The needles of a needle set, which substantially agree in their geometry, have butts of different lengths, which have a predetermined breaking point. In one embodiment, ECG and EEG signals are processed and the information derived from them is combined to determine whether a patient suffering from diabetes is undergoing a hypoglycemic event, or whether such an event is imminent. The invention has particular utility in the burn-in and other pre-packaging testing of dice to establish known good dice. If the extracted voice pattern is contained in the list, a determination is made whether a stored phone number matches a received phone number.