Rapid prenatal diagnosis of Patau's syndrome in a fetus with an abdominal wall defect by 72 hour culture of cells from amniotic fluid

A woman in the 32nd week of pregnancy was referred for investigation because of fetal abnormalities, including an abdominal wall defect, detected by ultrasonography. In view of the increased risk of chromosome abnormality, amniocentesis was performed to enable informed decisions about the management of the pregnancy and delivery to be taken. Cells from the liquor were inoculated into standard lymphocyte culture medium and incubated for 72 h. Slides with a high mitotic index and good quality metaphases, comparable to those from a blood culture, were obtained after harvesting. Cytogenetic analysis showed the karyotype to be 46,XY,—14,+t(13ql4q), which is consistent with Patau's syndrome. This technique appears to be an option for rapid karyotyping in cases of abdominal wall defect, where a chromosomal abnormality is suspected.     

Introduction of early amniocentesis to routine prenatal diagnosis

With growing awareness of the problems associated with prenatal cytogenetic diagnoses after CVS, attempts have been made to provide early amniocentesis as an alternative to CVS. Since 1990, at our clinic the gestational age limit for routine diagnostic amniocentesis has been successively lowered, first to 14 and then to 13 weeks of gestation. Thus, 811 prenatal diagnoses were performed after early amniocentesis at 13 weeks (n = 217) and at 14 weeks of gestation (n = 594). No problems were encountered. Culture failure was never observed in the early samples. Using the criteria ‘number of colonies’ and ‘culture duration until harvest’, early samples taken at 14 weeks did not differ significantly from the controls after standard amniocentesis performed at 15 and 16 weeks, respectively, whereas a minority of samples taken at 13 weeks experienced some delay in culturing. However, in each group at least 85 per cent of samples led to a diagnosis fulfilling our standard criteria of a safe diagnosis (at least 20 metaphases of at least five colonies from at least one primary culture after trypsinization) within 15 days. Some differences between the different groups can be recognized: culture duration of less than 11 days tends to be increasing after standard amniocentesis, whereas long culture duration (more than 20 days) is more often associated with early amniocentesis. However, this trend is only minimal and did not result in an increased risk of missing a diagnosis.     

Optical Imaging of Odor-Evoked Glomerular Activity Patterns in the Antennal Lobes of the Ant Camponotus rufipes

 Ants have a well developed olfactory sense, which they need both for the perception of environmental chemicals, and for a highly sophisticated intraspecific communication system based on pheromones. The question arises therefore as to how different odors are coded in the antennal lobe, the first central neuropil to process olfactory information. We measured odor-evoked activity patterns using in vivo neuropil calcium recording in the antennal lobe of the ant Camponotus rufipes. We found that (a) odors elicit focal activity spots (diameter ca. 20 μm) which most probably represent the olfactory glomeruli; (b) different odors are coded in odor specific patterns of such activated spots, and a particular spot can participate in the pattern for different odors; (c) calcium increased in the activated spots within the 2-s stimulation period and slowly declined thereafter. Received: 10 March 1999 / Accepted in revised form: 5 July 1999     

絮凝法处理纸浆漂白废水的研究

研究了无机絮凝剂ＰＡＣ，ＰＳＡ，ＰＥＳ，ＭｇＣｌ２，ＣａＯ及其与有机高分子絮凝剂ＣＧＡ复全使用对两种不同工艺漂白废水的混凝处理特性，结果表明，水质１ＣＯＤｃｒ，ＡＯＸ去除率分别为６３．２％，４５．３％，水质２ＣＯＤｃｒ，ＡＯＸ去除率达７３．１￥％，５３．４％。化钙与碳酸钠具有相同的降解ＡＯＸ能力，硫离子在中性ｐＨ条件下可显著提高ＡＯＸ的去除率。     

硫磺回收装置标定及分析

本文对Ⅱ套SRU的标定结果，进行了比较详细的技术分析，在此基础上，对装置及其运行状况作出了评价，并提出了一些建设。     

轴承生产废水处理工艺的选择与实践

采用絮凝气浮 过滤工艺处理轴承生产废水。工程实践表明,该工艺处理效果稳定、耐冲击负荷、工艺组合合理。预处理后的废水经气浮 过滤工艺处理后,COD、SS、油的去除率分别为80.62%～84.31%、81.00%～84.39%、89.37%～96.45%,出水完全能达到排放标准。