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Objective: Skin lightening agents are popular in southern Asia, but there is dearth of evidence on their effectiveness on Fitzpatrick IV/V skin types. This study was designed to assess the depigmenting efficacy of commercially available and specifically formulated ointments using the Mexameter® (MX 18).Methods: This single center prospective study was performed to test five commercially available preparations (Eldopaque®, Aziderm®, Garnier Dark Spot Corrector®, Ban a Tan Cream® and Neostrata Pigment Lightening Gel) on 28 healthy female volunteers in Phase 1, while five single active ingredients in lipophilic dispersion (hydroquinone 4%, ascorbyl palmitate 1%, resveratrol 1% arbutin 5% and azelaic acid 20%) were tested on a different group of 26 healthy female volunteers in Phase 2. The test agents were applied twice a day for five days per week and continued for six weeks in both study phases. Weekly Mexameter® measurements were obtained from test sites and negative controls.Results: Significant hypopigmentation when compared to untreated controls was observed with Aziderm cream (p<0.05, MWU) and the Neostrata Pigment Lightening Gel (p<0.05, MWU). All formulated preparations showed significant reduction in pigmentation; however, only the arbutin (5%) containing formulation revealed significant attenuation of pigmentation in comparison to the inactive control (p<0.05, MWU).Conclusion: All applications containing active ingredients showed significant skin lightening; however, only arbutin was able to demonstrate significant diminution of pigmentation when compared to the inactive control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A comprehensive dataset comprising 3000 oral cavity images and patient metadata. • Images categorized into oral cancer, OPMD, benign and healthy groups. • Images with annotations of the boundaries of oral cavity and lesions. • Facilitate algorithm development with easily downloadable COCO format. This study aims to address the critical gap of unavailability of publicly accessible oral cavity image datasets for developing machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies for the diagnosis and prognosis of oral cancer (OCA) and oral potentially malignant disorders (OPMD), with a particular focus on the high prevalence and delayed diagnosis in Asia. Following ethical approval and informed written consent, images of the oral cavity were obtained from mobile phone cameras and clinical data was extracted from hospital records from patients attending to the Dental Teaching Hospital, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. After data management and hosting, image categorization and annotations were done by clinicians using a custom-made software tool developed by the research team. A dataset comprising 3000 high-quality, anonymized images obtained from 714 patients were classified into four distinct categories: healthy, benign, OPMD, and OCA. Images were annotated with polygonal shaped oral cavity and lesion boundaries. Each image is accompanied by patient metadata, including age, sex, diagnosis, and risk factor profiles such as smoking, alcohol, and betel chewing habits. Researchers can utilize the annotated images in the COCO format, along with the patients' metadata, to enhance ML and AI algorithm development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vaccines against Japanese encephalitis (JE) have been available for decades. Currently, most JE-endemic countries have vaccination programs for their at-risk populations. Even so, JE remains the leading recognized cause of viral encephalitis in Asia. In 2018, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and PATH co-convened a group of independent experts to review JE prevention and control successes, identify remaining scientific and operational issues that need to be addressed, discuss opportunities to further strengthen JE vaccination programs, and identify strategies and solutions to ensure sustainability of JE control during the next decade. This paper summarizes the key discussion points and recommendations to sustain and expand JE control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the findings of a research study investigating the barriers to Research and Innovation (R&I) in Disaster Resilience (DR) in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Asia. The scope of the study is limited to three Asian countries, i.e. Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Thailand, due to their role in the international collaboration entitled ASCENT (Advancing Skills Creation to Enhance Transformation), which contributes to the development of research capacity building in disaster resilience ensuring sustainable and inclusive socio-economic growth in these Partner Country HEIs. Responses received from 213 semi-structured interviews and 530 survey questionnaires are used to examine and prioritize the aforementioned barriers in R&I in HEIs in Asia. Findings reveal, amongst others, that there is a crucial need for R&I skills enhancement through implementation of clear and adequate policies. Having a strong policy support, in turn, could play an important role in providing incentives to staff (academic and research staff), increasing awareness on R&I initiatives, and motivation to carry out R&I activities. Lack of training and development on R&I was surprisingly one of the lowest ranked barriers from the survey analysis, although it was the most frequently mentioned barrier during the interviews. Although this is a mixed result, training and development should be considered a priority for promoting and improving R&I in HEIs as such initiatives could help overcome many other barriers such as lack of staff R&I skills, motivation, awareness, and lack of research related performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australian teacher education programmes that prepare teachers of English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) are confronting the nexus of two facets of globalization: transformations in the Asian region, captured in the notion of the “Asian century”, and shifting conceptions of professionalism in TESOL in non-compulsory education. In booming Asian economies, English language learning is integral to the demand for high-quality education. This has produced increases in TESOL Teacher Education Programme (TTEP) enrolments of both domestic Australian students and international students from Asia. Growth in demand for TTEPs has necessitated that they cater to student diversity, and the intended contexts of practice. This demand has coincided with a concurrent movement towards professional standards for TESOL that, we argue, confronts complexities around quality, accountability, and professional identity and achieving conceptual and contextual coherence. Drawing on discourses of managerialism and performativity, this paper explores tensions between increased student demands for TTEPs, professional standards discourses which are part of the global policy discourses on teacher quality, and the achievement of programmatic conceptual and contextual coherence from the perspective of Australian TTEPs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traits linked to growth performance in farmed fish are major drivers of profitability in aquaculture systems. Given the importance of growth-related traits, there have been efforts to unravel the genomic architecture of growth traits and to identify key genes or genomic regions useful as selection markers in various species. Such markers would increase the accuracy of selection and improve rates of genetic progress for growth improvement in breeding programs. Olive flounder (Paralichthys olivaceus) has a considerable market value in Asia and is mainly cultured in South Korea. To facilitate a breeding program for this species, a genome-wide association study (GWAS) was conducted to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) associated with growth traits. In total, 1800 fish were measured for body weight (BW), total length (TL), and maximum body depth (BD). Fish were genotyped using the Affymetrix® Axiom® myDesign™ Genotyping Arrays; 1009 fish and 58,756 SNPs remained after the final quality control check. According to the phenotypes, female fish recorded higher BW, TL, and BD than male counterparts of the same age, revealing a sex-dependent growth pattern. There was a strong positive phenotypic correlation (0.945–0.965) and a moderate genotypic correlation (0.286–0.332) between the three growth performance traits of the 1009 fish. Eight SNPs were identified above the significant (p < 8.5 × 10−7) and suggestive (p < 1 × 10−5) thresholds for all traits, and they were mapped primarily onto chromosomes 23 and 24. According to the GWAS analysis, genotypes at loci AX-419206420 and AX-419307742 significantly affected the growth performance of the population. Gene ontology (GO) analysis was performed on 30 candidate genes with notable growth performance effects (p < 1 × 10−4) and GO terms related to neuron development, molecule binding and cytoskeleton organization were highly enriched. Our findings may contribute to understanding of the molecular basis of growth regulation and promote the use of SNP-based genomic selection in flounder culture. • A 70 K high density SNP array was used to perform the GWAS on growth of flounders. • The selected growth traits were moderately heritable. • Total of eight SNPs were highly associated with selected traits. • An SNP in AXDND1 gene was significantly associated with all the traits • Associated SNP harboring genes enriched several GO terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Sesbania grandiflora is an edible medicinal plant widely distributed in Asia, it exhibited diverse biological effects. • One of its folk uses is to treat or alleviate type 2 diabetes mellitus. • LC-HRMS proved that its leaves and twigs are rich in flavonoids and terpenes. • Vomifoliol, loliolide, quercetin, and kaempferol are potent inhibitors of metabolic enzymes involved in type 2 diabetes. Sesbania grandiflora L. Poir is an edible medicinal plant widely distributed in Asian countries. One of its folk medicinal uses is the alleviation or treatment of Type 2 Diabetes mellitus (T2DM). A number of animal studies confirmed its use in treating T2DM; however, none of them explored the chemistry or the possible mechanism. This study aims to unveil the chemical profile of S. grandiflora through LC-HRMS dereplication analysis, followed by isolation, identification and quantification of the major secondary metabolites with potential α-amylase and α glucosidase inhibitory effect as the potential anti-diabetic mechanism. LC-HRMS chemical profiling of its leaves and twigs identified 32 metabolites. Bio-guided fractionation and HPLC purification led to the isolation of 14 major metabolites that were screened for their α-amylase and α-glucosidase inhibitory activities. For the first time, two terpenoids; vomifoliol (11) and loliolide (14) showed inhibitory effect against α-glucosidase with IC 50 values of 64.5 and 388.48 µM, respectively. Quercetin (10) exhibited the highest α-glucosidase inhibition with IC 50 value of 17.45 µM. Further, predicated molecular modelling studies demonstrated strong binding interactions between active compounds and enzyme-substrate binding pockets supporting the observed enzyme inhibitory activity. Interestingly, the quantitative analysis of the most potent inhibitors indicated their existence at a high percentage within S. grandiflora extract. Our findings suggested S. grandiflora is a useful dietary supplement to control postprandial blood glucose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]