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Artificial Intelligence (AI) carries the potential for unprecedented disruption in radiology, with possible positive and negative consequences. The integration of AI in radiology holds the potential to revolutionize healthcare practices by advancing diagnosis, quantification, and management of multiple medical conditions. Nevertheless, the ever‑growing availability of AI tools in radiology highlights an increasing need to critically evaluate claims for its utility and to differentiate safe product offerings from potentially harmful, or fundamentally unhelpful ones. This multi‑society paper, presenting the views of Radiology Societies in the USA, Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, defines the potential practical problems and ethical issues surrounding the incorporation of AI into radiological practice. In addition to delineating the main points of concern that developers, regulators, and purchasers of AI tools should consider prior to their introduction into clinical practice, this statement also suggests methods to monitor their stability and safety in clinical use, and their suitability for possible autonomous function. This statement is intended to serve as a useful summary of the practical issues which should be considered by all parties involved in the development of radiology AI resources, and their implementation as clinical tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policies and services to support informal caregivers vary considerably across countries, This paper examines the role of caregivers and how perspectives on that role may influence the availability of benefits and services in three countries that differ considerably in their care systems - Sweden, Ireland and the United States. We developed a nine-dimensional framework for examining differences, including policies and how the role of caregiver is conceptualized. We found differences in the three countries in how services are organized, which reflected assumptions about the caregiver role. There were also similarities in the three countries. Caregivers held an ambiguous position within each social system and there was little concern for equity in the delivery of support services. Increased clarity about the role of caregivers may facilitate development of policies that more effectively meet their varied needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the winners of the 2006 Bodycote International Prize Paper Competition. The competition attracted entries from students across the UK, continental Europe and the USA. The first prize winners are M. Esfandiari and H. Dong, for their papers concerning plasma surface engineering of precipitation hardening stainless steels. Y. N. Kok, J. G. Wen, I. Petrov and P. Eh. Hovsepian combined their efforts to win the joint second prize for their papers concerning ion bombardment.

This paper briefly surveys the history of natural gas use and describes the main features of current gas consumption. The share of gas in total energy consumption, and the sectoral distribution of its use in major consuming regions are discussed. The main changes in the pattern of gas consumption since 1980 are reviewed and explained. I analyze the likely implications of (a) the emergence of the combined cycle gas power generation; (b) the rising environmental premium of gas; and (c) the transformation of the West European gas market structure. The paper concludes that natural gas will substantially increase its share of global energy consumption in the next 15-20 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last decades the production of electrical energy has been liberalized. This paper studies the effect of using a market mechanism to allocate scarce transmission capacity when the incumbent producers remain dominant. We show that granting exclusive use to an incumbent producer is preferred to trading access to this essential facility if interregional production-cost differences are significant and transmission capacity is scarce. This result counters the intuition on third degree price-discrimination, that arbitrage will improve the social surplus when there is no output contraction. The reason is that with arbitrage the incumbent can still charge different regional prices as long as it creates congestion on the transmission lines. As a consequence, welfare will be lower, since the incumbent distorts production decisions to congest the lines. We recommend that a market-oriented access to scarce transmission capacity should be accompanied by additional regulatory or structural measures to address market power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For impoverished African states the attraction of inward flows of capital is vital and migrants are one such source of finance. Some governments actively encourage this, which brings out tensions between national affiliation and more particularistic forms of identification. This paper examines this in the context of Ghana. Between the mid-1970s and the late 1990s there was large-scale out-migration from Ghana, creating what has been termed a 'neo-diaspora'. The migrants have mainly settled in cities in Western Europe and North America where they have developed institutional networks linking them to other diasporic locations and to Ghana. These migrants have complex identities forged from multiple meetings in numerous places. Some of these are rooted in hometown, clan, and family attachments and the obligations this brings. The current government (in line with many developing countries) is making a major play to 'harness' the diaspora for political support and inward investment. Tensions are being played out about dual citizenship and whether the migrants' economic commitments to Ghana are matched by rights as full citizens. The Ghana government has to tread a careful path between attracting investment and garnering the right sort of political support, since people in the diaspora often have an ambivalent relationship to domestic politics. One of the vehicles through which the Ghanaian state seeks to square this is through encouraging hometown associations in various cities in the global North to fund development at the local level through various local-local partnerships. Hence, the nation, the national good, and development are being promoted through particularistic ethnic and locality-based organisations, which brings to light multiple and overlapping political communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares electricity wholesale markets in the United States and Europe. The Standard Market Design in the US involves an independent system operator, nodal pricing with financial transmission rights, and integrated markets for capacity and ancillary services. In Europe, there are national, or occasionally zonal, spot markets run by companies independent of the transmission operator, and of the latter's purchases of ancillary services. As the amount of flow-carbon generation increases, prices and transmission constraints are likely to become more volatile, increasing the need to adopt an efficient market design. In most respects, the US standard market design is likely to give better results than the European models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing recognition in the United States and Europe that health care is driven to a significant extent by an emphasis on consumer choice and demand. As consumers, people regularly choose their own solutions for health promotion and maintenance, solutions which may or may not be sanctioned by mainstream medicine. Radioactive radon therapy exemplifies a non-sanctioned treatment eagerly sought by certain patients, but scorned or dismissed by many physicians. This is certainly the case in the United States, where well-publicized Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) warnings portray radon as a potential carcinogen. Between 1997 and 2001, I worked with a population of arthritis sufferers who expose themselves to radon gas in Montana radon health mines in order to alleviate their symptoms. In this paper I discuss the decision-making process involved in using radon, and compare the Montana radon health mine facilities with selected radon mines and spas in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is about a race between the USA and Europe in biosimilars. The race can be defined in several ways: the first launch of a biosimilar; the first cross-border use of a biosimilar in the USA or Europe which was approved in a neighbouring country; the greatest value or profits of biosimilars in 2004; the first legal provision for an abbreviated regulatory pathway applied in a consistent and continued manner; and the race for interchangeability or substitution of biosimilars for reimbursement, a race that is just beginning. The USA has won three of the five races, first-launch, first cross-border use and greatest value of biosimilars according to 2004 sales, but Europe is ahead in the most important race: the application of a consistent and continued regulatory pathway. This paper provides the race results and looks at the race for biosimilar regulatory pathways. Once the regulatory pathway is applied by governments in a consistent and continued manner and many biosimilars are launched, the race begins for interchangeability that affects physician prescribing and generic substitution. Biosimilar interchangeability and subsequent biopharmaceutical affordability, is the ultimate prize for the real winners of the race: the patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Western Europe increasingly is regarded as a necessary market for the product of the U.S. television and sports industries. At the same time, the European sports television market is itself in the process of both expansion and economic consolidation. This paper analyzes the recent strategies implemented in both the U.S. and European sports marketplaces in order to explain the changes, successes, and failures; and to discuss the opportunities and limits of the internationalization of sports television. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses various matters on migration. The Political Participation of Ethnic Minorities in Europe workshop was organized by the European Consortium for Political Research and was held at the Leyden University, The Netherlands, on April 2 to 8, 1993. This workshop explores the factors which constrain or facilitate the participation of ethnic minorities in the political process and the extent to which such participation has furthered or diluted the pursuit of ethnically-based interests. Meanwhile, the Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association: Philadelphia was held April 16 to 17, 1993. It included the following papers: The American Catholic Response to Recent Immigration, by M. L. Sullivan; Ybor City Latins and the Church, by M. J. McNally; and Puerto Ricans and the Archdiocesan of Chicago, 1963-1970, by T. Kelliher. In other matters, The Forum for Researchers on Islam in Europe was established to encourage the development of information and interdisciplinary research on Islam and Muslim populations in Europe. It foresees a publication of a newsletter, directory of members, publication of an international bibliography in 1993, a symposium in 1994, and an international conference in 1995.

'America has a negro problem', the Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal stated in the introduction to his modern classic An American Dilemma first published in 1944 Half a century later the so called immigrant problem is moving to the top of the political agenda of EU Europe. To speak about a European dilemma in this context means to relate established European values of social solidarity and social responsibility to an increasingly ethnicised and racialised social inequality in European cities How can the dilemma be made transparent? How can we transcend the disjunctures between 'creed' and reality? Along these lines the paper debates potentialities for transethnic alignment in the US and EU Europe exposed to a common condition of globalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]