Female Labor Force Participation in Asia: Key Trends, Constraints, and Opportunities

Key Messages In Asia, female labor force participation ranges from 16% in Afghanistan to 83% in Nepal, while male labor force participation ranges from 52% in Timor-Leste to 89% in Nepal. Women’s participation in the labor force has remained low despite significant economic growth, declining fertility rates, and improved female education. Patterns in the data suggest several prominent constraints to increasing female labor force participation. Social norms emphasize women’s domestic responsibilities, limit mobility, restrict the subset of jobs considered appropriate for women, and impede their access to information. Evidence suggests that job quotas, expanding access to information, creating higher returns to labor, and putting free trade policies in place can improve female labor force participation. Further research on vocational training, better matching of jobs to skills, the granting of parental leave or flexible working hours, and facilitating mobility will shed light on these promising interventions for increasing labor force participation of women. More rigorous evaluation of existing and proposed policies is needed, and further research, access to better data, and pilot testing of new policies will help to ensure identification of clear and effective channels en’s participation in the labor force

Myanmar Human Capital Development, Employment, and Labor Markets

Improvement in human capital is essential for rapid, sustainable, and inclusive economic growth in Myanmar. Investments in health and education - including technical and vocational education and training - are essential to engineer a productive labor force that can contribute to and benefit from growth opportunities, while equipping the country's young population to participate in the country's dramatic socioeconomic transformation. This paper focuses on developing human capital, with an emphasis on health and education in the context of employment growth and an employment-enabling environment. While awaiting the release of up-to-date data and the outcome of broad ongoing legislative reforms, the paper draws on extensive analysis of available data, including the Integrated Household Living Condition Survey 2009-2010, nationally led assessments, and consultations with the government and a variety of stakeholders to provide a snapshot of important recent developments that are helping to shape the transformation

Appendiceal Orifice Inflammation in Ulcerative Colitis Mimicking Mucosa-Associated Lymphoid Tissue Lymphoma in the Cecum

A 55-year-old Japanese woman, who had been diagnosed with ulcerative colitis at 18 years of age, underwent screening endoscopy examinations. Esophagogastroduodenoscopy revealed an extranodal marginal zone lymphoma of mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT lymphoma) of the stomach. Colonoscopy showed a slightly elevated reddish lesion with dilated microvessels but no erosions or ulcers. Although MALT lymphoma in the cecum was endoscopically suspected, flow cytometry and pathological analyses led to the diagnosis of appendiceal orifice inflammation in ulcerative colitis. This case highlights the diversity of the endoscopic appearance of appendiceal orifice inflammation in ulcerative colitis

Endoscopic manifestation of intestinal transplant-associated microangiopathy after stem cell transplantation

Background Endoscopic features of intestinal transplant-associated microangiopathy (iTAM) have not been comprehensively investigated. This study aimed to examine the endoscopic characteristics of patients diagnosed with iTAM. Methods This retrospective analysis included 14 patients pathologically diagnosed with iTAM after stem cell transplantation for hematolymphoid neoplasms (n = 13) or thalassemia (n = 1). The sex, age at diagnosis, endoscopic features, and prognosis of each patient were assessed. Serological markers for diagnosing transplant-associated thrombotic microangiopathy were also evaluated. Results The mean age at the time of iTAM diagnosis was 40.2 years. Patients diagnosed based on the pathognomonic pathological changes of iTAM presented with diverse symptoms at the times of endoscopic examinations, including diarrhea (n = 10), abdominal pain (n = 5), nausea (n = 4), appetite loss (n = 2), bloody stools (n = 2), abdominal discomfort (n = 1), and vomiting (n = 1). At the final follow-up, six patients survived, while eight patients succumbed, with a median time of 100.5 days (range: 52-247) post-diagnosis. Endoscopic manifestations included erythematous mucosa (n = 14), erosions (n = 13), ulcers (n = 9), mucosal edema (n = 9), granular mucosa (n = 9), and villous atrophy (n = 4). Erosions and/or ulcers were primarily observed in the colon (10/14, 71%), followed by the ileum (9/13, 69%), stomach (4/10, 40%), cecum (5/14, 36%), duodenum (3/10, 30%), rectum (4/14, 29%), and esophagus (1/10, 10%). Cytomegalovirus infection (n = 4) and graft-versus-host disease (n = 2) coexisted within the gastrointestinal tract. Patients had de novo prolonged or progressive thrombocytopenia (6/14, 43%), decreased hemoglobin concentration (4/14, 29%), reduced serum haptoglobin level (3/14, 21%), and a sudden and persistent increase in lactate dehydrogenase level (2/14, 14%). Peripheral blood samples from 12 patients were evaluated for schistocytes, with none exceeding 4%. Conclusions This study provides a comprehensive exploration of the endoscopic characteristics of iTAM. Notably, all patients exhibited erythematous mucosa throughout the gastrointestinal tract, accompanied by prevalent manifestations, such as erosions (93%), ulcers (64%), mucosal edema (64%), granular mucosa (64%), and villous atrophy (29%). Because of the low positivity for serological markers of transplant-associated thrombotic microangiopathy in patients with iTAM, endoscopic evaluation and biopsy of these lesions are crucial, even in the absence of these serological features

Histologic Transformation from Follicular Lymphoma to Diffuse Large B-cell Lymphoma Detected during Colonoscopy

A 77-year-old Japanese woman who had been treated for follicular lymphoma for 8 years developed abdominal pain and intra-abdominal lymphadenopathies. Colonoscopy revealed an elevated lesion in the rectum, which presented as two humps with erosions. A diagnosis of histologic transformation of follicular lymphoma to diffuse large B-cell lymphoma was made by endoscopic biopsy. This case underscores the importance of endoscopy examinations and biopsy of newly emerged gastrointestinal lesions for the prompt diagnosis of histologic transformation, since salvage chemotherapy must be initiated quickly in such cases

A Study on the Process of Formation of Intimate Spatial Realations Between the City and Universities in Helsinki

This paper aims to clarify how intimate spatial relations have been formed between the city and universities in Helsinki during their process of growth. This is done through an analysis of the historical process of locating university campuses and comparing it with city growth. We focus on three points: 1) how and why the city center campus was situated and how it was able to stay in the heart of the city; 2) how and why the intimate spatial relations between suburban campuses and their surrounding areas were realized; and 3) how and why some of the campuses were relocated within the inner city or returned to the inner city

Evaluation of the Upper Gastrointestinal Tract in Ulcerative Colitis Patients

To analyze the clinical characteristics of patients with ulcerative colitis who have upper gastrointestinal lesions, we retrospectively reviewed the data of 216 patients with ulcerative colitis who underwent esophagogastroduodenoscopy at our institute in April 2008-March 2016. We investigated the endoscopic features and compared the clinical characteristics between the patients with and without upper gastrointestinal lesions. Forty-two patients (19.4%) had upper gastrointestinal lesions, including multiple erosions (n=18), bamboo joint-like appearance (n=17), mucosa with white spots (n=4), friable mucosa (n=2), ulcer (n=1), and purulent deposits within the mucosa (n=1) in the stomach and/or duodenum. Compared to the patients without upper gastrointestinal lesions, those with upper gastrointestinal lesions showed significantly more frequent extraintestinal manifestations (19.0% vs. 8.0%, p<0.05) and a significant history of colectomy (33.3% vs. 12.1%, p<0.01). There were no significant differences with regard to the sex ratio, age at esophagogastroduodenoscopy, gastrointestinal symptoms, time since the diagnosis of ulcerative colitis, type of colitis at the initial diagnosis of ulcerative colitis, or gastric atrophy between the groups. In conclusion, gastroduodenal lesions were identified in 19.4% of the patients with ulcerative colitis. Esophagogastroduodenoscopy is particularly recommended for ulcerative colitis patients who show extraintestinal manifestations and for those who have undergone a colectomy

Inactivation of tumor suppressor Dlg1 augments transformation of a T-cell line induced by human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 Tax protein

BACKGROUND: The interaction of human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) Tax1 protein with the tumor suppressor Dlg1 is correlated with cellular transformation. RESULTS: Here, we show that Dlg1 knockdown by RNA interference increases the ability of Tax1 to transform a mouse T-cell line (CTLL-2), as measured interleukin (IL)-2-independent growth. A Tax1 mutant defective for the Dlg1 interaction showed reduced transformation of CTLL-2 compared to wild type Tax1, but the transformation was minimally affected by Dlg1 reduction. The few Tax1ΔC-transduced CTLL-2 cells that became transformed expressed less Dlg1 than parental cells, suggesting that Dlg1-low cells were selectively transformed by Tax1ΔC. Moreover, all human T-cell lines immortalized by HTLV-1, including the recombinant HTLV-1-containing Tax1ΔC, expressed less Dlg1 than control T-cell lines. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that inactivation of Dlg1 augments Tax1-mediated transformation of CTLL-2, and PDZ protein(s) other than Dlg1 are critically involved in the transformation

Best Thermoelectric Efficiency of Ever-Explored Materials

A thermoelectric device is a heat engine that directly converts heat into electricity. Many materials with a high figure of merit ZT have been discovered in anticipation of a high thermoelectric efficiency. However, there has been a lack of investigations on efficiency-based material evaluation, and little is known about the achievable limit of thermoelectric efficiency. Here, we report the highest thermoelectric efficiency using 13,353 published materials. The thermoelectric device efficiencies of 808,610 configurations are calculated under various heat-source temperatures (T_h) when the cold-side temperature is 300 K, solving one-dimensional thermoelectric integral equations with temperature-dependent thermoelectric properties. For infinite-cascade devices, a thermoelectric efficiency larger than 33% (~1/3) is achievable when T_h exceeds 1400 K. For single-stage devices, the best efficiency of 17.1% (~1/6) is possible when T_h is 860 K. Leg segmentation can overcome this limit, delivering a very high efficiency of 24% (~1/4) when T_h is 1100 K.Comment: 32 pages (main+table+figure captions+figures), 7 additional pages for 6 high resolution figures, Supporting Data file is not public ye