Myelodysplastic/Myeloproliferative Neoplasms

Myeloid malignancies exemplified by acute myeloid leukemia (AML), myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), and myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) are all characterized by abnormal proliferation of stem cells. AML is characterized by proliferation of myeloid blasts that ultimately perturb normal bone marrow (BM) function and suppress hematopoiesis. The hallmarks of MDS are cytopenias (anemia, leukopenia, or thrombocytopenia), impaired differentiation in one or more of myeloid cell lines, and ineffective hematopoiesis (Tiu et al. 2011a). MPNs manifest with proliferation of one or more cell lines in the BM with accompanying BM fibrosis and extramedullary hematopoiesis (Fig. 1). When features of both MDS and MPN coexist in the same patient, the disease is called MDS/MPN overlap neoplasms. The recognition that some MDS patients have overlapping MPN features led to the coining of the term MDS/MPN overlap. This group was first described in 1997 at the clinical advisory meeting of the World Health Organization (WHO) (Harris et al. 1999) and later adapted in the 2001 WHO classification (Harris et al. 2001). As in the case of MDS and MPNs, MDS/MPN patients are also at risk for AML evolution. Within this overlapping class, four different disease entities were classified: Juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (JMML), chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML), atypical chronic myeloid leukemia (BCR-ABL1 negative) (aCML), and MDS/MPN-unclassifiable (MDS/MPN-U), which also included the provisional disease category, refractory anemia with ring sideroblast associated with marked thrombocytosis (RARS-T). Of note, each of these disease entities has a defined natural history, influenced by a variety of factors such as BM blast counts, presence of concomitant diseases (e.g., systemic mastocytosis with associated clonal hematologic non-mast cell lineage disease [SM-AHNMD]), and different cytogenetic and epigenetic/molecular profile which may explain the clinicopathologic diversity of these diseases

Evaluation of Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF) for Pretreatment of the Karoon River Water

The efficiency of a pilot dissolved air flotation (DAF) unit is evaluated. It is the objective of the present study to determine the removal efficiency of DAF in removing turbidity and organic matter from theKaroonRiverfeeding a water treatment plant. Water quality investigations over the study period revealed that, thanks to the self-purification process in the river, the Karoon water quality is acceptable with respect to total organic carbon (TOC) (never exceeding 2.89 mg/l) but its turbidity has great fluctuations (from as low as 42 to 1,000 NTU) due to the nature of the river. Its true color is in desirable conditions. Suspended solids removal efficiency of the pilot DAF unit varied from 38% to 95%, with an average level of 72%. The results from this study indicate that DAF removal efficiency is inversely related to the volume of inflow of solids into the system so that increasing TSS decreases removal efficiency. The high turbidity level in the absence of a primary sedimentation unit causes the flotation system to lose its desired efficiency. FAD cannot be, therefore, recommended for water treatment plants fed by the Karoon water unless a pretreatment unit is used. Furthermore, as FAD's TOC removal efficiency varies by up to 82%, and since part of the organic content includes volatile organic matter causing odors and undesirable taste, FAD is recommended as a complementary process in the treatment of high quality water