Fatal Fall Research Articles

Analysis of forecast statements of own revenues and their achievement: Case of the general reference hospital of Kabondo from 2020 to 2022

Introduction: For a hospital, self-financing is ensured by its own revenues produced by the sale of medicines, printed materials and medical services, that is to say the services offered to patients. The study specifically aimed to determine the evolution of own revenues generated by the Kabondo General Reference Hospital from 2020 to 2022, and to analyze how the planned own revenues are achieved during the study period. Methodology: We have opted for the inductive method, which starts from particular facts to global facts. Its starting point is the observation and experimentation of facts; Documentary analysis allowed us to collect the data. Expected revenues (forecasts) constitute the independent variable, also called endogenous variable (X), while realized revenues constitute the dependent or exogenous variable (Y). Finally, we looked for the linear correlation coefficient in order to establish the relationship between the forecasts and the achievements of own revenues. Results: The forecast revenue statements recorded a total amount of US$452,719.00 and the hospital had generated its own revenue of around US$478,056.40. The overall gap between realized revenue and forecast revenue was positive, i.e. US$25,337.40. The correlation coefficient between forecasts and actual revenues was -0.75. The GRH/Kabondo was probably performing well for the simple reason that the revenues generated evolved in saw tooth patterns, thus generating a positive difference with a fatal free fall during the 2022 financial year, ultimately causing a total lack of correlation between the forecasts and the achievements of GRH/Kabondo's own revenues from 2020 to 2022. Conclusion: The self-financing policy is encouraged in the sense that it makes the hospital autonomous from the outside and allows the organization to enjoy all its profits; therefore, to decide its allocation with complete freedom.

Падение рыцаря: персонификация Гордыни в южнофранцузской агиографии и иконографии XI–XII веков

The paper explores the dismounted knight as the personification of Pride in the context of Southern French art and hagiography of the 11th–12th centuries. This motif is based on the Psychomachia, the Late Antique allegorical poem by a 4th-century Christian poet Prudentius that visualizes a series of combats between Virtues and Vice. The key point in the sequence is the battle between Humility and mounted Pride culminating in the fall of the latter into the pit. The metaphor of Pride brought low literally visualized as the fall of a proud she-warrior from her steed resonates in the literature of the 11th–12th century. In the society where the image of an armed horseman is strongly associated with a member of the secular elite, the classical motif acquires a new social dimension. The Southern French hagiography of the 11th – early 12th century adapts it to the stories of punishment and derision of violent knights. Since the late 11th century allegorical figures of Virtues and Vices pass from the manuscript pages of illuminated treatises to the sculpted and painted decor of Romanesque churches. The Prudentius’ armed and armored she-warriors grow progressively abstract in this novel visual space. Following this development, Pride is the only vice to show little change in the way it is visualized. Within the iconographic programs of some church spaces mostly oriented towards constructing a social model using hagiographical topoi, Pride comes to be the only vice to keep her military attributes. Still personified as the dismounted cavalier, Pride becomes part of the universal eschatological perspective of the Last Judgment within the carved portal of the basilica of Sainte-Foy de Conques. The image has a local parallel in the episode of a knight’s fatal fall in the 11th century Book of Miracles of Saint Foy, with recent events remodeled on the episode of Prudentius’ learned poem. Thus, the image of a dismounted knight comes to stay in the visual allegory of the Middle Ages as an articulation of the aristocratic vice, one of the military elite. Starting as a mere episode in the allegorical combat of Virtues and Vices, the motif of Pride’s fall is shown to crystallize into a self-sufficient iconographic formula and literary topos.

Real-time monitoring unsafe behaviors of portable multi-position ladder worker using deep learning based on vision data

Introduction: Fatal fall from height accidents, especially on construction sites, persist, underscoring the importance of monitoring and managing worker behaviors to enhance safety. Deep learning showed the possibility of substituting the manual work of safety managers. However, applying detection results to determine compliance with safety regulations has limitations. Method: This study estimated the actual working height depending on the height of the object detection bounding box by specifying the consistent hinge part as a target marker based on ladder manufacturing regulations. Furthermore, an attempt was made to improve the separation between workers, coworkers, and persons unconnected to ladder activities by applying an optimized loss function alongside an attention mechanism. Results: The experimental results showed that an average precision increased from 87.60% to 90.44%. The performance of the monitoring unsafe behavior of ladder worker following the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency (KOSHA) guide was evaluated by 91.40 F1-Score, which accumulated sorted according to the working height. Conclusions: Experimental results show the feasibility of the real-time automate safety monitoring in ladder work. Practical Applications: By linking the estimated working height and deep learning multi-detection results to established safety regulations, the proposed method shows the potential to automatically monitoring unsafe behaviors in construction site.

Nonfatal and Fatal Falls Among Adults Aged ≥65 Years - United States, 2020-2021.

In the United States, unintentional falls are the leading cause of injury and injury death among adults aged ≥65 years (older adults). Patterns of nonfatal and fatal falls differ by sex and state. To describe this variation, data from the 2020 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and 2021 National Vital Statistics System were used to ascertain the percentage of older adults who reported falling during the previous year and unintentional fall-related death rates among older adults. Measures were stratified by demographic characteristics, U.S. Census Bureau region, and state. In 2020, 14 million (27.6%) older adults reported falling during the previous year. The percentage of women who reported falling (28.9%) was higher than that among men (26.1%). The percentage of older adults who reported falling ranged from 19.9% (Illinois) to 38.0% (Alaska). In 2021, 38,742 (78.0 per 100,000 population) older adults died as the result of unintentional falls. The unintentional fall-related death rate was higher among men (91.4 per 100,000) than among women (68.3). The fall-related death rate among older adults ranged from 30.7 per 100,000 (Alabama) to 176.5 (Wisconsin). CDC's Stopping Elderly Accidents, Deaths and Injuries (STEADI) initiative recommends that health care providers screen and assess older adults for fall risk and intervene using effective preventive strategies.

Falling off a balcony: a student experiment

Falling accidents are very common and are sometimes fatal. A fatal fall could be accidental, suicidal or homicide and needs to be investigated. A simple model of falls from a balcony is presented, together with simulated experimental results obtained using a straight rod falling over a horizontal rail. The experiments involve basic mechanics and would be suitable in a student laboratory or as a lecture demonstration.

Investigation of injuries sustained from falls down stairs

Interpretation of injuries sustained from fatal falls involving stairs is a challenge encountered by death investigation teams regularly. The high incidence of this occurrence is because stairs are a common entity in society. Without a medical evaluation of an individual's injuries, it is difficult to determine whether a fall from stairs contributed to how the individual died. The purpose of this study is to characterize the injuries of individuals that were sustained from a confirmed fatal fall involving stairs within our jurisdiction (Ontario, Canada) during 2014–2020. In a retrospective cross-sectional observation study, we examined 159 cases using both postmortem imaging and routine autopsy approaches. Our findings showed the head was the most common anatomical region injured. The most common injuries observed in the head included skull fracture(s) (most commonly the temporal, parietal and occipital bones), subarachnoid hemorrhages, and brain contusions. Anatomical regions less commonly injured included the extremities, thorax, and pelvis. This study identified an association between the presence of intracranial hemorrhage and those 65-years-old and younger; brain injury in the absence of pre-existing medical conditions; and brain injury for individuals that had a blood alcohol concentration between 0 and 80mg/100 mL. Extracranial skeletal trauma, as defined by skeletal trauma apart from the head region, was observed in 62% of cases. Extracranial skeletal trauma was also found to be strongly associated with individuals over 65-years-old. Overall, our study affirms that traumatic head injury is the primary cause of death from falls down stairs. Also, we provide information on rare injuries from falls down stairs, and indirectly, identify which body locations appear protected from injury during falls. These findings may aid in the interpretation of whether injuries in this setting are compatible with accidental or non-accidental trauma.

Investigating patterns of workplace fatal fall injuries: Case study of Malaysia

Introduction: Falling from heights can be a serious and potentially life-threatening hazard. In Malaysia, falls from heights are one of the leading causes of workplace accidents and fatalities. The Malaysian Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) reported that the year 2021 recorded an alarmingly high number of fatalities, of which the majority of the injuries were due to falls from heights. Objective: The purpose of this study is to understand the relationship between the different variables associated with fatal falls from heights, which will help identify potential areas to work on to prevent these types of injuries. Methods: The study analyzed 3,321 fatal falls from height accidents from 2010 to 2020 DOSH data. Data were cleaned and normalized to extract relevant information for analysis, with agreement on variables and reliability achieved through independent sampling. Results: This study found that general workers were the most vulnerable category to fatal falls, with a 32% yearly average, whereas supervisors were the least vulnerable, with 4%. Roofers recorded a yearly fatal falls average of 15.5%, followed by electricians with 12%. Cramer’s V results ranged from negligible, weak, and strong correlations; strong to moderate correlation between the dates of injuries and the factors used in this study, whereas the direct and root causes recorded a weak to negligible correlation with the rest of the variables. Conclusions: This study provided a better understanding of the working conditions of the Malaysian construction industry. By analyzing fall injury patterns and uncovering the factors, direct and root causes relationship with other variables, it was clear how severe the Malaysian workplace conditions were. Practical Applications: This study will help better understand fatal fall injuries in the Malaysian construction industry and help develop prevention measures based on the uncovered patterns and associations.

Object detection and activity recognition in video surveillance using neural networks

PurposeThis paper aims to implement and extend the You Only Live Once (YOLO) algorithm for detection of objects and activities. The advantage of YOLO is that it only runs a neural network once to detect the objects in an image, which is why it is powerful and fast. Cameras are found at many different crossroads and locations, but video processing of the feed through an object detection algorithm allows determining and tracking what is captured. Video Surveillance has many applications such as Car Tracking and tracking of people related to crime prevention. This paper provides exhaustive comparison between the existing methods and proposed method. Proposed method is found to have highest object detection accuracy.Design/methodology/approachThe goal of this research is to develop a deep learning framework to automate the task of analyzing video footage through object detection in images. This framework processes video feed or image frames from CCTV, webcam or a DroidCam, which allows the camera in a mobile phone to be used as a webcam for a laptop. The object detection algorithm, with its model trained on a large data set of images, is able to load in each image given as an input, process the image and determine the categories of the matching objects that it finds. As a proof of concept, this research demonstrates the algorithm on images of several different objects. This research implements and extends the YOLO algorithm for detection of objects and activities. The advantage of YOLO is that it only runs a neural network once to detect the objects in an image, which is why it is powerful and fast. Cameras are found at many different crossroads and locations, but video processing of the feed through an object detection algorithm allows determining and tracking what is captured. For video surveillance of traffic cameras, this has many applications, such as car tracking and person tracking for crime prevention. In this research, the implemented algorithm with the proposed methodology is compared against several different prior existing methods in literature. The proposed method was found to have the highest object detection accuracy for object detection and activity recognition, better than other existing methods.FindingsThe results indicate that the proposed deep learning–based model can be implemented in real-time for object detection and activity recognition. The added features of car crash detection, fall detection and social distancing detection can be used to implement a real-time video surveillance system that can help save lives and protect people. Such a real-time video surveillance system could be installed at street and traffic cameras and in CCTV systems. When this system would detect a car crash or a fatal human or pedestrian fall with injury, it can be programmed to send automatic messages to the nearest local police, emergency and fire stations. When this system would detect a social distancing violation, it can be programmed to inform the local authorities or sound an alarm with a warning message to alert the public to maintain their distance and avoid spreading their aerosol particles that may cause the spread of viruses, including the COVID-19 virus.Originality/valueThis paper proposes an improved and augmented version of the YOLOv3 model that has been extended to perform activity recognition, such as car crash detection, human fall detection and social distancing detection. The proposed model is based on a deep learning convolutional neural network model used to detect objects in images. The model is trained using the widely used and publicly available Common Objects in Context data set. The proposed model, being an extension of YOLO, can be implemented for real-time object and activity recognition. The proposed model had higher accuracies for both large-scale and all-scale object detection. This proposed model also exceeded all the other previous methods that were compared in extending and augmenting the object detection to activity recognition. The proposed model resulted in the highest accuracy for car crash detection, fall detection and social distancing detection.

The Breach by Naomi Wallace (review)

Reviewed by: The Breach by Naomi Wallace Erica Stevens Abbitt THE BREACH. By Naomi Wallace. Directed by Sarah Frankcom. Hampstead Theatre, London. May 12, 2022. In an era of social crisis in Britain and the United States, this production of Naomi Wallace’s provocative coming-of-age drama The Breach marked a series of firsts. It was the first time this award-winning British-American playwright had been featured at London’s Hampstead Theatre, despite its ongoing commitment to innovative drama. It was the first production for this venue directed by Sarah Frankcom, known for her fearless dedication to contemporary playwrights during her tenure at the Manchester Royal Exchange. It was also The Breach’s English-language premiere. Ironically, this play, written by a Kentucky native, and commissioned by the Actors Theatre of Louisville, was firmly rejected for production by a number of American stages. In France, where translations of Wallace’s play are popular, and her Obie-award-winning drama One Flea Spare is in the permanent repertoire of the Comédie-Française, The Breach received its world premiere (as La Brèche) in a critically-acclaimed production at the 2019 Avignon Festival. (A Québécois version of La Brèche was performed in Montreal in 2021, and the play has recently been translated into German.) Set in Kentucky in 1977 and 1991, The Breach dramatizes the lives of four people—first as teenagers, and then, for the three of them who survive into adulthood, as grown-ups—as their youthful dreams collide with the realities of a country ravaged by the Vietnam War and the destructive impact of Reaganomics. The central figure is feisty sixteen-year-old Jude (Shannon Tarbet, a standout in a powerful cast). She fiercely guards her geeky, brainiac younger brother Acton (Stanley Morgan), carving out a basement sanctuary in their blue-collar home, where their hard-working widowed mother scarcely ever sets foot. When Acton is mercilessly bullied at school, he seeks protection from rich kid Hoke (Alfie Jones), and his eager sidekick Frayne (Charlie Beck). Thirteen years later, when the adult Jude (Jasmine Black-borow) returns to town after Acton’s suicide, she reunites with a grown-up Hoke (Tom Lewis), now CEO of his father’s pharmaceutical company, and a wary, chastened Frayne (Douggie McMeekin), still trailing in Hoke’s wake. As the past and present intersect, secrets are revealed, and troubling questions resurface: Did the boys drug and rape Jude on the night of her seventeenth birthday with her brother’s consent? Or were they tricked by the siblings into a promise of protection for Acton and a lifetime of guilt? Was a crime committed—and, if so, who were the victims? And what happens next? In the Hampstead production of The Breach, the cast members encircled each other in a series of scenes moving fluidly across time and place. Frank-com honoured the playwright’s stage directions to embody wild moments with still bodies, which meant that actors appeared to hover on the edge of disturbing encounters. This approach (ably assisted by choreographer Jennifer Jackson) worked best with the younger performers, who vibrated with barely-repressed energy as they paused, almost in mid-flight, to speak of their father’s fatal fall or the shocking arrangement to trade access to Jude’s body for Acton’s survival. In the older actors, this risky technique was only fully realized near the end, when Blackborow (as the adult Jude) stood quietly, almost transfixed, delivering a joyful speech about the new life she planned with her daughter. Supporting the productive tension between gritty realism and the surreal, dream-like nature of this [End Page 85] Click for larger view View full resolution Shannon Tarbet (Jude) in The Breach. Photo: Johan Persson. [End Page 86] Click for larger view View full resolution Stanley Morgan (Acton), Douggie McMeekin (Frayne), Jasmine Blackborow (Adult Jude), Shannon Tarbet (Young Jude) in The Breach. Photo: Johan Persson. disturbing narrative, Naomi Dawson created a minimalist set, both intimate and dangerous. Deftly lit by Rick Fisher, with a soundscape by Tingying Dong evoking the anarchic undertones of an American generation in transition, the performance space reinforced the play’s...

Predicting fatal fall from heights accidents using random forest classification machine learning model

The focus of this paper is to use machine learning to create a prediction model that detects the probable factors impacting fatal falls from heights accidents at the Malaysia construction industry. The dataset used in this study was imported from the Department of Occupational Safety and Health of Malaysia’s industrial accident database. The dataset details 3321 accident scenarios which include; the date, the activity, the region, the summary of the accident, the direct cause, the root cause, and the factors. Seven machine learning models were tested to determine which model fits the dataset better, and as a result, the Random Forest Classification model was selected for this work. Random Forest classification tested several contributing factors such as: site conditions, management factors, individual characteristics and agent factors separately to determine their accuracy. Management factors and individual characteristics factors recorded the highest accuracy in every other prediction model; while agent factors recorded the highest accuracy in the random forest model. Additionally, this approach created ensemble predictions based on all of the dataset's characteristics. As a result, this study establishes the feasibility of machine learning in the field of construction safety management. The provided results can aid in accident prevention by increasing awareness of potential safety hazards, quantitatively predicting fatal accidents, and implementing the findings in potential safety management systems.

Fatal fall incidents in the Indian construction industry: a case study analysis

The fall from height fatal accident rate is higher than those of other accidents in the construction sector because of work-related causes. The purpose of this study was to investigate the causal factors of fatal fall incidents in the Indian construction industry. This study adopted a three-level accident causation model developed by Loughborough University researchers, aiming to identify immediate circumstances, shaping factors and originating influences in selected incidents. The accident cases were retrieved from police records and government documents. Accident data from 2019 to 2020 were studied, and specific emphasis was placed on fatal fall events. These events were subjected to content review to determine causal factors. In total, ten fatal fall cases were analysed in which immediate circumstances were established for all the cases that involved the use of unsafe methods of work. In some cases, shaping factors were identified as possible contributors to the events, such as the work process nature and team members’ communication. Originating influences could not be established in any of the cases. The study findings could give a more comprehensive qualitative insight into the causal factors of fatal fall accidents, which could alert stakeholders in developing safety programmes and providing effective fall preventive measures.

Turn It Up! Music in Poetry from Jazz to Hip-Hop ed. by Stephen Cramer

Reviewed by: Turn It Up! Music in Poetry from Jazz to Hip-Hop ed. by Stephen Cramer Eric Plaks (bio) turn it up! music in poetry from jazz to hip-hop Stephen Cramer, ed. Sundog Poetry Center and Green Writers Press https://www.sundogpoetry.org/shop/p/turn-it-up-music-in-poetry-from-jazz-to-hip-hop-edited-by-stephen-cramer 400 pages; Print, $19.95 As I suspect is true of many readers of this anthology, compiled and edited by poet and University of Vermont professor Stephen Cramer, I approach Turn It Up! Music in Poetry from Jazz to Hip-Hop with more recognition of the names and sounds in the music world than in the world of poetry. Since I am a jazz performer and music enthusiast, there are very few musicians referenced in the anthology that I had to google, but almost every poet was a new discovery to me, with the exception of some extremely well-known figures (James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Amiri Baraka, Joyce Carol Oates, Jack Kerouac, and Allen Ginsberg). As such, I found reading Cramer’s three-part alphabetic-by-last-name anthology of gorgeous words by a vast array of mostly American poets on the topic of music to be an incredibly valuable and pleasurable experience. The title of part 1, “A Shower of Golden Eighth Notes: Poems about Jazz,” comes from a line in Lynda Hull’s poem “Lost Fugue for Chet,” one of four poems by Hull included in the anthology. Like so many of the poets and their musician subjects in this anthology, Hull lived a fascinating and tragically short life, dying in a car crash in 1994. In a sense she lived the crazy life of the stereotypical jazzer, running away from home and college after having been accepted to Princeton at age sixteen and moving from Chinatown to Chinatown in her teen years (it’s a long story worth checking out on its own). Like her subject, Baker, Hull had personal experience with heroin, and the “shower of golden eighth notes” is Hull’s unforgettable word picture of the fatal fall of Baker’s body from an Amsterdam balcony in 1988. While the alphabetical presentation of the poets would seem to be a natural randomizer in terms of thematic organization, themes do emerge. A world of jazz is being sketched out by thirty-five poets in alphabetical order, [End Page 150] each one a giant in his or her own right despite having only one to five poems included in this anthology. It is not the factual world of jazz history, but rather the impressions made on the poets, who are a very diverse bunch although still a bit more recent and a bit whiter on average than the jazz musicians themselves. There is to me a bit of the widespread romanticization of the trappings of jazz—the smoke, the scene, the heroin, Chet Baker and Chet Baker again—but poet after poet more than solves the conundrum of writing about music that Cramer references in his introduction, when he quotes an unknown author (Steve Martin? Frank Zappa? Thelonious Monk?) of the phrase “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” These poets make music when they write about music and, as in jazz, it’s all about the phrasing, and the phrasing is gorgeous. As I learned more about the poets, more direct connections to jazz emerged—for example, Jayne Cortez, the author of two extremely hip poems in the collection—“Rose Solitude” (dedicated to Duke Ellington and getting at his African roots) and “Tapping” (read this poem aloud and you will feel that it is tap-dancing about poetry and not the other way around)—is the mother of Denardo Coleman from her relationship with Ornette. Part 1 has poems about jazz legends such as Bird, Miles, Mingus, Chet (too many), Lena Horne, Trane (many, and many about his heroin and his rotting teeth), Monk (lots), Sonny Rollins, Billie, Dinah, Ella, Eric Dolphy, Max Roach, J. J. Johnson, McCoy Tyner, Sidney Bechet, Art Tatum, and Sonny Criss—but also poems about lesser-known figures such as Indianapolis drummer Stan Gage (“Sonnets for Stan Gage...

A 13-Year Study of Fatal Falls From Height in Northern Tunisia.

Falls from height are a major cause of unintentional injury death, resulting in high disability and mortality. We investigated the characteristics of fatal falls and their relationship with intentionality, injury patterns, and death on impact. In this retrospective study, we examined 545 cases of fatal falls from height that underwent autopsy in the forensic department of the Charles Nicolle hospital of Tunis (Tunisia) between January 2008 and December 2020. Cases were reviewed in terms of demographics, fall characteristics, and autopsy findings. The population was predominately male (86.6%). Four hundred twenty-one (77.3%) originated from accidents, 120 (22%) were found to be suicidal, with 4 homicide cases. A notable decline in cases was noticed following the Jasmine revolution, 2011 (R squared = 0.8). The mean height of falls was 8 m. Higher falls were associated with a set of organ-specific injuries. Organ injury pattern did not differ based on intentionality. Female victims were 2.4 times more likely to sustain pelvic injuries than males. The majority of victims deceased before reaching health care structures. Death on impact was strongly associated with higher falls, cranial impact, and organ-specific injuries, including cardiac, pulmonary, and skull injuries.Falls from height are in many cases preventable. A clearly defined fall safety policy, strict implementation of evidence-based interventions, efficient allocation of resources, and raising safety awareness must to be urgently implemented. Understanding patterns of injury and the factors that influence death on impact may be of further interest in the prevention and management of survivors in the acute period.

Fatal fall from height with self-inflicted wounds - A case of complex unplanned suicide

A 32-year-old man Jumped to death from his multistoried apartement He had multiple deep incised wound on his left forearm and neck. The incident was concluded as suicide after a proper Police investigation, Crime Scene Investigation, Circumstances Analysis and Complete Autopsy. Although Suicides by Fall is not uncommon but associated multiple Deep incised Wounds on the Neck and Extremities is not Known, Though Self inflicted Incised wounds are frequently reported. We present this Rare and Unheard case of Complex and Unplanned Suicide, a combination of Deep incised Neck wounds and Extremity Wounds in a Fatal Fall. The Crime Scene investigation, the method employed, the autopsy findings and the interview with their relatives altogether pointed toward a suicidal etiology.

The predictive power of geographic health care utilization for unintentional fatal fall rates

BackgroundFalls are the leading cause of fatal and nonfatal injuries among adults over 65 years old. The increase in fall mortality rates is likely multifactorial. With a lack of key drivers identified to explain rising rates of death from falls, accurate predictive modelling can be challenging, hindering evidence-based health resource and policy efforts. The objective of this work is to examine the predictive power of geographic utilization and longitudinal trends in mortality from unintentional falls amongst different demographic and geographic strata.MethodsThis is a nationwide, retrospective cohort study using the United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS) database. The exposure was death from an unintentional fall as determined by the CDC. Outcomes included aggregate and trend crude and age-adjusted death rates. Health care utilization, reimbursement, and cost metrics were also compared.ResultsOver 2001 to 2018, 465,486 total deaths due to unintentional falls were recorded with crude and age-adjusted rates of 8.42 and 7.76 per 100,000 population respectively. Comparing age-adjusted rates, males had a significantly higher age-adjusted death rate (9.89 vs. 6.17; p < 0.00001), but both male and female annual age-adjusted mortality rates are expected to rise (Male: + 0.25 rate/year, R2= 0.98; Female: + 0.22 rate/year, R2= 0.99). There were significant increases in death rates commensurate with increasing age, with the adults aged 85 years or older having the highest aggregate (201.1 per 100,000) and trending death rates (+ 8.75 deaths per 100,000/year, R2= 0.99). Machine learning algorithms using health care utilization data were accurate in predicting geographic age-adjusted death rates.ConclusionsMachine learning models have high accuracy in predicting geographic age-adjusted mortality rates from health care utilization data. In the United States from 2001 through 2018, adults aged 85+ years carried the highest death rate from unintentional falls and this rate is forecasted to accelerate.

Recent insights on gene expression studies on Hevea Brasiliensis fatal leaf fall diseases.

Hevea brasiliensis is one of the most important agricultural commodities globally, heavily cultivated in Southeast Asia. Fatal leaf fall diseases cause aggressive leaf defoliation, linked to lower latex yield and death of crops before maturity. Due to the significant consequences of the disease to H. brasiliensis, the recent gene expression studies from four fall leaf diseases of H. brasiliensis were gathered; South American leaf blight, powdery mildew, Corynespora cassiicola and Phytophthora leaf fall disease. The differential analysis observed the pattern of commonly expressed genes upon fungi triggers using RT-PCR, DDRT-PCR, Real-time qRT-PCR and RNA-Seq. We have observed that RNA-Seq is the best tool to seek novel genes. Among the identified genes with defence-against fungi were pathogenesis-related genes such as β-1,3-glucanase and chitinase, the reactive oxygen species, and the phytoalexin biosynthesis. This manuscript also provided functional elaboration on the responsive genes and predicted possible biosynthetic pathways to identify and characterise novel genes in the future. At the end of the manuscript, the PCR methods and proteomic approaches were presented for future molecular and biochemical studies in the related diseases to H. brasiliensis.

Patterns of Injuries in Fatal Fall from Height Cases in Gharbia Governorate: Autopsy Study

Background: A fall is defined as an event in which a person inadvertently lands on the ground after falling from a higher place. It is the second most common cause of unintentional injury associated mortality after traffic accidents. Sometimes, when a body is brought for autopsy it is unclear whether injuries are due to a fall from a height or due to blunt trauma from other cause. Objectives: the aim of this study is to spot light on injuries in fatal falls from height so that any pattern which might help in discriminating between these injuries and injuries due to blunt trauma from other causes could be identified. Methods: This work included retrospective study of fatal fall from height cases which subjected to medico-legal autopsy in Tanta Department of Forensic Institute- Gharbia Governorate during the period from the start of January 2012 to the end of October 2015. In addition, a cross-sectional study with autopsy was carried out on fatal fall from height cases from the start of November 2015 to the end of October 2016. Results: The majority of cases (52.38%) were in the age group 20-40 years. Males registered 76.2% of cases. Urban areas recorded 64.3% of cases. Head first impact was noticed in 66.7% of cases. Poly-trauma was the cause of death in 76.2% of cases. Nearly all cases showed diffuse head injuries involving bones, meninges and brain and accompanying intracranial hemorrhage. The majority of cases registered negative drug screening. Conclusion: External injuries including abrasions, contusions and lacerations were diffusely involving different body regions except neck. Skull fractures are distributed evenly amongst vault and base. Polytrauma is the most predominant cause of death. After the brain, thoracic cage and lung injuries were encountered in more than half of the cases. Liver is the most common abdomino-pelvic organ involved.

Death abroad: Medico-legal autopsy results of repatriated corpses: A retrospective analysis of cases at the Department of Legal Medicine in Frankfurt am Main

IntroductionRepatriated corpses may have been autopsied abroad. The aim of the study was to compare the findings from second medico-legal autopsies with those from primary autopsies abroad to spotlight possible implications for the management of repatriated corpses. Material and MethodsAll autopsies from a 20-year period at the Institute of Legal Medicine in Frankfurt am Main on repatriated corpses of German citizens were reviewed. The results were compared with the information from the body passports, the protocols of the autopsies in the country of death, and the police files. ResultsIn total, 151 corpses repatriated from 56 different countries were autopsied. The interval between death and autopsy in Germany was 2–603 days (median: 11 days). 91 of the repatriated corpses (59.5%) had previously been autopsied abroad. Three body cavities had been opened in 78.0% (71/91) of the original autopsies; among them, there were 11 cases (15.5%) with dissection of all organs, as opposed to 7 cases (9.9%) with all organs intact and in situ.Of the previously autopsied corpses, 62.6% were accompanied by a body passport that noted the cause of death. In nearly 75% of these cases, the stated cause of death was compatible with that established at second autopsy. In 5 cases (10.2%), the cause of death established in the second autopsy disagreed with that on the body passport. The most prominent disparity was a cranial gunshot wound rather than the stated fatal fall. DiscussionThis analysis of individual cases spotlights the problematics of an uncritical approval of the body passport. In light of the different procedural autopsy standards around the world, the validity of an autopsy abroad is discussed in the context of the second autopsy results. ConclusionA second external postmortem examination by qualified medical practitioners should be obligatory in all cases of repatriated corpses, with notification of the criminal police in all cases of non-natural or undetermined death. A timely second autopsy is recommended even in cases with previous autopsy abroad.

LUCIANO MARTINI SCRITTORE

Luciano Martini was an intelligent and accurate many-sided person who could have played, in his lifetime, many different professional roles and in fact left on this world clear footsteps of his versatility. In this short paper I am referring just to his literary activity. His main literary piece of work is an essay book dedicated to the figure of Geo Chavez, a young man who became interested to the first aircrafts that in fact had an extraordinary time of interest in France, at the beginning of the twentieth century. Chavez was due to be the first to succeed to cross the Alps by the aerial mean, although he unfortunately precipitated and lost his life at his arrival in Domodossola, on September 1910. I believe that the choice of Martini to tell this heroic and tragic story was due to a deep personal evaluation and to a strong affinity of civil and ethical values. Among the various subjects treated in this book, I wish to point out the cause of the fatal fall that took the life of the young Chavez. This cause was never fully understood since 1910, that is through a entire century but it is accurately discussed by Martini by means of a rational and passional approach worthy of a master who defends the memory of a young pupil lost while being in service. Martini resolutely refuses to believe that the fall of the aircraft might have been due to a human mistake in the maneuver of landing. He believes that the young Chavez was a pilot experienced enough to avoid such an elementary mistake. He is sure and does demonstrate that much more realistic is the hypothesis of a structural collapse of the aircraft itself. Therefore, Chavez fall was comparable to that of Icarus that accomplished his promised flight but finally precipitated due to the wax fusion of his wings. The fact that his fall happened just in the lowest ten meters of altitude was neither a reason of consolation nor of salvation.

Effect of Wind on Horizontal Displacement of Fatal Fall from a Height.

The horizontal displacement of the human body resulting from fatal fall from a height is an important variable commonly used to inversely determine the cause or identify other forensic aspects of the fall. When examining the horizontal displacement, the wind effect is generally ignored. This technical note reports analytical modeling of the falling process, utilizing previous measurements of wind force acting on the human body, for determining the functional relationship between the wind speed and the horizontal displacement in the falling process. The result reveals that it does not take extremely rare wind conditions to cause a considerable shift of the human body, highlighting the importance to consider wind as a factor in investigations of fatal falls.