Cytogenetic abnormalities in pediatric myelodysplastic syndrome: a report of three cases

Three consecutive cases of pediatric myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) diagnosed over a three-year period in Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong, were described. Depending on the classification system used, they comprised two cases of chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMMoL) of which one can be reclassified as juvenile chronic myeloid leukemia (JCML) and one cases of refractory anemia with excess of blasts (RAEB) or an alternative diagnosis of atypical CML. Cytogenetic abnormalities were detected in all of them on examination of bone marrow cells. Of the two CMMoL, one had monosomy 21, whereas the other had hypodiploidy. The patient with RAEB had a complex karyotype of 46,X,del(X)(q24),t(1;7) (p22;q32),add(15)(q26)(8). The balanced translocation (1;7) seen in this patient was exceedingly rare and, to the best of our knowledge, was reported only twice in the literature. The karyotypic abnormalities that we saw in our patients were not well recognized in pediatric MDS. This report emphasizes the importance of cytogenetic study in children suspected of suffering from MDS, which remains a rare disorder of childhood, and a need to rationalize current classification schemes.     

Decreased capacity for type-specific-antigen synthesis accounts for high prevalence of nontypeable strains of group B streptococci in Mexico

The low incidence of group B streptococcal (GBS) invasive neonatal disease in Mexico has been attributed to the low prevalence of serotype III strains, a major serotype in developed countries. In addition, nontypeable strains account for 12% of the isolates in Mexico and < 1% of the isolates in the United States. In this study, 57 GBS isolates (28 nontypeable by the Lancefield procedure) from carrier and infected neonates and women from Mexico were also examined for the presence of type-specific antigen by an enzymatic procedure using N-acetylmuramidase digestion of the cell wall to release soluble type-specific antigen. Of the 28 nontypeable strains from Mexico, 23 were typeable by the enzyme extraction procedure, with serotype III being the predominant serotype in invasive disease. These results suggest that nontypeable isolates of GBS should be further examined by the enzymatic extraction procedure to determine the presence of type-specific antigen. Furthermore, these limited results suggest that serotype III is likely a major serotype in invasive disease also in Mexico.     

RCRA toxicity characterization of discarded electronic devices

The potential for discarded electronic devices to be classified as toxicity characteristic (TC) hazardous waste under provisions of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) using the toxicity characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP) was examined. The regulatory TCLP method and two modified TCLP methods (in which devices were disassembled and leached in or near entirety) were utilized. Lead was the only element found to leach at concentrations greater than its TC limit (5 mg/L). Thirteen different types of electronic devices were tested using either the standard TCLP or modified versions. Every device type leached lead above 5 mg/L in at least one test and most devices leached lead above the TC limit in a majority of cases. Smaller devices that contained larger amounts of plastic and smaller amounts of ferrous metal (e.g., cellular phones, remote controls) tended to leach lead above the TC limit at a greater frequency than devices with more ferrous metal (e.g., computer CPUs, printers).     

Hypertonic-hyperoncotic solutions in open-heart surgery

PURPOSE: To examine relationships between tobacco use and use of other substances among U.S. high school students, by gender and racial/ethnic subgroups. METHODS: Data about tobacco and other substance use were analyzed from the 1995 national Youth Risk Behavior Survey implemented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. RESULTS: Compared to nonsmokers, current smokers were significantly more likely to report use of all other substances we examined, including lifetime use of cocaine, inhalants, other illegal substances, and multiple substances and current alcohol use, episodic heavy drinking, marijuana use, and cocaine use. A strong dose-dependent relationship between current cigarette smoking and other substance use was identified. Among smokeless tobacco users, a strong dose-dependent relationship was found for all examined substances with the exception of lifetime and current cocaine use. Finally, a pattern of risk emerged suggesting that the likelihood of other substance use increases as students move from no tobacco use to smokeless tobacco use only, to cigarette smoking only, and to use of both smokeless tobacco and cigarettes. CONCLUSIONS: Programs designed to prevent tobacco or other substance use should consider that such use often occurs concomitantly.     

A rule-based procedure for generating programmable logic controller code from graphical input in the form of ladder diagrams

This paper is concerned with a procedure for the automatic generation of code for programmable logic controllers. Input to the procedure is data from a graphical model of the discrete event dynamic system which is to be implemented. The model is constructed in the form of a ladder diagram at a graphics workstation. The data are held as Prolog tuples, and Prolog is used in the procedure to implement a rule base through which the data are mapped into the programmable logic controller code. Underlying the rule base are two methodologies. The first is a top-down decomposition of the ladder diagram to a level of three basic structures. The second is a bottom-up integration of code based on these structures into code for the whole system. An example is used throughout and the approach is shown to be effective.     

Multi-sensor fusion for robust computation of breathing rate

Respiratory information can be obtained from the changes in electrical impedance across the chest, the electrocardiogram or the changes in light absorption across the finger. Running estimates of the breathing rate from each of these can be obtained from independent Kalman filters. A robust estimate of breathing rate is derived by fusing the outputs of these independent Kalman filters using a weighting calculated from the squared differences between each prediction from the filters and the corresponding measurements.