Incorporating DNA Sequencing into Current Prenatal Screening Practice for Down's Syndrome

PMCID: PMC3604109This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Persistence of DNA from laundered semen stains: Implications for child sex trafficking cases

In sexual assault cases, particularly those involving internal child sex trafficking (ICST), victims often hide their semen-stained clothing. This can result in a lag time of several months before the items are laundered and subsequently seized during a criminal investigation. Although it has been demonstrated previously that DNA can be recovered from clothing washed immediately after semen deposition, laundered items of clothing are not routinely examined in ICST cases, due to the assumption that the time delay and washing would result in no detectable DNA. The aim of this study was to examine whether viable DNA profiles could be recovered from laundered semen stains where there has been a significant lag time between semen deposition from one or more individuals and one or more washes of the stained clothing. Items of UK school uniform (T-shirts, trousers, tights) were stained with fresh semen (either from a single donor or a 1:1 mixture from two donors) and stored in a wardrobe for eight months. Stained and unstained items (socks) were then washed at 30°C or 60°C and with non-biological or biological detergent. DNA samples extracted from the semen-stained sites and from the unstained socks were quantified and profiled. High quantities of DNA, (6-18μg) matching the DNA profiles of the semen donors, were recovered from all semen-stained clothing that had been laundered once, irrespective of wash conditions. This quantity,and profile quality,did not decline significantly with multiple washes. The two donor semen samples yielded ∼10-fold more DNA from the T-shirts than from the trousers. This disparity resulted in the T-shirts yielding a ∼1:1 mixture of DNA from the two donors, whereas the trousers yielded a major DNA profile matching only that of the second donor. The quantities of DNA recovered from the unstained socks were an order of magnitude lower, with most of the DNA being attributable to the donor of the semen on the stained clothing within the same wash, demonstrating the transfer of semen-derived DNA among items of clothing in the washing machine. This study demonstrates that complete DNA profiles can be obtained from laundered semen stains on school uniform-type clothing, with an eight-month lag time between semen deposition and laundering, despite multiple washes and stains from two semen donors. These data emphasise the need to recover and examine the clothing of victims for semen and DNA evidence, even if the clothing has been stored for several months or washed multiple times since the sexual offence took place

A comparative evaluation of interactive segmentation algorithms

In this paper we present a comparative evaluation of four popular interactive segmentation algorithms. The evaluation was carried out as a series of user-experiments, in which participants were tasked with extracting 100 objects from a common dataset: 25 with each algorithm, constrained within a time limit of 2 min for each object. To facilitate the experiments, a “scribble-driven” segmentation tool was developed to enable interactive image segmentation by simply marking areas of foreground and background with the mouse. As the participants refined and improved their respective segmentations, the corresponding updated segmentation mask was stored along with the elapsed time. We then collected and evaluated each recorded mask against a manually segmented ground truth, thus allowing us to gauge segmentation accuracy over time. Two benchmarks were used for the evaluation: the well-known Jaccard index for measuring object accuracy, and a new fuzzy metric, proposed in this paper, designed for measuring boundary accuracy. Analysis of the experimental results demonstrates the effectiveness of the suggested measures and provides valuable insights into the performance and characteristics of the evaluated algorithms

Chandra observations of Abell 2199

We present results from an analysis of two Chandra observations of the rich, nearby galaxy cluster Abell 2199. We find evidence (having corrected for projection effects) for radial gradients in temperature and metallicity in the X-ray emitting gas: the temperature drops from kT~4.2 keV at R=200 kpc to 1.6 keV within R=5 kpc of the centre. The metallicity rises from ~0.3 solar at R=200 kpc to ~0.7 solar at R=30 kpc before dropping to 0.3 solar within the central 5 kpc. We find evidence for structure in the surface brightness distribution associated with the central radio source 3C338. No evidence is found for the gas having a large spread in temperature at any particular location despite the cooling time being short (<10**9yr) within the central ~15 kpc. Heating and mass cooling rates are calculated for various assumptions about the state of the gas.Comment: 10 pages, 12 figures. Accepted by MNRAS. Minor changes following referee's comment

A survey of psychological practitioner workplace wellbeing

The well-being of the psychological workforce is an area of concern. However, it has been sparsely studied in a holistic manner encompassing workplace well-being as well as burnout. This study reports a survey of 1,678 psychological practitioners accessed through professional networks. The short Warwick Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (SWEMWBS) and the Psychological Practitioner Workplace Well-being Measure (PPWWM) were administered with a demographic questionnaire. The mean for the SWEMWBS was below that of a national population survey. The intercorrelation of these tests was .61. Subgroup analyses showed significant differences: assistant psychologists, counsellors and psychological well-being practitioners demonstrated better than average workplace well-being. But for general well-being (SWEMWBS), trainee clinical psychologists and assistant psychologists showed lower than average well-being, whereas psychological well-being practitioners were higher than average. Other factors associated with well-being were contract type—both measures (higher workplace well-being in those with temporary contracts and the self-employed); employment sector—for PPWWM only (private organisation/independent workers and third sector/charitable organisation workers scored above the PPWWM mean); ethnicity—for both measures (Asian groups except Chinese had higher well-being than average for the PPWWM and SWEMWBS) and disability was strongly associated with lower well-being on both measures. Harassment, feeling depressed or a failure and wanting to leave the National Health Service (NHS) were associated with lower well-being. Greater age, pay and years of service were negatively correlated with well-being. A five-factor structure was obtained with this sample. The results confirmed psychological practitioners as an at-risk group and identified a number of factors associated with workplace well-being

A new fireworm (Amphinomidae) from the Cretaceous of Lebanon identified from three-dimensionally preserved myoanatomy

© 2015 Parry et al. Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. The attached file is the published version of the article

Non-Perturbative Renormalization Group for Simple Fluids

We present a new non perturbative renormalization group for classical simple fluids. The theory is built in the Grand Canonical ensemble and in the framework of two equivalent scalar field theories as well. The exact mapping between the three renormalization flows is established rigorously. In the Grand Canonical ensemble the theory may be seen as an extension of the Hierarchical Reference Theory (L. Reatto and A. Parola, \textit{Adv. Phys.}, \textbf{44}, 211 (1995)) but however does not suffer from its shortcomings at subcritical temperatures. In the framework of a new canonical field theory of liquid state developed in that aim our construction identifies with the effective average action approach developed recently (J. Berges, N. Tetradis, and C. Wetterich, \textit{Phys. Rep.}, \textbf{363} (2002))

Enterocutaneous fistula due to mesh fixation in the repair of lateral incisional hernia: a case report

Enterocutaneous fistula following mesh repair of incisional hernia is usually due to mesh erosion of the underlying viscus and presents late. We describe an early enterocutaneous fistula due to an unusual but a potential mode of bowel injury during mesh fixation. This case is reported to emphasize the need for greater attention to the technique of mesh fixation. We suggest laparoscopic guidance to prevent this serious complication in lateral Incisional hernias with ill defined edges of the defect

A soft-bodied mollusc with radula from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale

Author Posting. © Nature Publishing Group, 2006. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Nature Publishing Group for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Nature 442 (2006): 159-163, doi:10.1038/nature04894.Odontogriphus omalus was originally described as a problematic non-biomineralized lophophorate organism. Here we reinterpret Odontogriphus based on 189 new specimens including numerous exceptionally well-preserved individuals from the Burgess Shale collections of the Royal Ontario Museum. This additional material provides compelling evidence that the feeding apparatus in Odontogriphus is a radula of molluscan architecture comprising two primary bipartite tooth rows attached to a radular membrane and showing replacement by posterior addition. Further characters supporting molluscan affinity include a broad foot bordered by numerous ctenidia located in a mantle groove and a stiffened cuticular dorsum. Odontogriphus has a radula similar to Wiwaxia corrugata but lacks a scleritome. We interpret these animals to be members of an early stem-group mollusc lineage that likely originated in the Neoproterozoic Ediacaran Period, providing support for the retention of a biomat-based grazing community from the late Precambrian until at least the Middle Cambrian.Our research was in part supported by a Post-Doctoral Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada grant (to JBC-2005) and by a Swedish Research Council grant (to CS)