Militant Islam in Southeast Asia: new insights into jihad in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines

After more than two decades of existence, Contemporary Southeast Asia (CSEA) has entered a new phase of specialization to reflect more directly the changing priorities of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) as well as to cater to an increasing demand among our subscribers for a focus on issues related to domestic politics, international affairs, and regional security. This primary emphasis on political developments, socioeconomic change and international relations is in keeping with the rapid advances in the field of strategic studies concerning not just Southeast Asia but, indeed, the larger Asia-Pacific environment. Contemporary Southeast Asia comprises up-to-date analyses of important trends and events as well as authoritative and original contributions from leading scholars and observers on matters of current interest. It is also the policy of the Editorial Committee of CSEA to produce special issues in order to focus attention either on particular national situations or on major strategic trends in both Southeast Asia and the wider Asia-Pacific region. Contemporary Southeast Asia is published three times a year, in April, August, and December

Why they join: pathways into Indonesian jihadi organisations

Why do Indonesian Muslims join Islamist extremist groups? This article explores four pathways to entry into Indonesian militant groups: study groups, local conflict, kinship and schools. It argues that within all four of these pathways, social bonds and relationships are the common thread both in encouraging entry as well as in fostering commitment. Specifically, these relationships contribute to the formation and eventual consolidation of the identity as a member of the jihadi group through regular participation in activities, attending meetings, narrowing the circle of friends to those within the group, and participating in increasingly risky and possibly violent activities together. Drawing on original fieldwork including 49 interviews with current and former members of Jemaah Islamiyah, Mujahidin KOMPAK, Darul Islam, Mujahidin Tanah Runtuh, Indonesia’s pro-ISIS network and other jihadist groups as well as 57 depositions and court documents, this article explores the development and evolution of these pathways and how relational ties play a role in each

The Perception of Colors in Fashion: A Cohort Comparison of Baby Boomers and Generation Y

Colors of clothing affect psychology of consumers and the psychological effects and meaning of colors may vary by generation and culture. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate if baby boomers and generation Y have different interpretation of colors, and how their color perceptions are related to self-esteem, social motivation for fashion consumption and fashion involvement. A quasi-experimental quantitative survey method was used for this study. Respondents consisted of two generations including 50 baby boomers in age 65 or older and 50 generation Y individuals. Results showed that baby boomers, generally, prefer bright colors such as orange whereas generation Y prefers dark colors such as black. Also, self-esteem and fashion involvement are important factors of understanding their different color perceptions. The results from this study can be useful for apparel manufacturers and retailers to understand each generation\u27s different perceptions of clothing color

Evaluation of the eNutri automated personalised nutrition advice by users and nutrition professionals in the UK

Nutrition apps have great potential to support people to improve their diets, but few apps give automated validated personalised nutrition advice. A web app capable of delivering automated personalised food-based nutrition advice (eNutri) was developed. The aims of this study were to i) evaluate and optimise the personalised nutrition report provided by the app and ii) compare the personalised food-based advice with nutrition professionals’ standards to aid validation. A study with nutrition professionals (NP) compared the advice provided by the app against professional Registered Dietitians (RD) (n=16) and Registered Nutritionists (RN) (n=16) standards. Each NP received two pre-defined scenarios, comprising an individual’s characteristics and dietary intake based on an analysis of a food frequency questionnaire, along with the nutrition food-based advice that was automatically generated by the app for that individual. NPs were asked to use their professional judgment to consider the scenario, provide their three most relevant recommendations for that individual, then consider the app’s advice and rate their level of agreement via 5-star scales (with 5 as complete agreement). NPs were also asked to comment on the eNutri recommendations, scores generated and overall impression. The mean scores for the appropriateness, relevance and suitability of the eNutri diet messages were 3.5, 3.3 and 3.3 respectively

Clothing Selection Motivations and Challenges for Individuals with Alzheimer’s Disease: A Qualitative Exploration of Caregivers’ Viewpoints

The study explored current adaptive clothing items that are available for individuals with Alzheimer’s and explore their needs of effective clothing features from their caregiver’s viewpoints

Dietary intake, nutritional status and mental wellbeing of homeless adults in Reading, UK

Malnutrition has been reported in the homeless, yet the specific nutritional issues faced by each homeless community are unclear. This is in part due to nutrient intake often being compared with dietary reference values as opposed to a comparative housed population. In addition, the complex interplay between nutrient intake, reward mediated behaviour and mental illness is frequently overlooked. This study aimed to compare the dietary intake, nutritional status and mental wellbeing of homeless and housed adults. Homeless (n 75) and matched housed (n 75) adults were recruited from Reading (UK). Nutrient intake was determined using the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition Norfolk FFQ. The Patient Health Questionnaire: Somatic Anxiety Depressive Symptoms (PHQ-SADS) assessed for signs of mental illness. Demographic, behavioural and physiological information was collected using closed-ended questions and anthropometric measurements. Overall, dietary intake was poorer in homeless adults who reported higher intakes of salt (8·0 v. 6·4 g, P=0·017), SFA (14·6 v. 13·0 %, P=0·002) and alcohol (5·3 v. 1·9 %, P<0·001) and lower intakes of fibre (13·4 v. 16·3 g, P<0·001), vitamin C (79 v. 109 mg, P<0·001) and fruit (96 v. 260 g, P<0·001) than housed. Smoking, substance misuse and PHQ-SADS scores were also higher in the homeless (P<0·001). Within the homeless population, street homeless (n 24) had lower SFA (13·7 v.15·0 %, P=0·010), Ca (858 v. 1032 mg, P=0·027) and milk intakes (295 v. 449 g, P=0·001) than hostel residents (n 51), which may reflect the issues with food storage. This study highlights the disparity between nutritional status in homeless and housed populations and the need for dietary intervention in the homeless community

Popular nutrition-related mobile apps: a feature assessment

Background: A key challenge in human nutrition is the assessment of usual food intake. This is of particular interest given recent proposals of eHealth personalized interventions. The adoption of mobile phones has created an opportunity for assessing and improving nutrient intake as they can be used for digitalizing dietary assessments and providing feedback. In the last few years, hundreds of nutrition-related mobile apps have been launched and installed by millions of users. Objective: This study aims to analyze the main features of the most popular nutrition apps and to compare their strategies and technologies for dietary assessment and user feedback. Methods: Apps were selected from the two largest online stores of the most popular mobile operating systems—the Google Play Store for Android and the iTunes App Store for iOS—based on popularity as measured by the number of installs and reviews. The keywords used in the search were as follows: calorie(s), diet, diet tracker, dietician, dietitian, eating, fit, fitness, food, food diary, food tracker, health, lose weight, nutrition, nutritionist, weight, weight loss, weight management, weight watcher, and ww calculator. The inclusion criteria were as follows: English language, minimum number of installs (1 million for Google Play Store) or reviews (7500 for iTunes App Store), relation to nutrition (ie, diet monitoring or recommendation), and independence from any device (eg, wearable) or subscription. Results: A total of 13 apps were classified as popular for inclusion in the analysis. Nine apps offered prospective recording of food intake using a food diary feature. Food selection was available via text search or barcode scanner technologies. Portion size selection was only textual (ie, without images or icons). All nine of these apps were also capable of collecting physical activity (PA) information using self-report, the global positioning system (GPS), or wearable integrations. Their outputs focused predominantly on energy balance between dietary intake and PA. None of these nine apps offered features directly related to diet plans and motivational coaching. In contrast, the remaining four of the 13 apps focused on these opportunities, but without food diaries. One app—FatSecret—also had an innovative feature for connecting users with health professionals, and another—S Health—provided a nutrient balance score. Conclusions: The high number of installs indicates that there is a clear interest and opportunity for diet monitoring and recommendation using mobile apps. All the apps collecting dietary intake used the same nutrition assessment method (ie, food diary record) and technologies for data input (ie, text search and barcode scanner). Emerging technologies, such as image recognition, natural language processing, and artificial intelligence, were not identified. None of the apps had a decision engine capable of providing personalized diet advice

Online dietary intake assessment using a graphical food frequency app (eNutri): usability metrics from the EatWellUK study

With widespread use of the internet, lifestyle and dietary data collection can now be facilitated using online questionnaires as opposed to paper versions. We have developed a graphical food frequency assessment app (eNutri), which is able to assess dietary intake using a validated food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) and provide personalised nutrition advice. FFQ user acceptance and evaluation have not been investigated extensively and only a few studies involving user acceptance of nutrition assessment and advice apps by older adults are published.A formative study with 20 participants (including n = 10 ≥60 years) assessed the suitability of this app for adults and investigated improvements to its usability. The outcomes of this formative study were applied to the final version of the application, which was deployed in an online study (EatWellUK) with 324 participants (including n = 53 ≥60 years) in the UK, using different devices (smartphones, tablets and laptops/desktops). Completion times were based on browser timestamps and usability was measured using the System Usability Scale (SUS), scoring between 0 and 100. Products with a SUS score higher than 70 are considered to be good.In the EatWellUK study, SUS score median (n = 322) was 77.5 (IQR 15.0). Out of the 322 SUS questionnaire completions, 321 device screen sizes were detected by the app. Grouped by device screen size, small (n = 92), medium (n = 38) and large (n = 191) screens received median SUS scores of 77.5 (IQR 15.0), 75.0 (IQR 19.4) and 77.5 (IQR 16.25), respectively. The median SUS scores from younger (n = 268) and older participants (n = 53) were the same. The FFQ contained 157 food items, and the mean completion time was 13.1 minutes (95% CI 12.6-13.7 minutes). Small, medium and large screen devices resulted in completion times of 11.7 minutes (95% CI 10.9-12.6 minutes), 14.4 minutes (95% CI 12.9-15.9 minutes) and 13.6 minutes (95% CI 12.8-14.3 minutes), respectively.The overall median SUS score of 77.5 and overall mean completion time of 13.3 minutes indicate good overall usability, and equally, comparable SUS scores and completion times across small, medium and large screen sizes indicates good usability across devices. This work is a step toward the promotion of wider uptake of online apps that can provide online dietary intake assessment at-scale, with the aim of addressing pressing epidemiological challenges