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Introduction: The blood donation process is strictly regulated by law. The process includes the necessity of a medical history taken to determine if a donor is suitable to donate, which shall guarantee both donor and recipient safety. Supplementary screening for a limited number of infections is performed by antibody (HIV, HCV, syphilis) or antigen (HBV) tests or NAT (HIV, HCV, HBV). Case Presentation: With regard to a possible infection due to (sexual) risk behavior or foreign travel, blood donation facilities are predominantly dependent on information provided by the donor. This is especially true for malaria in nonendemic areas such as Europe. Transmission of malaria by a blood transfusion in a nonendemic country that led to fulminant septic shock and death of the patient happened. Discussion: From a legal perspective, the donor thus assumes a high level of responsibility with regard to the accuracy and completeness of the information provided on the donor questionnaire. Incorrect information may, as in this Austrian case reported, result in civil or criminal responsibility of the donor.

Computational science depends on complex, data intensive applications operating on datasets from a variety of scientific instruments. A major challenge is the integration of data into the scientist’s workflow. Recent advances in dynamic, networked cloud resources provide the building blocks to construct reconfiguration, end-to-end infrastructure that can increase scientific productivity, but applications are not taking advantage of them. In our previous work, we introduced DyNamo, that enabled CASA scientists to improve the efficiency of their operations and effortlessly leverage capabilities of the cloud resources available to them that previously remained underutilized. However, the provided workflow automation did not satisfy all the operational requirements of CASA. Custom scripts were still in production to manage workflow triggering, while multiple layer 2 connections would have to be allocated to maintain network QoS requirements. To address these issues, we enhance the DyNamo system with advanced network manipulation mechanisms, end-to-end infrastructure monitoring and ensemble workflow management capabilities. DyNamo’s Virtual Software Defined Exchange (vSDX) capabilities have been extended, enabling link adaptation, flow prioritization and traffic control between endpoints. These new features allow us to enforce network QoS requirements for each workflow ensemble and can lead to more fair network sharing. Additionally, to accommodate CASA’s operational needs we have extended the newly integrated Pegasus Ensemble Manager with event based triggering functionality, that improves managing CASA’s workflow ensembles. The Pegasus Ensemble Manager, apart from managing the workflow ensembles can also create conditions for a more fair resource usage, by employing throttling techniques to reduce compute and network resource contention. We evaluate the effects of the DyNamo’s vSDX policies by using two CASA workflow ensembles competing for network resources, and we show that traffic shaping of the ensembles can lead to a fairer sharing of the network links. Finally, we study how changing the Pegasus Ensemble Manager’s throttling for each of the two workflow ensembles affects their performance while they compete for the same network resources, and we assess if this approach is a viable alternative compared to the vSDX policies.

Background Health care professionals have to judge the appropriateness of treatment in critical care on a daily basis. There is general consensus that critical care interventions should not be performed when they are inappropriate. It is not yet clear which chances of survival are considered necessary or which risk for serious disabilities is acceptable in quantitative terms for different stakeholders to start intensive care treatment. Methods We performed an anonymous online survey in a random sample of 1,052 participants recruited via email invitation and social media. Age, sex, nationality, education, professional involvement in health care, critical care medicine and treatment decisions in critical care medicine as well as personal experience with critical illness were assessed as potential influencing variables. Participants provided their opinion on the necessary chances of survival and the acceptable risk for serious disabilities to start a high-risk or uncomfortable therapy for themselves, relatives or for their patients on a scale of 0–100%. Results Answers ranged from 0 to 100% for all questions. A three-peak pattern with different distributions of the peaks was observed. Sex, education, being a health care professional, being involved in treatment decisions and religiosity influence these opinions. Male respondents and those with a university education would agree that a risky and uncomfortable treatment should be started even with a low chance of survival for themselves, relatives and patients. More respondents would choose a lower necessary chance of survival (0–33% survival) when deciding for patients compared to themselves or relatives to start a risky and uncomfortable treatment. On the other hand, the majority of respondents would accept only a low risk of severe disability for both themselves and their patients. Conclusion No cut-off can be identified for the necessary chances of survival or the acceptable risk of disability to help quantify the “inappropriateness” of critical care treatment. Sex and education are the strongest influencing factors on this opinion. The large variation in personal opinions, depending on demographic and personality variables and education needs to be considered in the communication between health care professionals and patients or surrogates.