar fasciitis.</p

Rationale, design, and characteristics of the multimedia family planning campaign for a small, happy, and prosperous family in Ethiopia (SHaPE)

Abstract Background Ethiopia, the second most populous country in Africa, has a total fertility rate of 4.6, a decrease from 5.5 in 2000. However, only 35.3% of women in the reproductive age group use modern family planning (FP) methods, and the 22.3% of them who have an unmet need for family planning is among the highest rates in sub-Saharan African countries. The Small, Happy, and Prosperous family in Ethiopia (SHaPE) is one of the country’s first comprehensive multimedia family planning campaigns. Its purpose is to increase FP-related knowledge, attitude, and practice of Ethiopians, particularly women of reproductive age. Methods/Design The SHaPE campaign has multiple components: (1) a nationwide representative survey, which serves as formative research to identify region-specific and culture-appropriate media, messages, and barriers and determinants of family planning; (2) a multimedia communication campaign intervention, including radio dramas and other interpersonal, community-level, and mass media channels; and (3) campaign evaluation, including pre-, process-, and post-evaluation research using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The main target population for SHaPE is reproductive age women and men in three regions: Amhara, Oromia, and Somali. These regions take up about 66.6% of the entire country and have distinct ethnicities, cultures, and languages. Discussion SHaPE contributes to existing family planning research and intervention because it is theory- and evidence-based, and it employs integrated marketing communications and entertainment-education approaches with key messages that are tailored to audiences within unique cultures. But even within a country, a nationwide campaign with uniform messages is neither possible nor desirable due to different cultures, norms, and languages across regions. Last, media campaigns in developing and underdeveloped countries require constant monitoring of political situations

Effect of Oxygen for Enhancing the Gas Storage Performance of Activated Green Carbon

We investigated the gas storage capacity of thermally carbonized and chemically activated Phyllostachys bambusoides (PB), which is a nature-derived green carbon with an organic porous structure. Samples were thermally treated at 900 &deg;C for 24 h, and then were chemically activated with different amounts of KOH. The pore distribution, surface area, and H2 storage capacity were measured by N2 and H2 gas sorption, up to 847 mmHg (1.13 bar) at 77 K. The CO2 storage capacity was measured up to 847 mmHg (1.13 bar) at 298 K. The maximum gas storage was shown in the sample activated with 6 times gravimetric ratio of chemical agent. It reached 1.86 wt% for H2 and 3.44 mmol/g for CO2. We used multilateral analysis methods (XRD, XPS, Raman spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscope) to identify the factors influencing gas sorption. We found that the amount of oxygen groups influence the enhancement of gas storage capacity. Moreover, the results showed that PB-based porous activated carbon has the potential to be used as a multirole gas storage material