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To evaluate result of early pars plana vitrectomy (PPV) within 24 hours of presentation for acute postoperative endophthalmitis after cataract operation, and to determine factors that predict visual outcome.Consecutive patients who developed acute postoperative endophthalmitis within 6 weeks after cataract operation were reviewed. Patients were divided into two groups for analysis: (1) those receiving PPV within 24 hours of presentation (early PPV group), and (2) those receiving initial intravitreal antibiotics only without PPV within 24 hours of presentation (IVA group).Out of 41,411 cataract operations, 22 eyes developed acute postoperative endophthalmitis. Presenting VA was hand-movement or worse in 72.7%. The most common organisms were Staphylococcus (40.9%), Streptococcus (13.6%) and Enterococcus (13.6%). 22.7% of eyes had good final VA ≥ 20/30 and 27.3% had poor final VA 20/400. Early PPV group had significantly lower rate of requiring additional treatments to control infection (25% versus 80%, P = 0.030), higher rate of retinal detachment (25% versus 0%, P = 0.221) and similar final logMAR VA (1.08 ± 1.08 versus 0.80 ± 0.80, P = 0.489) compared to IVA. Multivariate linear regression analysis showed that worse final VA was significantly associated with Streptococcus (ß = 1.92, P = 0.007) and retinal detachment (ß = 1.72, P = 0.005) but not with early PPV (P = 0.225).Early PPV was superior to initial intravitreal antibiotics alone as it required fewer additional treatments to control infection. Visual outcome was similar between early PPV and initial intravitreal antibiotics alone despite high number of poor presenting VA of light-perception in early PPV group. Streptococcal infection and retinal detachment were major poor prognostic factors for vision.

This paper uses the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami as a natural experiment to estimate returns to capital over time. With a sample of surviving fishermen who lost their boats and received aid boats, we find that more productive fishermen before the disaster retained their productive edge ex-post, controlling for boat quality and fishing conditions. Returns to innate ability, measured by ex-ante productivity, became more important over time; while returns to physical capital became less important. These findings highlight the importance of innate ability in explaining long-run productivity.

This article examines the long-term labour market consequences of a positive and large-scale economic shock, the discovery of oil and gas in Norway. Using longitudinal data on the entire Norwegian population, we find that the shock increases male income by around 7%, while reducing female income by up to 14%. Although married women experience the largest income losses, they also have higher household income, revealing the importance of labour supply adjustments within households. While these income shifts persist for two decades, the subsequent generation of female workers are able to close the income gap with their peers in areas less affected by the oil boom.

In this paper, I investigate the respective economic returns to capital and inherent ability by studying the recovery of fishermen in Aceh, Indonesia, from the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. Since the natural disaster wiped out almost all existing differentials in productive physical capital among fishermen, the subsequent random assignment of aid boats generates a natural experiment. Using panel data from fishing households, I first examine whether the transfer of physical capital increases overall productivity. Second, I investigate whether fishermen who were relatively more productive pre-tsunami retain their productive edge ex-post. Focusing on the sample of fishermen who lost their pre-tsunami boats, I find that the impact of aid boat length on fishing revenue is positive but diminishes over time. In contrast, I find that the impact of pre-tsunami productivity on fishing revenue increases. These results suggest that (i) returns to inherent ability, measured by pre-tsunami productivity, are more important than returns to physical capital in the long run, and (ii) the redistributive effects of boat aid on productivity are small and temporary.

The ATR pathway is a critical mediator of the replication stress response in cells. In aberrantly proliferating cancer cells, this pathway can help maintain sufficient genomic integrity for cancer cell progression. Herein we describe the discovery of 19, a pyrazolopyrimidine-containing inhibitor of ATR via a strategic repurposing of compounds targeting PI3K.

The use of modern medical care for child delivery in rural Guatemala is low relative to other Latin American countries. In the previous literature, factors such as a woman’s age, education, ethnicity, religious affiliation and income are found to be important determinants of the type of delivery medical care she receives. This study hypothesizes that a woman’s marital status influences her decision as well. Using a binomial logit framework, the study finds that unmarried women are more likely to see a modern medical provider in delivery than married women, even after controlling for demographic, socioeconomic, and husbands’ characteristics. Therefore, unmarried women seem to make more informed decisions in terms of their attitudes in childbearing and maternal health relative to their married counterparts. As a result, both economic as well as social developments seem necessary to induce changes in the high incidence of maternal mortality and morbidity in Guatemala.

This paper examines the relationship between media coverage of a major natural disaster and charitable giving for disaster relief, focusing on three questions: first, was media coverage of Cyclone Nargis in May 2008 correlated with charitable giving to disaster relief in Myanmar? Second, were charitable contributions earmarked for disaster relief in Myanmar impacted by the occurrence of a second major natural disaster — the May 2008 earthquake in Wenchuan, China? Third, how did different types of news stories affect same-day charitable giving to disaster relief efforts in Myanmar? These questions are analyzed in a rich multivariate regression framework, and results show that charitable giving is indeed correlated with media coverage, that donations to disaster relief in China appear to compete with those to disaster relief in Myanmar, and that “event-driven” news stories strongly and positively influence the level of giving whereas news stories classified as “institutional” or “human-interest” do not have any discernible impact.

In this paper, I explore the short-run (one year) behavioral changes in terms of market labor, voluntary labor, as well as borrowing through formal and informal sources among Indonesian households in the aftermath of natural hazards. I estimate the predicted number of hazards, including earthquakes, foods, landslides and storms, in each of the sampled districts in each survey year using historical data from 1980 to 2008. I then match household data with the residuals from these regressions as the unexpected number of hazards. I find that women from districts with more unexpected disasters work fewer weeks on the market. Unexpected disasters are also associated with higher probabilities of borrowing and larger loans. These results suggest that the substitution effect dominates the income effect in the short run.

Few studies have attempted to investigate the link between poverty and vulnerability with respect to natural disasters. By applying a utility model to panel data from Indonesia that brackets a major forest fire, this paper estimates and analyzes households’ vulnerability in both total consumption and food consumption. We find that households with a high degree of exposure to smoke from the fires were more vulnerable in total consumption than households with lower exposure, but that they were no more vulnerable in food consumption.

This paper examines the relationship between the media coverage of a major natural disaster and charitable giving for disaster relief. In particular, it is centrally concerned with three questions: first, whether media coverage of Cyclone Nargis in May 2008 is correlated with charitable giving to disaster relief in Myanmar; second, whether charitable contributions earmarked for disaster relief in Myanmar were impacted by the onset of a second major natural disaster – the May 2008 earthquake in Wenchuan, China; and third, how different types of news stories affected same-day charitable giving to disaster relief efforts in Myanmar. The analysis is undertaken in a rich multivariate regression framework, and the results show that charitable giving is indeed correlated with media coverage, that giving to disaster relief in China appears to compete with giving to disaster relief in Myanmar, and that “event-driven” news stories have a strong a positive influence on the level of giving while news stories classified as being “institutional” or “human interest” in nature do not have any discernible impact.

August–Copenhagen–Irish (ACI) rats are unique in that the ovary-intact females develop high incidence of mammary cancers induced solely by hormones upon prolonged exposure to high levels of estrogen alone. Studies have also shown that such prolonged exposure to high-dose estrogen results in human-like aneuploid mammary cancers in ovary-intact ACI rats. To determine the role of progesterone in mammary carcinogenesis, six-week-old intact and ovariectomized ACI rats were continuously exposed to low- and high-dose estrogen alone, progesterone alone, low-dose estrogen plus progesterone, and ovariectomized ACI rats with high-dose estrogen plus progesterone. Also, ovariectomized ACI rats were treated with high-dose estrogen plus progesterone plus testosterone to determine the role of the androgen, testosterone, if any, in hormonal mammary carcinogenesis. The results indicate that continuous exposure to high, but not low, concentrations of estrogen alone can induce mammary carcinogenesis in intact but not in ovariectomized rats. Mammary carcinogenesis in ovariectomized ACI rats requires continuous exposure to high concentrations of estrogen and progesterone. The addition of testosterone propionate does not affect tumor incidence in such rats. These results suggest that both ovarian hormones estrogen and progesterone are necessary for mammary carcinogenesis induced solely by hormones in ovariectomized ACI rats. Our results are in agreement with the Women's Health Initiative studies, where treatment of postmenopausal women with estrogen (ERT) alone did not increase the risk of breast cancer, but estrogen and progesterone (HRT) did.