Trends in the Management of Intracranial Vascular Malformations in the USA from 2000 to 2007

Objective. To assess prevalence, clinical characteristics, trends in treatment pattern, and outcome in patients with intracranial vascular malformations (IVMs). Methods. Nationwide inpatient sample. Patients with the diagnosis of an IVM admitted to US hospitals from 2000 to 2007. Results. In 58,051 IVM-related admissions (detection rate 2.4/100,000 person-years; mean age 49 ± 17 years; 52% women) major diagnoses were intracranial hemorrhage (ICrH) in 15%, seizure 32%, ischemia 5%, and headache 9%. Procedures included surgery (13%), embolization (13%), radiation therapy (2%), aneurysm clipping (1%), and mechanical ventilation (6%). Ventilation and ICrH were associated with death (2%), whereas ventilation, ICrH, surgery, seizure, and ischemia were associated with unfavorable outcome (20%). IVM detection rate and hospital outcome remained stable over time, whereas mean age and comorbid diagnosis of cerebral ischemia increased (ICrH and seizure decreased). Conclusion. IVMs are infrequent and present in 1/6 patients with some form of ICrH. Overall, seizure is the dominant comorbid diagnosis (1/3 patients). IVMs are equally prevalent among race-ethnic groups and are increasingly detected later in life. The inpatient care of IVM patients results in death or discharge into specialized care in 1/5 patients

Postabortion family planning operations research study in Perm, Russia

EngenderHealth, the Population Council’s FRONTIERS program, and the Research Center of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Perinatology of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, with support from the Perm Health Departments, undertook an operations research study to test models for increasing contraceptive use and reducing the repeat abortion rate among abortion clients in Perm, Russia. The study also assessed the direct and indirect costs of abortion and contraceptive use incurred by women in the year following their index abortion (the abortion which took place the day of entry into the study). The findings of the study were significant for the training interventions and dissemination of educational materials and job aids. Results of the study indicate that institutionalizing family planning counseling for all abortion clients is a low-cost quality-enhancing intervention for the existing healthcare system that does not require increased personnel, purchase of expensive equipment, or remodeling of healthcare facilities. Because of this, the counseling interventions included in the study can be easily replicated in any Russian oblast or city healthcare facility

Heat Transfer Model of Hyporthermic Intracarotid Infusion of Cold Saline for Stroke Therapy

A 3-dimensional hemispheric computational brain model is developed to simulate infusion of cold saline in the carotid arteries in terms of brain cooling for stroke therapy. The model is based on the Pennes bioheat equation, with four tissue layers: white matter, gray matter, skull, and scalp. The stroke lesion is simulated by reducing blood flow to a selected volume of the brain by a factor of one-third, and brain metabolism by 50%. A stroke penumbra was also generated surrounding the core lesion (blood volume reduction 25%, metabolism reduction 20%). The finite difference method was employed to solve the system of partial differential equations. This model demonstrated a reduction in brain temperature, at the stroke lesion, to 32°C in less than 10 minutes

Sequential Acquisition and Processing of Perfusion and Diffusion MRI Data for a Porcine Stroke Model

An automated data processing pipeline, designed for handling a large throughput of sequentially acquired MRI brain data, is described. The system takes as input multiple diffusion weighted (DWI) and perfusion weighted imaging (PWI) volumes acquired at different temporal points, automatically segments and registers them, and ultimately outputs a database used to track various perfusion and diffusion parameters through time at individual brain voxels. This pipeline has been utilized to successfully process two pig brains from an induced stroke experiment

Assessing the feasibility, acceptability and cost of introducing postabortion care in health centres and dispensaries in rural Tanzania

The EngenderHealth ACQUIRE Project has been supporting the Tanzanian Ministry of Health (MOH) since early 2005 to decentralize the management of postabortion care (PAC) services to primary healthcare facilities (health centers and dispensaries), with the intention of bringing services closer to women who are unable to access them at district hospitals. Findings from this study were provided to the MOH and ACQUIRE to address issues arising from introduction of the intervention; and in September 2006, to assess the feasibility, cost, and effectiveness of the intervention. Findings show that the intervention appears to have broadened service providers’ range of clinical skills and led to an increase in the number of women accessing family planning services after the evacuation. Facilities are well prepared to provide the PAC services, and few clients were being referred for advanced clinical management for incomplete abortions within 12 weeks of conception. The report concludes that decentralizing PAC services to health centers and dispensaries is feasible and effective, and the approach could be scaled up at a reasonable cost to other lower level facilities in Tanzania

Politicization, postpolitics and the open city: Openness, closedness and the spatialisation of the political

The idea of the open city has been used both conceptually and analytically to understand the politics of the city. The contrast between the open city and the closed city relies, in part, upon an understanding of the global systems that enfold cities and, consequently, the politics that are – and are not – afforded cities. Notions such as the postpolitical city depend not on temporality where the city has ceased to be political, but a spatialisation of politics where the (properly) political has become excluded by the closed systems that envelope cities. In this paper, we explore analytical and theoretical responses to the horror of the Grenfell Tower fire to disclose the ways that different critiques of neoliberalism and racial capitalism deploy and rely upon different conceptions of the open and closed systems of the city. Rather than settle for the open/closed binary, we seek to understand how different forms of openness and closedness afford/constrain the politicisation (and depoliticization) of city life – and its catastrophes

Trends in the Management of Intracranial Vascular Malformations in the USA from 2000 to 2007

Objective. To assess prevalence, clinical characteristics, trends in treatment pattern, and outcome in patients with intracranial vascular malformations (IVMs). Methods. Nationwide inpatient sample. Patients with the diagnosis of an IVM admitted to US hospitals from 2000 to 2007. Results. In 58,051 IVM-related admissions (detection rate 2.4/100,000 person-years; mean age 49 ± 17 years; 52% women) major diagnoses were intracranial hemorrhage (ICrH) in 15%, seizure 32%, ischemia 5%, and headache 9%. Procedures included surgery (13%), embolization (13%), radiation therapy (2%), aneurysm clipping (1%), and mechanical ventilation (6%). Ventilation and ICrH were associated with death (2%), whereas ventilation, ICrH, surgery, seizure, and ischemia were associated with unfavorable outcome (20%). IVM detection rate and hospital outcome remained stable over time, whereas mean age and comorbid diagnosis of cerebral ischemia increased (ICrH and seizure decreased). Conclusion. IVMs are infrequent and present in 1/6 patients with some form of ICrH. Overall, seizure is the dominant comorbid diagnosis (1/3 patients). IVMs are equally prevalent among race-ethnic groups and are increasingly detected later in life. The inpatient care of IVM patients results in death or discharge into specialized care in 1/5 patients

Entanglements of race and migration in the (open) city: Analytical and normative tensions of the sociological imagination

This article considers the interface of taxonomies of race and migration crystallised through the materialities of the contemporary city in the shadow of the 7th anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire. It draws on multi-method empirical research that interrogates the notion of the open city. The article proposes that ‘entanglement’ and ‘contaminations’ of material and cultural formations confound some claims made in the name of the good city, recognising what Marilyn Strathern might describe as the recursive ‘contamination’ of normative and empirical evidence. The article argues that it is imperative to excavate the normative domain of the empirical, and curate the empirical realisation of the normative, in rethinking a truly global sociological imagination. It concludes by suggesting that one way of approaching this is through a more forensic understanding of what is taken as ‘evidence’ in social sciences that should inform an interdisciplinary urban studies

‘London is avocado on toast’: The urban imaginaries of the #LondonIsOpen campaign

This article examines the production, representations and reactions to the #LondonIsOpen campaign to ask how urban imaginaries are produced and what they entail for understanding the city. The analysis considers how the idea of a cosmopolitan, diverse and multicultural city is framed, what it includes and excludes and the distinct geographies of the city it produces. It draws on three data sources: documentary analysis of videos used in the campaign; social media analysis of tweets using #LondonIsOpen; and semi-structured interviews with key figures in the campaign team. The main arguments are that the appeal to openness contributes to the versatility of the campaign and the range of responses to it, making it highly adaptable and flexible to respond to current affairs; and that open London is geographically selective and imagined as business focused, trendy and cosmopolitan. In turn, the reactions to the idea of open London range from seeking a borderless world to anti-migrant rhetoric. Although the campaign represents London as welcoming and inclusive, such welcoming is partial and subject to contestation. The article concludes that over time, the openness of #LondonIsOpen has come to serve multiple political functions and act as a brand for the city