Pleasure of Abjection: Cheap Thai Comics as Cultural Catharsis

This journal has been published at different time periods under the following titles: Explorations: A Graduate Student Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Explorations in Southeast Asian Studies, and The Journal of the Southeast Asian Studies Association.The Student Activities Program Fee Boar

Syntheses and evaluation of putative enzyme inhibitor of isoprenoid biosynthesis

The discovery of the methylerythritol phosphate pathway (the MEP pathway) as an alternate pathway for isoprenoid biosynthesis in some organisms including most bacteria, malarial parasites and plants, but not in animals, has stimulated extensive studies in this area. Research has revealed the potential of finding novel antibacterials, antimalarial drugs, and herbicides from enzyme inhibitors of this pathway. The natural products fosmidomycin and FR900098 appear to be very promising antibacterial and antimalarial compounds. Both compounds have inhibition activities against the second enzyme in the MEP pathway, deoxyxylulose- 5-phosphate reductoisomerase (DXR), which mediates the conversion of deoxyxylulose-5-phosphate (DXP) into methylerythritol-4-phosphate (MEP). This thesis presents one aspect of the MEP pathway studies. Six different analogs of DXP were designed based on the structural features of DXP to understand the requirements of the DXR-substrate binding. Compounds with the trivial names 1-Me-DXP (containing an ethyl ketone moiety), DX-phosphonate (DXP having a phosphonate group rather than a phosphate group), 4-epi-DXP (possessing the opposite stereochemistry at the C₄ position compared to DXP), 4-deoxy-DXP (lacking the hydroxyl group at the C₄ position), 3-deoxy-DXP (lacking the hydroxyl group at the C₃ position), and DXP carboxamide (having a primary amide group rather than the methyl ketone) were synthesized and tested as alternate substrates and enzyme inhibitors against DXR. The compound DX-phosphonate was the only alternate substrate among the synthesized compounds. The remaining analogs of DXP acted as weak competitive inhibitors against DXR. Kinetic studies of these compounds provided an overall picture of how the substrate DXP binds to DXR. Further studies of the compound 1-Me-DXP, using the published X-ray crystal structures of DXR and DXR mutagenesis demonstrated more detail of the DXR active site. The results present useful information for designing better enzyme inhibitors. The mechanism for the rearrangement of DXP to MEP by DXR was also studied. Two possible mechanisms for this rearrangement have been proposed, the α-ketol rearrangement and the retroaldol/aldol rearrangement. Several approaches including the use of the potential alternate substrates, 4-deoxy-DXP and 3-deoxy-DXP were tried. Unfortunately none of the results obtained can definitively rule out either of the mechanisms. Further studies are needed to completely understand this mechanism and establish additional strategies for inhibition of DXR. Syntheses of an intermediate from the DXR reaction, methylerythrose-4-phosphate, were also attempted in order to better understand the chemistry mediated by DXR. Even though the target compound was not successfully obtained, several synthetic approaches to this compound were useful for the syntheses of the different DXP analogs mentioned above

Self-care behaviors in Vietnamese adults with heart failure

Self-care is a cornerstone of therapy for adult patients with heart failure to prevent long-term hospital readmission. This study examines the frequency of self-care behaviors and factors related to such behaviors in Vietnamese adults with heart failure. In this cross-sectional study, random sampling was used to recruit 200 heart failure patients from the outpatient departments in 10 hospitals in northern Vietnam. Study variables were selected according to Orem’s theory of self-care. The total mean score for selfcare behaviors was moderate, with the lowest mean score being for treatment compliance. Comorbidity, knowledge of heart failure, social support, and barriers to sodium restriction predicted 27.6% of the variance in self-care behaviors. The strongest predictor was barriers to sodium restriction (β=–0.34, p<0.05). The results indicated a need to develop nursing interventions to promote self-care behaviors in this population via modification of the factors identified in this study

Dystopia as Liberation: Disturbing Femininities in Contemporary Thailand

Despite the stereotypical, outsider view of Thailand as a thriving hub of international sex tourism, traditional and local constructions of Thainess instead privilege the position of the ‘good’ Thai woman—a model of sexual propriety, demure physicality and aesthetic perfection. This is the image of femininity that is heralded by Thailand's Tourist Authority and by government agencies alike as a marketable symbol of cultural refinement and national pride. But this disturbing ‘utopian’ construction of femininity might for some be considered a dystopia shaped by forms of power centred on elite urban rule. In mainstream definitions of Thainess, the monstrous and grotesque inverses of ‘good’ womanhood are located in the ‘dystopian’ visions of rural-based folk traditions that abound with malevolent female spirits and demons, and in the contemporary Thai horror films that draw on these tropes. Adopted by Thai feminists and by street protestors in Bangkok at times of recent political unrest, portrayals of a ‘monstrous-feminine’ have been adopted as central to a carnivalesque strategy of response and resistance to elite discourses of control. Such forces serve to symbolically disturb and destabilise middle-class constructions of a Utopian vision of Thainess with Bangkok as its cultural core. This paper examines instances of how and why the counter-strategy of primitivism and monstrosity has developed, and the extent to which it translates ‘dystopian’ expressions of female sexuality in new imaginaries of ‘dystopia’ as a space of liberation from stultifying cultural and political norms

Synthesis, Isolation of Phenazine Derivatives and Their Antimicrobial Activities

Antimicrobial activity of natural phenazine-1-carboxylic acid (PCA) from Pseudomonas aeruginosa TISTR 781 and synthetic phenazine-5,10-dioxide (PDO), prepared by oxidation of the phenazine, were evaluated by in vitro disc diffusion and minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) methods. The results indicated that both phenazine derivatives differed clearly in their antimicrobial activity. PCA showed better efficacy against growth of Acidovorax avenae subsp. citrulli, Bacillus subtilis, Candida albicans, Escherichia coli and Xanthomonas campestris pv. vesicatoria than PDO at low concentrations of PCA (MIC; 17.44 - 34.87 ppm) as an antimicrobial agent. In contrast, PDO acted as a stronger inhibitor than PCA when tested against Pseudomonas syringae and Enterobacter aerogenes. The last bacterial strain, Ralstonia solanacearum, can be suppressed by the same concentration of PCA and PDO (MIC; 62.50 ppm). The data provided beneficial information for choosing phenazine types to inhibit some general strains and plant pathogenic bacteria

Possible Intestinal Absorption Enhancers from

Bioavailability of orally administered drugs is regulated by P-gp, a member of the ATP binding cassette transporter families. It expresses at the apical surface of epithelial cells and effluxs out several clinically important drugs resulting in decreased absorption and bioavailability. In recent years, the utilization of bioenhancer to increase the bioavailability of drugs has extensively studied. The objective of this study was to evaluate the potential of the compounds found in Citrus hystrix as a bioenhancer for orally administered drugs by modulation of P-gp function. The modulation effects of fruit extracts and isolated pure compounds on P-gp were investigated by uptake assay of the P-gp substrate calcein-AM in Caco-2, LLC-PK1 and LLC-GA5-COL300 cell lines. The results show that the extract from the flavedo part remarkably increased calcein-AM uptake in Caco-2 and LLC-GA5-COL300 cell lines. Among five furanocoumarins identified, 6’,7’-epoxybergamottin, 6’,7’-dihydroxybergamottin and oxypeucedanin significantly enhanced calcein-AM uptake in LLC-GA5-COL300 in a concentration-dependent manner, indicating strongly inhibition effects on P-gp function. Taken together, 6’,7’-epoxybergamottin, 6’,7’-dihydroxybergamottin and oxypeucedanin could be employed as the potential intestinal bioenhancer to improve the bioavailability of P-gp substrate drugs. However, further studies including in vivo studies should be performed to confirm these findings