The regional focus of Asian multinational enterprises

In recent issues of this Journal a debate has raged concerning the appropriate nature of academic research in the Asia Pacific region. While we support the desire for both rigor and regional relevance in this research, we wish to demonstrate a strong commonality between the performance of large Asian firms and others from Europe and North America. This prompts us to question the need for a new theory of the MNE based on the experience of Asian firms. Like their counterparts elsewhere, the large Asian firms mostly operate on an intra-regional basis. While in the literature it has been assumed that the path to success for Asian firms is globalization, we show that the data supporting this is confined to a handful of unrepresentative case studies. We also present a bibliometric analysis which shows an overwhelming case study sample selection bias in academic studies towards this small number of unrepresentative cases

The risks of investing in the real estate markets of the asian region

The Asian region has become a focus of attention for investors in recent years. Due to the strong economic performance of the region, the higher expected returns in the area compared with Europe and the USA and the additional diversification benefits investment in the region would offer. Nonetheless many investors have doubts about the prudence of investing in such areas. In particular it may be felt that the expected returns offered in the countries of the Asian region are not sufficient to compensate investors for the increased risks of investing in such markets. These risks can be categorised into under four headings: investment risk, currency risk, political risk, and institutional risk. This paper analyses each of these risks in turn to see if they are sufficiently large to deter real estate investment in the region in general or in a particular country.

Digital imaging in popular cinema

This book investigates the challenges that the presence of digital imaging within the cinematic frame can pose for the task of interpretation. Applying close textual analysis to a series of case studies, the book demystifies the relationship of digital imaging to processes of watching and reading films, and develops a methodology for approaching the digital in popular cinema. In doing so, the study places contemporary digital imaging practice in relation to historical traditions of filmmaking and special effects practice, and proposes a fresh, flexible approach the the close reading of film that can take appropriate account of the presence of the digital.

Dynamic analysis of house price diffusion across Asian financial centres

The aim of this paper is to explore effects of macroeconomic variables on house prices and also, the lead-lag relationships of real estate markets to examine house price diffusion across Asian financial centres. The analysis is based on the Global Vector Auto-Regression (GVAR) model estimated using quarterly data for six Asian financial centres (Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore, Taipei and Bangkok) from 1991Q1 to 2011Q2. The empirical results indicate that the global economic conditions play significant roles in shaping house price movements across Asian financial centres. In particular, a small open economy that heavily relies on international trade such as – Singapore and Tokyo - shows positive correlations between economy’s openness and house prices, consistent with the Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis in international trade. However, region-specific conditions do play important roles as determinants of house prices, partly due to restrictive housing policies and demand-supply imbalances, as found in Singapore and Bangkok.

Natal nest locations of the Asian house rat (Rattus tanezumi) in lowland rice–coconut cropping systems: a coconut penthouse or rice bunds with water frontage?

CONTEXT. Rattus tanezumi is a serious crop pest within the island of Luzon, Philippines. In intensive flood-irrigated rice field ecosystems of Luzon, female R. tanezumi are known to primarily nest within the tillers of ripening rice fields and along the banks of irrigation canals. The nesting habits of R. tanezumi in complex rice–coconut cropping systems are unknown. AIMS. To identify the natal nest locations of R. tanezumi females in rice–coconut systems of the Sierra Madre Biodiversity Corridor (SMBC), Luzon, during the main breeding season to develop a management strategy that specifically targets their nesting habitat. METHODS. When rice was at the booting to ripening stage, cage-traps were placed in rice fields adjacent to coconut habitat. Thirty breeding adult R. tanezumi females were fitted with radio-collars and successfully tracked to their nest sites. KEY RESULTS. Most R. tanezumi nests (66.7%) were located in coconut groves, five nests (16.7%) were located in rice fields and five nests (16.7%) were located on the rice field edge. All nests were located above ground level and seven nests were located in coconut tree crowns. The median distance of nest sites to the nearest rice field was 22.5m. Most nest site locations had good cover of ground vegetation and understorey vegetation, but low canopy cover. Only one nest location had an understorey vegetation height of less than 20 cm. CONCLUSIONS. In the coastal lowland rice–coconut cropping systems of the SMBC, female R. tanezumi showed a preference for nesting in adjacent coconut groves. This is contrary to previous studies in intensive flood-irrigated rice ecosystems of Luzon, where the species nests mainly in the banks of irrigation canals. It is important to understand rodent breeding ecology in a specific ecosystem before implementing appropriate management strategies. IMPLICATIONS. In lowland rice–coconut cropping systems, coconut groves adjacent to rice fields should be targeted for the 20 management of R. tanezumi nest sites during the main breeding season as part of an integrated ecologically based approach to rodent pest management.

Climate change and the South Asian summer monsoon

The vagaries of South Asian summer monsoon rainfall on short and long timescales impact the lives of more than one billion people. Understanding how the monsoon will change in the face of global warming is a challenge for climate science, not least because our state-of-the-art general circulation models still have difficulty simulating the regional distribution of monsoon rainfall. However, we are beginning to understand more about processes driving the monsoon, its seasonal cycle and modes of variability. This gives us the hope that we can build better models and ultimately reduce the uncertainty in our projections of future monsoon rainfall.

Revisiting Asian monsoon formation and change associated with Tibetan Plateau forcing: II. Change

Data analysis based on station observations reveals that many meteorological variables averaged over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) are closely correlated, and their trends during the past decades are well correlated with the rainfall trend of the Asian summer monsoon. However, such correlation does not necessarily imply causality. Further diagnosis confirms the existence of a weakening trend in TP thermal forcing, characterized by weakened surface sensible heat flux in spring and summer during the past decades. This weakening trend is associated with decreasing summer precipitation over northern South Asia and North China and increasing precipitation over northwestern China, South China, and Korea. An atmospheric general circulation model, the HadAM3, is employed to elucidate the causality between the weakening TP forcing and the change in the Asian summer monsoon rainfall. Results demonstrate that a weakening in surface sensible heating over the TP results in reduced summer precipitation in the plateau region and a reduction in the associated latent heat release in summer. These changes in turn result in the weakening of the near-surface cyclonic circulation surrounding the plateau and the subtropical anticyclone over the subtropical western North Pacific, similar to the results obtained from the idealized TP experiment in Part I of this study. The southerly that normally dominates East Asia, ranging from the South China Sea to North China, weakens, resulting in a weaker equilibrated Sverdrup balance between positive vorticity generation and latent heat release. Consequently, the convergence of water vapor transport is confined to South China, forming a unique anomaly pattern in monsoon rainfall, the so-called “south wet and north dry.” Because the weakening trend in TP thermal forcing is associated with global warming, the present results provide an effective means for assessing projections of regional climate over Asia in the context of global warming.

Revisiting Asian monsoon formation and change associated with Tibetan Plateau forcing: I. Formation

Numerical experiments with different idealized land and mountain distributions are carried out to study the formation of the Asian monsoon and related coupling processes. Results demonstrate that when there is only extratropical continent located between 0 and 120°E and between 20/30°N and the North Pole, a rather weak monsoon rainband appears along the southern border of the continent, coexisting with an intense intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ). The continuous ITCZ surrounds the whole globe, prohibits the development of near-surface cross-equatorial flow, and collects water vapor from tropical oceans, resulting in very weak monsoon rainfall. When tropical lands are integrated, the ITCZ over the longitude domain where the extratropical continent exists disappears as a consequence of the development of a strong surface cross-equatorial flow from the winter hemisphere to the summer hemisphere. In addition, an intense interaction between the two hemispheres develops, tropical water vapor is transported to the subtropics by the enhanced poleward flow, and a prototype of the Asian monsoon appears. The Tibetan Plateau acts to enhance the coupling between the lower and upper tropospheric circulations and between the subtropical and tropical monsoon circulations, resulting in an intensification of the East Asian summer monsoon and a weakening of the South Asian summer monsoon. Linking the Iranian Plateau to the Tibetan Plateau substantially reduces the precipitation over Africa and increases the precipitation over the Arabian Sea and the northern Indian subcontinent, effectively contributing to the development of the South Asian summer monsoon.

The ENSO-Asian monsoon interaction in a coupled ocean-atmosphere GCM

In this study, the authors evaluate the (El Niño–Southern Oscillation) ENSO–Asian monsoon interaction in a version of the Hadley Centre coupled ocean–atmosphere general circulation model (CGCM) known as HadCM3. The main focus is on two evolving anomalous anticyclones: one located over the south Indian Ocean (SIO) and the other over the western North Pacific (WNP). These two anomalous anticyclones are closely related to the developing and decaying phases of the ENSO and play a crucial role in linking the Asian monsoon to ENSO. It is found that the HadCM3 can well simulate the main features of the evolution of both anomalous anticyclones and the related SST dipoles, in association with the different phases of the ENSO cycle. By using the simulated results, the authors examine the relationship between the WNP/SIO anomalous anticyclones and the ENSO cycle, in particular the biennial component of the relationship. It is found that a strong El Niño event tends to be followed by a more rapid decay and is much more likely to become a La Niña event in the subsequent winter. The twin anomalous anticyclones in the western Pacific in the summer of a decaying El Niño are crucial for the transition from an El Niño into a La Niña. The El Niño (La Niña) events, especially the strong ones, strengthen significantly the correspondence between the SIO anticyclonic (cyclonic) anomaly in the preceding autumn and WNP anticyclonic (cyclonic) anomaly in the subsequent spring, and favor the persistence of the WNP anomaly from spring to summer. The present results suggest that both El Niño (La Niña) and the SIO/WNP anticyclonic (cyclonic) anomalies are closely tied with the tropospheric biennial oscillation (TBO). In addition, variability in the East Asian summer monsoon, which is dominated by the internal atmospheric variability, seems to be responsible for the appearance of the WNP anticyclonic anomaly through an upper-tropospheric meridional teleconnection pattern over the western and central Pacific.

The Asian summer monsoon: an intercomparison of CMIP5 vs. CMIP3 simulations of the late 20th century

The boreal summer Asian monsoon has been evaluated in 25 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project-5 (CMIP5) and 22 CMIP3 GCM simulations of the late 20th Century. Diagnostics and skill metrics have been calculated to assess the time-mean, climatological annual cycle, interannual variability, and intraseasonal variability. Progress has been made in modeling these aspects of the monsoon, though there is no single model that best represents all of these aspects of the monsoon. The CMIP5 multi-model mean (MMM) is more skillful than the CMIP3 MMM for all diagnostics in terms of the skill of simulating pattern correlations with respect to observations. Additionally, for rainfall/convection the MMM outperforms the individual models for the time mean, the interannual variability of the East Asian monsoon, and intraseasonal variability. The pattern correlation of the time (pentad) of monsoon peak and withdrawal is better simulated than that of monsoon onset. The onset of the monsoon over India is typically too late in the models. The extension of the monsoon over eastern China, Korea, and Japan is underestimated, while it is overestimated over the subtropical western/central Pacific Ocean. The anti-correlation between anomalies of all-India rainfall and Niño-3.4 sea surface temperature is overly strong in CMIP3 and typically too weak in CMIP5. For both the ENSO-monsoon teleconnection and the East Asian zonal wind-rainfall teleconnection, the MMM interannual rainfall anomalies are weak compared to observations. Though simulation of intraseasonal variability remains problematic, several models show improved skill at representing the northward propagation of convection and the development of the tilted band of convection that extends from India to the equatorial west Pacific. The MMM also well represents the space-time evolution of intraseasonal outgoing longwave radiation anomalies. Caution is necessary when using GPCP and CMAP rainfall to validate (1) the time-mean rainfall, as there are systematic differences over ocean and land between these two data sets, and (2) the timing of monsoon withdrawal over India, where the smooth southward progression seen in India Meteorological Department data is better realized in CMAP data compared to GPCP data.

The effect of regional changes in anthropogenic aerosols on rainfall of the East Asian summer monsoon

The response of East Asian Summer Monsoon (EASM) precipitation to long term changes in regional anthropogenic aerosols (sulphate and black carbon) is explored in an atmospheric general circulation model, the atmospheric component of the UK High-Resolution Global Environment Model v1.2 (HiGAM). Separately, sulphur dioxide (SO2) and black carbon (BC) emissions in 1950 and 2000 over East Asia are used to drive model simulations, while emissions are kept constant at year 2000 level outside this region. The response of the EASM is examined by comparing simulations driven by aerosol emissions representative of 1950 and 2000. The aerosol radiative effects are also determined using an off-line radiative transfer model. During June, July and August, the EASM was not significantly changed as either SO2 or BC emissions increased from 1950 to 2000 levels. However, in September, precipitation is significantly decreased by 26.4% for sulphate aerosol and 14.6% for black carbon when emissions are at the 2000 level. Over 80% of the decrease is attributed to changes in convective precipitation. The cooler land surface temperature over China in September (0.8 °C for sulphate and 0.5 °C for black carbon) due to increased aerosols reduces the surface thermal contrast that supports the EASM circulation. However, mechanisms causing the surface temperature decrease in September are different between sulphate and BC experiments. In the sulphate experiment, the sulphate direct and the 1st indirect radiative effects contribute to the surface cooling. In the BC experiment, the BC direct effect is the main driver of the surface cooling, however, a decrease in low cloud cover due to the increased heating by BC absorption partially counteracts the direct effect. This results in a weaker land surface temperature response to BC changes than to sulphate changes. The resulting precipitation response is also weaker, and the responses of the monsoon circulation are different for sulphate and black carbon experiments. This study demonstrates a mechanism that links regional aerosol emission changes to the precipitation changes of the EASM, and it could be applied to help understand the future changes in EASM precipitation in CMIP5 simulations.

Ethnic differences in beta-cell function, dietary intake and expression of the metabolic syndrome among UK adults of south Asian, black African-Caribbean and white-European origin at high risk of metabolic syndrome

A cross-sectional analysis of ethnic differences in dietary intake, insulin sensitivity and beta-cell function, using the intravenous glucose tolerance test (IVGTT), was conducted on 497 healthy adult participants of the ‘Reading, Imperial, Surrey, Cambridge, and Kings’ (RISCK) study. Insulin sensitivity (Si) was significantly lower in African-Caribbean (AC) and South Asian (SA) participants [IVGTT-Si; AC: 2.13 vs SA: 2.25 vs white-European (WE): 2.84 (×10−4 mL µU min)2, p < 0.001]. AC participants had a higher prevalence of anti-hypertensive therapy (AC: 19.7% vs SA: 7.5%), the most cardioprotective lipid profile [total:high-density lipoprotein (HDL); AC: 3.52 vs SA: 4.08 vs WE: 3.83, p = 0.03] and more pronounced hyperinsulinaemia [IVGTT–acute insulin response (AIR)] [AC: 575 vs SA: 428 vs WE: 344 mL/µU/min)2, p = 0.002], specifically in female participants. Intake of saturated fat and carbohydrate was lower and higher in AC (10.9% and 50.4%) and SA (11.1% and 52.3%), respectively, compared to WE (13.6% and 43.8%, p < 0.001). Insulin resistance in ACs is characterised by ‘normal’ lipid profiles but high rates of hypertension and pronounced hyperinsulinaemia.