Hematologic, clinical, and cytogenetic analysis in 109 patients with primary myelodysplastic syndrome. Prognostic significance of morphology and chromosome findings

One hundred and nine patients with primary myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) were classified according to the French-American-British (FAB) criteria: 27 refractory anemia (RA, 25%), 26 RA with ringed sideroblasts (RARS, 24%), 16 RA with excess of blasts (RAEB, 15%), 10 RAEB in transformation (RAEB-t, 9%), 25 chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMMoL, 23%), and five unclassifiable MDS (4%). Forty-three were women and 66 were men (sex ratio 2:3). Age ranged from 30-92 years (mean 69 years) with nine patients aged less than 50 years (8%). A cytogenetic result was obtained in all cases. At initial study, a chromosome defect was observed in 56% of patients. Rates of abnormality depended on FAB subtype: 52% in RA, 100% in RA 5q-, 50% in RARS, 56% in RAEB, 70% in RAEB-t and 44% in CMMoL. The most frequent single defects were del(5q), -7/del(7q), del(20q), Y loss, and +8. Except for the 5q- syndrome entity, specific chromosome defects were not associated with particular FAB subtypes. Bone marrow (BM) insufficiency (22%) and leukemic transformation (21%) were the most important causes of death. The rate of leukemic transformation increased with the number of dysplastic BM cell lineages and was also associated with karyotype complexity and the proportion of abnormal/normal metaphases. The longest median survivals were observed in RARS (142 months) and RA/RA5q- (91 months) types. Median survivals decreased with increasing Bournemouth score values. Patients with three abnormal cell lineages had a median survival shorter than those with one or two abnormal lineages. Similarly, patients with complex defects had shorter survival than those with single or double defects or a normal karyotype. There was no statistically significant difference between survival of NN (normal), AN (abnormal/normal), and AA patients or between survival of patients with del(5q), -7/del(7q), +8 or del(20q).     

In defense of the flashbulb-memory hypothesis: A comment on McCloskey, Wible, and Cohen (1988).

Memory for the events surrounding the discovery of unexpected, shocking news (flashbulb memories) was the topic of an article by McCloskey, Wible, and Cohen (1988). They examined a strong and a weak construal of a flashbulb hypothesis and found both versions inadequate. We argue that McCloskey et al. (a) proposed an unrealistic "strong" theory, (b) failed to consider subjects' emotional reaction, (c) inappropriately used individual cases of inaccuracy, (d) made inadequate between-experiments comparisons, and (e) failed to note important differences between flashbulb memories and other memories. We conclude that discarding the possibility of a special flashbulb mechanism is premature. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A Discrete Economic Multiattribute Acceptance Sampling

A mathematical model for multiattribute acceptance sampling is developed. The number of defectives of each attribute in the lot is considered an independent random variable and is properly described by a discrete prior mass function. The concept of distributional reproducibility to hypergeometric sampling is invoked to simplify the expressions normally associated with a discrete model; yet, the model remains exact and may be efficiently optimized. The acceptance sampling situation modeled is identical to one previously published which applied continuous distributions to approximate the lot fraction defective. An extensive example problem is presented in which the two modeling approaches are compared using sensitivity measures. The conclusions drawn from the example are of use to the practitioner who must decide whether to use discrete or continuous modeling of acceptance sampling situations.     

Experiments with routing on printed circuit boards

Several ways of utilizing Lee's wave algorithm for routing on printed circuit boards were compared. It was proved that the order of net processing influenced the quality of the solution of a given interconnection problem. Moreover, it was found that the choice of ‘source’ and ‘target’ formations influenced both the computational time and the quality of the solution. The results obtained allowed the performance of the SYSDEB77 system for routing on two-layer boards to be improved.     

On Soft-Decision Demodulation for PCM- and DPCM- Encoded Speech

In a simulation of soft decision demodulation-interpolation for digital speech transmission, it has been noted that signal-to-noise ratio gains due to the technique are greater with nonadaptive and periodically adaptive quantizers than with instantaneously adaptive quantizers; further, the gains are greater with PCM than with differential PCM. Our results for nonadaptive PCM reinforce those in a recent analytical paper by Sundberg [1].     

Biaxial stretching of heat-softened plastic sheets: Experiments and results

A second-generation apparatus was built and used to inflate heat-softened plastic sheets to shapes from hemispheres to large spheroidal bubbles. Three sheet materials, polystyrene, high-impact polystyrene, and cellulose acetate butyrate, were successfully formed beyond the hemispherical shape at temperatures somewhat below industrial levels. Four others, rigid poly-(vinyl chloride), an acrylic-modified PVC, cast poly(methyl methacrylate), and polycarbonate, could not be deformed beyond the hemispherical shape without rupture. Measurements included bubble profiles, thickness distributions and local extension ratios for the final bubbles; two plots of profile growth measured from high-speed motion pictures; and a continuous record of bubble temperatures and blowing pressure from which the meridional temperature distributions were plotted. Fifteen bubbles were measured and analyzed. Profiles and extension ratios were compared with those computed from the equations of isotropic, isothermal elasticity, using several different strain-energy functions with constant material parameters. Agreement over all fifteen bubbles on all properties was about ±10.8 percent (absolute) for the best models considered. Bubble growth occurred over periods of 5 to 8 seconds, with about 90 percent of the final area of the larger bubbles being generated in the final 1.5 seconds. The maximum areal elongations obtained were 18,600 percent for clear polystyrene at 238°F, 14,300 percent for high-impact polystyrene at 224°F, and 1,010 percent for cellulose acetate butyrate at 280°F.     

Investigation of reported anomalies in the electrotransport of interstitial solutes in titanium and iron

The electric mobilities, effective valences, and diffusivities of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen in β-titanium were measured in the temperature range of 1335 to 1575°C. The effective valence, Z*, of carbon was determined to be positive and nitrogen and oxygen to be negative, thus confirming a previously reported anomaly in the electrotransport behavior of carbon in titanium. A similar anomaly in the effective charge of nitrogen in γ iron was also investigated. The previously reported negativeZ* value was not supported by the results of this investigation. PositiveZ* values were obtained for nitrogen in both α and γ iron in agreement with those for carbon in these two phases. An analytical method of solving for the various transport parameters was used in this investigation. A mathematical proof of the method and the treatment of errors is described in the paper.