Flow cytometric method to measure urea-resistant alkaline phosphatase from blood neutrophils for use in the prenatal screening of Down's syndrome

The histochemical measurement of urea-resistant alkaline phosphatase from maternal blood neutrophils is known to have a high detection rate for the prenatal detection of Down's syndrome pregnancies. However, because the histochemical method is laborious and subjective to use, it has not gained widespread acceptance in prenatal screening programmes. We present a simple and objective method for the measurement of urea-resistant alkaline phosphatase by flow cytometry. The method should allow the design of larger studies aimed at evaluating the role of neutrophil urea-resistant alkaline phosphatase in the prenatal screening for Down's syndrome.     

Expanding multiple marker screening for Down's syndrome to include Edward'S syndrome

Information on maternal age and maternal serum alpha-fetoprotein, unconjugated oestriol (uE₃), and human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) levels was used to investigate retrospectively the effect of estimating Edward's syndrome risk in women having multi-marker screening for Down's syndrome. The screened population comprised 15 pregnancies affected by Edward's syndrome, 15 with Down's syndrome and 5472 unaffected pregnancies. The use of all three markers to estimate Edward's syndrome risk would have led to the detection of 10–12 (67–80 per cent) cases with a false-positive rate of 0.3–0.6 per cent depending on the risk cut-off. A further case would have been detected as a result of screening for Down's syndrome alone. Similar results were obtained when the Edward's syndrome risk was based on uE₃ and hCG only. These data suggest that extending Down's syndrome screening to include Edward's syndrome risk will yield a high detection rate with only a small increase in the false-positive rate.     

Hydrogen storage and distribution systems

Hydrogen storage and transportation or distribution is closely linked together. Hydrogen can be distributed continuously in pipelines or batch wise by ships, trucks, railway or airplanes. All batch transportation requires a storage system but also pipelines can be used as pressure storage system. Hydrogen exhibits the highest heating value per weight of all chemical fuels. Furthermore, hydrogen is regenerative and environment friendly. There are two reasons why hydrogen is not the major fuel of toady’s energy consumption: First of all, hydrogen is just an energy carrier. And, although it is the most abundant element in the universe, it has to be produced, since on earth it only occurs in the form of water. This implies that we have to pay for this energy, which results in a difficult economic task, because since the industrialization we are used to consuming energy for free. The second difficulty with hydrogen as an energy carrier is the low critical temperature of 33 K, i.e. hydrogen is a gas at room temperature. For mobile and in many cases also for stationary applications the volumetric and gravimetric density of hydrogen in a storage system is crucial. Hydrogen can be stored by six different methods and phenomena: high pressure gas cylinders (up to 800 bar), liquid hydrogen in cryogenic tanks (at 21 K), adsorbed hydrogen on materials with a large specific surface area (at T < 100 K), absorbed on interstitial sites in a host metal (at ambient pressure and temperature), chemically bond in covalent and ionic compounds (at ambient pressure), oxidation of reactive metals e.g. Li, Na, Mg, Al, Zn with water. These metals easily react with water to the corresponding hydroxide and liberate the hydrogen from the water. Finally, the metal hydroxides can be thermally reduced to the metals in a solar furnace.     

定点形变台站监测管理及数字仪资料预处理

对于地震科学来说,观测是它的立足之本,如果没有观测那就像一个人没有心脏一样。担负观测任务的就是各个地震台站,如何得到真实、可靠、连续的观测数据,是各个地震台站一致追求的目标。提高地震台站的监测水平和运行效率,一方面要加强管理,另一方面要对观测数据进行正确的预处理工作,包括日志的详细记录,各种情况的认真标注等。本文结合南山台实际,以数字化仪器为主,着重谈谈日常管理和数字资料预处理的一些看法。     

Prenatal diagnosis for dystrophia myotonica using the polymerase chain reaction

The polymerase chain reaction has been used to detect an abundant class of short repeat DNA families of the form (dC-dA)n.(dG-dT)n, known as microsatellites. These units are found throughout the human genome and have been characterized for several loci including APOC2 on chromosome 19ql2-ql3.2. The locus APOC2 is linked to the gene for dystrophia myotonica and a microsatellite within this locus was used to derive polymorphisms in a family to predict the inheritance of the disease. Chorionic villus sampling (CVS) was performed at 151/2 weeks' gestation. Following DNA extraction from the CVS material and parental blood samples, microsatellite analysis was carried out by the polymerase chain reaction.     

长江中下游成矿侵入岩的特征研究

长江中下游的侵入岩体，尤其是燕山期的侵入岩体面广量大．它们与区内铜、铁、金等矿产关系密切。本文通过对侵入岩体地质特征、岩石化学成分等对比研究后，总结出如下几个特点：1、侵入体主要形成时代为135-95Ma，自西向东有逐渐变新的趋势；2、与成矿有关者多数是复式岩体，与铜矿化有关的主要是燕山早期侵入岩，与铁矿化有关的则主要是燕山晚期侵入岩；3、多数岩体受到过中、下三叠统蒸发岩层（膏盐层）的同化混染；4、岩体含碱质高，在Na2O－SiO2关系图上显示出二者没有相关性；5、侵入体中的铜有可能提供部分铜矿床的物源；6、岩石化学成分上某些组分的对比研究表明，成铜矿与成铁矿岩体之间、成矿岩体和无矿岩体之间有一定程度的差异。     

山西矿区矸石山复垦种植施肥策略

围绕煤矸石缺乏有机活性物质及有效养分的问题，在矸石山复垦种植时，对施肥作了试验研究。结果表明，煤矸石风化物由于吸附性能低，保肥性差，所以施用化肥时一次用量不宜过大。并从降低复垦的投资与难度以及尽快建立一个可自我维持生长的植被出发，提出了矸石山复垦种植时化肥与污泥配合施用的施肥策略，并对污泥的施用效果做了研究。     

Serum PAPP-A measurements in first-trimester screening for Down syndrome

Serum PAPP-A measurements taken from 254 women in the first trimester are reported. Eleven chromosomal abnormalities were detected. The mean serum PAPP-A levels in cases of Down syndrome were 0.44 MOM at 9 weeks gestation, 0.15 MOM at 10 weeks, and 0.29 MOM at 11 weeks. The PAPP-A level at 10 weeks was below those of pregnancies which aborted spontaneously. At 11 weeks, the pregnancies with Down syndrome recorded the lowest PAPP-A levels at that gestation. On this small sample, offering chorionic villus sampling to women with singleton pregnancies and a PAPP-A level below 0.3 MOM (approximately 6.5 per cent of this at-risk group) would have detected all the Down syndrome fetuses at 10 weeks and 50 per cent at 11 weeks without selecting those cases destined to abort. This suggests that serum PAPP-A should continue to be investigated as a potential first-trimester screening test for Down syndrome.