Potential Future Issues

A particularly volatile Issue is that of hormone-mimicking or antagonizing chemicals. Books, articles In the news, and television programs including one on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) have raised the public awareness of endocrine disrupters. Endocrine disrupters are those chemicals that affect hormonal secretions by the endocrine system of the human body. There is considerable scientific uncertainty about the effects of these substances, but public concern sometimes drives policy even without a scientific basis. 

One example is phthalate plasticizers used in PVC, which are suspected endocrine disrupters. In late 1998 the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced that it did not find any evidence that phthalate plasticizers leaching from vinyl teething toys pose any health risk to children, but none-the-less asked manufacturers to voluntarily remove them. Reportedly at least 90% of manufacturers did so, perhaps motivated as much by consumer refusal to purchase the products as by the CPSC request. 

In 1999, the concern focused on PVC bags for intravenous fluids, which also use phthalate plasticizers. The Health Care Without Harm Coalition launched a consumer education campaign claiming that the IV bags have similar problems to the 

PVC toys. One of the largest manufacturers, Baxter International Inc., said in 1999 that there was overwhelming evidence that the di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate used in its hags was safe, hut, in response to pressures from shareholders, promised to develop non-PVC alternatives for IV hags, and foresaw a slow but steady switch away from PVC throughout its product line. Baxter reported in about 2004 that they had switched to non-PVC materials for more than a dozen products, where alternatives had proven superior to PVC and regulatory clearance had been obtained [7]. 

The controversy has not disappeared in the intervening years, though attention has somewhat diminished. A 2014 report claimed that premature babies in neonatal intensive care units could be exposed to levels of DEHP, a particular phthalate plasticizer, at levels 4000 to 160,000 times higher than those considered safe. Interestingly, this study focused on non-endocrine-related toxic effects [8]. 

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Nuclear Reactors. Nuclear power faciUties account for about 20% of the power generated in the United States. Although no new plants are plaimed in the United States, many other countries, particularly those that would otherwise rely heavily on imported fuel, continue to increase their nuclear plant generation capacity. Many industry observers predict that nuclear power may become more attractive in future years as the price of fossil fuels continues to rise and environmental regulations become more stringent. In addition, advanced passive-safety reactor designs may help allay concerns over potential safety issues. 

However, the information derived from a detailed pharmacokinetic study will help to anticipate potential botanical product-drug interactions, to optimize the bioavailability, the quality, and hence the efficacy of herbal medicines, to support evidence for the synergistic nature of herbal medicines, and to better appreciate the safety and toxicity of the plant. Because pharmacokinetic studies with herbal medicines are often complicated by their chemical complexity and by the fact that the active compounds are often unknown, it could be one future issue to assess bioavailability by measuring surrogate parameters in plasma or tissue instead of directly assaying putative active compounds in the blood. In summary, to use HMPs in an evidence-based approach and to achieve the status rational phytomedicine, more experimental studies are needed to characterize the bioavailability and pharmacokinetics of botanical products. 

Diamond s properties make it the desirable material in thermal, optical, electrical, electronics, and mechanical applications. It has not been exploited to its maximum potential. Future trends are toward applications in medicine, biology, and the nuclear field. These fields already have applications that use diamond but continuous improvements are being made through research. Diamond is a strong candidate as a substitute for materials currently being used in a variety of applications. Although implementation may be deterred by cost factors or technical issues, the development of new deposition techniques may overcome this limitation. Deposition techniques and a higher control of processes surely will help to launch more sophisticated electronic applications that eventually will realize diamond s superior performance over other materials. 

When experimental research is being conducted (i.e. there is some intervention which would not occur in ordinary practice -e.g. randomisation), informed consent is considered essential. For non-experimental research (i.e. mere observation of ordinary practice), consent of individuals is generally not required and may not be feasible. The patient s right to privacy is a key issue and individual patient data need to be anonymised and held securely. Confidentiality legislation varies considerably between countries and potential future increases in stringency may threaten the viability of epidemiological research. 

Data come from insurance claims and administrative databases, including ouQta-tient dispensing codes, inpatient and ouQiatient diagnoses, and procedural codes. Theoretically, therefore, Mini-Sentinel should be able to provide the number of exposed lives as weU as outcome information that will permit assessment of cardiovascular event incidence with high statistical fidelity in a cost-effective manner. Mini-Sentinel has active project teams for statistical method development, identification of health outcomes, and validation of health outcomes. While the distributed nature of the approach currently limits the number of searches and the ability to assess potential safety issues in a more real-time manner, the EHR approach may be able to provide similar capabilities in a non-distributed manner in the future (Sager et al. 2015). 

Abstract. Since automotive IT is becoming more and more powerful, the IT-security in this domain is an evolving area of research. In this paper we focus on the relevance of the black box perspective in the context of threat analyses for automotive IT systems and discuss typical starting points and implications of respective attacks. We put a special focus on potential privacy issues, which we expect to be of increasing relevance in future automotive systems. To motivate appropriate provision for privacy protection in future cars we discuss potential scenarios of privacy violations. To underline the relevance even today, we further present a novel attack on a recent gateway ECU enabling an attacker to sniff arbitrary internal communication even beyond subnetwork borders. 

Overall, this work is a concerted effort to provide with a holistic perspective on earthquake engineering-related issues of recent currency. Its innovative, modular, and continuously updated form facilitates a potent, self-contained, and readily accessible exposition of multi/interdisciplinary elements in the broad field of earthquake engineering, thus enabling the researcher/practitioner/designer to identify links and potential future research themes in an efficient and timely manner. 

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