Weather index insurance underwrites a weather risk, typically highly correlated with agricultural production losses, as a proxy for economic loss and is gaining popularity in lower income countries. This instrument, although subject to basis risk and high start-up costs, should reduce costs over traditional agricultural insurance. Multilateral institutions have suggested that weather index insurance could enhance the ability of stakeholders in lower income countries to adapt to climate change. While weather index insurance could have several benefits in this context (e.g. providing a safety net to vulnerable households and price signals regarding the weather risk), climate change impacts increase the price of insurance due to increasing weather risk. Uncertainty about the extent of regional impacts compounds pricing difficulties. Policy recommendations for insurance market development include funding risk assessments, start-up costs and the extreme layer of risk. General premium subsidies are cautioned against as they may actually slow household adaptation. The Geneva Papers (2009) 34, 401–424. doi:10.1057/gpp.2009.11

HCT is the most sensitive, specific, and cost-effective modality for screening the cervical spine bony injuries, but it is not an effective modality for screening for cervical LI. MRI is clearly superior to HCT for LI. The indications for MRI include abnormalities on HCT, neurologic deficits, cervical pain or tenderness on examination, or the inability to clear the cervical spine in the obtunded patient. With the current state of the art technology, we have redefined the definition of spinal cord injury without radiographic abnormality to include spinal cord injuries without boney injuries or LI.

Introduction In blunt trauma, comatose patients (Glasgow Coma Scale score 3 to 8) with a negative comprehensive cervical spine (CS) computed tomography assessment and no apparent spinal deficit, CS clearance strategies (magnetic resonance imaging [MRI] and prolonged cervical collar use) are controversial.

The diagnostic efficacy of (1) combined three-phase bone scintigraphy and In-111 labeled WBC scintigraphy (Bone/WBC), (2) MRI, and (3) conventional radiography in detecting osteomyelitis of the neuropathic foot was compared. Conventional radiography was comparable to MRI for detection of osteomyelitis. MRI best depicted the presence of osteomyelitis in the forefoot. Particularly in the setting of Charcot joints, Bone/WBC was more specific than conventional radiography or MRI.