An evaluation of two conducted electrical weapons and two probe designs using a swine comparative cardiac safety model

Despite human laboratory and field studies that have demonstrated a reasonable safety profile for TASER brand conducted electrical weapons (CEW), the results of some swine studies and arrest related deaths temporal to the use of the CEWs continue to raise questions regarding cardiac safety. TASER International, Inc., has released a new CEW, the TASER X2, touted to have a better safety profile than its long-standing predecessor, the TASER X26. We have developed a model to assess the relative cardiac safety of CEWs and used it to compare the TASER X2 and the TASER X26. This safety model was also used to assess the relative safety of an experimental probe design as compared to the standard steel probe. Our results suggest that the TASER X2 has an improved safety margin over the TASER X26. The new probe design also has promise for enhanced cardiac safety, although may have some disadvantages when compared to the existing design which would make field use impractical.     

Other than Daytime Working Is Associated with Lower Bone Mineral Density: The Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2009

Occupation affects bone mineral density (BMD); however, only few studies have been published. This study evaluated the effect of working time during a day on BMD. The cross-sectional study involved 18- to 50-year-old people who reported their working time and were measured for BMD using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry in the Fourth Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2009. The time period of work was divided into “daytime” and “other than daytime.” The other-than-daytime group included evening time, nighttime, regular shift time, and irregular shift time. Among 3,005 subjects, 2,378 were daytime workers and 627 were other-than-daytime workers. The mean BMD of the total femur and lumbar spine were significantly lower in other-than-daytime workers compared to daytime workers (femur 0.948 vs. 0.966 g/cm², respectively, p = 0.001; lumbar spine 0.976 vs. 0.988 g/cm², respectively, p = 0.023). The other-than-daytime group had lower levels of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D than the daytime group (16.3 vs. 17.6 ng/mL, p < 0.001). The proportion of osteopenia (T score < ?1.0) was higher in the other-than-daytime than the daytime group (34.3 vs. 29.1 %, p = 0.014). After adjustment for age, sex, socioeconomic status, lifestyle factors, daily intake of calcium, and vitamin D level, the relative risks of osteopenia of regular-shift and irregular-shift workers were significantly higher (1.65, 95 % CI 1.05–2.60; 1.78, 95 % CI 1.09–2.89) than those of daytime workers. These data suggest that other-than-daytime working, especially regular and irregular shift working, is associated with decreased BMD and increased risk for osteopenia in Korean adults.     

A Password-Based User Authentication Scheme for the Integrated EPR Information System

With the rapid development of the Internet, digitization and electronic orientation are required in various applications of our daily life. For e-medicine, establishing Electronic patient records (EPRs) for all the patients has become the top issue during the last decade. Simultaneously, constructing an integrated EPR information system of all the patients is beneficial because it can provide medical institutions and the academia with most of the patients’ information in details for them to make correct decisions and clinical decisions, to maintain and analyze patients’ health. Also beneficial to doctors and scholars, the EPR system can give them record linkage for researches, payment audits, or other services bound to be developed and integrated into medicine. To tackle the illegal access and to prevent the information from theft during transmission over the insecure Internet, we propose a password-based user authentication scheme suitable for information integration.     

Brain Stem Hypoplasia Associated with Cri-du-Chat Syndrome

Cri-du-Chat syndrome, also called the 5p-syndrome, is a rare genetic abnormality, and only few cases have been reported on its brain MRI findings. We describe the magnetic resonance imaging findings of a 1-year-old girl with Cri-du-Chat syndrome who showed brain stem hypoplasia, particularly in the pons, with normal cerebellum and diffuse hypoplasia of the cerebral hemispheres. We suggest that Cri-du-Chat syndrome chould be suspected in children with brain stem hypoplasia, particularly for those with high-pitched cries.