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So long as the diagnosis is made early and treatment is prolonged adequately pulmonary tuberculosis in pregnant women has been shown to have a much better prognosis than formerly. 13 new pregnant women were found to have tuberculosis in 18 months, which gave an incidence of 32 per 10,000 population. This is 5 times more than the mean incidence in France; and makes it worth while screening for the condition, particularly among immigrant.

Many biochemical parameters have been used as tumor markers but few are satisfactory to reflect tumor diathesis and/or for early detection. Studies in the Cancer Institute, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, have indicated that serum alpha 1-acid glycoprotein and sialic acid were increased in lung cancers, but 20% of pulmonary tuberculosis patients were also positive. Serum polyamines determined by RIA were increased in cancer patients. The positive rates for cancer of lung and esophagus were 84% and 100%, respectively. Polyamine contents considerably increased in esophagus tissue of rats treated with methylbenzylnitrosamine, and this occurred far earlier than the tumor appeared. However, whether serum polyamine can be used for early detection of esophageal cancer awaits further studies. An unknown fluorescent compound in urine was found in normal people but was very much decreased in cancer patients. This compound showed cytostatic effect on tumor cells in vitro. Serum antibodies against EBV-associated DNase could be used as a marker for NPC.

Routine ultrasonographic detection of renal tract dilatations in pregnant women is used to define a high risk population for urinary tract infections. In a first group of 96 patients with symptomatic urinary tract infection, 34% of the cases of uncomplicated infection were accompanied by ultrasonographic abnormalities, while 73% of cases of pyelonephritis presented such signs. Antibody coated bacteria were only found in 12% of uncomplicated urinary tract infections and in 30% of cases of pyelonephritis. In a second group of 273 patients, routine ultrasonography revealed abnormalities in 11.5% of cases. 7.5% of patients had dilatations of the upper renal tract, 2% had renal stones and 2% had occult renal malformations. Dilatations of the upper renal tract were associated with asymptomatic urinary tract infections in 30% of cases. Screening for upper renal tract dilatations is recommended between the 17th and 20th weeks of pregnancy. The presence of such lesions constitutes a risk factor for urinary tract infection and appropriate prophylactic treatment should be prescribed.

Neisseria gonorrhoeae was isolated from centrifuged urine deposit of an asymptomatic male. The case history and significance of this asymptomatic infection are described.

Crude oil was degraded by a mixed bacterial community grown in continuous culture on sea water. The fermentation process included an emulsification step prior to the introduction of the substrate in the reactor, with external cell recycling by a tangential-flow filtration system. Optimization of the fermentation technique was achieved by using the surface response methodology (Doehlert experimental design). Besides reducing the number of experiments, this approach allowed optimal experimental conditions to be chosen, for the particular goal: percent degradation of crude oil (80%), biomass (7.6 g·l-1) and degradation rate (0.73 g·l-1·h-1). This biodegradation process could be used as a tool to fight against pollutions by petroleum products.

Cyclops represents the worst form of a rare malformation of the brain and face: holoprosencephaly. Two cases are reported, including one that was diagnosed at the 23rd week of pregnancy. Now, ultrasonography makes it possible to diagnose early; as soon as the 15th week of gestation. Ultrasound diagnosis is based on hypotelorism and anomalies of the mid-line, with or without facial abnormalities. The outcome is always poor. This malformation is associated with various conditions and a complete assessment, including the karyotype, morphologic studies of the fetus and of his family, and search for related minor facial dysmorphias (median labial or cleft palate with, with a single upper incisor) is mandatory. The condition recurs in 2 to 50% of cases depending on various associated conditions and on the family histories.

We studied the electrophysiological properties of adult (AD) and newborn (NB) rabbit papillary muscles in vitro with superfusion of normal Tyrode's solution, solutions with elevated [K+]o, and in solutions with various concentrations of tetrodotoxin. In control solutions, the NB papillary muscles had a more negative resting membrane potential (-83.6 +/- 1.2 versus -80.0 +/- 1.5 mV), a higher rate of rise of phase 0 (134 +/- 5 versus 120 +/- 5 V/S) and a higher, longer-lasting action potential plateau than the AD papillary muscles. Exposure to elevated [K+]o led to a significant post-repolarization refractoriness in AD papillary muscles that was more than that for NB papillary muscles even when NB papillary muscles were depolarized to the same resting membrane potential as the AD papillary muscles. The NB papillary muscles were comparatively resistant to tetrodotoxin in terms of percent reduction of conduction velocity and percent rise in the current threshold for excitation. The conduction velocity for AD papillary muscles in control solution (66 +/- 6 cm/s) was more than for NB papillary muscles (44 +/- 4 cm/s), which would not be expected from the data on the rate of rise of the action potential, suggesting that the cable properties of NB papillary muscles (specifically a greater surface to volume ratio of the ventricular cells) are also significantly different from the AD papillary muscles.

This chapter focus on the design and analysis of experiments with mixtures, very commonly involved in product development whenever a multicomponent system is concerned. Classical and computer-aided designs for mixture studies are introduced and discussed with various numerical examples. Different are in fact the strategies that may be adopted by the experimenter for the construction of blending models in the region of interest. The usage of various methods and techniques for analysis and optimization has been illustrated by means of some case studies taken from practical experiences in order to analyse step-by-step the procedures adopted for the experimentation and the analysis of mixture data.

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