Maternal serum CA 125 levels in pregnancies with chromosomally-normal and -abnormal fetuses

We measured the maternal serum cancer antigen 125 (MS-CA 125) levels in 98 nonpregnant women, 765 first- and second-trimester pregnancies with chromosomally-normal fetuses, and 54 chromosomally-abnormal pregnancies. To determine the MS-CA 125 concentration, we used a new automated microparticle enzyme immunoassay with low inter-assay variability. The median MS-CA 125 level decreased from the first to the second trimester of pregnancy and was higher than that in non-pregnant women. We found no difference between normal and Down's syndrome (n = 29) pregnancies ( t-test: t = 0·57, p >0·5). The MS-CA 125 levels in pregnancies with other chromosomal abnormalities showed no difference either, compared with the normals. We conclude that MS-CA 125 is not a useful marker for fetal Down's syndrome, nor for other chromosomal disorders in pregnancy.     

中国城市汞污染及防治对策

简要综述了当前中国城市的汞污染状况。中国许多工业城市大气中的汞含量是纽约市大气中汞含量的数倍，甚至上百倍，在采暖期城市大气的汞污染更加严重；城市土壤中的汞含量是土壤环境背景值的数倍；河流的城市河段河水中汞质量浓度普遍很高，水质多在Ⅲ-V类；城市中的植物均有不同程度地受到汞污染，其汞含量高于国外城市的植物的汞含量；城市居民膳食中鱼的汞含量很高，对城市居民的健康产生了危害；城市居民头发中的汞质量分数大多低于1rng~kg。分析了我国城市中汞的来源并提出了防治城市汞污染的对策。     

Long-term trends in the Real real prices of primary commodities: Inflation bias and the Prebisch–Singer hypothesis

In his recent article on measuring the long-term trends in the real prices of primary commodities, Cuddington (2010) extends in several important respects our earlier efforts (Svedberg and Tilton, 2006) to correct real commodity price trends for biases in the Consumer Price Index and other deflators. First, he argues for a log-linear relationship between prices and time. Second, he proposes a simple and quick method for obtaining corrected price trends from the published but uncorrected estimates. Finally, he illustrates, for the case of copper and presumably for many other commodities as well, the difficulties of obtaining real price trends significantly different from zero when the log values of the price data contain a unit root, requiring the use of difference stationary models.We welcome these insights, which should improve and make easier efforts to estimate correctly real commodity price trends over the long run. We would stress, however, that it is still important to correct for the biases in inflation indices, notwithstanding the failure of difference stationary models to obtain long-run real price trends (both corrected and uncorrected) significantly different from zero.