Incidental falls from heights, falls on the same level caused by slipping or tripping, and falls from wheelchair overturns are commonplace phenomena, associated with serious injuries from impact with the ground. A wearable airbag device is a countermeasure applicable to all these types of incidents. Three types of wearable airbag systems were developed and evaluated: for protection against fall...

Falls are one of the major risks for seniors living alone at home. Computer vision systems, which do not require to wear sensors, offer a new and promising solution for fall detection. In this work, an occlusion robust method is presented based on two features: human centroid height relative to the ground and body velocity. Indeed, the first feature is an efficient solution to detect falls as t...

Administration of 30 mg folic acid by mouth caused a significant fall in cerebrospinal fluid homovanillic acid concentration in 11 subjects. There was no significant change of 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid concentration. The fall was less marked in five patients on anticonvulsant medication and failed to reach statistical significance. Neither homovanillic acid nor 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid conce...

Accidents and posttraumatic injuries are one of the most important health and social problems. Most of them require immediate medico-surgical intervention. Accidents are the leading cause of death among young people under age of 40. In 25% of cases they lead to disability. Fall from height causes inter alia blunt chest trauma, and internal organs contusion (e.g. heart and lungs), and may be fat...

Shaken baby syndrome (SBS), one of the most deadly and devastating forms of child abuse, is caused by violent shaking. The combination of subdural hematoma, retinal hemorrhage, brain swelling, and diffuse axonal injury is highly typical of this syndrome and faced with these autopsy findings, induced traumatic lesions are strongly considered. However, it is known that motor-vehicle accidents and...

Height is fundamental to assessing growth and nutrition, calculating body surface area, and predicting pulmonary function in childhood. Its measurement is hindered by muscle weakness, joint, or spinal deformity. Arm span has been used as a substitute, but is inaccurate. The objective of the study was to identify a limb measurement that precisely and reproducibly predicts height in childhood. Ma...

Safety of shipping is an ever growing concern. In a summary on shipping safety Douglas Faulkner investigates the causes of shipping casualties [1] and concludes that the number of unexplained accidents are far too high in comparison to other means of transport. From various sources, including insurers data over 30% of the casualties are due to bad weather ( a fact that ships should be able to c...