Goodyer, J., Mackay, J., & Poskitt, J. (2017). A pilot study of the Application of Degree Apprenticeships in New Zealand: A focus on Infrastructure Asset Management. A Report for the Tertiary Education Commission. Massey University: Palmerston North.

Commissioned by the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC), through the Engineering-to-Employment (E2E) programme, the research team facilitated a group of engineering employers and Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics (ITPs) representatives to develop a Plot Degree Apprenticeship Standard in Infrastructure Asset Management. The report details the process of an employer-led development of a standard, in an area of impending engineering employee shortage. Recommendations are made for future development of other degree apprenticeship standards.falsePalmerston NorthTertiary Education Commissio

Tract-Based Spatial Statistics in Preterm-Born Neonates Predicts Cognitive and Motor Outcomes at 18 Months.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Adverse neurodevelopmental outcome is common in children born preterm. Early sensitive predictors of neurodevelopmental outcome such as MR imaging are needed. Tract-based spatial statistics, a diffusion MR imaging analysis method, performed at term-equivalent age (40 weeks) is a promising predictor of neurodevelopmental outcomes in children born very preterm. We sought to determine the association of tract-based spatial statistics findings before term-equivalent age with neurodevelopmental outcome at 18-months corrected age. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Of 180 neonates (born at 24-32-weeks\u27 gestation) enrolled, 153 had DTI acquired early at 32 weeks\u27 postmenstrual age and 105 had DTI acquired later at 39.6 weeks\u27 postmenstrual age. Voxelwise statistics were calculated by performing tract-based spatial statistics on DTI that was aligned to age-appropriate templates. At 18-month corrected age, 166 neonates underwent neurodevelopmental assessment by using the Bayley Scales of Infant Development, 3rd ed, and the Peabody Developmental Motor Scales, 2nd ed. RESULTS: Tract-based spatial statistics analysis applied to early-acquired scans (postmenstrual age of 30-33 weeks) indicated a limited significant positive association between motor skills and axial diffusivity and radial diffusivity values in the corpus callosum, internal and external/extreme capsules, and midbrain (P \u3c .05, corrected). In contrast, for term scans (postmenstrual age of 37-41 weeks), tract-based spatial statistics analysis showed a significant relationship between both motor and cognitive scores with fractional anisotropy in the corpus callosum and corticospinal tracts (P \u3c .05, corrected). Tract-based spatial statistics in a limited subset of neonates (n = 22) scanned at CONCLUSIONS: The strength of the association between fractional anisotropy values and neurodevelopmental outcome scores increased from early-to-late-acquired scans in preterm-born neonates, consistent with brain dysmaturation in this population

Association of prenatal diagnosis of critical congenital heart disease with postnatal brain development and the risk of brain injury

IMPORTANCE: The relationship of prenatal diagnosis of critical congenital heart disease (CHD) with brain injury and brain development is unknown. Given limited improvement of CHD outcomes with prenatal diagnosis, the effect of prenatal diagnosis on brain health may reveal additional benefits. OBJECTIVE: To compare the prevalence of preoperative and postoperative brain injury and the trajectory of brain development in neonates with prenatal vs postnatal diagnosis of CHD. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Cohort study of term newborns with critical CHD recruited consecutively from 2001 to 2013 at the University of California, San Francisco and the University of British Columbia. Term newborns with critical CHD were studied with brain magnetic resonance imaging preoperatively and postoperatively to determine brain injury severity and microstructural brain development with diffusion tensor imaging by measuring fractional anisotropy and the apparent diffusion coefficient. Comparisons of magnetic resonance imaging findings and clinical variables were made between prenatal and postnatal diagnosis of critical CHD. A total of 153 patients with transposition of the great arteries and single ventricle physiology were included in this analysis. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: The presence of brain injury on the preoperative brain magnetic resonance imaging and the trajectory of postnatal brain microstructural development. RESULTS: Among 153 patients (67% male), 96 had transposition of the great arteries and 57 had single ventricle physiology. The presence of brain injury was significantly higher in patients with postnatal diagnosis of critical CHD (41 of 86 [48%]) than in those with prenatal diagnosis (16 of 67 [24%]) (P = .003). Patients with prenatal diagnosis demonstrated faster brain development in white matter fractional anisotropy (rate of increase, 2.2%; 95% CI, 0.1%-4.2%; P = .04) and gray matter apparent diffusion coefficient (rate of decrease, 0.6%; 95%CI, 0.1%-1.2%; P = .02). Patients with prenatal diagnosis had lower birth weight (mean, 3184.5 g; 95%CI, 3050.3–3318.6) than those with postnatal diagnosis (mean, 3397.6 g; 95%CI, 3277.6–3517.6) (P = .02). Those with prenatal diagnosis had an earlier estimated gestational age at delivery (mean, 38.6 weeks; 95%CI, 38.2–38.9) than those with postnatal diagnosis (mean, 39.1 weeks; 95%CI, 38.8–39.5) (P = .03). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Newborns with prenatal diagnosis of single ventricle physiology and transposition of the great arteries demonstrate less preoperative brain injury and more robust microstructural brain development than those with postnatal diagnosis. These results are likely secondary to improved cardiovascular stability. The impact of these findings on neurodevelopmental outcomes warrants further study

Reliability of Early Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Necessity of Repeating MRI in Noncooled and Cooled Infants with Neonatal Encephalopathy

In cooled newborns with encephalopathy, although late magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan (10-14 days of age) is reliable in predicting long-term outcome, it is unknown whether early scan (3-6 days of life) is. We compared the predominant pattern and extent of lesion between early and late MRI in 89 term neonates with neonatal encephalopathy. Forty-three neonates (48%) were cooled. The predominant pattern of lesions and the extent of lesion in the watershed region agreed near perfectly in noncooled (kappa = 0.94; k = 0.88) and cooled (k = 0.89; k = 0.87) infants respectively. There was perfect agreement in the extent of lesion in the basal nuclei in noncooled infants (k = 0.83) and excellent agreement in cooled infants (k = 0.67). Changes in extent of lesions on late MRI occurred in 19 of 89 infants, with higher risk in infants with hypoglycemia and moderate-severe lesions in basal nuclei. In most term neonates with neonatal encephalopathy, early MRI (relative to late scan) robustly predicts the predominant pattern and extent of injury. </jats:p

Quantitative assessment of white matter injury in preterm neonates: Association with outcomes.

OBJECTIVE: To quantitatively assess white matter injury (WMI) volume and location in very preterm neonates, and to examine the association of lesion volume and location with 18-month neurodevelopmental outcomes. METHODS: Volume and location of WMI was quantified on MRI in 216 neonates (median gestational age 27.9 weeks) who had motor, cognitive, and language assessments at 18 months corrected age (CA). Neonates were scanned at 32.1 postmenstrual weeks (median) and 68 (31.5%) had WMI; of 66 survivors, 58 (87.9%) had MRI and 18-month outcomes. WMI was manually segmented and transformed into a common image space, accounting for intersubject anatomical variability. Probability maps describing the likelihood of a lesion predicting adverse 18-month outcomes were developed. RESULTS: WMI occurs in a characteristic topology, with most lesions occurring in the periventricular central region, followed by posterior and frontal regions. Irrespective of lesion location, greater WMI volumes predicted poor motor outcomes ( CONCLUSIONS: The predictive value of frontal lobe WMI volume highlights the importance of lesion location when considering the neurodevelopmental significance of WMI. Frontal lobe lesions are of particular concern

Automatic segmentation of the hippocampus for preterm neonates from early-in-life to term-equivalent age.

INTRODUCTION: The hippocampus, a medial temporal lobe structure central to learning and memory, is particularly vulnerable in preterm-born neonates. To date, segmentation of the hippocampus for preterm-born neonates has not yet been performed early-in-life (shortly after birth when clinically stable). The present study focuses on the development and validation of an automatic segmentation protocol that is based on the MAGeT-Brain (Multiple Automatically Generated Templates) algorithm to delineate the hippocampi of preterm neonates on their brain MRIs acquired at not only term-equivalent age but also early-in-life. METHODS: First, we present a three-step manual segmentation protocol to delineate the hippocampus for preterm neonates and apply this protocol on 22 early-in-life and 22 term images. These manual segmentations are considered the gold standard in assessing the automatic segmentations. MAGeT-Brain, automatic hippocampal segmentation pipeline, requires only a small number of input atlases and reduces the registration and resampling errors by employing an intermediate template library. We assess the segmentation accuracy of MAGeT-Brain in three validation studies, evaluate the hippocampal growth from early-in-life to term-equivalent age, and study the effect of preterm birth on the hippocampal volume. The first experiment thoroughly validates MAGeT-Brain segmentation in three sets of 10-fold Monte Carlo cross-validation (MCCV) analyses with 187 different groups of input atlases and templates. The second experiment segments the neonatal hippocampi on 168 early-in-life and 154 term images and evaluates the hippocampal growth rate of 125 infants from early-in-life to term-equivalent age. The third experiment analyzes the effect of gestational age (GA) at birth on the average hippocampal volume at early-in-life and term-equivalent age using linear regression. RESULTS: The final segmentations demonstrate that MAGeT-Brain consistently provides accurate segmentations in comparison to manually derived gold standards (mean Dice\u27s Kappa \u3e 0.79 and Euclidean distance CONCLUSIONS: MAGeT-Brain is capable of segmenting hippocampi accurately in preterm neonates, even at early-in-life. Hippocampal asymmetry with a larger right side is demonstrated on early-in-life images, suggesting that this phenomenon has its onset in the 3rd trimester of gestation. Hippocampal volume assessed at the time of early-in-life and term-equivalent age is linearly associated with GA at birth, whereby smaller volumes are associated with earlier birth