• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.2675-2680
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• 2014

Background: To investigate differentiated thyroid cancer risk factors in natives of French Polynesia is of interest because of the very high incidence of this cancer in the archipelago. Materials and Methods: To assess the role of various potential risk factors of thyroid cancer in the natives of French Polynesia we performed a case-control study. The study included almost all the French Polynesians diagnosed with differentiated thyroid carcinoma between 1981 and 2003 (n=229) and 373 French Polynesian control individuals from the general population without cancer. Results: Thyroid radiation dose received from nuclear fallout before the age of 15, a personal history of neck or/and head medical irradiation, obesity, tallness, large number of children, an artificial menopause, a familial history of thyroid cancer, a low dietary iodine intake, and having a spring as the main source of drinking water were found to be significant risk factors. No roles of smoking habits, alcohol consumption, iodine containing drugs, and exposure to pesticides were evidenced. Conclusions: Except for smoking, differentiated thyroid carcinoma risk factors in natives of French Polynesia are similar to those in other populations. Our finding on the role of having a spring as a drinking water origin is coherent with some other studies and could be due to geological factors.

• Ocean and Polar Research
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.465-489
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• 2013

We collected references on South Pacific Studies from several resources: mainly internet resources and periodicals. Internet resources include associations, organizations and societies; cultural resources; environmental issues; government data; information resources; journals and news letters; libraries, archives, publishers; news sources; other sources; regional issues; selected full text documents and digital resources; and statistics. Periodicals include news and popular interest magazines; regional magazines and general interest publications; and scholarly and professional journals.

• Proceedings of the Plant Resources Society of Korea Conference
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• 2002.11b
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• pp.13-14
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• 2002

Bottle gourd, Lagenaria siceraria, is one of the oldest cultivated plants. To bigin with, its fruit was used as a complete liquid bottle or container. It was a very widespread cultivated plant in prehistoric times, for example (there) is a report from Peru as early as between 13,000 B.C and 11,000 B.C. The dug-out finds in Japan proved to be about 95,000 years old according to the $^{14}$ C analysis. The bottle grourd was the most important plant before the invention of pottery in many areas of Asia, New Guinea, Polynesia, America, and Africa. I would like to suggest that there should be “The Bottle Gourd Age” prior to the Pottery Age.(중략)

• Korean Journal of Ichthyology
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.274-285
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• 2007

The subfamily Chrominae of damselfishes (Teleostei: Pomacentridae) includes the genus Chromis and Dascyllus. They are found throughout the tropical oceans and form a major component of coral reef communities. There are 5 species of the Chrominae currently recognized in Korea. This study was conducted to infer phylogenetic position of two Korean Chromis species and one Dascyllus species within general category of their each genus in worldwide level. This study also includes one species of Japanese Dascyllus. In the phylogenetic analysis, the Japanese D. aruanus grouped with D. aruanus previously reported from French Polynesia. Korean Chromis fumea grouped with Australian C. nitida and the p-distance value between the two species is relatively very low (0.047). Korean C. notatus grouped together with C. flavomaculata (New Caledonia). In the sequence analysis of some Korean and Japanese damselfishes, there was no sequence variation between D. melanurus (Jeju, Korea) and D. melanurus (Indo-Pacific), but the sequences of the two populations were different in only one nucleotide sites from that of D. melanurus in Indonesian Archipelago. The sequences of Dascyllus aruanus (Japan) were different in two nucleotide sites from it in French Polynesia. There were high difference between the sequences of two Korean species, Chromis fumea and Korean C. notatus. The variations among mitochondrial cytochrome b sequences indicate that the gene sequence could be used as DNA barcode for identification of local populations of D. aruaus and D. melanurus as well as species level.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.13
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• pp.5187-5194
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• 2014

Background: Numerous studies have suggested that selenium deficiency may be associated with an increased risk for several types of cancer, but few have focused on thyroid cancer. Materials and Methods: We examined the association between post-diagnostic fingernail selenium levels and differentiated thyroid cancer risk in a French Polynesian matched case-control study. Conditional logistic regression models were used to estimate odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals. Results: The median selenium concentration among controls was $0.76{\mu}g/g$. Significantly, we found no association between fingernail selenium levels and thyroid cancer risk after conditioning on year of birth and sex and additionally adjusting for date of birth (highest versus lowest quartile: odds-ratio=1.12, 95% confidence interval: 0.66-1.90; p-trend=0.30). After additional adjustment for other covariates, this association remained non-significant (p-trend=0.60). When restricting the analysis to thyroid cancer of 10 mm or more, selenium in nails was non-significantly positively linked to thyroid cancer risk (p-trend=0.09). Although no significant interaction was evidenced between iodine in nails and selenium in nails effect (p=0.70), a non-significant (p-trend =0.10) positive association between selenium and thyroid cancer risk was seen in patients with less than 3 ppm of iodine in nails. The highest fingernail selenium concentration in French Polynesia was in the Marquises Islands ($M=0.87{\mu}g/g$) and in the Tuamotu-Gambier Archipelago ($M=0.86{\mu}g/g$). Conclusions: Our results do not support, among individuals with sufficient levels of selenium, that greater long-term exposure to selenium may reduce thyroid cancer risk. Because these findings are based on post-diagnostic measures, studies with prediagnostic selenium are needed for corroboration.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.823-828
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• 2000

The complete nucleotide sequence of hepatitis B virus DNA isolated from Korean patient serum was determined and characterized, and its phylogenetic relation was then investigated. The viral genome was 3,215 base pairs long and included four well known open reading frames (i.e. surface antigens, core antigens, X protein and DNA polymerase). The sequence of the surface antigen showed that the HBV genome under investigation, designated HBV 315, was characteristic of subtype adr. A phylogenetic analysis using the total genome sequence revealed that HBV315 was grouped into genomic group C together with isolates from Japan, China, Thailand, Polynesia, and New Caledonia. The mean percent similarity between HBV315 and other HBV isolates in genomic group C was 97.25%, and that with other genomic groups ranged from 86.16% to 91.25%. The predicted amino acid sequences of HBV315 were compared with two closely related subtype adr isolates, M38636 and D12980. The results showed that the X gene product was identical in the three strains, while there were significant amino acid sequence differences between HBV315 and M38636 in the Pre-S1 and Pre-S2 regions.

• East Asian Economic Review
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.129-168
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• 2016

The Asia-Pacific region is not typically seen as one geographic or socio-economic space. Yet, 58 regional economies occupying the space of 28 million square kilometers from Turkey in the West, Russian Federation in the North, French Polynesia in the East and New Zealand in the South belong to the Economic and Social Commission of Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). This commission provides a forum for member states that "promotes regional cooperation and collective action, assisting countries in building and sustaining shared economic growth and social equity". In 2013, ESCAP's members adopted the Bangkok Declaration to enhance efforts towards deeper regional economic integration. Yet this document neither proposes a concrete modality or modalities of achieving deeper integration, nor provides a sense of distance of individual countries to a "perceived" integrated Asia-Pacific.This paper aims to comprehensively quantify recent integration efforts of economies in the Asia-Pacific region. We provide an "index of integration effort" based on twelve metrics that measure the relative distance of a given economy to the region as an economic entity. Generally, we find that while the region has trended towards becoming integrated in general, both the level of integration and integration effort are inconsistent among Asia-Pacific economies. We discuss potential applications and extensions of the index in developing our perspective of the region's economic and social dynamics.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.3101-3103
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• 2013

In Easter Island, population is composed by original habitants, the Rapa Nui culture and introduced people, mainly from continental Chile, who have a different ethnic origin. The aim of this research was to describe cancer frequency in resident population in Easter Island, and secondarily compare the findings with other islands of Polynesia and continental Chile. We reviewed the statistics of patients treated in Hanga Roa Hospital during the period 2006-2010, finding a total of 49 patients with cancer during the study. The most frequent cancers in Easter Island's people were breast cancer (8 cases), skin (8 cases), cervical (8 cases), lung (5 cases) and gastric (4 cases). According to gender, in females the most frequent cancer was breast, followed by skin and cervical, while in men, lung, prostate and hematopoietic cancers were the most frequent. Most cases of cervical cancer occurred in women of Rapa Nui ethnicity, while most skin cancers were found in non-Rapa Nui people. In case of the most common cancer in Easter Island, education (e.g. Papanicolaou and mammography screening) and prevention in the community (e.g. use sun block, avoid cigarettes) should be useful tools to reduce incidence.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.1485-1488
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• 2016

Background: Chile is one of the countries with the highest prevalence of cholelithiasis worldwide, considering the Mapuche ethnicity as a risk factor for developing this pathology. Moreover, cholelithiasis is the main risk factor for developing gallbladder cancer, being the fifth cause of cancer death in Chile. The purpose of this study was to compare the frequency of cholelithiasis and biliary pathology among the population belonging to Rapanui ethnicity and non-Rapanui population living on Easter Island. Materials and Methods: In this retrospective case-control study, a total of 609 abdominal ultrasonographs performed consecutively in Hanga Roa Hospital during the period August 2012 to January 2015 were analyzed. Multiple logistic regression was used to obtain odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) of cholelithiasis and biliary pathology, adjusting for age, gender and referral diagnostic hypothesis. Results: In the Rapanui population the frequency for cholelithiasis and biliary pathology was 6.4% and 13%, meanwhile for the non-Rapanui population it was 13% and 22% respectively. Compared to the non-Rapanui Chilean population, the Rapanui ethnicity presented an OR of 0.53 (95% CI: 0.29-0.95) for cholelithiasis and OR of 0.52 (95% CI: 0.33-0.82) for biliary pathology. Conclusions: We found statistically significant ethnic differences in the frequency of cholelithiasis and biliary disease among the population of Rapanui and non-Rapanui ethnicity, so that this could be a protective factor for the development of biliary pathology, given the Chilean population context. Other studies including community population to determine the real prevalence of cholelithiasis and analyze the protective role of Rapanui ethnicity on this disease are necessary.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.30 no.11
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• pp.1651-1658
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• 2020

Since Zika virus (ZIKV) was first detected in Uganda in 1947, serious outbreaks have occurred globally in Yap Island, French Polynesia and Brazil. Even though the number of infections and spread of ZIKV have risen sharply, the pathogenesis and replication mechanisms of ZIKV have not been well studied. ZIKV, a recently highlighted Flavivirus, is a mosquito-borne emerging virus causing microcephaly and the Guillain-Barre syndrome in fetuses and adults, respectively. ZIKV polyprotein consists of three structural proteins named C, prM and E and seven nonstructural proteins named NS1, NS2A, NS2B, NS3, NS4A, NS4B, and NS5 in an 11-kb single-stranded positive sense RNA genome. The function of individual ZIKV genes on the host innate immune response has barely been studied. In this study, we investigated the modulations of the NF-κB promoter activity induced by the MDA5/RIG-I signaling pathway. According to our results, two nonstructural proteins, NS2A and NS4A, dramatically suppressed the NF-κB promoter activity by inhibiting signaling factors involved in the MDA5/RIG-I signaling pathway. Interestingly, NS2A suppressed all components of MDA5/RIG-I signaling pathway, but NS4A inhibited most signaling molecules, except IKKε and IRF3-5D. In addition, both NS2A and NS4A downregulated MDA5-induced NF-κB promoter activity in a dosedependent manner. Taken together, our results suggest that NS2A and NS4A signifcantly antagonize MDA5/RIG-I-mediated NF-κB production, and these proteins seem to be controlled by different mechanisms. This study could help understand the mechanisms of how ZIKV controls innate immune responses and may also assist in the development of ZIKV-specific therapeutics.