An autopsy report on a ruptured rudimentary horn (uterine anomaly) with ectopic pregnancy

The rudimentary horn is a rare developmental anomaly of the Müllerian duct. Ectopic pregnancy in the rudimentary horn is estimated to occur in one out of 76,000–150,000 pregnancies. A 30-year-old primigravida suddenly collapsed after 3 days of continuous abdominal pain. Emergency laparotomy revealed a massive intraperitoneal hemorrhage and fetal demise. The growth of the fetus after 19 weeks of gestation is believed to have caused the rudimentary horn rupture, thereby rapidly leading to hemorrhagic shock in the mother and ischemic death in the fetus. This is the first autopsy report on maternal death due to the rudimentary horn or other Müllerian duct anomalies, which emphasizes the need for forensic pathologists to consider this condition as a possible cause of unexpected death in fertile women. In addition, it is very important for clinicians to detect Müllerian duct anomalies by sonography during routine obstetric examinations, and promptly diagnose anomaly related ectopic pregnancies in women displaying symptoms of an acute abdomen, intraperitoneal hemorrhage, or shock in the emergency practice.     

Quantitative analysis of tropane alkaloids in biological materials by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

A simple and rapid method for quantitation of tropane alkaloids in biological materials has been developed using an Extrelut column with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Biological materials (serum and urine) were mixed with a borate buffer and then applied to an Extrelut column. The adsorbed tropane alkaloids were eluted with dichloromethane before a GC-MS analysis. Atropine-d(3) was used as an internal standard. The extracted tropane alkaloids were converted to trimethylsilyl derivatives prior to GC analysis, to improve the instability of tropane alkaloids from heating and the property of them for a GC column. The recoveries of the compounds, which had been spiked to biological materials, were more than 80%. The GC separation of the derivatives from endogenous impurities was generally satisfactory with the use of a semi-polar capillary column. Tropane alkaloids showed excellent linearity in the range of 10-5000 ng/ml and the limit of detection was 5.0 ng/ml for biological materials. The present method is simple and more rapid than those previously reported, and was applied to a poisoning case. It is useful for the routine analysis of tropane alkaloids in cases of suspected tropane alkaloids poisoning.     

Gangs as contractors: the social organization of American Taiwanese youth gangs in Southern California

This paper examines the organizational structure and operations of Taiwanese organized crime and youth gangs in Southern California. In-depth interviews were used as the principle method of research. In contrast to transnational criminal conspiracy claims and the La Cosa Nostra model of vertically integrated organizations, our findings suggest that these criminal groups consist of discrete local Taiwanese youth gangs which operate as largely independent economic units that show no substantive and operational ties to criminal organizations in Taiwan. The formation of Taiwanese criminal organizations and gangs in Southern California is primarily governed by the availability of financial opportunities. Furthermore, both the inter-gang relations and intra-gang structures exhibit a distinct form of contractor arrangement which consists of market-like weak ties that are simultaneously circumscribed by the criminal embeddedness. We argue that that these economic weak ties, which seem to render conventionally understood criminal organizational boundaries administratively less meaningful, still function as an operationally significant governance mechanism of the organizational structures of American Taiwanese youth gangs. In addition, the paper discusses the implications that the embeddedness has on the somewhat paradoxical and incoherent organizational structure.     

Immunoassay for methamphetamine with a new antibody

p- and o-Aminomethamphetamine were synthesized as haptens to be coupled with carrier protein at the benzene ring of methamphetamine. Immunogens were prepared by the glutaraldehyde method or the MBS (N-(m-maleimidobenzoyloxy)succinimide) type cross-linking reagent method. In particular, immunization with p-aminomethamphetamine-bovine serum albumin (BSA) conjugate prepared by the glutaraldehyde method gave an anti-methamphetamine antiserum having a low cross-reactivity with methylephedrine. With the antiserum, three kinds of immunoassays for methamphetamine were established. An enzyme immunoassay (EIA) and an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) were developed with alkaline phosphatase (ALP) as a label enzyme. The amount of antibody bound ALP conjugate was determined by its activity in dephosphorylating p-nitrophenyl phosphate in EIA and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADP+) in ELISA. The range of methamphetamine measurable by ELISA was 0.025-0.5 ng/well and its sensitivity was superior to that of EIA (0.3-300 ng/tube). A latex agglutination inhibition reaction test (LAIRT) was also developed for the mass screening method of urine samples. The sensitivity of this method for methamphetamine was 0.1 micrograms/ml urine.