Implementing business continuity management systems and sharing best practices at a European bank.

This paper provides an overview of the methodology applied by the Alpha Bank Group in order to implement a business continuity management (BCM) programme to its parent company (Alpha Bank SA), as well as to its subsidiaries in Albania, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Greece, Romania, Serbia, UK and Ukraine. It also reviews the problems faced, how they were overcome and the lessons learned. When implementing a BCM programme in a large organisation, it is very important to follow the methodology described by BCM standard ISO 22301, otherwise the business continuity plan is unlikely to work efficiently or comply with the business recovery requirements, as well as with the requirements of other interested parties, such as customers, regulatory authorities, vendors, service providers, critical associates, etc.

Impact of persistent antiphospholipid antibodies on risk of incident symptomatic thromboembolism in children: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

The aim of this study was to estimate the impact of antiphospholipid (aPL) antibodies on the risk of incident thromboembolism (TE; arterial and venous) in children via meta-analysis of published observational studies. A systematic search of electronic databases (Medline, EMBASE, OVID, Web of Science, The Cochrane Library) for studies published from 1966 to 2010 was conducted using keywords in combination both as MeSH terms and text words. Two authors independently screened citations and those meeting the a priori defined inclusion criteria were retained.

Assessment of the progression of haemophilic arthropathy in children.

Arthropathy is considered as an irreversible and progressive complication in patients with haemophilia, even in children on prophylaxis. To estimate the progression of haemophilic arthropathy, 85 joints of 24 boys with severe (n = 18) and moderate (n = 6) haemophilia (A: 22, B: 2) were investigated with clinical examination, X-rays and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at two time periods (time 0 and 1). Patients' age at time 0 was 10.

An attempt to improve the clinical scale for assessment of haemophilic arthropathy in children.

Of the methods used to evaluate haemophilic arthropathy, clinical joint score can only detect advanced and not minor changes, which usually occur in younger patients. In addition, the currently used clinical scores are poorly correlated with the MRI and X-rays scales. In an attempt to address these shortcomings, a modification of Stockholm clinical scale was designed in which elements of clinical information were included.