Cerebral perfusion CT: Current state of the art : P44

Purpose: The aim of this educational poster is to introduce the technical principles of cerebral perfusion CT and to provide examples of its clinical applications and potential limitations in the everyday emergency practice. Methods and materials: Cerebral perfusion CT is a well established investigatory tool for many vascular and parenchymal brain dysfunctions. CT perfusion maps allow a semiquantitative assessment of cerebral perfusion. Results: Currently, cerebral perfusion CT has a pivotal role in differentiating reversible from irreversible ischemic parenchymal insult besides its integral role in grading vasospasm after subarachnoid hemorrhage. Furthermore, cerebral perfusion CT can be coupled to acetazolamide administration in order to assess the cerebrovascular reserve capacity before performing extra-/intra-cranial bypass surgery in patients with cerebral vascular insufficiency. Cerebral perfusion CT can also identify diffuse abnormalities of cerebral perfusion in children with traumatic brain injury showing a low initial GCS in order to predict the final outcome regarding the late occurrence of irreversible parenchymal damage. Cerebral Perfusion CT is also able to detect focal parenchymal perfusion abnormalities in acute epileptic seizures. Conclusion: Cerebral perfusion CT can be integrated in the management of many vascular, traumatic and functional disorders of the brain.

Scan statistics analysis of forest fire clusters

Spatio-temporal clusters in 1997?2003 fire sequences of Tuscany region (central Italy) have been identified and analysed by using the scan statistic, a method which was devised to evidence clusters in epidemiology. Results showed that the method is reliable to find clusters of events and to evaluate their significance via Monte Carlo replication. The evaluation of the presence of spatial and temporal patterns in fire occurrence and their significance could have a great impact in forthcoming studies on fire occurrences prediction.

The Importance of Graduates for the Scottish Economy: A “Micro-to-Macro” Approach

There have been numerous attempts to assess the overall impact of Higher Education Institutions on regional economies in the UK and elsewhere. There are two disparate approaches focussing on: demand-side effects of HEIs, exerted through universities’ expenditures within the local economy; HEIs’ contribution to the “knowledge economy”. However, neither approach seeks to measure the impact on regional economies that HEIs exert through the enhanced productivity of their graduates. We address this lacuna and explore the system-wide impact of the graduates on the regional economy. An extensive and sophisticated literature suggests that graduates enjoy a significant wage premium, often interpreted as reflecting their greater productivity relative to non-graduates. If this is so there is a clear and direct supply-side impact of HEI activities on regional economies through the employment of their graduates. However, there is some dispute over the extent to which the graduate wage premium reflects innate abilities rather than the impact of higher education per se. We use an HEI-disaggregated computable general equilibrium model of Scotland to estimate the impact of the growing proportion of graduates in the Scottish labour force that is implied by the current participation rate and demographic change, taking the graduate wage premium in Scotland as an indicator of productivity enhancement. We conduct a range of sensitivity analyses to assess the robustness of our results. While the detailed results do, of course, vary with alternative assumptions about future graduate retention rates and the size of the graduate wage premium, for example, they do suggest that the long-term supply-side impacts of HEIs provide a significant boost to regional GDP. Furthermore, the results suggest that the supply-side impacts of HEIs are likely to be more important than the expenditure impacts that are the focus of most “impact” studies.

The effects of agglomeration on wages: evidence from the micro-level

This paper estimates individual wage equations in order to test two rival non-nested theories of economic agglomeration, namely New Economic Geography (NEG), as represented by the NEG wage equation and urban economic (UE) theory , in which wages relate to employment density. The paper makes an original contribution by evidently being the first empirical paper to examine the issue of agglomeration processes associated with contemporary theory working with micro-level data, highlighting the role of gender and other individual-level characteristics. For male respondents, there is no significant evidence that wage levels are an outcome of the mechanisms suggested by NEG or UE theory, but this is not the case for female respondents. We speculate on the reasons for the gender difference.

The system-wide impacts of the external benefits to higher education on the Scottish economy: An exploratory “micro-to-macro” approach

The private market benefits of education, i.e. the wage premia of graduates, are widely studied at the micro level, although the magnitude of their macroeconomic impact is disputed. However, there are additional benefits of education, which are less well understood but could potentially drive significant macroeconomic impacts. Following the taxonomy of McMahon (2009) we identify four different types of benefits of education. These are: private market benefits (wage premia); private non market benefits (own health, happiness, etc.); external market benefits (productivity spillovers; and external non-market benefits (crime rates, civic society, democratisation, etc.). Drawing on available microeconometric evidence we use a micro-to-macro simulation approach (Hermannsson et al, 2010) to estimate the macroeconomic impacts of external benefits of higher education. We explore four cases: technology spillovers from HEIs; productivity spillovers from more skilled workers in the labour market; reduction in property crime; and the potential overall impact of external and private non-market benefits. Our results suggest that the external economic benefits of higher education could potentially be very large. However, given the dearth of microeconomic evidence this result should be seen as tentative. Our aim is to illustrate the links from education to the wider economy in principle and encourage further research in the field.

The Impact of Population Ageing on House Prices: A Micro-simulation Approach

This paper attempts to estimate the impact of population ageing on house prices. There is considerable debate about whether population ageing puts downwards or upwards pressure on house prices. The empirical approach differs from earlier studies of this relationship, which are mainly regression analyses of macro time-series data. A micro-simulation methodology is adopted that combines a macro-level house price model with a micro-level household formation model. The case study is Scotland, a country that is expected to age rapidly in the future. The parameters of the household formation model are estimated with panel data from the British Household Panel Survey covering the period 1999-2008. The estimates are then used to carry out a set of simulations. The simulations are based on a set of population projections that represent a considerable range in the rate of population ageing. The main finding from the simulations is that population ageing—or more generally changes in age structure—is not likely a main determinant of house prices, at least in Scotland.

II Workshop on the use of Computed Tomography (CT) in pig carcass classification. Other CT applications: live animals and meat technology, 16-17th April 2009, Monells (Girona), Spain

Es va realitzar el II Workshop en Tomografia Computeritzada (TC) a Monells. El primer dia es va dedicar íntegrament a la utilització del TC en temes de classificació de canals porcines, i el segon dia es va obrir a altres aplicacions del TC, ja sigui en animals vius o en diferents aspectes de qualitat de la carn o els productes carnis. Al workshop hi van assistir 45 persones de 12 països de la UE. The II workshop on the use of Computed Tomography (CT) in pig carcass classification. Other CT applications: live animals and meat technology was held in Monells. The first day it was dedicated to the use of CT in pig carcass classification. The segond day it was open to otehr CT applications, in live animals or in meat and meat products quality. There were 45 assistants of 12 EU countries.

Sémiologie de l'atteinte bronchique en scanner [Bronchial diseases: CT imaging features].

Multidetector row computed tomography (MDCT) is the imaging modality of reference for the diagnosis of bronchiectasis. MDCT may also detect a focal stenosis, a tumor or multiple morphologic abnormalities of the bronchial tree. It may orient the endoscopist towards the abnormal bronchi, and in all cases assess the extent of the bronchial lesions. The CT findings of bronchial abnormalities include anomalies of bronchial division and origin, bronchial stenosis, bronchial wall thickening, lumen dilatation, and mucoid impaction. The main CT features of bronchiectasis are increased bronchoarterial ratio, lack of bronchial tapering, and visibility of peripheral airways. Other bronchial abnormalities include excessive bronchial collapse at expiration, outpouchings and diverticula, dehiscence, fistulas, and calcifications.