OBJECTIVES Zika virus currently poses a global threat and is a major public health issue throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. However, Zika virus infections in humans have also been observed in other regions, including Southeast Asia, where arboviral diseases are very common. In this study, we summarize the current status of Zika virus in Southeast Asia. This review aims to provide an ov...

The bacteriophage T4 AsiA protein is a multifunctional protein that simultaneously acts as both a repressor and activator of gene expression during the phage life cycle. These dual roles with opposing transcriptional consequences are achieved by modification of the host RNA polymerase in which AsiA binds to conserved region 4 (SR4) of sigma(70), altering the pathway of promoter selection by the...

In 2007, the editorial home of the Asia Pacific Journal of Management will be leaving Asia for the first time—in fact leaving its founding school, the National University of Singapore (NUS), for the first time. Founded in 1983, APJM is the oldest and most prominent academic journal in the management field that is in Asia, on Asia, and of Asia. The move out of Asia is significant, because it una...

Approximately 1.7 billion people in Asia live in poverty today. To date, efforts to address poverty in Asia have largely focused on subsistence entrepreneurship rather than on creating ventures that empower them to break out of poverty. That is, the mechanisms that have been used, such as microlending, generally lead entrepreneurs to create businesses providing basic life essentials rather than...

As opiate processing and distribution networks in East Asia source more of their supplies from Afghanistan they will need to re-organise their supply routes. The likely result will be a growing interdependence of the heroin trades in East Asia and Europe, which most analysts have hitherto seen as independent. 59 59 For example, in discussing price movements resulting from the Taliban's ban on o...

East Asia encompasses a wide variety of environments, peoples, cultures and languages. Although this review focuses on East Asia, no geographic region can be considered in isolation in terms of human population history, and migrations to and from East Asia have had a major impact. Here, we review the following topics: the initial colonization of East Asia, the direction of migrations between so...

In the Asia region, foot and mouth disease (FMD) outbreaks are predominantly caused by FMD virus (FMDV) serotype O. The two main topotypes involved are ‘South-East Asia’ (SEA) and ‘Middle East – South Asia’ (ME-SA). FMDV of the SEA topotype (Mya-98 lineage) is widespread in South-East Asia and East Asia. FMD outbreaks due to serotype A have been sporadically observed in recent years. Serotype A...

Anti-sigma factors regulate prokaryotic gene expression through interactions with specific sigma factors. The bacteriophage T4 anti-sigma factor AsiA is a molecular switch that both inhibits transcription from bacterial promoters and phage early promoters and promotes transcription at phage middle promoters through its interaction with the primary sigma factor of Escherichia coli, sigma(70). As...