Aberrant right hepatic artery with a prepancreatic course visualized prior to pancreaticoduodenectomy.

Liver vascularization is known to present with several different variations. Generally, a normal vascular anatomy is reported in up to 50-80 % of cases. For this reason, a precise preoperative mapping of the hepatic vascularization prior to pancreatic surgery is essential to avoid injuries and subsequent complications. We report here a case of a young patient scheduled for Whipple procedure, who presented an arterial pattern type Michels IV, variation reported in 0.6 to 3 % in the literature. Another interesting particularity of this case was the fact that the right hepatic artery had a prepancreatic course. We think that every surgeon performing hepatopancreatic surgery should have heard of this special and rare situation.

Nurture versus nature: long-term impact of forced right-handedness on structure of pericentral cortex and basal ganglia.

Does a conflict between inborn motor preferences and educational standards during childhood impact the structure of the adult human brain? To examine this issue, we acquired high-resolution T1-weighted magnetic resonance scans of the whole brain in adult "converted" left-handers who had been forced as children to become dextral writers. Analysis of sulcal surfaces revealed that consistent right- and left-handers showed an interhemispheric asymmetry in the surface area of the central sulcus with a greater surface contralateral to the dominant hand. This pattern was reversed in the converted group who showed a larger surface of the central sulcus in their left, nondominant hemisphere, indicating plasticity of the primary sensorimotor cortex caused by forced use of the nondominant hand. Voxel-based morphometry showed a reduction of gray matter volume in the middle part of the left putamen in converted left-handers relative to both consistently handed groups. A similar trend was found in the right putamen. Converted subjects with at least one left-handed first-degree relative showed a correlation between the acquired right-hand advantage for writing and the structural changes in putamen and pericentral cortex. Our results show that a specific environmental challenge during childhood can shape the macroscopic structure of the human basal ganglia. The smaller than normal putaminal volume differs markedly from previously reported enlargement of cortical gray matter associated with skill acquisition. This indicates a differential response of the basal ganglia to early environmental challenges, possibly related to processes of pruning during motor development.

Prevalence of Neural Tube Defects (NTD) in Younger Mothers in Europe 2000-2008: Analysis of the EUROCAT Database - Report to Bayer Schiering Pharma

M.C. Addor is included in the Eurocat Working Group

Permanent.Plot.ch - a database for Swiss permanent vegetation plots

The aim of the Permanent.Plot.ch project is the conservation of historical data about permanent plots in Switzerland and the monitoring of vegetation in a context of environmental changes (mainly climate and land use). Permanent plots are currently being recognized as valuable tools to monitor long-term effects of environmental changes on vegetation. Often used in short studies (3 to 5 years), they are generally abandoned at the end of projects. However, their full potential might only be revealed after 10 or more years, once the location is lost. For instance, some of the oldest permanent plots in Switzerland (first half of the 20th century) were nearly lost, although they are now very valuable data. The Permanent.Plot.ch national database (GIVD ID EU-CH-001), by storing historical and recent data, will allow to ensuring future access to data from permanent vegetation plots. As the database contains some private data, it is not directly available on internet but an overview of the data can be downloaded from internet (http://www.unil.ch/ppch) and precise data are available on request.

Recent misconceptions about the "database search problem": a probabilistic analysis using Bayesian networks

This paper analyses and discusses arguments that emerge from a recent discussion about the proper assessment of the evidential value of correspondences observed between the characteristics of a crime stain and those of a sample from a suspect when (i) this latter individual is found as a result of a database search and (ii) remaining database members are excluded as potential sources (because of different analytical characteristics). Using a graphical probability approach (i.e., Bayesian networks), the paper here intends to clarify that there is no need to (i) introduce a correction factor equal to the size of the searched database (i.e., to reduce a likelihood ratio), nor to (ii) adopt a propositional level not directly related to the suspect matching the crime stain (i.e., a proposition of the kind 'some person in (outside) the database is the source of the crime stain' rather than 'the suspect (some other person) is the source of the crime stain'). The present research thus confirms existing literature on the topic that has repeatedly demonstrated that the latter two requirements (i) and (ii) should not be a cause of concern.

Syndrome douloureux de la fosse iliaque droite et laparoscopie: appendicectomie de routine ou non? [Pain syndrome in the right iliac fossa and laparoscopy: routine appendectomy or not?]

Diagnostic laparoscopy is useful in the evaluation of patients with lower right quadrant pain when the diagnosis is uncertain. The object of this study was to determine whether a normal appendix should be routinely removed at laparoscopy. We have decided to do this in children, men under the age of 30 and women of childbearing age. However we do not perform appendectomy in men over the age of 30, women over 50 and in immunodeficient patients. This is a working hypothesis and is the basis of an on-going prospective study in our unit

Mynodbcsv: Lightweight Zero-Config Database Solution for Handling Very Large CSV Files.

Volumes of data used in science and industry are growing rapidly. When researchers face the challenge of analyzing them, their format is often the first obstacle. Lack of standardized ways of exploring different data layouts requires an effort each time to solve the problem from scratch. Possibility to access data in a rich, uniform manner, e.g. using Structured Query Language (SQL) would offer expressiveness and user-friendliness. Comma-separated values (CSV) are one of the most common data storage formats. Despite its simplicity, with growing file size handling it becomes non-trivial. Importing CSVs into existing databases is time-consuming and troublesome, or even impossible if its horizontal dimension reaches thousands of columns. Most databases are optimized for handling large number of rows rather than columns, therefore, performance for datasets with non-typical layouts is often unacceptable. Other challenges include schema creation, updates and repeated data imports. To address the above-mentioned problems, I present a system for accessing very large CSV-based datasets by means of SQL. It's characterized by: "no copy" approach - data stay mostly in the CSV files; "zero configuration" - no need to specify database schema; written in C++, with boost [1], SQLite [2] and Qt [3], doesn't require installation and has very small size; query rewriting, dynamic creation of indices for appropriate columns and static data retrieval directly from CSV files ensure efficient plan execution; effortless support for millions of columns; due to per-value typing, using mixed text/numbers data is easy; very simple network protocol provides efficient interface for MATLAB and reduces implementation time for other languages. The software is available as freeware along with educational videos on its website [4]. It doesn't need any prerequisites to run, as all of the libraries are included in the distribution package. I test it against existing database solutions using a battery of benchmarks and discuss the results.

Selectome update: quality control and computational improvements to a database of positive selection.

Selectome (http://selectome.unil.ch/) is a database of positive selection, based on a branch-site likelihood test. This model estimates the number of nonsynonymous substitutions (dN) and synonymous substitutions (dS) to evaluate the variation in selective pressure (dN/dS ratio) over branches and over sites. Since the original release of Selectome, we have benchmarked and implemented a thorough quality control procedure on multiple sequence alignments, aiming to provide minimum false-positive results. We have also improved the computational efficiency of the branch-site test implementation, allowing larger data sets and more frequent updates. Release 6 of Selectome includes all gene trees from Ensembl for Primates and Glires, as well as a large set of vertebrate gene trees. A total of 6810 gene trees have some evidence of positive selection. Finally, the web interface has been improved to be more responsive and to facilitate searches and browsing.

Mental imagery for full and upper human bodies: common right hemisphere activations and distinct extrastriate activations.

The processing of human bodies is important in social life and for the recognition of another person's actions, moods, and intentions. Recent neuroimaging studies on mental imagery of human body parts suggest that the left hemisphere is dominant in body processing. However, studies on mental imagery of full human bodies reported stronger right hemisphere or bilateral activations. Here, we measured functional magnetic resonance imaging during mental imagery of bilateral partial (upper) and full bodies. Results show that, independently of whether a full or upper body is processed, the right hemisphere (temporo-parietal cortex, anterior parietal cortex, premotor cortex, bilateral superior parietal cortex) is mainly involved in mental imagery of full or partial human bodies. However, distinct activations were found in extrastriate cortex for partial bodies (right fusiform face area) and full bodies (left extrastriate body area). We propose that a common brain network, mainly on the right side, is involved in the mental imagery of human bodies, while two distinct brain areas in extrastriate cortex code for mental imagery of full and upper bodies.

Topographic ERP analyses: a step-by-step tutorial review

In this tutorial review, we detail both the rationale for as well as the implementation of a set of analyses of surface-recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) that uses the reference-free spatial (i.e. topographic) information available from high-density electrode montages to render statistical information concerning modulations in response strength, latency, and topography both between and within experimental conditions. In these and other ways these topographic analysis methods allow the experimenter to glean additional information and neurophysiologic interpretability beyond what is available from canonical waveform analyses. In this tutorial we present the example of somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) in response to stimulation of each hand to illustrate these points. For each step of these analyses, we provide the reader with both a conceptual and mathematical description of how the analysis is carried out, what it yields, and how to interpret its statistical outcome. We show that these topographic analysis methods are intuitive and easy-to-use approaches that can remove much of the guesswork often confronting ERP researchers and also assist in identifying the information contained within high-density ERP datasets

The Football Stadium - A Place Where Right-Wing Extremists Recruit ? Case Studies of Three Swiss Clubs

Der Sammelband ,,Right-wing extremism" hat ein doppeltes Ziel. Zum einen soll er das Nationale Forschungsprogramm 40plus und seine Projekte präsentieren (die alle mit Beiträgen präsent sind), zum anderen sollen diese nationalen Beiträge in eine internationale Perspektive gestellt werden, sodass in der Übersicht und Umschau eine Verortung der schweizerischen Forschung (und damit auch des NFP40plus selbst) und ihrer Resultate möglich wird. Eingeladen wurden dazu führende europäische Forscher auf dem Gebiet des Rechtsextremismus.