Abstract Jakun, a Proto-Malay subtribe from Peninsular Malaysia, is believed to have inhabited the Malay Archipelago during the period of agricultural expansion approximately 4 thousand years ago (kya). However, their genetic structure and population history remain inconclusive. In this study, we report the genome structure of a Jakun female, based on whole-genome sequencing, which yielded an average coverage of 35.97-fold. We identified approximately 3.6 million single-nucleotide variations (SNVs) and 517,784 small insertions/deletions (indels). Of these, 39,916 SNVs were novel (referencing dbSNP151), and 10,167 were nonsynonymous (nsSNVs), spanning 5674 genes. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) revealed that the Jakun genome sequence closely clustered with the genomes of the Cambodians (CAM) and the Metropolitan Malays from Singapore (SG_MAS). The ADMIXTURE analysis further revealed potential admixture from the EA and North Borneo populations, as corroborated by the results from the F3, F4, and TreeMix analyses. Mitochondrial DNA analysis revealed that the Jakun genome carried the N21a haplogroup (estimated to have occurred ~19 kya), which is commonly found among Malays from Malaysia and Indonesia. From the whole-genome sequence data, we identified 825 damaging and deleterious nonsynonymous single-nucleotide polymorphisms (nsSNVs) affecting 720 genes. Some of these variants are associated with age-related macular degeneration, atrial fibrillation, and HDL cholesterol level. Additionally, we located a total of 3310 variants on 32 core adsorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination (ADME) genes. Of these, 193 variants are listed in PharmGKB, and 21 are nsSNVs. In summary, the genetic structure identified in the Jakun individual could enhance the mapping of genetic variants for disease-based population studies and further our understanding of the human migration history in Southeast Asia.
Abstract Background Yunnan Province, located in the southwestern part of China and neighboring endemic dengue regions of Southeast Asia, has experienced annual autochthonous outbreaks of dengue fever from 2013 to 2023. This study examines the epidemiological and spatiotemporal clustering characteristics of dengue within the province. Methods Descriptive epidemiological methods were used to analyse outbreak characteristics. Excel 2019 and ArcGIS 10.3 software were used to establish a case database and for mapping. Spatial autocorrelation and spatio-temporal clustering analysis were employed to study the features of spatial clustering. Results From 2013 to 2023, 30,666 dengue cases were reported in Yunnan Province, of which 22,806 (74.37%) were indigenous and 7,860 (25.63%) were imported. Imported cases from Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam were reported each year, with indigenous outbreaks occurring from June to December. The majority of cases occurred among young adults, mainly farmers, service workers, homemakers, and the unemployed. There was a significant temporal and spatial clustering of dengue incidence, with intense local clustering in the southwestern border areas of the province from July to November, particularly in Xishuangbanna, Dehong, Lincang, Pu’er, and Honghe prefectures. Conclusion Autochthonous outbreaks of dengue fever in Yunnan Province occurred predominantly in the border areas adjacent to Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam. The largest outbreak in the province’s history occurred in 2023, related to the increase in imported cases following the reopening of borders after the COVID-19 pandemic. Dengue fever is considered primarily an imported disease in Yunnan, emphasizing the need for enhanced control of cross-border transmission and mosquito vector management.
<p>The transport history of tropospheric air masses above the tropical western Pacific (TWP) is reflected by the local ozone and relative humidity (RH) characteristics. In boreal winter, the TWP is the main global entry point for air masses into the stratosphere and therefore a key region of atmospheric chemistry and dynamics. Our study aims to identify air masses with different pathways to the TWP using ozone and radio soundings from Palau from 2016–2019. Supported by backward trajectory calculations, we found five different types of air masses. We further defined locally controlled ozone and RH background profiles based on monthly statistics and analyzed corresponding anomalies in the 5–10 km altitude range. Our results show a bimodality in RH anomalies. Humid and ozone-poor background air masses are of local or Pacific convective origin and occur year-round, but they dominate from August until October. Anomalously dry and ozone-rich air masses indicate a non-local origin in tropical Asia and are transported to the TWP via an anticyclonic route, mostly from February to April. The geographic location of origin suggests anthropogenic pollution or biomass burning as a cause for ozone production. We propose large-scale descent within the tropical troposphere and radiative cooling in connection with the Hadley circulation as being responsible for the dehydration during transport. The trajectory analysis revealed no indication of a stratospheric influence. Our study thus presents a valuable contribution to the discussion about anomalous layers of dry ozone-rich air observed in ozone-poor background profiles in the TWP.</p>
Snakes are a vital component of wildlife resources and are widely distributed across the globe. The many-banded krait Bungarus multicinctus is a highly venomous snake found across Southern Asia and central and southern China. Snakes are an ancient reptile group, and their genomes can provide important clues for understanding the evolutionary history of reptiles. Additionally, genomic resources play a crucial role in comprehending the evolution of all species. However, snake genomic resources are still scarce. Here, we present a highly contiguous genome of B. multicinctus with a size of 1.51 Gb. The genome contains a repeat content of 40.15%, with a total length exceeding 620 Mb. Additionally, we annotated a total of 24,869 functional genes. This research is of great significance for comprehending the evolution of B. multicinctus and provides genomic information on the genes involved in venom gland functions.
Toomas Timpka, Örjan Dahlström, Kristina Fagher
et al.
Abstract This research set out to identify pathways from vulnerability and stressors to depression in a global population of young athletes. Retrospective data were collected at age 18–19 years from Athletics athletes (n = 1322) originating from Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania, and the Americas. We hypothesised that sports-related and non-sports-related stressors in interaction with structural vulnerability instigate depression. Path modelling using Maximum likelihood estimation was employed for the data analysis. Depression caseness and predisposition were determined using the WHO-5 instrument. Thirty-six percent of the athletes (n = 480) returned complete data. Eighteen percent of the athletes reported lifetime physical abuse, while 11% reported sexual abuse. Forty-five percent of the athletes had recently sustained an injury. The prevalence of depression caseness was 5.6%. Pathways to depression caseness were observed from female sex (p = 0.037) and injury history (p = 0.035) and to predisposition for depression also through exposure to a patriarchal society (p = 0.046) and physical abuse (p < 0.001). We conclude that depression in a global population of young athletes was as prevalent as previously reported from general populations, and that universal mental health promotion in youth sports should include provision of equal opportunities for female and male participants, injury prevention, and interventions for abuse prevention and victim support.
It is known that the psychrophilic pseudotuberculosis microbe serotype 1 (Y. pseudotuberculosis 0:1b) causing Far East scarlet-like fever (FESLF) an intestinal infection found in a wide range of invertebrates and vertebrates inhabiting cold regions in the Northern and Central Asia as well as Far East is direct ancestor of the plague causative agent Yersinia pestis. However, the mechanism of Y. pestis speciation remains poorly elucidated. Numerous Y. pestis phylogenies created by using molecular genetic (MG) technologies are largely contradictory, being not in line with reliable data obtained by natural science approaches (e.g., ecology, epizootology, biogeography, and paleontology), which disagree with current evolutionary doctrine (synthetic theory of evolution). The MG approach provides no definitive answer to the questions of where, when, how, and under what circumstances the species Y. pestis arose. One of the reasons for such situation might be due to inadequacy of using the molecular evolutionary model for Y. pestis phylogenetics. Knowledge of the life cycles for the ancestral pseudotuberculosis and derivative plague microbes as well as related unique environmental features allows to create a reliable ecological model for the plague microbe evolution to be further used for assessing patterns of molecular variability and building proper molecular model that might be accepted for MG-reconstruction of plague microbe history. According to the ecological model, the species Y. pestis was formed in a tritopic manner (almost) simultaneously from FESLF clones (populations) in the three geographical populations of the Mongolian marmot-tarbagan (Marmota sibirica) and the flea Oropsylla silantiewi parasitizing on it. The inducer of speciation was coupled to the last maximum (Sartan) cooling in Central Asia occurred 2215 thousand years ago. Soil cooling and deep freezing resulted in altered behavior of the marmot flea larvae with emergence of facultative hematophagy, which, in turn, led to a unique traumatic (compared to routine alimentary) infection route of sleeping marmots with FESLF and, as a result, a unique way of Y. pestis speciation. The molecular model should predict a Y. pestis peripatric tritope speciation, existing numerous parallelisms in intraspecific variability associated with tritope speciation, and the quantum principle of speciation in the highly variable heterothermic (heteroimmune) stressful marmot-flea (Marmota sibirica Oropsylla silantiewi) host-vector environment involving stress-induced mutagenesis. Such molecular model of evolution may be useful for improving molecular methodology of phylogenetic constructions for a wide range of parasitic microorganisms.
Clark Edward Cunningham (1934-2020), professor emeritus at the University of Illinois (USA), pioneered the subfields of medical anthropology and biomedicine in Southeast Asia during the 1960s and 1970s. Cunningham’s contributions to the anthropology of Thailand and Indonesia on health, social structure, symbolism, and houses, emerged from decades of fieldwork. His exemplary teaching and research influences endure. Beyond biographical details and personal reflections by two former students (Lorraine V. Aragon and Susan O. Long), this two-part Memoriam essay highlights the foresight and insights of Cunningham’s 1970 Social Science and Medicine article titled “Thai Injection Doctors: Antibiotic Mediators.” Despite its brevity and twentieth-century style, the main points of this essay about a popular and semi-illicit mode of biomedical healing that entered the rural Thai marketplace hold up well fifty years after its publication.
Traditional phylogenies based on analysis of multiple genes have failed to obtain a well‐resolved evolutionary history for the backbone of the Asian Palmate group of Araliaceae, the largest clade of the family. In this study, we applied the genome skimming approach of next‐generation sequencing to address whether the lack of resolution at the base of the Asian Palmate tree is due to molecular sampling error or the footprint of ancient radiation. Twenty‐nine complete plastid genomes of Araliaceae (17 newly sequenced) were analyzed (RAxML, Beast, Lagrange, and BioGeoBears) to provide the first phylogenomic reconstruction of the group (95% of genera included). As a result, the early divergences of the Asian Palmate group have been clarified but the backbone of its core is not totally resolved, with short internal branches pointing to an ancient radiation scenario. East Asia is inferred as the most likely ancestral area for the Asian Palmate group (from late Paleocene to Eocene) from which early colonization of the Neotropics is inferred during the Eocene. The radiation of the core Palmate group took place during the late Eocene, most likely in the context of the Boreotropical hypothesis. Recurrent episodes of southward migration (to the tropics) coupled with northern latitude local extinctions (promoting geographic isolation of lineages) followed by northward expansion (promoting contact of lineages that erased the trace of preceding geographic isolation) are hypothesized to have linked to the alternation of the cold and warm periods of the Eocene.
Dorabata is an archeological remains which is located in the village of Kandai Satu, Dompu District, Dompu Regency, West Nusa Tenggara. Cultural heritage remains are in the forms of monuments which is the only building with Hindu influence. Dorobata buildings still have many questions about the function of the building because it has not found its special characteristic which became a sign of certain culture period. After excavations were done, it was found many things which can be said to have relation with some activities at this place. Objects found during excavation works were in the form of pottery, fragments of pottery, gacuk, jars, jugs beak, a bronze fragment and pedupaan. In this study the various issues that need to be investigated again. The problems that arise are how the historical aspect of Dorobata site is and what the meaning of the monument of Dorobata site is. The purpose of this study is to know how big the archaeological potential in Dompu Regency. The method in this study is the method of library research, survey and excavation. Preliminary conclusion is Dorobata is a Hindu worship sites in the past.
Dorabata merupakan tinggalan arkeologi yang terletak di kampung Kandai Satu Kecamatan Dompu Kabupaten Dompu Nusa Tenggara Barat. Tinggalan warisan budaya berupa bangunan monumental di Dorobata satusatunya bangunan Hindu yang masih dapat dikatakan utuh. Bangunan Dorobata masih menyimpan berbagai pertanyaan apakah fungsi bangunan itu karena belum ditemukannya ciri yang khusus yang menjadi pertanda hasil budaya suatu masa. Namun setelah dilakukan penggalian di situs ini dan menemukan benda-benda yang dapat dipastikan memiliki kaitan dengan aktivitas yang pernah terjadi dilokasi ini. Benda-benda yang berhasil ditemukan saat penggalian berupa gerabah, pecahan-pecahan keramik, gacuk, buli-buli, cucuk kendi, fragmen perunggu dan pedupaan. Dalam penelitian ini berbagai masalah yang perlu diteliti kembali. Permasalahan yang muncul antara lain bagaimana aspek kesejarahan situs Dorobata? apa makna bangunan Situs Dorobata? tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui seberapa besar portensi arkeologi yang ada di Kabupaten Dompu. Metode yang dipergunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah studi pustaka, survei dan ekskavasi. Kesimpulan awal dari situs ini adalah Dorobata merupakan situs pemujaan agama Hindu di masa lalu.
Goals. The paper aims to reveal open space-related toponyms traced in The Secret
History of the Mongols, and localize the sites. Materials. Investigation of spaces once reclaimed
by Mongolic peoples is quite a topical issue in the history of nomadic communities. And a key
stage in the Inner Asian expansion of Mongols depicted in The Secret History of the Mongols
is of special significance for historical geography. The vast open spaces nowadays associated
with Mongols proper had not actually been their indigenous territories. Names of open spaces
known in the era of Genghis Khan and his military activities have been lost, and it is difficult
enough to identify the former on present-day maps. The two terms related to open spaces in
The Secret History of the Mongols are keer (‘steppe’) and belchir (‘confluence point’). Conclusions. The work reveals Mongols preferred areas with mosaic landscapes that would include
both elevations and steppe plains. The Orkhon River valley — crossroads of steppe arterial
roads to have served as historical headquarters to earlier nomadic empires — was inhabited
by Mongols only after polyethnic Inner Asian communities were united by Genghis Khan.
The article presents a number of original hypotheses dealing with localization of several sites
mentioned in the written monument.
History of Asia, Political institutions and public administration - Asia (Asian studies only)
The article evaluates the current state of Russian-Japanese relations and analyzes the reasons
why, despite the active top-level political dialogue, which particularly intensified since 2016, the two nations failed to achieve substantial progress in concluding the peace treaty. The author notes that, besides the incompatibility of the countries‟ positions regarding the issue of territorial delimitation, these reasons also include the difference in their approaches regarding key international political issues, low degree of economic interdependence, as well as several subjective and domestic political factors.
South Asia. Southeast Asia. East Asia, Bibliography. Library science. Information resources