APEC Study Centre, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand     Abstract:   One of the key sets of questions underlying Asia Pacific economic cooperation over the last decade has been over the nature and form of the regional trade architecture that would gradually emerge from the turmoil of the Asia-Pacific “noodle bowl” of bilateral and plurilateral FTAs, and how that architecture...

West Africa is currently experiencing the largest outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in history with intense transmission in several affected countries. For non-affected countries, the best protective measures are adequate levels of preparedness including vigilant surveillance to detect cases early and well prepared health systems to ensure rapid containment of the virus and to avoid further...

BACKGROUND The Asia-Pacific region is home to nearly half of the world's population. The region has seen a recent rapid increase in the prevalence of obesity, type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The present systematic review summarizes the recent prevalence and trends of Metabolic Syndrome (MetS) among adults in countries of the Asia-Pacific Region. METHODS Data on MetS in Asia-Pacifi...

â  â â â â â  â  â  abstract: â  there is a significant relationship between economic growth and the degree of urban concentration, as measured by primacy or the share of the largest city in an urban system. in accordance to urban economic theories, there is an inverse-u shape relationship between urban concentration –urban primacy- and economic growth. that is, as economy grows, urban concen...

Freshwater resources are a high-priority issue in the Pacific region. Water shortage is a serious problem in many small island states, and many depend heavily on rainwater as the source of their water. Lack of safe water supplies is an important factor in diarrheal illness. There have been no previous studies looking specifically at the relationship between climate variability and diarrhea in t...

At the 1994 APEC summit in Bogor, Indonesia, it was recommended that trade and investment barriers among the member countries be removed by 2020. Despite general consensus that trade liberalization would accelerate development in this most dynamic trading area, there is very little empirical evidence about the adjustment process which would ensue. In this chapter, a ten-country CGE model is use...

The International Health Regulations require timely detection and response to outbreaks. Many attempts to set up an outbreak early warning system in Pacific island countries and territories (PICTs) have failed. Most were modelled on systems from large countries; large amounts of data often overwhelmed small public health teams. Many conditions required overseas laboratory confirmation, further ...

background: the two most frequently diagnosed cancers among women worldwide are breast and cervical cancers. the objective of the present study was to classify the different countries based on the death rates from sex specific cancers. methods : in this cross-sectional study, we used dataset regarding death rate from breast, cervical, uterine, and ovarian cancers in 190 countries worldwide repo...

Sustainable development is a Controversial concept which has been considered over the three decades. It is comprehensive development and includes all of dimensions as “economic’’, “social’’ and ‘‘environmental’’. In economic objective, it requires substantial economic change that can be brought about by investment and trade. They are effective factors of sustainable developm...

The current global economic instability and the vulnerability of small nations provide the impetus for greater integration between the countries of the South Pacific region. This exercise is critical for their survival. Past efforts of regional integration in the South Pacific have mostly failed. However, today’s IT collaborative capabilities provide the opportunity to develop a shared IT infra...