European Imaging Research Articles

Multimodality imaging in Europe: a survey by the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) and the European Society of Radiology (ESR)

Multimodality imaging represents an area of rapid growth with important professional implication for both nuclear medicine physicians and radiologists throughout Europe. As a preliminary step for future action aimed at improving the quality and accessibility of PET/SPECT/CT multimodality imaging practice in Europe, the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) and the European Society of Radiology (ESR) performed a survey among the individual membership of both societies to obtain information on the status of multimodality imaging in their facilities and their future visions on training for combined modalities. A questionnaire was forwarded to all individual members of the EANM and ESR. The main subject matter of the questionnaire related to: (1) study performance,current procedures, current equipment including its supervisory personnel at respondents' individual facilities and (2)vision of future practice, performance and the potential for combined interdisciplinary viewing and training for future professionals. The reporting and the billing procedures of multimodality imaging studies are very heterogeneous in European countries. The majority of the members of both societies believe that the proportion of PET/CT conducted as a full diagnostic CT with contrast enhancement will increase over time. As expected, (18)F-FDG is the most commonly used PET tracer for clinical applications. The large majority of respondents were in favour of an interdisciplinary training programme being developed on a European level together by the EANM and the ESR and the respective sections of the European Union of Medical Specialists. The results of this survey show that there is wide heterogeneity in the current practice of multimodality imaging in Europe. This situation may limit the full potential and integration of multimodality imaging within the clinical arena. There is a strong desire within both specialties for the development of interdisciplinary training to address some of these issues.

En ny verden set fra udkanten: Europa-forestillinger hos Snorri Sturluson

A New World Seen from the Edge: Snorri Sturluson and Images of Europe:In the beginning of the 13th century, the Icelander Snorri Sturluson wrote the Prose Edda. The prologue to this text describes how the linguistic, political and religious preconditions for Northern Europe were to be found in Asia. Snorri’s perspective was determined by his position in the Christian world, and his work articulates both Christianity’s universality and history’s teleological character. Like other learned people in Medieval Europe, Snorri was guided by his knowledge of the high cultures, Antiquity’s and Christianity’s, and these were decisive for the description he gives of the North. This essay shows how the Nordic countries, positioned on the periphery of the Christian world, through the assimilation of Trojan emigrants and pre-historical Nordic people, were in the Edda assigned a status equivalent to those of the high cultures. Through a cultural translatio, Snorri modified the prevailing centre-periphery division of the world and the view that the North was subordinate to the high cultures.

The Semiotic Engine: Notes on the History of Algorithmic Images in Europe

A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned …1

Delegitimizing Jews and the Jewish State: Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism after Auschwitz

Yves Pallade is director of the Foreign Affairs Network at B’nai B’rith Europe, where he deals in particular with the question of Israel’s image in Europe and the political fight against antisemitism. The focus of Dr. Pallade’s academic research and writing is on modern antisemtism, political extremism and international terrorism. His monograph, Germany and Israel in the 1990s and Beyond—Still a “Special Relationship”? was published in 2005.

Globalisation and Migrant Labour in a ‘Rainbow Nation': a fortress South Africa?

Outside southern Africa little attention has been given to the lively debates, particularly within South Africa, about migration, economic integration, racism/xenophobia and exclusion. After the collapse of apartheid the Southern African Development Community (sadc) developed initiatives on regional co-operation on population movement in a far-reaching 1995 Draft Protocol on Free Movement. However, the post-apartheid South African state was concerned solely with free trade and, with the support of other regional players, managed to halt the Protocol. The processes of neoliberal regional integration, socioeconomic transformations, poverty and inequality, as well as the political turmoil in countries of the sub-Saharan region, have resulted in growth of migration to South Africa. The post-apartheid regime has made full use of the ancien regime's authoritarian legal migration instruments, while migrant workers from neighbouring countries, many undocumented, are exploited by employers, repressed by the police and immigration authorities and treated with suspicion. This paper focuses on the processes of localised and globalised racialisation of migrant workers in South Africa, which have allowed it to treat the question of free movement, migration and integration more or less in the image of Europe. The ‘rainbow nation’ seems to be racialising and excluding the ‘xenos’ based on the apartheid legacy's treatment of migrant black labour. Moreover, the myth of the ‘weak state’ serves to cover up the power of capital, which is benefiting from the drive to informalisation and the irregular/undeclared work of undocumented workers. Trade unions have failed to organise migrant workers, initially reacting defensively, but now increasingly recognising that migrant workers must be incorporated in the movement and their rights defended for the benefit of all workers. If trade unions look at the European and US experience they will find similar dilemmas but also strategies for incorporation in the unions. Finally the paper looks at future challenges beyond racialisation and xenophobia.

Sonografische Leberdiagnostik bei Tumorpatienten ohne und mit Kontrastmittel

In patients with known malignancy, correct detection and characterization of liver lesions has important therapeutic consequences. Conventional sonography is the most commonly used modality for liver imaging in tumor patients. However, it has a lower sensitivity for the detection of liver metastases compared to contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The majority of liver metastases are hypoechoic and well defined in baseline ultrasound (US), while detection of isoechoic or small liver metastases <1 cm is difficult and the differentiation of liver metastases from benign liver lesions and other malignant liver tumors can be impossible with baseline US. The use of microbubble-based ultrasound contrast agents and contrast-specific imaging techniques advanced the accuracy of ultrasound in liver imaging. Levovist and SonoVue are the US contrast agents approved for liver imaging in Europe. Compared to Levovist, SonoVue allows continuous imaging of the liver in real-time over a period of up to 5 minutes. As a result, SonoVue became the preferred contrast agent for liver imaging in the recent years, while Levovist became less important. Important for the detection of liver metastases are the portal venous and late phases in which metastases show a wash-out and can be detected as hypoechoic lesions in homogeneous enhanced liver parenchyma. The detection of hepatic metastases is substantially improved by CEUS compared to conventional B-mode sonography. Several studies showed sensitivity in detecting liver metastases comparable to that of contrast-enhanced CT and MRI. Furthermore, the typical enhancement patterns of the different benign and malignant liver lesions allow reliable characterization and differentiation from liver metastases in the majority of cases. This paper provides information about the advantages and expedient application of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) in tumor patients.

Present and future of clinical cardiovascular PET imaging in Europe—a position statement by the European Council of Nuclear Cardiology (ECNC)

This position statement was prepared by the European Council of Nuclear Cardiology and summarises the current and future potential of PET as a clinical cardiovascular diagnostic imaging tool. The first section describes how methodological developments have positively influenced the transition of PET from a research tool towards a clinical diagnostic test. In the second section, evidence in support of its superior diagnostic accuracy, its value to guide decision making and to predict outcome and its cost effectiveness is summarised. The third section finally outlines new PET-based approaches and concepts, which will likely influence clinical cardiovascular medicine in the future. The notion that integration of cardiac PET into healthcare systems and disease management algorithms will advance quality of care is increasingly supported by the literature highlighted in this statement.

The Vlaams Blok, its electorate, and the ideological articulation of ‘Europe’

In this article we analyse the Vlaams Blok's ideological production on the issue of ‘Europe’, identifying a rhetorical strategy of subverting the common equivalence between the ‘EU’ and ‘Europe’. We then estimate the receptivity of Flemish voters to this strategy. Our study combines qualitative analysis of Vlaams Blok ideology with regard to ‘Europe’, the EU and immigration, and quantitative analysis of Flemish public attitudes towards those objects. Our research suggests that the party is applying a more ‘cosmopolitan’ veneer to its rhetoric on Europe, perhaps in a bid to win support from a wider pool of voters who identify as ‘Europeans’ and might recoil from overtly racist rhetoric. The ideological analysis shows that a positive image of Europe as a ‘civilisation’ is connected with the idea of Flanders as a ‘European’ nation, and the need to defend this civilisation provides the justification for rejecting ‘non-European’ immigration. Further, this positive outlook on ‘Europe’ is set in stark contrast to a negative portrayal of the EU, which is held responsible for the swamping of Europe under a tide of that ‘non-European’ immigration. Comparisons with public opinion show that Vlaams Blok ideological constructions find an echo in voter attitudes. When encouraged to evaluate ‘Europe’ independently of the EU, voters with extreme right attitudes are willing and able to do so, and many express a positive identification with ‘Europe’ while remaining strongly anti-EU. This applies especially to the party's target voters: those with anti-immigrant attitudes but who have not (yet) supported the Blok.

Good Europeans?

AbstractTelevision news narratives are sites where national and transnational identities are cultivated and mobilised. The question is not whether Swedish, Danish or British news stories about Europe are domesticated to fit national news bulletins, but how events are domesticated and how ‘we’ are made European by the programmes’ producers. The analysis of all European stories between 15-21 November 1999 in three national public service news bulletins indicate that viewers are offered different images of Europe during this week, and that journalists play active roles in constructing ‘themes’ which link together different types of news stories into narratives about ‘us’ and ‘them’. From these there emerged a Swedish ‘moralising global villager’, slightly superior but willing to adapt to changing international realities, an anxious and conscientious Danish ‘we’, trying to do its share despite its self-imposed limitations on EU cooperation, and an engaged humanitarian British ‘we’, who is global in scope but prefers to keep a distance from time consuming Euro-squabbles.

Antisemitism and Right-Wing Extremism in Germany: New Discourses

(2008). Antisemitism and Right-Wing Extremism in Germany: New Discourses. Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs: Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 65-75.

The Image of Europe as Advertised in Russia

This contribution analyses the image of Europe passed on in current TV-advertising in Russia. This image is only understandable in the context of the current social discussions about national identity and builds on the national self-images. While Russia is very markedly different to Europe in terms of size and importance, tradition and history as well as community and shared identity, the image of Europe is depicted as a homogenous, intrinsically less structured counterpart to the self-image. The image of Europe is based on difference, not on negative foreign stereotyping. As a result, Russia appears as not belonging to Europe.

Imagining Europe: Internal and External Non-State Actors at the European Crossroads

This article studies the construction of ideals and images associated with Europe and the European Union by non-state actors (social movements, trade unions and NGOs) based outside Europe. First, we analyse the external image of Europe and the EU through the content analysis of meaning attributed to the EU and EU politics on the homepages of non-EU NGOs, trade unions and social movements within the global justice movements. Secondly, we study the perspective of non-Western European activists within the European Social Forum process as a transnational forum ‘from below’ for ‘another’ Europe. The European Union seen from outside is an ambivalent powerful political community with both a hegemonic but also a socially transformative and democratic aspiration. While internal EU organizations and groups claim the internal democratization of Europe, activists based outside the EU see it as an important external ally for the implementation of human rights and democratization (or gender equality), though they are very critical on materialistic issues, such as trade relationships.

Russia, The Turks and Europe: Legitimations of War and the Formation of European Identity in the Early Modern Period

AbstractAn essential criterion of belonging to a community is the expressed willingness to play by its rules. "Europe" in the Early Modern period can be seen as a moral community of "Christian" and "civilized" states which abided by the principles of ius gentium. The core of this code was the limitation and regulation of warfare. Although moral and legal principles of bellum iustum were often overruled by considerations of interest, there was at least one thing common to all European wars: the states always took pains to prove publicly that they were waging a just war. This essay examines the significance of printed legitimations of war for the formation of European identity. It focuses on the case of Muscovy, which before the end of the seventeenth century had not been concerned with its image in Europe, and was thus left at the mercy of the propaganda of its western neighbors who were instrumental in constructing the image of Muscovites as Asiatic barbarians, more similar to the Turks than to Christians. Tsar Peter the Great, however, took a novel decision to launch a campaign of public legitimation of Muscovy's attack on Sweden in 1700. The legitimations of war published during Peter's reign can be seen as essential components of his quest for the acknowledgement of Russia as a fully-fledged member of the European moral, legal, and political community.

Images of Europe from Abroad: The Pleasures and Pitfalls of Teaching German Cinema in America1

Images of Europe from Abroad: The Pleasures and Pitfalls of Teaching German Cinema in America¹

A Theatre for Cannibals: Images of Europe in Indigenous African Theatre of the Colonial Period

Europe’s colonial presence on the African continent from 1885 to the 1960s produced complex discourses about race and its representation. Whereas the Europeans constructed their putative images of Africans as inferior beings through radio, television, film, and print, for a predominantly literate sector, Africans deployed a more complex and mixed set of literacies. As well as conventional forms of literature, Africans used iconographic, kinaesthetic, proxemic, sonic, linguistic, tactile, calligraphic and sartorial literacies in their indigenous festivals and ritual theatres to resist, historicize, and domesticate colonial whiteness from the nineteenth century to the present day. In this article, Esiaba Irobi offers a detailed response to Bell Hooks’s observation (in Black Looks: Race and Representation, 1992) that in the work of postcolonial critics ‘there is a continued fascination with the way white minds, particularly the colonial imperialist traveller, perceive blackness, and very little expressed interest in representations of whiteness in the black imagination’. Esiaba Irobi is an Associate Professor of International Theatre at Ohio University, Athens. Born in the Republic of Biafra, he has lived in exile in Nigeria, Britain, and the USA. His African Festival and Ritual Theatre: Resisting Globalization on the Continent and Diaspora since 1492 is due for publication by Palgrave Macmillan in 2007.

Patient exposure in medical X-ray imaging in Europe

Patients are exposed to X rays when undergoing medical examinations in diagnostic radiology. Exposure data acquired and assessed in Germany for the year 1997 resulted in a mean annual effective dose of 2 +/- 0.5 mSv per head of the population, thereby reaching or exceeding the average level of environmental radiation in many cases. The underlying frequency of medical X-ray examinations was approximately 136 million, i.e. approximately 1.7 examinations annually per head of the population. For comparison, corresponding data of other countries were extracted from the UNSCEAR 2000 report or originate from the literature. Data analysis shows significant differences in national radiological practices and a very uneven distribution of patient doses amongst the world population. The mean annual effective dose per head of the population varies by up to a factor of 60 between health care level I and IV countries, and still by a factor of approximately 6 within health care level I countries. While projection radiography has succeeded in reducing dose consumption, computed tomography and radiological interventions have given rise to a significant growth of patient exposure, and interventional radiology can even exceed thresholds for deterministic radiation effects. Patient exposure is further shown to result from misadministration and retakes of X-ray examinations, usually not registered, as well as from technical failures of X-ray facilities, which can cause significantly enhanced exposure times. Corresponding data are presented and comments are made on the international situation of non-harmonised data collection on patient exposure as well as of parameters affecting the assessment of exposure and risk.

A transnational political culture? The Alpine region and its relationship to European integration

This article deals with the political culture of the Alpine region, its expression in the strategies of regionalist and populist parties, and how this affects the relationship to European integration. The Alpine culture is a specific set of attitudes and values overlapping with religious, rural–urban and centre–periphery (ethno-linguistic) dimensions. These cultural elements are expressed in similar ways across national borders and are most visible in the Lega Nord in Italy, the Christlich-Soziale Union in Bavaria, the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs in Austria, and the Schweizerische Volkspartei in Switzerland. The Alpine political culture includes strong anti-modern features, emphasises issues such as ‘nature’ and Heimat in the political discourse, and incorporates religious and traditional attitudes. This type of political culture is particularly relevant as it may represent a crucial dimension in the emerging European-wide party system, presenting an alternative ‘image of Europe’ and European integration.

Taking stock of the Franks

This article reflects on a diverse set of materials that constitute a part of South Asian xenology in the early modern period. Partly derived from South India, and partly from the northern Indian core of the Mughal empire, these materials deal with the problem of the ‘Franks’, namely the Europeans—whether seen in the context of Asia or of Europe. Initially the Europeans appear as strange, wondrous and also largely untrustworthy interlocutors in the Indian Ocean. Then, with the passage of time, an image of Europe itself emerges, which is finally sealed in the later eighteenth century with the first travel accounts by Indians to Europe. However, these images are part and parcel of a more general xenological and geographical understanding of the areas that neighbour South Asia, and should hence be analysed as such.

The Earliest Eyewitness Depictions of Khoikhoi: Andries Beeckman in Africa

Countless studies by historians, art historians and anthropologists have dealt with the early modern image of the South African Khoikhoi. Lacking everything that Europeans valued, they fell prey to the most contemptuous imagery available. The term ‘Hottentots’, by which they were known, was considered more or less synonymous with monstrous appearance, beastly habits and cultural ignorance. As such they were portrayed in official reports and travel journals, in prints and drawings. Few European artists and travel writers published their observations with any recourse to reality, however. They usually created their images in Europe in accordance with prevailing artistic and literary conventions, time and again reverting to stereotypes that were embedded in prejudice and based on incomplete and distorted knowledge. Thus far scholars have not discovered a single drawing by an eyewitness from the first two centuries of Khoikhoi-European encounters. As a consequence our insight into the mechanisms of stereotyping is far from complete. We neither know how the images were perceived by European viewers nor do we know if and how the stereotypes blurred the perception and judgement of eyewitnesses themselves.

Europeanization as a Challenge to Legal History

A project concerning itself with the effects of the past on the European integration process must also raise the question of the emergence of guiding historical images in the course of this process. As the past is not objective truth, but a perception generated by various actors (e.g., politicians, populist movements) as well as by history as a science in accordance with its own aims and rationality criteria, it appears in very different narratives. Many such historical images of Europe are generated by legal history. Since the Treaty on the European Union brought European integration a deeper, political dimension, a euphoria about Europe has broken out in legal history.