Crossroads, Spring 2003

Newsletter for the Governor's Traffic Safety Bureau, Iowa Department of Public Safety

Tools & Trends, Spring 2004

Development tool for Iowa Communities

The legal and ethical framework governing Body Donation in Europe - A review of current practice and recommendations for good practice

Discussions at the inaugural meeting of a Trans-European Pedagogic Research Group for Anatomical Sciences highlighted the fact that there exist considerable variations in the legal and ethical frameworks throughout Europe concerning body bequests for anatomical examination. Such differences appear to reflect cultural and religious variations as well as different legal and constitutional frameworks. For example, there are different views concerning the "ownership" of cadavers and concerning the need (perceived by different societies and national politicians) for legislation specifically related to anatomical dissection. Furthermore, there are different views concerning the acceptability of using unclaimed bodies that have not given informed consent. Given that in Europe there have been a series of controversial anatomical exhibitions and also a public (televised) dissection/autopsy, and given that the commercial sale or transport of anatomical material across national boundaries is strongly debated, it would seem appropriate to "harmonise" the situation (at least in the European Union). This paper summarises the legal situation in a variety of European countries and suggests examples of good practice. In particular, it recommends that all countries should adopt clear legal frameworks to regulate the acceptance of donations for medical education and research. It stresses the need for informed consent, with donors being given clear information upon which to base their decision, intentions to bequest being made by the donor before death and encourages donors to discuss their wishes to bequeath with relatives prior to death. Departments are encouraged, where they feel it appropriate, to hold Services of Thanksgiving and Commemoration for those who have donated their bodies. Finally, there needs to be legislation to regulate transport of bodies or body parts across national borders and a discouragement of any moves towards commercialisation in relation to bequests.

A convex optimization framework for global tractography

In this article we present a novel approach for diffusion MRI global tractography. Our formulation models the signal in each voxel as a linear combination of fiber-tract basis func- tions, which consist of a comprehensive set of plausible fiber tracts that are locally compatible with the measured MR signal. This large dictionary of candidate fibers is directly estimated from the data and, subsequently, efficient convex optimization techniques are used for recovering the smallest subset globally best fitting the measured signal. Experimen- tal results conducted on a realistic phantom demonstrate that our approach significantly reduces the computational cost of global tractography while still attaining a reconstruction quality at least as good as the state-of-the-art global methods.

The Iowa African-American Journal, Spring/Fall 2001, Vol. 7, no. 1

Newsletter for the Iowa Commission on the Status of African-Americans

The Iowa African-American Journal, Spring/Fall 2002, Vol. 8, no. 1

Newsletter for the Iowa Commission on the Status of African-Americans

The Iowa African-American Journal, Winter 2002/Spring 2003, Vol. 8, no. 2

Newsletter for the Iowa Commission on the Status of African-Americans

White Cane Update, Spring 1999

The White Cane Update newsletter includes information about the latest happenings at the Iowa Department for the Blind.

Orientation Center Newsletter, Spring 2002

The Orientation Center newsletter is produced three times a year, and includes articles written by students, staff, and former students. It also contains news about what is happening to other students who have been in the Center.

White Cane Update, Spring 2001

The White Cane Update newsletter includes information about the latest happenings at the Iowa Department for the Blind.

The Swiss regulatory framework for pædiatric health research

Medical research on minors entails both risks and benefits. Under Swiss law, clinical trials on children, including nontherapeutic drug trials, are permissible. However, ethics committees must systematically verify that all clinical studies have a favorable risk-benefit profile. Additional safeguards are designed to ensure that children are not unnecessarily involved in research and that proper consent is always obtained. Federal Swiss law is undergoing revision to extend these protections beyond clinical trials to a broad array of health research. The Swiss drug agency also seeks to improve the incentives for pharmaceutical firms to develop new paediatric drugs and relevant paediatric drug labels.

Iowa Civil Rights Commission Communicator, Spring 1997, Vol. 15, no. 1

Newsletter produced by the Iowa Civil Rights Commission

Iowa Civil Rights Commission Communicator, Spring 2002, Vol. 20, no. 1

Newsletter produced by the Iowa Civil Rights Commission

Iowa Civil Rights Commission Communicator, Spring 2003, Vol. 21, no. 1

Newsletter produced by the Iowa Civil Rights Commission

Iowa Civil Rights Commission Communicator, Spring-Summer 2001, Vol. 19, no. 1

Newsletter produced by the Iowa Civil Rights Commission