ABSTRACT
The detection of diatoms has been proposed to be useful in the diagnosis of drowning. In the presented paper, we describe a novel method for qualitative and quantitative analysis of diatoms in water and organs. Samples were treated by microwave digestion. The fluid obtained was vacuum-filtrated; its sediment on the membrane was coated and examined under the scanning electron microscope with the mode of automatic field scanning; and qualitative and quantitative diatom analysis was performed based on the images captured automatically and on manual identification of the suspected diatoms at a required higher magnification. The method is rapid, sensitive, labor-saving, and accurate for qualitative and quantitative diatom analysis. However, further scientific research in the field of automatic diatom identification using SEM images has to be done in order to automate the process of detection and identification of diatoms in water and tissues for the diagnosis of drowning.
Subject(s)
Diatoms/isolation & purification , Drowning/diagnosis , Water Microbiology , Filtration/methods , Forensic Medicine/methods , Humans , Microscopy, Electron, Scanning , Microwaves , VacuumABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: Using microbeam X-ray fluorescence (Micro-XRF) analyzer for determination of acid-resistant silicic particles in lung, and to explore its potential application in diagnosis of drowning. METHODS: Thirty two white rabbits were divided randomly into drowning group (n=12), post-mortem immersion group (n=10) and control group (n=10). Lungs and water sample were collected for determination of area concentration of acid-resistant silicic particles using Micro-XRF method. RESULTS: The area concentration of acid-resistant silicic particles for the drowning water sample was 4.4 mm2/mL. For the lungs of drowning group, the post-mortem immersion group and the control group, the determined average values were (25.30 +/- 10.95) mm2/g, (1.68 +/- 0.63) mm2/g and (1.65 +/- 0.85) mm2/g, respectively, with a statistically significant difference between the drowning group and the other two groups. CONCLUSION: The area concentration of acid-resistant silicic particles in lungs may be used as an indicator of drowning. The method is highly sensitive and rapid. It provides a potential application in drowning diagnosis.
Subject(s)
Drowning/diagnosis , Fresh Water/analysis , Lung/chemistry , Silicon/analysis , Spectrometry, X-Ray Emission/methods , Animals , Female , Fluorescence , Forensic Pathology/methods , Male , Rabbits , Spectrometry, X-Ray Emission/instrumentationABSTRACT
Pooled genomic indexing (PGI) is a method for mapping collections of bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) clones between species by using a combination of clone pooling and DNA sequencing. PGI has been used to map a total of 3858 BAC clones covering approximately 24% of the rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) genome onto 4178 homologous loci in the human genome. A number of intrachromosomal rearrangements were detected by mapping multiple segments within the individual rhesus BACs onto multiple disjoined loci in the human genome. Transversal pooling designs involving shuffled BAC arrays were employed for robust mapping even with modest DNA sequence read coverage. A further innovation, short-tag pooled genomic indexing (ST-PGI), was also introduced to further improve the economy of mapping by sequencing multiple, short, mapable tags within a single sequencing reaction.
