Categories Of Harm Research Articles

Decriminalising terror: for a zemiology of counterterrorism

Over the past two decades, UK counterterrorism efforts have involved contentious legal and social measures aimed at preventing harm and increasing security. Critical scholars argue that these measures narrowly define security, risk, and harm, failing to recognise intervention itself as a potential threat to individuals and communities. Despite significant critical research, the legitimacy of the criminal justice model of counterterrorism persists in criminological scholarship. This article uses zemiology, the study of social harm, to critique contemporary counterterrorism’s impact. It employs UK counterterrorism as its case study, highlighting its ‘security first’ approach and its narrow definition of public interest. Three key arguments are advanced: first, counterterrorism is not an exceptional extension of criminal law but a form of hybrid governance; second, viewing this governance through a crime-centric lens obscures the harms of criminalisation and overlooks non-criminalised politically-motivated violence; third, examining counterterrorism through a social harm lens allows for a focus on social and racial structures, rather than state-defined categories of harm. The social harm perspective challenges the conceptualisation of terrorism as a crisis justifying exceptional measures, highlighting instead counterterrorism’s broader social impact. The zemiological approach highlights the role of law, not just as source of protection, but also as a means of repression and state violence, emphasising state accountability and providing a framework for identifying and preventing social harm. This perspective centres the broader implications of counterterrorism policies on social structures and racial dynamics, allowing for a more comprehensive understanding of security and harm.

Care-theoretic semantics

Abstract This paper argues for two claims, one conservative and the other one less so. First is the thesis that the range of linguistic features that can be considered authentically semantic is far wider in breadth than is typically acknowledged. In particular, linguistic phenomena that are entirely orthogonal to veridical considerations—including ethical matters—are sufficiently robust to support e.g. theories of meaning and inference. Second, we aim to argue that philosophy’s prioritization of truth obscures the existence of an important prior concern for care or the reduction of harm. Specifically, we offer a topic-theoretic interpretation of the bounds consequence reading of sequents put forward by Restall and Ripley. We argue that this reading allows us to provide a rigorous semantics using the newly introduced categories of care and harm. An important objection may be that philosophy requires the centrality and priority of truth above all else insofar as truth-like features are necessary to ground theories of meaning or reasoning. Anticipating such an objection, we will argue that care not only is an authentically semantic feature but also that care is sufficient to ground such theories.

Current approaches to the identification and management of gambling disorder: a narrative review to inform clinical practice in Australia and New Zealand.

Gambling disorder is a recognised psychiatric disorder in the Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-5) and is classified as an addiction alongside alcohol and substance use disorders. The DSM-5 describes a past-year timeframe, episodic or persistent specifiers, early or sustained remission specifiers, and three gambling disorder severity specifiers (mild, moderate and severe). Although anyone can develop gambling disorder, there are known risk factors. In studies involving general adult populations, the likelihood of developing the disorder varies with the type of gambling, and is particularly high for internet gambling, casino table games and poker machines. Australia and New Zealand have shifted the focus of gambling disorder to the identification of gambling harm, in recognition that efforts targeting the prevention of harm may be more effective as they potentially influence a larger segment of the population. Temporal categories of gambling harm (crisis harms versus legacy harms) affect help-seeking and need for treatment. Crisis harms often motivate people to change their behaviour or seek help, whereas treatment addresses legacy harms, which emerge or continue to occur after gambling behaviour ceases. The evidence base and clinical guidelines recommend cognitive behavioural therapy and motivational interviewing but there are many gaps in our understanding of treatment for gambling disorder, including an absence of high quality evaluations that assess treatment effectiveness over the longer term, especially for treatment delivered in community settings. There is also an urgent need to understand how, why and for whom treatment works so that interventions can be optimised to individual needs, thereby facilitating client engagement. Because of limited access to health care and poor retention in treatment, in recent years there has been an increase in treatment choices in the form of internet therapies and smartphone applications.

Toxicity prediction based on PAHs in fruits and vegetables − A machine learning approach

This study analyses the toxicity levels of fruits and vegetables by identifying the presence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), particularly in areas affected by industrial and vehicle pollution. The presence of PAHs on plant surfaces, caused mostly by air pollution particulate matter, raises serious concerns about the nutritional value of these foods. Traditional techniques for measuring PAH levels include Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry (GC/MS) and High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). Although successful, these procedures are expensive and time-consuming. Toxicity detection is often based on expert knowledge or experimental analysis relative to the European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) limits. In response to these challenges, this work uses artificial intelligence approaches to determine toxicity levels using 16 PAHs. Data on PAH concentrations in fruits and vegetables were collected from a variety of sources, classified as safe or harmful, and verified using statistical analysis. The validated dataset was subsequently classified using several machine learning techniques. The level of toxicity is scaled and compared to the expected outputs using the results obtained from the neural network. An experimental investigation validates the promising findings of level of toxicity classification using artificial intelligence approaches, which are then evaluated statistically. The study shows that machine learning algorithms obtained classification accuracies of over 90 %, including the evaluation of harmfulness. The accuracy for the two-class (Safe and Unsafe) category was 98.27 %, while the accuracy for the four-class (No harm, Low harm, Moderate Harm, and Severe harm) category was 98.68 %. These findings highlight the potential of artificial intelligence in improving food safety and public health by presenting an innovative multidisciplinary method to assessing the impacts of environmental pollutants on the edibility of fruits and vegetables in the context of climate change.

형사실체법에서 법익개념과 피해자의 지위 - 해악의 원칙: 형사입법의 제한에 피해자는 기여하는가?

The principle that there is no crime without legal interest to protect serves to set the limits of criminal legislation. In such a theory centered on the legal interest, it is not known what function the victim performs in the criminal law. However, in the criminal law regulations protecting individuals, the victim's traces appear in that the person attributing legal interests is the victim, and it is not an active marker of the criminal law. Here is looked at whether the areas that are difficult to solve with the theory of legal interest can be supplemented with the principles of common law system. The “Harm to Others Principle,” which the state sees as the most legitimate purpose of restricting individual freedom to prevent acts of harm to others, presupposes the existence of the victim. Next, Offense theory is a theory that the state's penal intervention becomes possible when the infringement of an individual's special feelings is accepted as a serious infringement beyond the subjective tendency, unlike the moral or ethical violation as a common behavior of a community. While debating whether personal legal interests and ecological or functional- human-centered legal interests should interpret legal interests centered on human interests or expand them beyond that, it was confirmed that the principle of harm and its derivative principle could be solved simply but more clearly. If the principle of harm is accepted, the victim can be determined in any way and the criminal substance law can be restricted centered on the victim, because it can have the effect of limiting the area of crime through crimes of harming interests by determining the category of harm. On the other hand, it was also examined that while the existence of the victim may perform a systematic critical function of restricting criminal legislation on the one hand, there is a concern that excessive crime may be expanded by interpreting and expanding the existing criminal constituent requirements in interpretation centered on the victim. Of course, even if the principle of harm is accepted, judgment based on an individual's subjective emotion of pleasure or displeasure still cannot be a complete solution in that there is a concern of arbitrary interpretation. This paper would be liked to terminate without concluding what is reasonable. Instead, would like to replace the conclusion with the effect that it is necessary to rethink the basis of “what” criminal law should be legislated clearly.

Analyzing actual crime victimizations of people with dementia in criminal court judgment databases in Japan

ABSTRACT People with dementia suffer not only from symptoms but also from social vulnerability including an increased risk of abuse and criminal victimization. In existing quantitative studies, the data are based on reports by people with dementia themselves, their family members, or concerned persons, which may be insufficient to accurately identify the actual mechanisms and circumstances of abuse or victimization. To speculate on the exact realities of people with dementia victimization, we extracted criminal sentences of perpetrators collected from the Japanese judgment database. A total of 152 cases in approximately 23 years included various victimization situations; these cases were classified into six categories of harm (physical, psychological, neglect, sexual, financial, and miscellaneous) and five categories of perpetrator (spouse, child, other family, supporter, and stranger or other). There were 93 cases of physical victimization by the spouse or child, which were statistically analyzed. Through case inspections, we provide an accurate victimization process of people with dementia and propose a four-class typology of physical victimization by the family: care exhaustion, antipathy to people with dementia, self-righteous or self-contained family, and continuous abuse type. These case scrutinies and their classifications may contribute to interventions regarding the support of people with dementia and their families.

Environmental Management Framework for Road Network Demolition Wastes for Construction Industry of Pakistan

Demolition waste from construction industry, especially from road networks, is one of the most voluminous and harmful categories of waste worldwide; therefore, its proper handling is essential for sustainable waste management for environmental, social, and economic benefits. Prolific and unregulated construction activities, conflicts, and defective works are major reasons. The current work aims to address the issue by presenting a framework for an enhanced understanding of sustainable demolition waste management (DWM). A critical analysis of the literature aided to identify major concerns related to different causes, their impacts, and challenges being faced by the construction industry in such management endeavors. The study adopted questionnaire-based methodology to understand the critical relation among the three variables. The Delphi technique supported by industry professionals and pilot study helped to formulate a realistic questionnaire tool. Using the concept of multivariate statistical analysis, structure equation modeling (SEM) helped to assess the structural relationships between the three variables. The research instrument met the reliability, validity and internal consistency criteria required. Each variable achieved a high effect size, f2, with a value of co-efficient of determination of more than the threshold value of 70%. Thus, this supported the fitness criterion of the SEM-based measurement model. Path coefficients yielded the acceptance of all alternate hypotheses, resulting in a strong positive relationship among the three constructs. Therefore, demolition waste impacts are deemed as an effective mediator when explaining the impact between the other two variables. The developed framework presents a coherent and systematic approach and identifies strategies that could be used to address these issues and lead to DWM, including options available for capacity building and implementation and evaluation for supporting sustainability.

The case for a broader approach to AI assurance: addressing “hidden” harms in the development of artificial intelligence

AbstractArtificial intelligence (AI) assurance is an umbrella term describing many approaches—such as impact assessment, audit, and certification procedures—used to provide evidence that an AI system is legal, ethical, and technically robust. AI assurance approaches largely focus on two overlapping categories of harms: deployment harms that emerge at, or after, the point of use, and individual harms that directly impact a person as an individual. Current approaches generally overlook upstream collective and societal harms associated with the development of systems, such as resource extraction and processing, exploitative labour practices and energy intensive model training. Thus, the scope of current AI assurance practice is insufficient for ensuring that AI is ethical in a holistic sense, i.e. in ways that are legally permissible, socially acceptable, economically viable and environmentally sustainable. This article addresses this shortcoming by arguing for a broader approach to AI assurance that is sensitive to the full scope of AI development and deployment harms. To do so, the article maps harms related to AI and highlights three examples of harmful practices that occur upstream in the AI supply chain and impact the environment, labour, and data exploitation. It then reviews assurance mechanisms used in adjacent industries to mitigate similar harms, evaluating their strengths, weaknesses, and how effectively they are being applied to AI. Finally, it provides recommendations as to how a broader approach to AI assurance can be implemented to mitigate harms more effectively across the whole AI supply chain.

Effective implementations to reduce medication administration errors in a tertiary care teaching hospital

Background: Medication Administration Errors (MAEs) can lead to unmet therapeutic objectives as these errors can directly harm the patient and affect the outcome of therapy. Materials and Methods: This was an implementation research planned to evaluate the effect of interventions on the prevalence and severity of MAEs over three years, from 2020 to 2022, at a tertiary care hospital where clinical pharmacists were allotted to look into medication-related activities. Amedication error reporting form, developed by the pharmacologist, was used to collect MAE data. Analysis of this information aided in the planning of interventions to curtail the occurrence of such errors in the future. Interventions included drug and disease education leaflets, bedside training, vial/ampoule reading training, understanding different dose strengths, maintaining patient bedside boxes, antibiotic reconstitution leaflets for reference, and charts to guide safe drug administration. Results: The effect of these interventions was analyzed at the end of each year on the prevalence and nature of MAEs, where a decline of 38.97% was found in 2021 and a further 34.88% in 2022, considering the number of opportunities. The most prevalent was the wrong dose (~57%) errors commonly found with oral solid dosage forms and the cardiovascular group of drugs (42.5%). These MAEs were mainly of no harm category C (64%), while only 1.5% of them had caused harm (category E) to the patient, but none of these was sentinel. Conclusion: Interventions by clinical pharmacists successfully helped reduce MAEs and prevented patient harm in the further study period.

Harmful types of gambling: changes and emerging trends in longitudinal helpline data.

Gambling products differ in terms of their harm potential. Products are also constantly developing and changing. However, little research has addressed changes and trends in the types of gambling that are associated with harms. The current study explores trends in the gambling product categories identified as harmful in longitudinal helpline data from three Nordic countries. We use data collected by national helplines in Denmark (StopSpillet), Finland (Peluuri) and Sweden (Stödlinjen) in their daily operations (N = 46 646). The data consist of information collected on gamblers and concerned significant others who have contacted these helplines between January 2019 and December 2022. We analyse which gambling products are mentioned as harmful by clients. The analysis uses linear regression with the interaction term (country) times time regressed over the outcome variable (proportion per month). The results show that an increased share of contacts concern online gambling. Online casino products have become the most harmful category across contexts. The share of reported harms from online betting and new emerging online forms is also increasing. The share of land-based products as a reported source of harms has decreased across 2019-22. The results suggest that online gamlbing environments, and particularly online casino products, are associated with increasing harms to help-seekers. The harmfulness of different gambling products may not be stable, but change over time. Further harm prevention efforts are needed to address the online gambling field, including emerging formats.

Evaluation of Medication Errors and Prevention Strategies in a Selected Tertiary Care Hospital

A medication error is defined as a deviation from the physician’s medication order as written on the patient’s chart. Evaluation of medication errors and the implementation of prevention strategies are necessary to ensure patient safety and improve healthcare outcomes. Prospective and observational study was conducted on 218 patients, 50 (22.9%) reported medication error with 56% females and 44% males. Most of the patients included in the study were in the age group between 18 to 65 years (72%). The most common co-morbidity in patients was hypertension (27.94%). In the study, the most common category of harm is Category D (35.29%), followed by Category A (19.6%), Category F (17.64%), Category E (9.8%), Category B (7.84%), Category C (5.88%), and the least common category of harm was Category I (3.92%) based on NCC MERP guidelines. The most specific reported error was wrong dose either strength or frequency (25.84%). Prescription error 34(68%) was the most common type of error reported based on CHCF guidelines. Comparing the wards in which errors were made, (42%) occurred in the female ward. Categorizing the severity of the effect of error found, 38% patient needs monitoring, 20% patient were not harmed, 18% patients required more hospitalization time, 10% patient required treatment, 10% of the patients were not affected, and 4% of the patient died. After implementing the prevention strategies, prescription errors were prevented but other errors (Dose omission, Multi-dose) were reduced from 20% to 10%.

Improving dose-related adverse drug events among hospitalized older adults using a geriatric prescribing context.

Adverse drug events (ADEs) during hospitalization are a serious, yet preventable concern for older adults. Our institution designed a Geriatric Prescribing Context (GPC) to adjust doses for the older adult population but its impact on ADEs was unknown. The goal of this study was to assess any differences in rates of ADEs before and after its implementation in July 2017. We used relevant ICD-10 codes followed by confirmatory chart review to identify dose-related ADEs from 10 commonly used medications at our institution. We assessed differences in the number of admissions with an ADE before and after the GPC implementation using a test of binomial proportions. The pre-period was from July 2016 through June 2017 and the post-period was from August 2017 through July 2018. We compared the rate of ADEs per 1000 patient days between periods with a Poisson rate test and further examined any differences in harm categories using a Fisher's exact test. The proportion of admissions with any dose-related ADEs significantly decreased from 0.0082 to 0.0037 after the GPC (p = 0.04). The rate of dose-related ADEs also declined from 2.5 per 1000 patient days to 1.1 per 1000 patient days (p = 0.001). Harm categories did not change significantly between time points (p = 0.30). Based on our list of relevant ICD-10 codes, the GPC was associated with lower dose-related ADEs for our selected medications among hospitalized older adults.

Article 10bis of the Paris Convention as the common denominator for protection against unfair competition in national and regional contexts

Abstract This article explains the historical development of Article 10bis of the Paris Convention and discusses core concepts underlying the international provision, in particular, the overarching requirement of honest practices in industrial or commercial matters, the question of a competitive relationship and the examples of unfair practices given in Article 10bis. It also sheds light on guidance following from the Model Provisions on Protection Against Unfair Competition which the World Intellectual Property Organization presented in 1996. The analysis shows that the honest practices test need not be understood in a traditional, empirical sense. More modern, functional approaches can be adopted to align the application of Article 10bis with a broader spectrum of policy goals: not only fair play between competitors but also consumer protection and the general public interest in a well-functioning marketplace. Similarly, the requirement of a competitive relationship need not focus on direct competition in the same market segment. An indirect competitive relationship can be deemed sufficient. While the prohibited acts listed in Article 10bis(3) reflect central categories of unfair behaviour and harm, current developments and challenges—ranging from computational advertising, influencer marketing and product recommender systems to questions surrounding data exclusivity and sustainability issues—raise the question whether an update and enrichment of the catalogue of prohibited acts could be necessary to provide guidance at the international level.

Morphological, teratogenic and behavioral evaluations of Gelidium spinosum methanol extract on zebrafish embryos

Gelidium spinosum is an edible red seaweed from the family Gelidiaceae with possibility to be developed. The potential medical benefits of G. spinosum have been established, yet adequate empirical research on its toxicity is still lacking. Hence, the present work was aimed to examine the toxicity of G. spinosum methanol extract (GsME) on zebrafish (Danio rerio) embryos and to identify the phytoconstituents using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis. Results of this study showed that GsME induced morphological defects in zebrafish embryos, including reduction in eye size and body length. Moreover, yolk sac size and mortality were increased in zebrafish embryos exposed to GsME in a dose-dependent manner. GsME at high concentrations triggered teratogenic effects in zebrafish embryos such as decrease in heartbeat/minute, lack of pigmentation, lack of somite, structural deformity, pericardial oedema, and yolk oedema. The LC50 and EC50 of GsME were < 100 mg/L, which classified as a harmful category. The teratogenic index of GsME was found to be > 1, indicating its teratogenic attribute. Additionally, GsME exerted behavioral effects i.e. significantly lower total distance of movement and slower swimming speed of zebrafish embryos. GC-MS analysis of GsME was confirmed the presence of amino acid, phenolics, carboxylic acids, reducing sugars, saturated fatty acids and brominated saturated fatty acid in the extract. It suggesting that compounds of 13-bromotetradecanoic acid, palmitic acid, and stearic acid containing in GsME were contributed to the toxic effects.

Characterizing the cumulative health risks of 19 kinds of pesticides in Chinese food from the cancer and non-cancer perspective

Food safety is an important issue of most concern for health, while pesticides are one of the main threats to food safety. In view of the potential health hazard of pesticides in food, the cancer and non-cancer risks were assessed for 19 kinds of pesticides in Chinese food in this study. Furthermore, the health risks of different types of pesticides were compared to uncover the most polluted pesticide types in this study. Results show that methyl parathion, dichlorvos and 2,4-D residues in some food groups exceed the Chinese food standards. The cumulative disease burden of six carcinogenic pesticides for people older than 40 years ranges from 1.03 × 10−6 to 2.27 × 10−6, which exceeds the WHO recommended limit of 10−6. The non-cancer risks of 13 kinds of pesticides are all lower than 1 and will not pose appreciable health risk to the consumers. Livestock and poultry (contribution rate = 38.93%) and Milk and dairy products (contribution rate = 22.38%) are the dominate risk exposure sources for carcinogenic pesticides while staple foods (contribution rate = 31.62%) and vegetables (contribution rate = 21.5%) are the main risk exposure sources for non-carcinogenic pesticides. Comparing the risks of different pesticide types, insecticide is the most harmful category in this study, followed by herbicide and acaricide. This study characterized the health risks of pesticides in Chinese food and provided a scientific basis for pesticide management.

Hospital medication errors in a pharmacovigilance system in Colombia

Objectivethis study analyzes the medication errors reported to a pharmacovigilance system by 26 hospitals for patients in the healthcare system of Colombia. Methodsthis retrospective study analyzed the medication errors reported to a systematized database between 1 January 2008 and 12 September 2013. The medication is dispensed by the company Audifarma S.A. to hospitals and clinics around Colombia. Data were classified according to the taxonomy of the National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention (NCC MERP). The data analysis was performed using SPSS 22.0 for Windows, considering p-values < 0.05 significant. Resultsthere were 9 062 medication errors in 45 hospital pharmacies. Real errors accounted for 51.9% (n = 4 707), of which 12.0% (n = 567) reached the patient (Categories C to I) and caused harm (Categories E to I) to 17 subjects (0.36%). The main process involved in errors that occurred (categories B to I) was prescription (n = 1 758, 37.3%), followed by dispensation (n = 1 737, 36.9%), transcription (n = 970, 20.6%) and administration (n = 242, 5.1%). The errors in the administration process were 45.2 times more likely to reach the patient (CI 95%: 20.2-100.9). Conclusionsmedication error reporting systems and prevention strategies should be widespread in hospital settings, prioritizing efforts to address the administration process.

Inpatient Falls and Orthopaedic Injuries in Elderly Patients: A Retrospective Cohort Analysis From a Falls Register.

Background Hospital inpatient falls have been a major area of concern in the healthcare setting. This poses a multifaceted challenge to healthcare systems, as elderly patients are at increased risk of harm and significant morbidity secondary to inpatient falls. In addition, hospital admission increases the risk of falls in acutely unwell elderly patients. There remains little consensus on best practices in reducing inpatient falls. With this, lies the risk to life or quality of life to this cohort of patients. Moreover, it is not evident whether orthopaedic injuries sustained by elderly patients in hospital and their management, including rehabilitation, has evolved with time. Methodology This was a retrospective cohort analysis of all inpatient falls over a three-year period in a single UK District General Hospital. A total of 101,183 acute admissions were analysed. All falls were identified and categorised into harm categories according to National Patient Safety Alerts. Patients sustaining moderate harm or more were assessed to determine injuries sustained, patient-associated factors, factors surrounding the fall, management incurred, length of stay, and financial burden incurred. Results A total of 101,183 admissions were analysed revealing a total of 2,453 in-patient falls. The rate of inpatient falls was 2.42%. Of these, 49 (1.98%) patients sustained moderate harm or more. Patient-related factors included age and comorbidities; 82% of patients were above the age of 75, and 78% of patients had three or more medical comorbidities. Fall-related factors leading to moderate harm or more included time of fall and ward. Most falls occurred out of hours (80%) and in acute medical wards (69%). The average length of stay following fall was 2.4 weeks per patient and a combined 110 weeks in the three-year period. In non-deceased patients, increased dependency and reduced mobility at discharge were noted. The total hospital annual financial burden due to moderate harm or more following an inpatient fall was approximately £123,490.00. Length of stay was the major contributor to this (£90,090.00 annually). Conclusions Inpatient falls remain a considerable patient safety issue, with orthopaedic injuries playing a central role in harm to patients following these falls. These also pose considerable service and financial costs to healthcare organisations. Further work is needed to identify best practices in in-hospital fall prevention and streamlining post-fall management and rehabilitation.

A Critical Assessment of Zemiology’s Appropriateness in the Analysis of Atrocities and More Specifically the Situation Experienced by the Uyghurs in Xinjiang

The purposes of this paper are to assess whether the tools provided by zemiology contribute to positive ways forward in the field of atrocity studies beyond criminology and whether this proposed zemiological framework contributes to a furthered understanding of the situation experienced by the Uyghur community in Xinjiang. This paper argues that zemiology allows a valuable questioning and broadening of the criminological lens on episodes of atrocities. When applied to the case-study, two relevant zemiological tools (i.e., a state/elite defined and constructed perception of the concept of crime and Simon Pemberton’s three categories of social harm) allow the qualitative and quantitative improvement of our understanding of the volume and origins of the harms experienced by the Uyghur community. However, two main zemiological shortages are identified throughout this paper: an obsessive focus on the critique of criminology and a contradictive reproach about criminology’s ideological bias.

A-166 Severity of Harm Category Designation Survey Results

Abstract Background ISO document 14971-Application of Risk Management to Medical Devices and CLSI document EP23-Laboratory Quality Control Based on Risk Management use a Severity of Harm model to designate maximum acceptable probability of patient harm (risk) based on the severity of the consequence to the patient. When designing a risk managed quality control program for the clinical diagnostic laboratory, the starting point is to select Severity of Harm categories for each analyte being tested. As each Severity of Harm Category (Negligible,Minor,Serious,Critical,Catastrophic) can be mapped to a corresponding maximum acceptable probability of patient harm from erroneous results (0.01,0.001,0.0001, 0.00001,0.000001). The laboratory can then design quality control strategies that have a predicted probability of patient harm below this maximum for a risk managed quality control program. Unfortunately, there is little guidance on setting Severity of Harm designations, and they are by nature, subjective. To remedy this, we conducted a survey of laboratory professionals, asking them to rate the Severity of Harm for 20 analytes. Method An international Severity of Harm survey was conducted to solicit Severity of Harm designations for analytes in the clinical diagnostic laboratory. 261 respondents from 42 countries answered the question: “How would you rate the severity of patient harm if a clinician would interpret incorrect reported results from these analytes in the most unfavorable situation?”. The available ratings were described as: Results Conclusion While Severity of Harm designations are specific to the local clinical system, guidance can be provided by collecting the opinion of a wide variety of clinical laboratory professionals. This provides support for the clinical diagnostic community in building risk managed quality control programs.

Identification of potential phytochemical inhibitors for the proven six chronic obstructive pulmonary disease biomarkers – A molecular dynamics study

COPD is a multifactorial lung disease causing breathing difficulties in individuals and is becoming a major health concern worldwide. The unclear pathogenic mechanism and high mortality rate urge the development of drugs against this disease. In this study, around six COPD biomarkers identified from the preceding research through integrated gene expression analysis were taken as COPD target proteins. A total of 3307 phytocompounds were included in the COPD phytocompound library from 59 therapeutic plant sources. Furthermore, a crucial three-step virtual screening process (Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, and Excretion, respiratory nontoxicity, less harmful and nontoxic compound category) was implemented to filter the potential drug-like phytocompounds. As a result, 160 phytocompounds were filtered with desired Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, Excretion and Toxicity properties. The filtered 160 phytocompounds were docked against six COPD target proteins and the best-docked complexes were identified through visual inspection based on six unique parameters in SeeSAR. Furthermore, the best docked complexes were subjected to molecular dynamics simulation studies to assess the stability and conformational changes of the complexes. The presence of few amino acid residues within the crucial active, allosteric and catalytic sites of the six target proteins were revealed from the binding interaction types and major residual fluctuations from molecular docking and dynamic simulation studies respectively. This is indicative of the potential inhibitory activity of phytocompounds against the COPD biomarkers. Here we report the identified phytocompounds as a promising lead molecule for the six COPD biomarkers through in silico analysis opening new avenues in COPD pathogenesis and treatments. Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma