A B S T R A C TWe present long-slit observations in the optical and near-infrared of 14 H II regions in the spiral galaxies NGC 628, 925, 1232 and 1637, all of them reported to have solar or oversolar abundances according to empirical calibrations. For seven of the observed regions, ionweighted temperatures from optical forbidden auroral to nebular line ratios are obtained and, for six of them, the oxygen abundances derived by standard methods turn out to be significantly lower than solar. The other one, named CDT1 in NGC 1232, shows an oxygen abundance of 12 þ logðO=HÞ ¼ 8:95^0:20, and constitutes, to the best of our knowledge, the first high-metallicity H II region for which accurate line temperatures, and hence elemental abundances, have been derived.For the rest of the regions no line temperature measurements could be made, and the metallicity has been determined by means of both detailed photoionization modelling and the sulphur abundance parameter S 23 . Only one of these regions shows values of O 23 and S 23 implying a solar or oversolar metallicity.According to our analysis, only two of the observed regions can therefore be considered as of high metallicity. These two fit the trends previously found in other high-metallicity H II regions, i.e., N/O and S/O abundance ratios seem to be higher and lower than solar respectively.

Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) has become a powerful technique for prognostic assessment in multiple myeloma (MM). However, the existence of associations between cytogenetic abnormalities compels us to re-assess the value of each abnormality. A total of 260 patients with MM at the time of diagnosis, enrolled in the GEM-2000 Spanish transplant protocol, have been analyzed by FISH in order to ascertain the independent influence on myeloma prognosis of IGH translocations, as well as RB and P53 deletions. Survival analyses showed that patients with t(4;14), RB or P53 deletions had a significantly shorter survival than patients without these abnormalities. However, patients with RB deletions without other abnormalities in FISH analysis, displayed a similar outcome to those patients without genetic changes by FISH (46 vs 54 months, P ¼ 0.3). In the multivariate analysis the presence of t(4;14), RB deletion associated with other abnormalities, age 460 years, high proportion of S-phase cells and advanced stage of the disease according to the International Staging System retained their independent prognostic influence. In summary, RB deletion as a sole abnormality does not lead to a shortening in the survival of MM patients, whereas t(4;14) confers the worst prognosis in MM patients treated with high-dose chemotherapy.

This is an electronic version of an article published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Díaz, A.I., Terlevich, E., Castellanos, M. and G.F. Hägele. The metal abundance of circumnuclear star-forming regions in early-type spirals. Spectrophotometric observations. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 382 (2007): 251-26

We present long‐slit observations in the optical and near‐infrared of eight H ii regions in the spiral galaxy NGC 4258. Six of the observed regions are located in the south‐east inner spiral arms, and the other two are isolated in the northern outer arms. A detailed analysis of the physical conditions of the gas has been performed. For two of the regions, an electron temperature has been derived from the [S iii] λ6312 line. For the rest, an empirical calibration based on the red and near‐infrared sulphur lines has been used. The oxygen abundances derived by both methods are found to be significantly lower (by a factor of 2) than previously derived by using empirical calibrations based on the optical oxygen lines. In the brightest region, 74C, the observation of a prominent feature caused by Wolf–Rayet (WR) stars provides an excellent constraint over some properties of the ionizing clusters. In the light of the current evolutionary synthesis models, no consistent solution is found to explain at the same time both the WR feature characteristics and the emission‐line spectrum of this region. In principle, the presence of WR stars could lead to large temperature fluctuations and also to a hardening of the ionizing radiation. None of these effects is found in region 74C, for which the electron temperatures found from the [S iii] λ6312 line and the Paschen discontinuity at 8200 Å are equal within the errors, and the effective temperature of the ionizing radiation is estimated at around 35 300 K. Both more observations of confirmed high‐metallicity regions and a finer metallicity grid for the evolutionary synthesis models are needed in order to understand the ionizing populations of H ii regions.

Myelomatous plasma cells show a high heterogeneity both in their immunophenotypic characteristics as well as in their cytogenetic features. Thus far, no extensive studies have been carried out to explore whether such antigenic diversity is associated with specific genetic characteristics.We have investigated the relationship between the immunophenotypic profile at plasma cell and both their DNA ploidy status (evaluated by flow cytometry) and specific genetic features (ascertained by fluorescence in situ hybridization) in a large series of 915 patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma. The non-hyperdiploid multiple myeloma group (n = 454, 52%) was associated with a significantly higher frequency of positivity for CD28 and CD20 as well as a higher incidence of CD56 À and CD117À cases (P < 0.001). Remarkably, 13q deletion and immunoglobulin heavy chain (IGH) gene rearrangements, which were significantly more common in non-hyperdiploid multiple myeloma, showed a strong association with CD117 À cases. IGH translocation to 11q13 was associated with reactivity for CD20 (P < 0.001), downregulation of CD56 (P < 0.001), and lack of expression of CD117 (P = 0.001). By contrast, IGH translocations to other chromosome partners were almost exclusively found among CD20 À and CD117 À cases (P < 0.001). These results suggest that genetic categories in multiple myeloma exhibit particular immunophenotypic profiles which in turn are strongly associated with the DNA ploidy status.

Cytogenetic abnormalities, evaluated either by karyotype or by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), are considered the most important prognostic factor in multiple myeloma (MM). However, there is no information about the prognostic impact of genomic changes detected by comparative genomic hybridization (CGH). We have analyzed the frequency and prognostic impact of genetic changes as detected by CGH and evaluated the relationship between these chromosomal imbalances and IGH translocation, analyzed by FISH, in 74 patients with newly diagnosed MM. Genomic changes were identified in 51 (69%) of the 74 MM patients. The most recurrent abnormalities among the cases with genomic changes were gains on chromosome regions 1q (45%), 5q (24%), 9q (24%), 11q (22%), 15q (22%), 3q (16%), and 7q (14%), while losses mainly involved chromosomes 13 (39%), 16q (18%), 6q (10%), and 8p (10%). Remarkably, the 6 patients with gains on 11q had IGH translocations. Multivariate analysis selected chromosomal losses, 11q gains, age, and type of treatment (conventional chemotherapy vs autologous transplantation) as independent parameters for predicting survival. Genomic losses retained the prognostic value irrespective of treatment approach. According to these results, losses of chromosomal material evaluated by CGH represent a powerful prognostic factor in

A thorough analysis of well-studied disk giant H ii regions, for which we know the ionizing stellar population, gas metallicity, and Wolf-Rayet population, leads to photoionization models that can only match all observed line intensity ratios (, and [S iii] with respect to the intensity of Hb), as well as the Hb luminosity and equivalent width if one allows for an important escape of energetic ionizing radiation. For the three regions presented here, the fractions of escaping Lyman continuum photons amount to 10%-73%, and in all cases, the larger fraction of escaping photons has energies of between 13.6 and 24.4 eV. These escaping photons clearly must have an important impact as sources of ionization of the diffuse ionized gas found surrounding many galaxies, as well as of the intergalactic medium.

We present a spectrophotometric study of circumnuclear star forming regions (CNSFR) in the early type spiral galaxies: NGC 2903, NGC 3351 and NGC 3504, all of them of over solar metallicity according to standard empirical calibrations. A detailed determination of their abundances is made after careful subtraction of the very prominent underlying stellar absorption. It is found that most regions show the highest abundances in HII region-like objects. The relative N/O and S/O abundances are discussed. In is also shown that CNSFR, as a class, segregate from the disk HII region family, clustering around smaller "softness parameter" -η-values, and therefore higher ionizing temperatures.