Owing to uncharacteristic initial symptoms and rapid progression, invasive meningococcal disease is still a challenge to diagnose and treat, even in high-income countries. Waterhouse-Friderichsen syndrome is a potentially fatal complication of invasive meningococcal disease, presenting as acute adrenal insufficiency due to haemorrhagic necrosis of the adrenal glands. We report a case of 5.5-year-old boy who presented to the hospital with fever, impaired consciousness, vomiting, and upper respiratory tract infection symptoms. Despite prompt diagnosis of invasive disease and adequate treatment, the patient died. We underline the need to increase parents' knowledge and better access to vaccines against meningococci for Polish paediatric patients. Paediatricians and primary care physicians must remain alert and be ready to suspect invasive meningococcal disease in their patients.

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The successive cracking (crack compliance) method is a destructive technique aimed at determination of residual stresses in various structural members. The laboratory measurements performed during extension of a crack are followed by a computational analysis. We propose a modification of the numerical approach in order to simplify the method and improve its accuracy. The basic idea of the proposed modification is to approximate plastic strains rather than the residual stresses directly. Furthermore, we use the goal oriented adaptive finite element method that generates optimal meshes for evaluation of strains at specific points.