Asian Conference Research Articles

Peer review decleration

The 3rd Southeast Asian Conference on Geophysics (SEACG) 2020 All papers published in this volume of IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science have been peer reviewed through processes administered by the editors. Reviews were conducted by expert referees to the professional and scientific standards expected of a proceedings journal published by IOP Publishing.• Type of peer review: Single blind• Conference submission management system: Conference web submission system• Number of submission Received: 151 manuscripts received• Number of submission sent for review: 110 manuscripts sent for review• Number of submission accepted: 102 manuscript accepted by editor• Acceptance Rate (Number of Submissions Accepted / Number of Submissions Received X 100): (102/151) x 100 = 67.5 %• Average number of reviews per paper: Average 2 reviewers of each paper• Total number of reviewers involved: 45 reviewers• Any additional info on review process: – We did plagiarism check for each paper using licenced Turnitin online software. And we accepted the level of plagiarism each manuscript below 20 %.– The review process was conducted using google form that integrated with conference secretariat email. We sent a review invitation to reviewer by official email of SEACG 2020 and the reviewers conducted review process based on 4 sections:• Technical Criteria• Scientific merit of the manuscript: notably scientific rigour, accuracy and correctness.• Clarity of expression; communication of ideas; readability and discussion of concepts.• Sufficient discussion of the context of the work, and suitable referencing.• Quality Criteria• Originality: Is the work relevant and novel?• Motivation: Does the problem considered have a sound motivation? All papers should clearly demonstrate the scientific interest of the results.• Repetition: Have significant parts of the manuscript already been published?• Length: Is the content of the work of sufficient scientific interest to justify its length?• Presentation Criteria• Title: Is it adequate and appropriate for the content of the article?• : Does it contain the essential information of the article? Is it complete? Is it suitable for inclusion by itself in an abstracting service?• Diagrams, figures, tables and captions: Are they essential and clear?• Text and mathematics: Are they brief but still clear? If you recommend shortening, please suggest what should be omitted.• Conclusion: Does the paper contain a carefully written conclusion, summarizing what has been learned and why it is interesting and useful?• Decision• Reviewer comment• Suggestion∘ Ready to publish∘ Minor correction∘ Major correction∘ Reject– All the comments by reviewers were sent to the author to make the correction and revision within 20 days. The editor will check each revised manuscript carefully and make sure the authors have addressed the questions and comments from reviewer. If the manuscript need to do revision for 2nd circle, the editor would send it back to the authors.• Contact person for queries: Dr. ZulfakrizaGeophysical Engineering Dept.Faculty of Mining and Petroleum EngineeringBandung Institute of Technology, Indonesiazulfakriza@itb.ac.id

Preface

Thai Thermoelectric Society, E-mail: actsact2020@gmail.comThe 5th Asian Conference on Thermoelectrics and the 6th Southeast Asia Conference on Thermoelectrics (ACT&SACT2020) were successfully held through a virtual conference platform on 17 December 2020. These conferences were promoted by the Thai Thermoelectric Society, Asian Association of Thermoelectrics, Sakon Nakhon Rajabhat University and Rajamangala University of Technology Isan for favoring the dissemination of scientific and technical progresses in the field of Thermoelectrics in Asia, enhancing the communication between research institutions and industries for promotion of TE applications as well as providing a forum for exchange of information and achievements. Experts, scientists and engineers from Research and Industry around Asia and abroad were all invited and expected for attending the conferences and discussing 1) thermoelectric materials & modeling, 2) thermoelectric characterization and new phenomena, 3) thermoelectric modules and devices, 4) thermoelectric applications: present and future, and 5) other materials and applications.The conferences were initially planned to be held conventionally at Sakon Nakhon. Unfortunately, the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic leading to the consequent lockdowns and restrictions all over the country at the time, affected traveling to the potential place of the conferences. Hence, the video conference platform, Zoom was introduced to conduct the online conferences hosted at Sakon Nakhon Rajabhat University. Keynote and invited speaker took 45 minutes talk. An individual speaker took 15 minutes for presenting his/her work and answering any question through the platform. Along with the internet communication was good and online platform was perfect, the discussion and commenting for 43 oral presentations and 28 posters were completely accomplished. Thanks to the high capacity ethernet at the hosted university.Eventually, the 27 selected papers were accepted to publish in Journal of Physics: Conference Series (SCOPUS, SJR 0.23), after peer reviewing.Even though all of us did not meet in the presence of each other, we feel confident that everyone enjoyed the online event. The organizing and editorial committee hopes you enjoy the reading of this volume of the JPCS. Furthermore, we wish to thank everyone associated for valuable contributions and made these conferences a truly memorable event at this difficult time for all of us.List of Committee, Sponsors, Photographs are available in this pdf.

Preface

The GRET 2021 organizing committees are honored to present the proceedings of the 2021 2nd Asia Conference on Geological Research and Environmental Technology (GRET 2021), held in Kamakura City, Japan during 21-22 August, 2021.GRET 2021 aims to bring together outstanding scholars, researchers, and students to exchange and share their experiences and research results about all aspects of earth science, geological research and environmental technology. We also provide the keynote address and several plenary invited speeches for discuss the most recent innovations, trends, and concerns, practical challenges encountered and the various solutions in these fields.Considering the prevention and control of COVID-19 and travel restrictions worldwide, the organizing committee adjust the format to online meeting to avoid personnel gatherings. In everyone’s efforts, GRET 2021 was successfully held as scheduled. The conference model was divided into two parts, including keynote speeches and online discussion. In the first part, keynote presentations were delivered in 30 minutes for each talk, all of which were conducted via Zoom. The second part was held lasted nearly an hour in a communication group via WeChat for experts and scholars to discuss more about the talks and presentations.List of Committees, Conference Chairs, Technical Program Committee Chairs, Program Committee are available in this pdf.

Method to Haulage Path Estimation and Road-Quality Assessment Using Inertial Sensors on LHD Machines

For many years now, the mining industry has seen a boost in exploring and developing the systems for monitoring operational parameters of mining machines, in particular load-haul-dump machines. Therefore, further researches on algorithmics have also advanced dynamically regarding effective performance management as well as predictive maintenance. Nonetheless, the issue of road conditions is still being neglected. That issue has a substantial impact on both the overall operator’s convenience, their performance, and machinery reliability, especially its construction node and tire damages. Moreover, such negligence pertains also to the maintenance of mine infrastructure, including the network of passages. The paper explains the use of the portable inertial measurement unit (IMU) in evaluating road conditions in the deep underground mine. The detailed descriptions of the road quality classification procedure and bump detection have been included. The paper outlines the basic method of tracking the motion trajectory of vehicles and suggests the method of visualization of the results of the road conditions evaluation. This paper covers the sample results collected by the measurements unit in the deep underground mine during six experiments. This paper is an extended version of a paper presented at the ACIIDs 2020 conference [P. Stefaniak, D. Gawelski, S. Anufriiev and P. Śliwiński, Road-quality classification and motion tracking with inertial sensors in the deep underground mine, Asian Conference on Intelligent Information and Database Systems, March 2020, Springer, Singapore, pp. 168–178].

Preface

With great pleasure, we would like to welcome all delegates to our Asian Conference on Intelligent Computing & Data Science (ACIDS) 2021. It is a great pleasure and honor for both Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP) and Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) to jointly organize this conference.ACIDS 2021 conference with its theme, “Empowering Innovation Through Intelligent Computing and Big Data Analytics”, is the premier forum for the presentation of research and experience reports on the leading issues, applications, and theories pertaining to Intelligent Computing and Big Data Analytics. This conference gathers experts from different countries to discuss the state of the art and to present new research findings and perspectives. We are sure all participants will use this conference as a platform to present their work and address current problems in this challenging and promising field and subsequently create new avenues for the commercialization of new products.List of Editors, Organizing Committee Acids are available in this pdf.

Preface

It was our great pleasure to welcome all presenters/authors to the 5th Asian Conference on Environmental, Industrial and Energy Engineering (EI2E 2021). EI2E 2021 was organized by the Asia Pacific Institute of Science and Engineering (APISE). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the local government issues many limitations on domestic and international travelling. Thus most of the authors chose the online presentation mode. In consideration of the authors’ safety, to enable more authors to participate, and to reach a wider audience for the conference, EI2E 2021 was finally held as a hybrid conference via Tecent Meeting Software during May 20 to 22, 2021.EI2E 2021 is the international conferences for presenting novel research progress in the fields of Energy and Environmental research. It also serves to foster communication among researchers and practitioners working in a wide variety of areas with a common interest in improving environment protection. The conference enabled many researchers, engineers, and practioners from all over the world to present their most recent achievements. The participants are from Thailand, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Morocco, Peru, China, etc.The conference featured 3 Keynote Speakers (40 minutes each, including Q&A). In addition, the program included 2 oral sessions and 1 poster session. The papers in the oral sessions were allotted 12 minutes each for presentation. Following the end of each session, the audience engaged in technical dialogues and discussed possible ways for future collaboration. A group photo was taken at the conference.List of Committees are available in this pdf.

Achievements and progress beyond the current global pandemic

Life Sciences, Medicine and Biomedicine was established in 2017 as an open access, multidisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal. The journal welcomes submissions in all areas of life sciences, medicine and biomedicine with a selection of relevant biological sciences on a case by case basis. It is expected that the wide scope of the journal will promote multidisciplinary collaboration and attract research papers from diverse scientific settings. To put things into perspective, the first issue was published at the end of 2017, with four issues per year through 2018 and 2019 respectively. In 2020, the publication frequency was changed to a single issue annually, adopting to the continuous publication model practiced by many others. Manuscripts are processed for peer-review, and published as they are accepted throughout the year. This method has helped the editorial office to streamline the editorial process. Accepted articles are prepared for publication more robustly and in a timely manner. Based on this experience, the current model of continuous publication will be maintained. In addition to research and review articles, the journal also accepts submissions for mini reviews, opinion pieces and case reports. For the upcoming Volume 6 Issue 1 which will be accepting articles throughout 2022, the journal will be implementing a number of changes to the submission and editorial process. One area currently being improved is the mechanism to allow authors to submit manuscripts with very minimal formatting. Based on the feedback received from our authors, this will significantly reduce the time taken for new submissions to go through initial quality checks and approval, so that the peer-review process can commence as soon as possible. The new author’s guide will be updated and implemented in September 2021. Taking into account the global pandemic, the article processing charges for accepted manuscripts are waived throughout 2021. Further discussions are currently being held to provide financial assistance for future article processing charges for authors that may require them. Despite the challenging period the world is currently facing, the growth of the journal continues. The journal attributes this achievements to the scholarly contributions of the authors, reviewers and editors. During this similar period, the journal received successful approval for indexing with the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and Scilit. It is also indexed in MyJurnal (Citation and Infometric Division of the Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia). Editorial good practices will continue to be enhanced based on industry standards to ensure the journal attracts high quality scientific work. Preparation is also in progress for indexing with other major indexing organizations, which will assist authors and articles to reach a wider global audience. While the journal was initially established for the Malaysian scientific community, the current focus is for authorship and readership coverage to reach as widely as possible within the South East Asian and Asian regions. With this in mind, the expansion of the editorial board members now include experts from Malaysia, Philippines and Hong Kong. Additional editorial roles are currently being explored to complement the multidisciplinary scope of the journal, with plans for each field of research to spearhead its own section. For the journal to reach a wider global scientific community, the International Advisory Board consisting of experts from Singapore, UK, Japan, Bangladesh, China, Iraq, Philippines and Malaysia was recently established. The advisory board will provide feedback on current strategies and future direction for the international expansion of the journal, establishing good practices and will submit an annual assessment for continuous quality improvement. It is equally exciting to announce that the journal will publish a special issue this year for the Asian Conference on Biomedical Research and Laboratory Medicine 2021 organized by the Malaysian Association of Clinical Biochemist in collaboration with Malaysian Association of Biomedical Sciences and Association of Scientific Officers of the Ministry of Health, Malaysia from the 24-26 August 2021.

Achievements and progress beyond the current global pandemic

Life Sciences, Medicine and Biomedicine was established in 2017 as an open access, multidisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal. The journal welcomes submissions in all areas of life sciences, medicine and biomedicine with a selection of relevant biological sciences on a case by case basis. It is expected that the wide scope of the journal will promote multidisciplinary collaboration and attract research papers from diverse scientific settings. To put things into perspective, the first issue was published at the end of 2017, with four issues per year through 2018 and 2019 respectively. In 2020, the publication frequency was changed to a single issue annually, adopting to the continuous publication model practiced by many others. Manuscripts are processed for peer-review, and published as they are accepted throughout the year. This method has helped the editorial office to streamline the editorial process. Accepted articles are prepared for publication more robustly and in a timely manner. Based on this experience, the current model of continuous publication will be maintained. In addition to research and review articles, the journal also accepts submissions for mini reviews, opinion pieces and case reports. For the upcoming Volume 6 Issue 1 which will be accepting articles throughout 2022, the journal will be implementing a number of changes to the submission and editorial process. One area currently being improved is the mechanism to allow authors to submit manuscripts with very minimal formatting. Based on the feedback received from our authors, this will significantly reduce the time taken for new submissions to go through initial quality checks and approval, so that the peer-review process can commence as soon as possible. The new author’s guide will be updated and implemented in September 2021. Taking into account the global pandemic, the article processing charges for accepted manuscripts are waived throughout 2021. Further discussions are currently being held to provide financial assistance for future article processing charges for authors that may require them. Despite the challenging period the world is currently facing, the growth of the journal continues. The journal attributes this achievements to the scholarly contributions of the authors, reviewers and editors. During this similar period, the journal received successful approval for indexing with the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and Scilit. It is also indexed in MyJurnal (Citation and Infometric Division of the Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia). Editorial good practices will continue to be enhanced based on industry standards to ensure the journal attracts high quality scientific work. Preparation is also in progress for indexing with other major indexing organizations, which will assist authors and articles to reach a wider global audience. While the journal was initially established for the Malaysian scientific community, the current focus is for authorship and readership coverage to reach as widely as possible within the South East Asian and Asian regions. With this in mind, the expansion of the editorial board members now include experts from Malaysia, Philippines and Hong Kong. Additional editorial roles are currently being explored to complement the multidisciplinary scope of the journal, with plans for each field of research to spearhead its own section. For the journal to reach a wider global scientific community, the International Advisory Board consisting of experts from Singapore, UK, Japan, Bangladesh, China, Iraq, Philippines and Malaysia was recently established. The advisory board will provide feedback on current strategies and future direction for the international expansion of the journal, establishing good practices and will submit an annual assessment for continuous quality improvement. It is equally exciting to announce that the journal will publish a special issue this year for the Asian Conference on Biomedical Research and Laboratory Medicine 2021 organized by the Malaysian Association of Clinical Biochemist in collaboration with Malaysian Association of Biomedical Sciences and Association of Scientific Officers of the Ministry of Health, Malaysia from the 24-26 August 2021.

Asian Conference on Tumor Ablation Guidelines for Adrenal Tumor Ablation.

Thermal ablation is a good alternative treatment in patients who are unable to undergo adrenalectomy. Even though the Asian Conference on Tumor Ablation (ACTA) has been held for many years, adrenal ablation guidelines have not been established. No guidelines for adrenal ablation are established in American and European countries, either. The aim of this review was to introduce the first version of ACTA guidelines for adrenal tumor ablation.

The Preservation of the Asian-African Conference Museum Library Collections

The Asian African Conference Museum owns a special library that has stored a variety of rare collections, especially collections on the holding of the 1955 Asian African Conference. This study aims to describe the preservation carried out by the library for those rare collections. The research used a descriptive qualitative method. The data were obtained through interviews with the staff of the Asian African Conference Museum Library, and literature studies. The result showed that the Asian African Conference Museum Library had preserved the collection by limiting visitors to the collection room, cleaning the dust using a vacuum cleaner, using shelves according to standards, cooperating with the National Library of the Republic of Indonesia in restoration, and implementing a ban on visitors carrying food/drink to the library. However, there were still many efforts that need to be implemented and optimized such as temperature and humidity control, lighting, pollution, prevention of insects and fungi, and anticipate natural disasters. The role of the librarian is needed to optimize the preservation of collection efforts in the Asian African Conference Museum Library.

Preface

The organizing committee is pleased to present to our readers the IOP proceedings of 2020 The 2nd Asia Conference on Automation Engineering (ACAE 2020), held virtually by using ZOOM during September 18-20, 2020. Due to the spread of covid-19 in the world, the epidemic situation in various countries is complicated, and the world was dealing with different confinement and mobility restrictions when ACAE 2020 was due to be held. Although a few people might be able to attend, it was likely that many people still found it difficult to travel to Chengdu, China. And most authors chose to make online presentation. Considering the safety of the authors, the Organizing Committee of the ACAE 2020 came to the difficult decision to organize this year’s conference fully online for better communication. The good news is that in terms of contents, there continues to be the same depth as before, with a wide range of excellent keynote speakers and many contributing scholars.The objective of this conference is to bring together researchers and practitioners from academia and industry to discuss latest progress and development in the fields, practical challenges encountered and the solutions adopted.The submitted papers were reviewed by leading scientists in the areas of Automation Engineering and evaluated in accordance with their originality, innovation, technical merit and applicability. The conference program makes it possible to get acquainted with oral presentations which broaden the possibilities of participants to get knowledge in different scientific fields.List of Conference Committee are available in this pdf.

Preface

It is our great pleasure to report that the Proceedings of joint meeting of the 10th Asian Conference on Applied Superconductivity and Cryogenics (ACASC), 2nd International Cryogenic Materials Conference in Asia (Asian-ICMC), and the CSSJ meeting held at Okinawa, Japan, between January 6 to 9, 2020 is published in Journal of Physics: Conference Series (JPCS).…Total numbers of participants and presentations of the 10thACASC/2ndAsian-ICMC/CSSJ Joint Conference are 381 from 13 countries and 276 including 4 plenary lectures, 5 invited talks for Asian topics, respectively. This conference consisted of many sessions, such asCryogenic structural materials, Superconducting materials, Wire and Tapes (Nb3Sn, Nb3Al, BSCCO, REBCO, MgB2, Fe-based), Cryogenic Cooling Engineer ing, Magnet Technology, Power Applications (Motors, Generators, Cables, FCL, SMES and others), Liquid Hydrogen, Aircrafts, Motors and Maglevs, Superconducting Bulks, Evaluation and Analysis, Database of Cryogenic Structural Materials, Electronics, Superconducting Joints.…List of Editors and Program Committee, Organizing Committee are availble in this pdf.

26th Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conference

26th Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conference

Preface

It is our great pleasure to welcome you to the 2020 11th Asia Conference on Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (ACMAE) on December 25-27th, 2020, which is planned to held in Chengdu, China. However, due to the spread of COVID-19, many countries have strict restrictions to travel aboard; Meanwhile, the safety of the participants is always the priority. We made a hard decision to hold the conference online. ACMAE 2020 is dedicated to issues related to the advancement of all Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering topics.Following the successful conference in Bangkok, Thailand, last year in 2019, the conference focus is still on Asia’s research, achievements, markets, industry, etc. The technological innovation advances at an ever dramatic pace, we believe that face-to-face communication is of great essential, and virtually we expect that to be maintained even if we cannot socialize outside of sessions. With a solid reputation, ACMAE is where you will meet and network with engineering leaders, business innovators, researchers, academics and policy makers from across the globe. Do not miss the chance; hope to see you at ACMAE 2021.ACMAE conference was held online by Zoom tools, after getting familiar with the functions of the Zoon on the first day, 3 speakers-Prof. Konstantin Lukin, Prof. Antonio De Maio and Prof. Ramesh K. Agarwal showed up to give a 45 mins keynote speeches, and then 8 parallel sessions were held to share and discuss the research of all the participants in specific field. Each presenter has 15 minutes for presentation, including 12 minutes presentation and 3 minutes for Q&A part. More than 60 participants from China, Italy, Ukraine, Russia, and Thailand joined the conference.The proceedings present a selection from papers submitted to the conference from universities, research institutes and industries. 59 papers were finally selected from the submitted papers. As always, competition and acceptance rates are not high, all authors should be very satisfied with their success. The papers selected depended on their quality and their relevancy to the conference. The volume tends to present to the readers the recent advances in the field of Aerospace Mechatronics and Avionics Systems, Mechanical Engineering in Aerospace and various related areas, such as Aerospace Communications, Aerospace Engineering and Management and Electronic Systems, etc.We would like to thank all the authors who have contributed to this volume and also to reviewers, speakers, chairpersons, sponsors and all the conference participants for their support to ACMAE 2020. Wish to see all of you in next year conference.Professor Ian R. McAndrew PhD FRAeSConference ChairACMAE 2020List of Conference Committee, Advisory Chairs, Conference Chairs, Program Co-Chairs, Steering Co-chairs, Publication Chair, International Publicity Co-chairs, Technical Committee Members are available in the pdf.

Virtual Disclaimer

2020 The 11th Asia Conference on Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (ACMAE 2020) was held online successfully by using “ZOOM” during December 25-27, 2020Due to the spread of COVID-19 around the world, the epidemic situation in various countries is complicated, especially in winter. The number of infected people in many cities is growing rapidly and the world was dealing with different confinement and mobility restrictions when ACMAE 2020 was due to be held. Although a few people might be able to attend, most of people found it difficult to come to attend the conference in Chengdu. And most authors chose to make online presentation. Considering the safety of the authors, the Organizing Committee of the ACMAE 2020 make a hard decision that organize this year’s conference fully online for better communication. The good news is that in terms of contents, there continues to be the same depth as before, with a wide range of excellent keynote speakers and many contributing scholars.Many researchers, engineers, academicians as well as professionals in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering field from all over the world have presented their latest research results and development activities. Each author had 12 minutes for presentation and 3 minutes for question and answer. During the question time, the author and audience can use the “Raise Hand” function or “chat” function to ask questions. There were eight sessions for all the oral presentations: Material design and performance analysis; Control Theory and Control Engineering; Mechanical Design Manufacturing and Automation; Power Machinery Engineering; Unmanned driving system and key technology; Aircraft design and modeling; Satellite System and Aerospace Engineering; Fluid mechanics and calculation. These topics are the most of main researches in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering field and also the conference can promote the development of the field. With the rapid technology advancements around us, it requires a lot of multi-disciplinary insight to first grasp and then capitalizes on the opportunities. ACMAE 2020 will always provide the professional stage to share the latest opinions and researches.

Validating Knowledge Contents with Blockchain-Assisted Gamified Crowdsourcing

This paper presents the use of gamified crowdsourcing for knowledge content validation. Constructing a high-quality knowledge base is crucial for building an intelligent system. We develop a refinement process for the knowledge base of our word retrieval assistant system, where each piece of knowledge is represented as a triple. To validate triples acquired from various sources, we introduce yes/no quizzes and present them to many casual users for their inputs. Only the triples voted “yes” by a sufficient number of users are incorporated into the main knowledge base. Users are incentivized by rewards based on their contribution to the validation process. To ensure transparency of the reward-giving process, blockchain is utilized to store logs of the users’ inputs from which the rewards are calculated. Different strategies are also proposed for selecting the next quiz. The simulation results indicate that the proposed approach has the potential to validate knowledge contents. This paper is a revised version of our conference paper presented at the 12th Asian Conference on Intelligent Information and Database Systems (ACIIDS 2020).

Asian Conference on Tumor Ablation guidelines for renal cell carcinoma.

Thermal ablation has been established as an alternative treatment for renal cell carcinoma (RCC) in patients who are poor candidates for surgery. However, while American and European guidelines have been established for American and European patients, respectively, no ablation guidelines for Asian patients with RCCs have been established many years after the Asian Conference on Tumor Ablation (ACTA) had been held. Given that Western guidelines are difficult to apply to Asian patients due to differences in body habitus, economic status, and insurance systems, the current review sought to establish the first version of the ACTA guidelines for treating a RCC with thermal ablation.

Thermal Ablation for Renal Cell Carcinoma: Expert Consensus from the Asian Conference on Tumor Ablation.

Thermal Ablation for Renal Cell Carcinoma: Expert Consensus from the Asian Conference on Tumor Ablation.

Radiofrequency Ablation of Benign Thyroid Nodules: Recommendations from the Asian Conference on Tumor Ablation Task Force - Secondary Publication.

Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) is a thermal ablation technique widely used for the management of benign thyroid nodules. To date, five academic societies in various countries have reported clinical practice guidelines, opinion statements, or recommendations regarding the use of thyroid RFA. However, despite some similarities, there are also differences among the guidelines, and a consensus is required regarding safe and effective treatment in Asian countries. Therefore, a task force was organized by the guideline committee of the Asian Conference on Tumor Ablation with the goal of devising recommendations for the clinical use of thyroid RFA. The recommendations in this article are based on a comprehensive analysis of the current literature and the consensus opinion of the task force members.

Sanitation conditions in South Asian countries: A special reference to India

Globally 2.4 billion people live without access to improved sanitation of which 1 billion people practice open defecation (WHO-2015). Sanitation was one of the most off-track Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Only 68% of the world’s population has access to improved sanitation (WHO-2015). Sanitation lies at the root of many other development challenges, as poor sanitation impacts public health, education and the environment. Based on the Global WASH fact sheet (2012), Maldives and Sri Lanka have better sanitation facilities than the great India and Afghanistan which is having least coverage. South Asian Conference on Sanitation (SACOSAN) is working on the improving the sanitation facilities in the SAARC. Among Indian states, North Eastern states are having better facilities compare to other regions (Census-2011).After launching SBM programme sanitation growth is observed across the country. The paper is based on secondary data and focuses mainly on sanitation condition in South Asian countries, India and states. GIS Techniques are used to prepare the maps and analyse the data and is presented in the paper.