The axial length affected the average RNFL thickness, and myopia affected the RNFL thickness distribution. High myopes are likely to exhibit different RNFL distribution patterns. Since ocular magnification significantly affects the RNFL measurement in such patients, it should be considered in diagnosing glaucoma.

The mild and selective hydrolysis of esters can often be crucial in the sequence toward a target molecule and is, therefore, an important objective in contemporary organic synthesis. Although several methods exist to accomplish this task in certain cases, a mild, generally applicable protocol remains absent. Frequent problems encountered include the concurrent hydrolysis of other ester groups present within the molecule under scrutiny, epimerization of stereocenters, and elimination reactions induced by the often basic conditions employed. Herein we report a new and selective method for the hydrolysis of esters under extremely mild conditions that avoid such side reactions and lead to high yields of the corresponding carboxylic acids.It was during our campaign toward thiostrepton, [1] a highly complex thiopeptide antibiotic, that we had the opportunity to search for such a method. Our sensitive intermediates proved too fragile to tolerate standard ester hydrolysis conditions. We finally came upon Me 3 SnOH, which had been previously employed by Mascaretti and co-workers [2] to cleave phenacyl ester anchored amino acids and peptides from a polystyrene resin and to hydrolyze methyl and isopropyl phenylacetate to give the corresponding acids in high yield. To our knowledge, these are the only examples in which Me 3 SnOH has been previously used to carry out hydrolytic ruptures of esters.[3] As shown in Table 1, this reagent proved extremely useful to us in attaining the highyielding and selective hydrolysis of methyl esters within the sensitive substrates 1-4, which were encountered en route to thiostrepton. These remarkable results prompted a secondphase investigation in which we attempted to determine systematically the generality and scope of this protocol, which involved heating the substrate with 1-10 equivalents of[*] Prof.

ObjectivesThe outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infection in the Republic of Korea started from the index case who developed fever after returning from the Middle East. He infected 26 cases in Hospital C, and consecutive nosocomial transmission proceeded throughout the nation. We provide an epidemiologic description of the outbreak, as of July 2015.MethodsEpidemiological research was performed by direct interview of the confirmed patients and reviewing medical records. We also analyzed the incubation period, serial interval, the characteristics of superspreaders, and factors associated with mortality. Full genome sequence was obtained from sputum specimens of the index patient.ResultsA total of 186 confirmed patients with MERS-CoV infection across 16 hospitals were identified in the Republic of Korea. Some 44.1% of the cases were patients exposed in hospitals, 32.8% were caregivers, and 13.4% were healthcare personnel. The most common presenting symptom was fever and chills. The estimated incubation period was 6.83 days and the serial interval was 12.5 days. A total of 83.2% of the transmission events were epidemiologically linked to five superspreaders, all of whom had pneumonia at presentation and contacted hundreds of people. Older age [odds ratio (OR) = 4.86, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.90–12.45] and underlying respiratory disease (OR = 4.90, 95% CI 1.64–14.65) were significantly associated with mortality. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the MERS-CoV of the index case clustered closest with a recent virus from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.ConclusionA single imported MERS-CoV infection case imposed a huge threat to public health and safety. This highlights the importance of robust preparedness and optimal infection prevention control. The lessons learned from the current outbreak will contribute to more up-to-date guidelines and global health security.