This paper aims at characteristic failure mechanisms of cohesive frictional materials at two levels of observation: (a) at the macroscale of continuum elastoplasticity, and (b) at the microscale of active microplanes with arbitrary orientation. Thereby, the criteria for the loss of uniqueness and the loss of ellipticity will be discussed for a macroscopic as well as a microplane-based anisotrop...

The lifetime of micro electro–thermo–mechanical actuators with complex electro–thermo–mechanical coupling mechanisms can be decreased significantly due to unexpected failure events. Even more serious is the fact that various failures are tightly coupled due to micro-size and multi-physics effects. Interrelation between performance and potential failures should be established to predict reliabil...

In this paper, we present the current state of a failure mode taxonomy, and discuss its potential to explore the failure mode space of aerospace applications. More fundamentally, we discuss what constitutes a good description of a failure that can be detected at the conceptual design stage. Elemental (physics-based) descriptions of failure modes are derived for several domains identified throug...

This paper outlines an approach to the identification of IT-related risk. The risk is identified from the perspective of the services provided by a software system to the users. The approach assumes the investigation of the service failures with the use of failure mode keywords. The service-based risk identification is supplemented with checklists extracted from standards and classical techniqu...

BACKGROUND Obstetric hemorrhage is the leading cause of maternal mortality globally. The Non-pneumatic Anti-Shock Garment (NASG) is a low-technology, first-aid compression device which, when added to standard hypovolemic shock protocols, may improve outcomes for women with hypovolemic shock secondary to obstetric hemorrhage in tertiary facilities in low-resource settings. METHODS This study e...

Urgent cardiac ultrasound examination in the critical care setting is clinically useful. Application of goal-directed echocardiography in this setting is quite distinct from typical exploratory diagnostic comprehensive echocardiography, because the urgent critical care setting mandates a goal-directed approach. Goal-directed echocardiography most frequently aims to rapidly identify and differen...