A new species in the Cyrtodactylus intermedius (Squamata: Gekkonidae) group from an isolated limestone karst formation in southwestern Cambodia.

The gekkonid lizard Cyrtodactylus intermedius was formerly considered to be a single widespread species in hilly areas across eastern Thailand through southern Vietnam but has recently been partitioned into a complex of 12 nominal species across its range. A population belonging to the C. intermedius group was recently found in an isolated limestone karst block in Kampot Province in southwestern Cambodia, part of which lies within the recently designated Phnom Preah Kuhear Loung Natural Heritage Site.

Charge Inversion by Monovalent Hydroxide Ions.

The interaction between the hydroxide ion (OH) and the headgroup of a model cationic lipid (DPTAP, 1,2-dipalmitoyl-3-trimethylammonium-propane chloride) was investigated for different concentrations of NaOH solutions by using sum-frequency vibrational spectroscopy. The OH signal (3000-3700 cm) of the interfacial water under the Langmuir monolayer of DPTAP decreased with increasing NaOH concentration, due to screening of the surface charge by OH counterions. Surprisingly, after reaching a minimum at 5 mM NaOH, the OH signal steadily increased.

The effect of health insurance coverage on antenatal care utilization in Cambodia: A secondary analysis of Cambodia Demographic and Health Survey 2021-2022.

Health insurance is essential in reducing or eliminating the financial constraint to accessing maternal health services caused by out-of-pocket payments. Also, it has a beneficial effect in minimizing maternal and child mortality. However, limited studies in Cambodia examined the association between health insurance coverage on antenatal care (ANC) utilization.

Heavy metal contamination of faecal sludge for agricultural production in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

To achieve the universal target of 'safely managed sanitation' set out in UN Sustainable Development Goal 6, the world needs to increase its rate of progress, since e.g. Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, currently has zero percent safely managed sanitation.

Butanolides and clerodane diterpenes from the twigs of Casearia grewiifolia and their effects on adiponectin secretion.

Three butanolides derivatives, grewiifolides A-C, and nine clerodane diterpenes, grewiifolins M-U, as well as a known sterol were isolated from the twigs of Casearia grewiifolia. The chemical structures and configurations of all isolates were established by various spectroscopic means and chemical derivatization. In a cell-based phenotypic assay using the adipogenesis model of human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (hBM-MSCs), grewiifolide B significantly promoted adiponectin-secretion with EC value of 24.

Developing and testing a community based, online vs. face-to-face peer led intervention to improve mental well-being in Cambodian adults with physical disabilities.

Background: Despite growing international attention, there remains an urgent need to develop mental health services within low and middle income countries. The Khmer Rouge period in Cambodia saw the destruction of all health services infrastructure in the 1970s. Consequently, Cambodia has struggled to rebuild both its economy and healthcare system, with the number of qualified mental health clinicians remaining disproportionately low.

Prevalence of Salmonella spp. in meat, seafood, and leafy green vegetables from local markets and vegetable farms in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Salmonella is a major bacterial concern for public health globally. Although there are limited documentation on the prevalence of Salmonella species in Cambodia's food chain, some reports indicate that salmonellosis is a severe gastrointestinal infection in its population and especially in children. To investigate the presence of Salmonella spp.

Exploring the determinants of under-five mortality and morbidity from infectious diseases in Cambodia-a traditional and machine learning approach.

Cambodia has made progress in reducing the under-five mortality rate and burden of infectious diseases among children over the last decades. However the determinants of child mortality and morbidity in Cambodia is not well understood, and no recent analysis has been conducted to investigate possible determinants. We applied a multivariable logistical regression model and a conditional random forest to explore possible determinants of under-five mortality and under-five child morbidity from infectious diseases using the most recent Demographic Health Survey in 2021-2022.

Magnesium induced structural reorganization in the active site of adenylate kinase.

Phosphoryl transfer is a fundamental reaction in cellular signaling and metabolism that requires Mg as an essential cofactor. While the primary function of Mg is electrostatic activation of substrates, such as ATP, the full spectrum of catalytic mechanisms exerted by Mg is not known. In this study, we integrate structural biology methods, molecular dynamic (MD) simulations, phylogeny, and enzymology assays to provide molecular insights into Mg-dependent structural reorganization in the active site of the metabolic enzyme adenylate kinase.

Connecting Female Entertainment Workers in Cambodia to Health Care Services Using mHealth: Economic Evaluation of Mobile Link.

Background: Mobile Link is a mobile phone-based intervention to increase access to, and use of, health care services among female entertainment workers in Cambodia who face higher risks for specific diseases and gender-based violence. A multisite randomized controlled trial showed that Mobile Link connected female entertainment workers with outreach workers for information and escorted referrals after 6 months but did not lead to statistically significant improvements in HIV and sexually transmitted infection testing, contraceptive use, and condom use.

Objective: This study aims to conduct a 3-part economic evaluation of Mobile Link to understand its costs, value, and affordability.

Plastic pollution affects ecosystem processes including community structure and functional traits in large rivers.

Plastics in aquatic ecosystems rapidly undergo biofouling, giving rise to a new ecosystem on their surface, the 'plastisphere.' Few studies quantify the impact of plastics and their associated community on ecosystem traits from biodiversity and functional traits to metabolic function. It has been suspected that impacts on ecosystems may depend on its state but comparative studies of ecosystem responses are rare in the published literature.

Identification of Pheophytin a and Hydroxy Pheophytin a from Rang Chuet ( Linn.) as Potent NQO-1 Inducers in Liver Cells.

Linn. (Rang Chuet, RC), a Thai medicinal plant, possesses various bioactive compounds with potential health benefits. This study aimed to identify detoxifying compounds within RC crude extract.

Mixed Metal Oxide W-TiO Nanopowder for Environmental Process: Synergy of Adsorption and Photocatalysis.

A mixed metal oxide W-TiO nanopowder photocatalyst was prepared by using the sol-gel method with a broad range of elemental compositions x = C/(C + C), including TiO and WO. The material was structurally characterized and evaluated in adsorption and photocatalytic processes by testing its removal capacity of a representative pollutant methylene blue (MB) in aqueous solutions and under UV-A and sunlight illuminations. The nanopowders appeared to be more effective adsorbents than pure TiO and WO materials, showing a maximum at 15 mol% W, which was set as the tungsten solubility limit in anatase titania.

Simple distance-based thread analytical device integrated with ion imprinted polymer for Zn quantification in human urine samples.

This article presents the development of a distance-based thread analytical device (dTAD) integrated with an ion-imprinted polymer (IIP) for quantitative monitoring of zinc ions (Zn) in human urine samples. The IIP was easily chemically modified onto the thread channel using dithizone (DTZ) as a ligand to bind to Zn with methacrylic acid (MAA) as a functional monomer and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) as well as 2,2-azobisisobutyronitrile (AIBN) as cross-linking agents to enhance the selectivity for Zn detection. The imprinted polymer was characterized using Attenuated Total Reflectance-Fourier Transform Infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy-Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (SEM-EDS).

Khmer translation and cultural adaptation of the Locomotor Capabilities Index-5.

Background: Mobility is a major goal of prosthetic and orthotic rehabilitation, and use of outcome measures to evaluate mobility is necessary for good clinical practice. To support the use of outcome measures worldwide, work is needed to translate relevant instruments and adapt them for use in multiple cultures.

Objectives: The objective of this research was to use a standardized method to translate the Locomotor Capabilities Index-5 (LCI-5) into Khmer, the national language in Cambodia, and to evaluate its cultural integrity by assessing it with a group of prosthesis and orthosis users.

Leveraging qualitative approaches to guide sustainable international research collaborations.

Qualitative research approaches were used to launch an international research collaboration between the U. S. and Cambodia.

Centering context when characterizing food environments: the potential of participatory mapping to inform food environment research.

Food environments are a critical place within the food system to implement interventions aimed at enabling sustainable diets. In this perspective article, we argue for the need for food environment research to more comprehensively examine the different types of food environments that people access within their communities to ensure that interventions and programs are better aligned with people's lived experiences. We highlight the potential ways in which participatory mapping (PM) can be leveraged to better design food environment research by: (1) identifying the different food environment types that are accessed within a given community; (2) providing insight into the timing for data collection; (3) informing the prioritization of where to conduct food environment assessments; and (4) highlighting the dynamism of food environments over time (e.

Factors associated with overweight and obesity among women of reproductive age in Cambodia: Analysis of Cambodia Demographic and Health Survey 2021-22.

Overweight and obesity are associated with increased chronic disease and death rates globally. In Cambodia, the prevalence of overweight and obesity among women is high and increasing. This study aimed to determine the prevalence and factors associated with overweight and obesity among women of reproductive age (WRA) in Cambodia.

Influence of -Ionone in the Phytotoxicity of the Rhizome of Lam.

Lam., also known as Sweetie Iris, is a perennial ornamental and medicinal plant that produces a wide range of secondary metabolites. The Sweetie Iris was recently reported to have high allelopathic properties with the potential to be explored in sustainable weed management.

Communication between undamaged plants can elicit changes in volatile emissions from neighbouring plants, thereby altering their susceptibility to aphids.

Plant volatiles play an important role in intra- and interspecific plant communication, inducing direct and indirect defenses against insect pests. However, it remains unknown whether volatile interactions between undamaged cultivars alter host plant volatile emissions and their perception by insect pests. Here, we tested the effects of exposure of a spring barley, Hordeum vulgare L.

Associations of Postural Activities and Knowledge for Voice with Breathing Issues and Voice-Physical-Disorders Among Lyric Singers.

Objectives/hypothesis: The purpose of this research was to study the associations of postural activities and knowledge of the voice of opera singers, recognized in the literature for the specificity of their posture. Additionally, the link between vocal pathologies and body pains on one hand, and posture control on the other hand was investigated.

Methods: A questionnaire including 90 questions was distributed to singers in France and overseas during 6 months.

Chemical risks in drinking water of inhabitants in the basin of the Tonle Sap Great Lake.

The present study aimed to assess chemical risks in the drinking water of inhabitants in the basin of the Tonle Sap Great Lake. Water samples from tube wells (n = 52), dug wells (n = 13), stored rain water (n = 39), ponds/lakes (n = 19), canals/rivers (n = 24), and household pipe water (n = 45) were collected and analyzed for physicochemical properties, as well as microbial and chemical qualities using standard methods. Analytical results revealed that 42.

ViTSTR-Transducer: Cross-Attention-Free Vision Transformer Transducer for Scene Text Recognition.

Attention-based encoder-decoder scene text recognition (STR) architectures have been proven effective in recognizing text in the real world, thanks to their ability to learn an internal language model. Nevertheless, the cross-attention operation that is used to align visual and linguistic features during decoding is computationally expensive, especially in low-resource environments. To address this bottleneck, we propose a cross-attention-free STR framework that still learns a language model.

Pesticide screening of surface water and soil along the Mekong River in Cambodia.

Widespread use of pesticides globally has led to serious concerns about environmental contamination, particularly with regard to aquatic and soil ecosystems. This work involved investigating concentrations of 64 pesticides in surface-water and soil samples collected in four provinces along the Mekong River in Cambodia during the dry and rainy seasons (276 samples in total), and conducting semi-structured interviews with local farmers about pesticide use. Furthermore, an ecological risk assessment of the detected pesticides was performed.