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Two patients with reticulum cell sarcoma and one with chronic lymphocytic leukemia and macroglobulinemia were found to have I g M (λ) cold agglutinins; in two the agglutinins were directed against the antigen i and in one against the antigen I. In one patient the 19 S cold agglutinin was cryoprecipitable; the supernatant contained also a 7 S IgM M component of faster mobility devoid of cryoprecipitability and of cold agglutinin activity. In another patient, with high serum viscosity, the cold agglutinin activity was found in three IgM (λ) M components with sedimentation velocities of 7.7 S, 11.5 S, and 19.0 S. The present cases, and those previously reported, support the view that IgM cold agglutinins with lambda light chains are rarely directed against the I antigen. They are frequently cryoprecipitable, and are often found in malignant conditions. Such agglutinins thus differ markedly from cold agglutinins with kappa light chains.

Some clinical and immunochemical findings are presented in 203 patients with M-components. These include 148 patients belonging to primary-malignant group - myeloma, primary macroglobulinemia, and potentially malignant type-, 9 patients with malignant lymphomas and various types of M-components, and 46 patients with benign monoclonal gammopathy. When M-component was present, the following findings seemed to support the diagnosis of myeloma: (1) the concentration of IgG-M-components over 2.0g/100ml or that of IgA-M-components over 1.0g/100ml, (2) presence of Bence-Jones proteins in serum or urine, (3) BBC below 3million/mm3, (4) serum albumin below 3.0g/100ml, (5) plasma cells over 10% in the bone marrow, and (6) presence of plasma cells with marked cytological abnormalities. Since there was a considerable overlap between myeloma and benign monoclonal gammopathy, these findings should be evaluated as a whole, not separately, together with other clinical features, and radiological and histological findings. There was no overlap in the concentration of monoclonal IgM between primary and secondary macroglobulinemia, but the number of cases is too small to draw definitive conclusions. The term `potentially malignant type' has been proposed by the author in order to contribute to the study on the pathogenesis of myeloma or related disorders and the development of tumors in general. Since this condition cannot be regarded as wholly benign, patients should be examined repeatedly for a long period. The mechanisms of occurrence of M-components in malignant lymphomas, its relationship to prognosis, and electrophoretic mobility and immunologic types of M-components are discussed.

During routine laboratory evaluation, M-components were detected in serum from 3 of 387 patients with chronic liver disease. In an attempt to find additional M-components, serum from another 116 patients was tested by agarose gel electrophoresis. None were found. Thus, although reports on nonmyelomatous M-components frequently include patients with chronic liver disease, the present series, as well as one other, revealed a low incidence of M-components among many such patients. In view of the relatively high incidence of M-components among apparently healthy older individuals reported by other investigators, it is suggested that the M-components found in our 3 patients (ages 67, 70, and 76 years) may be related primarily to some unknown, age-related process, rather than to chronic liver disease.

The IgG M-components of 70 sera were quantitated by a paper electrophoretic method and by an immunochemical method with the use of an antiserum raised against purified polyclonal IgG. The results obtained by the two procedures were concordant and thereby showed that IgG M-components of different antigenic compositions can probably be quantitated by simple immunochemieal methods. Immunochemical determination of the total IgG content of sera containing IgG M-components by the Mancini technique agreed, both when the sera were assessed in their native and in their carbamylated form, with the immunochemical quantitation of Weeke. This indicates that different IgG M-components are immunochemically similarly altered by carbamylation.

Peak spectral intensities emitted by seven types of lightning phenomena, viz., first and subsequent return strokes, stepped and dart leaders, cloud-to-air flashes, intracloud pulses, and M components of return strokes, are reported in five narrow regions of the visible and near-visible spectrum. At 3914 A the peak continuum radiation varies from 300 to 107 watts ster−1 A−1, averaged over a 23-A bandwidth and integrated over the whole source. For the average lightning stroke, the spectral intensities at the other regions studied, relative to that near 3914 A, are: 0.95 at 4140 A (continuum), 2.1 at 6563 A (Hα plus continuum), 4.8 at 8220 A (NI[2] plus continuum), and 0.7 at 8900 A (continuum). Return strokes are usually the most intense lightning phenomena but can vary in intensity by a factor of 1000 from storm to storm and by a factor of 50 within one flash. The most intense return strokes appear to have the highest radiating temperature. Stepped and dart leaders are a factor of 20 to 100 less intense than their return strokes, but the leaders and return strokes have similar spectra. Pulses originating within clouds vary in intensity from the weakest pulses observed to ∼105 watts ster−1 A−1 near 3914 A and are substantially stronger in the near-infrared channels, relative to the 3914-A channel, than the average stroke. M-component brightenings of return-stroke channels are of lower excitation than typical return strokes but are otherwise similar to them. There is no indication in any of these strokes of the strong N2+ 1N (3914 A) radiation present in some slit spectrograms in the literature.

The frequency of M-components was studied by agar gel electrophoresis in sera from 807 patients, 467 (57%) females and 340 (43%) males with histologically proven solid malignant neoplasms. M-components were found in the sera of 40 male and 20 female patients. Apart from two known cases of multiple myeloma and one case of Waldenström's macroglobulinaemia, none of the patients were found to be suffering from these diseases. The frequency of M-components increased with age, and this was more evident in males. Twenty-two of 60 patients with M-components did not exhibit abnormalities on immunoelectrophoresis. Of the 35 remaining patients, 27 had an abnormal component of the IgG class, 6 of the IgA and 2 of the IgM class. M-components were found in the sera of patients with a wide variety of neoplasms. There appeared to be no evidence of an increased frequency of M-components in the sera of patients with solid malignant neoplasms compared with normal adult population. ImagesFig. 1

In the urine of a patient with a clinical picture of multiple myeloma two micro- M components were demonstrated, detected in starch gel electrophoresis. After isola- tion and purification, the slower-moving fraction (I) had a molecular weight of about 60000 and was immunologically similar to the type x light polypeptide chains, with- out giving a reaction with anti-heavy chains. The faster-moving fraction (II) had a molecular weight of about 40000 and exhibited an anti-γ immunological reaction with heavy and an anti-λ reaction with light polypeptide chains. These findings are ten- tatively explained as providing abortive synthesis of the γ polypeptide chains of immunoglobulins with molecular weight of the order of 20000. For fraction I (60000) the x -dimer, γ 20000 structure is proposed, while fraction II (40000) which is unhomo- geneous in starch gel, would consist of two proteins, a λ dimer and a γ G 20000 dimer, both immunologically reactive.

About 200 excellent photographs of cloud-to-ground discharges, taken with a newly designed rotating-film camera, were obtained from very active thunderstorms in 1959 and 1960. The electric-field changes and luminosity variations of the photographed discharges were recorded simultaneously on two oscilloscopes having different time resolution. Fifty per cent of the multiple-stroke flashes, constituting about 90 per cent of cloud-to-ground flashes, are found to involve at least one stroke which is followed by very long continuing luminosity lasting for 40 to 500 msec. This continuing luminosity contains a number of relatively brighter components essentially the same as the M components which are known to follow some strokes having very short time intervals. The analysis of the electric field associated with the continuing luminosity reveals that, during the luminous period, negative charge from the cloud flows to ground continuously. The surges of current (M components) during the continuing luminosity are associated with the small rapid field changes (K changes), and the time interval between M components is statistically the same as that between the K changes generally observed during the interstroke and final period of cloud-to-ground flashes. During the period of continuing luminosity, the lightning channel maintains a level of conductivity which is high enough to support a momentary current increase without involving the leader process. After the channel loses its luminosity, it maintains a lower level of conductivity for 7 to 100 msec, and a subsequent stroke during this period can also follow the same channel. When a longer time elapses (>100 msec), a subsequent stroke, if any, takes a different channel with a new stepped leader.

The problem considered in this paper is one of allocating a predetermined aggregate among its components. An example from econometrics is the allocation among various competing consumption items of a consumer's budget, the total size of which is usually taken as determined outside the allocation framework. Under the specification adopted, one may treat any choice of (m — 1) of the m components of the predetermined aggregate as stochastic, fitting the allocation equations for these (m — 1) variables by Aitken's principle. The parameters of the equation excluded from the estimation procedure may be found by differencing; the estimates obtained in this way are shown to be invariant under any choice of which (m — 1) equations are fitted. Further, this invariance property is distribution free. These results hold good whether the aggregate is simple or weighted. As an alternative interpretation, moreover, one may regard this problem simply as one of fitting m equations containing a common regressor und...

Six cases of SSPE are reported with clinical, EEG and biological data. The clinical picture was usually typical with a slow onset, the development of dementia, epilepsy and hypertonia and often with temporary improvement. The disease began between 8 and 19 years of age. Two patients died after an evolution of more than 5 years; 4 others are still alive after 3–6 years. Most of the 49 EEG recordings obtained in these cases showed the typical abnormalities. All 23 CSF specimens showed increased γ-globulin with M(myeloma) components; 80% of 26 serum specimens also displayed M components. In 9 CSF and 18 serum specimens increased measles antibody titres were present. The characteristic clinical picture of SSPE should be redefined to take into account the increasing number of chronic cases of the disease which are being recognised.

In this paper, the behaviour of a Complex System comprised of two classes of Components (L1 and L2) has been evaluated. Class L1 consists of N components connected in series in which the failure of anyone component completely breaks down the system as a whole. Class L2 consists of M identical components connected in parallel redundancy. The system works in a state of reduced efficiency when two out of M components of the class fail. Supplementary Variable Technique and Laplace Transforms have been used to obtain the solution.

Serum electrophoresis were performed in 13,400 healthy adult subjects (blood donors) and 20 cases of monoclonal gammapathy were detected: ten cases out of 10,300 blood donors from Paris and ten out of 3,100 blood donors from Saint-Nazaire. The frequency of ‘M Component’ was of 0.1 and 0.3%, respectively. Four cases were related to myeloma or Waldenstrom's macroglobulinaemia and the other 16 cases could be ascribed to a ‘benign essential monoclonal gammapathy’ (BEMG). The distribution of heavy and light chain classes in BEMG was 13 γ (11 K and 2 L) and 3 MK. This screening of a normal population allowed detection of either clinically premalignant states or the occurrence and evolution of benign essential forms of gammapathies.

The frequency of hepatitis associated antigen (HAA) and the corresponding antibody was studied in 625 sera containing M components. An increased incidence was observed only in sera containing IgA M components. In no instance of antibody-positive sera the M component was responsible for the antibody activity.

where x and X are column vectors of m components each. X is a sufficiently smooth vector function, continuous in the region 0 2 the problem awaits a solution. It is proposed to consider this problem here.