Some 20 years after reunification, the contrast between East and West Germany offers a natural experiment for studying the degree of persistence of Communist-era family patterns, the effects of economic change, and fertility postponement. After reunification, period fertility rates plummeted in the former East Germany to record low levels. Since the mid-1990s, however, period fertility rates ha...

Geochronologic dating and compilation of existing age data suggest that Cenozoic activities in the eastern Indo^ Asian collision zone of southeast China and Indochina occurred in two episodes, each with distinctive geochemical signatures, at 42^24 Myr and 16^0 Myr. The older rocks are localized along major strike^slip faults such as the Red River fault system and erupted synchronously with tran...

This paper analyzes the feasibility of various types of currency unions, such as a dollar bloc, Euro bloc, Yen bloc, and basket currency bloc in East Asia, and empirically estimates welfare effects of a currency union for East Asian economies. Judging from optimum currency area (OCA) criteria, including the symmetry of output and price shocks across countries, commitment to price stability, and...

There has been a large amount of speculation concerning the differences in the outcomes in patients who have gastric cancer in the Eastern and Western worlds. The differences in biology, surgical and adjuvant treatment have been used to explain such differences. There are clear differences observed in the histology (diffuse vs. intestinal), tumor location (proximal vs. distal), environmental ex...

We have determined the nucleotide sequence of the 5'-terminal region of the hepatitis G virus (HGV) genome in 11 hepatitis patients from three cities in China. Phylogenetic analyses revealed that the Chinese isolates were genetically distinct from previously described West African isolates (type 1) and American, European and East African isolates (type 2), with a mean sequence divergence of app...

1 CEREGE, CNRS/Université Paul Cézanne UMR 6635, BP 80, 13545 Aix-en-Provence cedex, France 2 SKLL, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xian 710075, China 3 Institut des Sciences de l’Environnement, UQAM, Montréal PQ, H3C 3P8 Canada 4 Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 634, 100029 Beijing, China 5 Institute of Botany, Chinese Acad...

The aim of this study was to investigate the incidence of radix entomolaris in mandibular first permanent molars in Saudi Arabian subpopulation. A total of 280 extracted mandibular first permanent molar were included in the study. The teeth were examined visually and the number of roots was recorded. The results showed that the majority of cases had two roots 93.9% (263 teeth), whereas the rema...

Two new species of genus Alona Baird, 1843 were found in regions along the south-east border of Asian Russia. Alona irinae sp. nov. was found in a lake in the plain of the Zeya River, a north tributary of the Amur River, and in a lake in the steppe region along the West coast of Baikal. Alona floessneri sp. nov. inhabits saline lake Uvs-Nuur on the border of Russia and West Mongolia, and severa...

The southern house mosquito Culex quinquefasciatus is a principal vector of human lymphatic filariasis, several encephalitides (including West Nile virus), avian malaria, and poxvirus, but its importance as a vector varies considerably among regions. This species has spread with humans and is ubiquitous in tropical urban and suburban environments. This was the first mosquito to reach Hawaii and...

Indochina is located between two extensively researched components of the Asian monsoon system: the Indian subcontinent and southeast–east Asia. Highly correlated with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Niño-3 sea surface temperatures, the interannual variation of Indochina monsoon rainfall is caused by a mechanism different from the two aforementioned regions. This mechanism c...