Confined Placental Mosaicism in Chorionic Vilus Sampling - Case Report

Objectives: Chorionic Vilus Sampling (CVS) has several advantages over amniocentesis: it may be performed at an earlier gestational age, the results are quicker to obtain and there’s a lower miscarriage risk – 1%. However, the higher prevalence of discrepant fetal and vilus sampling material’s karyotype findings is a disadvantage of this technique – 0.5%. This is caused, amongst other causes, by placental mosaicism which consists of two genetically different cell lines. There are three types of placental mosaicism according to the abnormal cell line location: Type I – in the cytotrophoblast; Type II – in the vilus’ stroma; Type III – in both the above locations. Material and Methods: We present a case report about a 36-year-old pregnant woman going through our Department’s 1st trimester combined screening program; a CVS was performed, which showed Confined Placental Mosaicism (CPM). Results and Conclusion: Although the pregnant woman was in the low-risk group for aneuploidy, the patient wanted the cytogenetic study to be performed in order to reduce maternal anxiety. CVS was performed at the gestational age of 12 weeks + 5 days and the karyotype was 47XY+2/46XY. For the correct interpretation of this data an amniocentesis was performed at the gestational age of 15 weeks + 6 days, which showed a 46XY karyotype. We therefore conclude that the cytogenetic analysis of the CVS was the result of a CPM. A careful follow-up including fetal echocardiogram and seriated ultrasonographic monitoring was used to safely exclude malformations and fetal growth restriction. We verified no occurences throughout pregnancy, delivery and perinatal period. CVS practice was recently implemented in our country and has many advantages over amniocentesis. Besides the fact that an earlier gestational age usually means less affective bonding to the fetus and therefore makes medical termination of pregnancy somewhat less difficult, one should consider specific situations like the one reported in which CPM may be diagnosed. This condition is associated with increased risk of fetal growth restriction, so the clinician should be aware of the need for a more careful follow-up, since perinatal complications, which should be anticipated and treated, can be expected in 16-21% of these cases

Using Microalgae for Converting Solar Energy into Biofuels and other Bio-products

It is consensual that current patterns of energy consumption and usage are unsustainable in the medium to long term, as mankind still has an overwhelming dependence on fossil fuels. Various renewable energy systems are being studied, developed and implemented, with the main goals of reducing the dependence on fossil fuels, decreasing the environmental impacts, increasing energy supply and security, among other purposes.N/

Mapping European social psychology: co-word analysis of the communications at the 10th General Meeting of the EAESP

This study aims to provide a picture of the present European research topics in Social Psychology, using the 339 papers presented at the 1993 General Meeting of the EAESP. The most frequent themes of research are analysed and the structure of the association of those themes are described in a two-factor structure. The first factor differentiates research in terms of level of analysis and the second factor contrasts types of applied research

Image transfer through a chaotic channel by intensity correlations

The three-wave mixing processes in a second-order nonlinear medium can be used for imaging protocols, in which an object field is injected into the nonlinear medium together with a reference field and an image field is generated. When the reference field is chaotic, the image field is also chaotic and does not carry any information about the object. We show that a clear image of the object be extracted from the chaotic image field by measuring the spatial intensity correlations between this field and one Fourier component of the reference. We experimentally verify this imaging protocol in the case of frequency downconversion.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figure

Fluvial transport patterns of dissolved trace metals to the Ria of Cedeira

5 páginas.-- Interdisciplinary Water Congress CINA 2014, Vigo, 2-6 June 2014Samples of water were withdrawn monthly close to the Das Mestas River mouth, out of the tidal influence, from October 2011 to September 2012 (covering a hydrological year). After filtration through 0.45 policarbonate membrane, nine trace metals were analyzed (Al, Co, Cu, Cr, Fe, Mo, Ni, Pb and V) in the dissolved phase. All procedures were made following trace-metal-clean techniques. Three groups of metals were distinguished: Al, Co, Ni, Cu and Pb correlated with the SPM and the DOC indicating they are related with soil leaching; Iron is related with Chl-a so its behavior depends on the biologic activity; lithological influence on Cr, Mo and V patterns was observed.This study was supported by CTM2011-28792-C02 project, Land-sea exchange of trace metals and its importance for marine phytoplankton in an upwelling coast (MITOFE), financed by Spanish MINECOPeer reviewe

Conservation of Orbital Angular Momentum in Stimulated Down-Conversion

We report on an experiment demonstrating the conservation of orbital angular momentum in stimulated down-conversion. The orbital angular momentum is not transferred to the individual beams of the spontaneous down-conversion, but it is conserved when twin photons are taken individually. We observe the conservation law for an individual beam of the down-conversion through cavity-free stimulated emission.Comment: Submitted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let