IDENTIFICATION OF VULNERABILITIES

The short-term actions include (1) establishment of a priority list of substances for further evaluation of their role in endocrine disruption monitoring levels of suspect chemicals in food and the environment (2) identification of vulnerable groups of people (such as children) who need to be given special consideration (3) establishment of an international network to enable information exchange and coordination of research and testing and (4) communication with the public and continuing consultation with stakeholders. 

Yuan C, Mitsumori LM, Beach KW et al. (2001) Carotid atherosclerotic plaque noninvasive MR characterization and identification of vulnerable lesions. Radiology 221 285-299... 

The development and implementation of such a methodology enables the realization of instant identification of vulnerable critical systems and automatic selection of optimal risk control options. 

The Severe Accident Policy Statement formulates systematic safety examinations for detection of accident vulnerabilities and implementation of cost-effective changes. The NRC issued Generic Letter 88-20 to implement this plan through IPEs. While the primary goal was the identification of plant vulnerabilities, no definition of vulnerability was provided. Only 4 operators of BWRs identified vulnerabilities and only 16 operators of PWRs did so. Over 500 plant improvements were identified, but few vulnerabilities were. 

A new coronavirus was quickly identified after the outbreak of an atypical pneumonia in southern China early in 2003. The new virus eventually caused 8,000 infections with approximately 800 deaths in 29 countries. The condition was named Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, SARS, and the causative coronavirus named SARS-CoV. The zoonotic nature of the infection came with the identification of a similar virus in bats (Poon et al. 2005), although it is possible that the bat virus passed through other animal hosts and recombined with other SARS-like coron-aviruses prior to infecting humans (Hon et al. 2008). SARS-CoV is not currently circulating in the human population however, the mysterious appearance and rapid spread of this virus emphasized how vulnerable the human population is to such respiratory infections. This has spurred interest in the development of antivirals that could be used either in treatment or as prophylaxis to complement public health measures in curbing future outbreaks. 

Contrast MRI requires incorporation of paramagnetic material onto the PFC-based targeted particles [48,49]. Incorporation of a gadolinium(lll) complex into the lipid monolayer that coats targeted emulsion droplets provides contrast agents useful for both US and MRI modalities. Paramagnetic fibrin-specific PFC emulsion droplets allowed sensitive detection and localization of thrombi by MRI and may allow early identification of fibrin deposits in vulnerable atherosclerotic plaques. The emulsion droplets had both an antifibrin... 

The identification of a compound using only its retention time is vulnerable to error. It is essential that a standard compound is injected in order to verify the retention time. As is the case in gas chromatography, more sophisticated detectors can be used. These detectors provide complementary information and can be installed at the end of the column. These can be other types of spectrophotometers or a mass spectrometer and they are used simultaneously as classical detectors (to obtain the chromatogram) or for identification purposes of the analytes (cf. Chapter 16). For example, the coupling of HPLC to NMR, which has long been considered impossible, has now been realised through the miniaturisation of the probes and the increased sensitivity of the NMR instruments (cf. Chapter 9). 

The identification of areas of vulnerability and of specific hazards is of fundamental importance in loss prevention. Once these have identified, the battle is more than half won. 

From a purely biological perspective, data analysis of small molecules and natural product screening differ only slightly. Certain screen formats such as enzyme-based screens are vulnerable to interference by extracts and can exhibit high false positive rates. The ability to flag troublesome extracts is vital to allow the identification of genuine active samples. Conversely, the identification of false negatives is afflicted by the very complex natures of natural products due to their inherent properties and extraction methods. 

The identification of which patients are more prone to serious or life-threatening side effects from a particular drug so that the prescriber will avoid that drug in these vulnerable individuals. 

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