Asia

Elsevier, Journal of Transport and Health, Volume 18, September 2020
Introduction: Transport, a well-recognised determinant of health, is particularly salient to well-being and equitable health outcomes amongst older people and people living with disabilities living in low-and middle-income countries. This study explored the facilitators and barriers for safe and accessible transportation from the perspectives of older people and those living with disabilities in Sri Lanka.
Salinity stress adversely affects root nodulation symbiotic relationships, and ultimately the nitrogen fixation capacity and the growth and yield of leguminous plants. Improving growth and biological nitrogen fixation of leguminous plants grown on salt–affected soils are considered to be a striking challenge.

Background: Access to safe sanitation and the elimination of open defecation are pre-conditions for improved child health and nutrition and wider achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While Indonesia has a solid policy framework, the country ranks third globally in terms of numbers of people practicing open defecation. Objectives: Our aim was to assess the effectiveness of a five-year strategy to reduce open defecation through accelerating implementation of the national sanitation program across districts receiving variable levels of external support.

2018 First prize winner Dr. Prajwal Rajbhandari
In 2018, Dr. Prajwal Rajbhandari was awarded the first prize of the Elsevier Foundation Green and Sustainable Chemistry Challenge for his project, “Guava leaves as natural preservatives for farmers of Nepal.” Due to a lack of viable non-toxic preservatives, or cold chain technologies, one-third of Nepal’s produce is spoiled before it reaches market each year. Dr. Rajbhandari’s project taps the antioxidant and antimicrobial properties of guava leaves to make a water-based, sprayable natural preservative, contributing to SDGs 2, 12 and 15. Two years later, we interviewed Dr. Rajbhandari about his experience as a winner, as well as the upcoming steps for his project.
Patients with burning mouth syndrome (BMS) have burning sensation of the oral mucosa and occurs more commonly in middle-aged and elderly women. This study determines that gastric parietal cell antibody+BMS patients have significantly higher frequencies of macrocytosis, blood Hb and serum vitamin B12 deficiencies, and hyperhomocysteinemia than healthy control subjects or GPCA−BMS patients.
Non-ribosomal peptides (NRPs) and polyketides (PKs) are among the most profuse families of secondary metabolites (SM) produced by bacteria. These compounds are believed to play an important ecological role in microbe-microbe and microbe-plant interactions in soil and roots microbiomes. Over the years, screening of NRPs and PKs in soil bacteria has resulted in high rates of rediscovery, mainly due to challenges associated with bacterial isolation.
This book chapter advances SDG 3 and 10 by reviewing the literature on culture and family-based psychological interventions for schizophrenia, bipolar, and related (SBR) psychotic spectrum disorder.
This Research Paper supports SDG 3 by demonstrating that the use of rapid whole-exome sequencing to detect rare genetic diseases can reduce health-care expenditure and achieve net healthcare cost-savings in clinical settings in Hong Kong.
China is a key player in global production, consumption, and trade of seafood. Given this dominance, Chinese choices regarding what seafood to eat, and how and where to source it, are increasingly important—for China, and for the rest of the world. This perspective explores this issue using a transdisciplinary approach and discusses plausible trajectories and implications for assumptions of future modeling efforts and global environmental sustainability and seafood supply.
Background: Early marriage and fertility are major social determinants of health and wellbeing. Rapid shifts in the past three decades, including a rise in sexual activity in unmarried adolescents, a large population of young migrant workers, and a high proportion of males relative to females, have the potential to alter patterns of reproductive health in Chinese adolescents and young women. We aimed to establish long-term trends of marriage and fertility for girls and women aged 15–24 years in China.

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