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Despite its start as one of the poorest countries in the world, Bangladesh has been observing a continuously strong economic growth and social improvement. JICA Ogata RI research project “Empirical Study on the Risk and Poverty in Bangladesh” investigated key factors of its impressive socio economic development. A few country specific driving forces, such as non farm industries, especially ready made garment (RMG), microfinance institutions (MFIs), and the development of infrastructures, can be considered t o have constituted the mechanism of progress of Bangladesh. Understanding why these changes happened may give useful insights for sustaining its great progress in Bangladesh, and for replicating it in other countries.

We report the autopsy findings of a case of disseminated mucormycosis caused by Cunninghamella bertholletiae, a rare pathogenic fungus of the family Mucoraceae. The patient was a 49-year-old woman with B-lymphoblastic leukemia with hyperdiploidy, who died of progressive heart failure 4 months after induction chemotherapy successfully brought about complete remission of the leukemia. Granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) had been administered along with anti-neoplastic drugs, and her blood neutrophil count was markedly elevated. Autopsy revealed disseminated mycotic thromboembolism and abscess formation in the heart, lung, liver, kidney, and spleen. The most marked feature was a large mural thrombus in the left ventricle containing numerous fungal hyphae. In the myocardium and disseminated foci in visceral organs, giant cell-rich, fibrotic reactions to the mycotic infection were observed. Both the formation of a large intra-ventricular mural thrombus and giant cell reactions are rare findings in mucormycosis. We considered that the recovery and marked increase in neutrophil count induced by chemotherapy and G-CSF administration prolonged the clinical course and pathologically elicited an atypical, giant cell reaction to the mycotic infection. The prolonged clinical course also contributed to the formation of an unusually large intra-ventricular mural thrombus.

Tajikistan’s economy hinges heavily on remittance inflows mainly from Russia that have exceeded a quarter of annual GDP in recent years. The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to have adverse effects on the economy through damage to migration and remittances. We use a unique monthly household panel dataset that covers the period both before and after the outbreak to examine the impacts of COVID-19 on a variety of household welfare outcomes. We provide several brand-new findings. First, the adverse effects of the pandemic were particularly pronounced in April and May in 2020 but gradually diminished afterward, with some indicators leveling out in autumn. Second, in contrast to expectation, the pandemic had a sharp but only transitory effect on the stock of migrants working abroad in the spring. Some expected migrants were forced to remain in their home country during the border closures, while some of the incumbent migrants expecting to return were not able to do so, and remained employed in their destination countries. Both departures and returns started to increase again from summer. Employment and remittances of the migrants quickly recovered to levels seen in previous years, after a sharp decline in April and May. Third, regression analyses reveal that both migration and remittances have helped to mitigate the negative economic outcomes at home during the “with-COVID-19” period, suggesting that they served as a form of insurance. Overall, the unfavorable effects of the COVID-19 pandemic were severe and temporary right after the outbreak, but households with migrants were more resilient against the pandemic.

Background : Following the introduction of non-contrast T1-weighted imaging (T1WI) in magnetic resonance imaging, using the inversion-recovery gradient-echo sequence, many researchers have shown that high-intensity signals (HISs) in carotid and coronary arterial walls indicate the presence of intraplaque hemorrhage or intracoronary thrombus containing methemoglobin. However, the time span of HISs generated by thrombus remains unknown. The aim of this study was to image a circulating vessel phantom with T1WI to determine if flow disturbance causes artifacts, such as a HIS and to perform serial observations of a human blood clot....

Weconstructaspatialequilibriummodelwithendogenousairpollutionasaby-productof production andconsumption,wherespatiallymobileskilledandunskilledworkersareaffected negativelybutheterogeneouslybyairpollution.Usingacalibratedversionofthemodelbased on dataforChinain2010,weshowthatstrictregulationcanbea centripetal forcethatattracts workersandproductiontowardtheregulatedplace,whilereducingthelocalandoverallemission of pollutants.Thisresultisincontrasttotheinsightsoftraditionaltheoriesthatseeenviron- mental regulationasa centrifugal forceforthelocaleconomy.Themigrationofworkerswho care environmentalquality,input-outputlinkagesindomestictradenetworks,andopennessto internationaltrade,workinthemechanismdeliveringthisresult.Wethenconsiderahypothetical policy toreducenationalindustrialemissionby10percentandcomparestrategiesonhowto allocate reductionresponsibilitiesacrosscities.Wefindthatconcentratingresponsibilityina limited numberofrichcitiesmayoutperformamoreequalallocationintermsofwelfareand economic output.

The Delhi Metro is one of the leading examples of a recent urban mass transit infrastructure project in a developing country where women have traditionally suffered from constrained mobility. In this paper, we analyze the effects of the Delhi Metro on the work participation rate of women and men, using a three-period (1991, 2001, and 2011) panel data of townshiplevel zones within the city of Delhi. While the data has limitations in understanding the characteristics of individual residents in detail, we employ a difference-in-differences estimation controlling for a location fixed-effect, with a parallel trend test. The results suggest that the proximity to the Delhi Metro stations significantly increases the female work participation rate (WPR), whereas its effect on the male WPR is ambiguous with the potential to have an opposite sign. While there are number of potential mechanisms that can deliver this result, we develop a theoretical urban commuting model and argue that a larger reduction in the commuting cost for females (by offering a safer commuting mode of transportation, for example) can generate the quantified patterns of the effects on the WPR. Overall, our results relate to the literature on the quantification of the contribution of urban transport infrastructure towards inclusive growth and poverty reduction.

This paper reports on the first attempt to measure the value of statistical life (VSL) in the context of mortality risk from air pollution in urban Bangladesh, using the contingent valuation (CV) method. The CV survey was conducted in 2013 in Dhaka and Chittagong, the two most densely populated cities in the country. We asked individuals willingness to pay (WTP) for mortality risk reduction from air quality improvement program and found that willingness to pay is correlated with the socio-economic characteristics, health status, and risk perception of the respondents, consistently with existing studies. The bootstrapped mean of VSL is ranged from 17,480-22,463 USD in purchasing power parity terms, which is equivalent to 9.78-12.57 times of GDP per capita of Bangladesh. Considering our study setting, the results we obtained may be regarded as a lower bound of VSL estimates in the context of environmental risk reductions in Bangladesh.

major labor migrant sending and remittance dependent country in Central Asia. We contribute to the literature in two ways. First, we effectively address the common methodological issues that result in biased estimates in analyses of migration and remittances. Our empirical work accounts for the endogeneity of migration and remittances with respect to the labor supply decisions of household members left at home, and for the self-selection of migrants and remittance senders through the application of a control function approach. Second, we apply our empirical model to unique high-frequency household panel data that further helps to remedy methodological problems present in cross-sectional studies. The findings suggest that having a migrant member and receiving remittances increases the reservation wages of the household members left at home, thereby reducing their labor supply and economic activity rate. This result is robust to different model specifications and definitions of migration and remittances.