Preleukemia: hematological disorders prior to onset of leukemia

Published data on Japanese leukemia patients with a preleukemic hematological disorder were assessed. The reexamined cases were from the &#34;Japona Centra Revuo Medicina&#34; reported during the period from 1952 to 1971. Among preleukemic hematological disorders, hypoplastic anemia was the most frequently reported (41 of 62 cases). These &#34;hypoplastic preleukemia&#34; patients were rather elderly and terminated mostly in atypical myelocytic leukemia. The chief hematological feature of the hypoplastic preleukemia cases was the coexistence of a relative erythroid hyperplasia and a slight increase of myeloblasts in the bone marrow that was unusual in hypoplastic anemia. The presence of pancytopenia and hypocellular marrow with a relative erythroid hyperplasia combined with a slight increase of myeloblasts probably indicates hypoplastic preleukemia that terminates later in acute leukemia.</p

Suzaku Discovery of a Hard X-Ray Tail in the Persistent Spectra from the Magnetar 1E 1547.0-5408 during its 2009 Activity

The fastest-rotating magnetar 1E 1547.0-5408 was observed in broad-band X-rays with Suzaku for 33 ks on 2009 January 28-29, 7 days after the onset of its latest bursting activity. After removing burst events, the absorption-uncorrected 2-10 keV flux of the persistent emission was measured with the XIS as 5.7e-11 ergs cm-2 s-1, which is 1-2 orders of magnitude higher than was measured in 2006 and 2007 when the source was less active. The persistent emission was also detected significantly with the HXD in >10 keV up to at least ~110 keV, with an even higher flux of 1.3e-10 ergs cm-2 s-1 in 20-100 keV. The pulsation was detected at least up to 70 keV at a period of 2.072135+/-0.00005 s, with a deeper modulation than was measured in a fainter state. The phase-averaged 0.7-114 keV spectrum was reproduced by an absorbed blackbody emission with a temperature of 0.65+/-0.02 keV, plus a hard power-law with a photon index of ~1.5. At a distance of 9 kpc, the bolometric luminosity of the blackbody and the 2-100 keV luminosity of the hard power-law are estimated as (6.2+/-1.2)e+35 ergs s-1 and 1.9e+36 ergs s-1, respectively, while the blackbody radius becomes ~5 km. Although the source had not been detected significantly in hard X-rays during the past fainter states, a comparison of the present and past spectra in energies below 10 keV suggests that the hard component is more enhanced than the soft X-ray component during the persistent activity.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, PASJ Vol.62 No.2 accepte

Semiautomated Determination of COD in Environmental Water Samples

A new method based on the principle of flow injection analysis is presented for the semiautomated determination of chemical oxygen demand (COD) in environmental water samples. The method is rapid and continuous, and suitable for the monitoring of COD in wastewaters. The apparatus used was simply constructed by parts commercially available for high performance liquid chromatography. Teflon tubing heated with a boiling water was used as a reactor and simultaneously used for mixing coils and transmission lines. The operating conditions were examined to apply the determination of COD in wastewaters by using glucose as a standard COD substance. The procedures recommended are as follows: Both 4.9x10(-4) M potassium permanganate and 6.7 % sulfuric acid solutions are individually pumped, 20 μl of a sample solution is injected into the flow of the sulfuric acid solution, and then mixed with a mixing joint. The mixed solution is transported to a flow cell situated in a spectrophotometer fixed at a wavelength of 525 nm, and decrements of absorbance are recorded. The peaks were reproducibly obtained at a concentration range of 10 - 200 mg-COD 1(-1). Chloride up to 1000 mg 1(-1) was not interfered at all. Various wastewater samples were analyzed by the proposed method at a sampling rate of 30 samples per hour, and the apparent COD values obtained were compared with the manual COD ones obtained by JIS method