Early psychological care of the French victims of the Costa Concordia shipwreck.

Most of the French passengers who survived the shipwreck of the cruise ship Costa Concordia were repatriatedfrom Italy to Marseille, one of the stopovers of the cruise. The shipwreck happened during the nightof 13th-14th January 2012 and entailed the forced evacuation of 4195 passengers and crewmembers.Thirty-two persons died and 2 others are still reported missing. The massive and unexpected inflow of402 French citizens in the port of Marseille required the quick setting up of welcome facilities, not only tosolve logistical problems, but also to address psychological and sometimes even medical problems. ThePrehospital Psychological Emergency Service (CUMP) and the Prehospital Emergency Medical Service(SAMU) of Marseille examined 196 persons in total, and were able to avoid a great number of emergencyadmissions deemed necessary because of difficult psychological situations (death, missing or lost persons,acute stress). The objective of this report is to rapidly present the emergency committee as a whole andto describe in more detail the work that the CUMP accomplished during the 36 hours necessary to takecharge of the majority of the French passengers of the Costa Concordia.

Stabilization of phospholipid multilayers at the air-water interface by compression beyond the collapse: a BAM, PM-IRRAS, and molecular dynamics study.

Compression beyond the collapse of phospholipid monolayers on a modified Langmuir trough has revealed the formation of stable multilayers at the air-water interface. Those systems are relevant new models for studying the properties of biological membranes and for understanding the nature of interactions between membranes and peptides or proteins. The collapse of 1,2-dimyristoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DMPC), 1,2-di[cis-9-octadecenoyl]-sn-glycero-3-[phospho-l-serine] (DOPS), 1,2-di[cis-9-octadecenoyl]-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DOPC), and 1,2-di[cis-9-octadecenoyl]-sn-glycero-3-[phospho-1-rac-glycerol] (DOPG) monolayers has been investigated by isotherm measurements, Brewster angle microscopy (BAM), and polarization modulation infrared reflection-absorption spectroscopy (PM-IRRAS). In the cases of DMPC and DOPS, the collapse of the monolayers revealed the formation of bilayer and trilayer structures, respectively. The DMPC bilayer stability has been analyzed also by a molecular dynamics study. The collapse of the DOPC and DOPG systems shows a different behavior, and the Brewster angle microscopy reveals the formation of luminous bundles, which can be interpreted as diving multilayers in the subphase.