INTRODUCTION The threat of mass casualties caused by an unconventional terrorist attack is a challenge for the public health system, with special implications for emergency medicine, anesthesia, and intensive care. Advanced life support of patients injured by chemical or biological warfare agents requires an adequate level of personal protection. The aim of this study was to evaluate the person...

(1) Cerebral protection devices offer a new approach to reducing the risk of stroke and death in patients undergoing carotid angioplasty with stenting (CAS). (2) Nine studies have examined the efficacy of cerebral protection devices, by comparing the incidence of procedure related stroke and death to that of CAS without protection, and to surgical endarterectomy. Few of the studies were of high...

On July 4, 2014, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) released the draft document, Methylene Diphenyl Diisocyanate Reference Exposure Levels: Technical Support Document for the Derivation of Noncancer Reference Exposure Levels to solicit public comment. Responses to comments received on the draft methylene diphenyl diisocyanate reference exposure levels (RELs) are provid...

The extracorporeal life support (ECLS) allows a maximum of a few weeks of cardio-respiratory assistance. Using standard ECLS, the circuit must be replaced after a few days or sometimes more frequently, in case of dysfunction. Classically, the replacement needs the interruption of the support inducing a temporarily hemodynamic instability. We report a simple technique, allowing this replacement ...

Touch-less based fingerprint verification systems are free from the problems of image deformation, latent fingerprint issues and so forth that appear in the contemporary touch based fingerprint verification systems. Coupled with template protection mechanism, a touch-less fingerprint verification system is further enhanced. In this paper, a secure end-to-end touch-less fingerprint verification ...

Effective risk assessment methodologies are the cornerstone of a successful Critical Infrastructure Protectionprogram. The extensive number of risk assessment methodologies for critical infrastructures clearly supportsthis argument. Risk assessment is indispensable in order to identify threats, assess vulnerabilities and evaluatethe impact on assets, infrastructures or systems t...

The quantification of interdependencies is a major challenge when attempting to analyze the behavior of critical infrastructures. This paper presents a taxonomy of interdependency quantification metrics based on their information content, decision support and risk analysis capabilities, and computational costs. The paper also discusses a systematic approach for computing metrics and performance...