A provisional list of all the endemic vascular plant genera in SW Asia is presented. The area, here defined to include Turkey, the Caucasus, N Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and adjacent parts of Pakistan and Central Asia, has 161 genera restricted to it. By far, the greatest numbers of the endemic genera are in Apiaceae, Brassicaceae and Asteraceae; many are morphologically isolated and occur at rand...

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) has been one of the commonly presented gastrointestinal disorders. It is of interest how commonly it presents in the society. Western studies indicated that most population-based IBS prevalences range 10%-15%. It is believed that IBS is prevalent in both East and West countries without a significant prevalence difference. Most recently, the Asia IBS prevalence has...

Because of cultural differences between East and West, any attempt at outright adaptation of Western ideas in Asia will undoubtedly encounter problems, if not rejection. Transferring an idea from one place to another is just like transplanting an organ from a donor to a recipient--rejection is to be expected. Human cultures respond to new ideas from different value systems in very much the same...

The geographic distribution of Astragalus L. (Fabaceae) was analyzed using a database of 12377 geo-referenced observations. In the old world (including Asia, Africa and Europe) there are ca. 2900 euploid species classified in 166 distinct sections. In this study using geographic information system (GIS) by means of DIVA-GIS (ver. 4) distribution map of some more important sections in the old wo...