Subependymal Gray Matter Heterotopia

Background: A 31-year-old woman presented at the department of neurology with a history of seizures since childhood. About five years ago her seize pattern changed from generalized atonic attacks with asphyxia to simple partial attacks characterized by left hemiparesis and speech difficulties. These seizures occurred multiple times a day and typically lasted about a minute. The patient had a negative family history of epilepsy

Documenting marine species traits in the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS): current status, future plans and encountered challenges

The importance of describing species patterns and the underlying processes explaining these patterns is essential to assess the status and future evolution of marine ecosystems. This requires biological information on functional and structural species traits such as feeding ecology, body size, reproduction, life history, etc.To accommodate this need, the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) (WoRMS Editorial Board 2017) is expanding its content with trait information (Costello et al. 2015), subdivided into 3 main categories: (1) taxonomy related traits, e.g. paraphyletic groups, (2) biological and ecological traits-specific characteristics of a taxon, e.g. body size or feeding type and (3) human defined traits, e.g. the legal protection status of species, whether a species is introduced, harmful, or used as an ecological indicator.Initially, priority was given to the inclusion of traits that could be applied to the majority of marine taxa and where the information was easily available. The main driver for this approach was that the inclusion of these traits should result in new research, which in turn would drive improvements in the quality and quantity of trait information. Pilot projects were carried out for different species groups, allowing a thorough documentation of a selection of traits. In parallel, a standard vocabulary was put together (http://www.marinespecies.org/traits/wiki/), based on already existing resources to cover all marine life. All documented traits needed to be compliant with this vocabulary, in order to make the data as widely useable as possible, across groups. Defining a trait across all marine life is not trivial, as scientists can use terms in a different way between groups. This stresses the importance for users to realize these differences in terminology, before they analyse a trait across all taxa.Some traits were thought to be quite straightforward to document, although practice proved otherwise. Such a trait is body size, where the aim was to document the numerical value of the ‘maximum body size in length’. In reality, a lot of variation is possible (e.g. for fish: fork length versus standard length) and maximum size is not always considered relevant from an ecological point of view. On the other hand, documenting numerical body size for each marine species is quite time consuming. Therefore, a complementary size trait will be documented, indicating whether taxa are considered as micro, meio, macro or mega.Whereas the initial approach was to complete the register for each tackled trait relevant for all marine species, we now complement this by (1) documenting several traits within a specific group, regardless whether this trait is also present in other taxon groups, and (2) documenting one specific trait, covering a variety – but not all – taxonomic groups, e.g. the composition of the skeleton for calcareous animals.Where possible, we aim to document a trait on a higher taxonomic level to allow the work to progress more rapidly. As the database allows top-down inheritance of traits, exceptions can easily be documented. In addition, collaborations are sought with already running initiatives such as Encyclopedia of Life.Very soon, all the documented traits will be searchable through the Marine Species Traits Portal. The human-defined traits are already accessible through the EMODnet Biology Portal (http://www.emodnet-biology.eu/toolbox), in combination with distribution information from the European Ocean Biogeographic Information System (EurOBIS; www.eurobis.org; Vandepitte et al. 2011; Vandepitte et al. 2015) and taxonomy from WoRMS (www.marinespecies.org). Through the LifeWatch Taxonomic Backbone (LW-TaxBB) (http://www.lifewatch.be/data-services/), services are offered to access these traits, combined with data and information from other resources such as WoRMS and (Eur)OBIS.We would like to acknowledge the EMODnet Biology and the LifeWatch project, in which the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) – host institute of WoRMS – is responsible for the development of the LW-TaxBB. Both projects provide funding for the documentation of trait data and development of services allowing researchers to easily access the available data, in combination with data from other sources

Abstract of papers for full membership at the Royal Belgian Society of Radiology

Introduction: In up to 30% of patients with epilepsy, the disease becomes refractory to antiepileptic drugs or the side effects of the medications are intolerable. These patients may be referred for surgical resection. Patients with refractory epilepsy in whom the epileptogenic zone cannot be precisely identified using the currently available presurgical evaluation tools are not likely to undergo resective surgery and remain prone to uncontrolled seizures. The aim of this study is to assess the added value of surface coil imaging at 3-Tesla (3T SCI) with regard to their potential to locate the epiloptogenic zone in order to increase the number of patients eligible for resective surgery

Pulmonary hematoma presenting as pseudotumor

A 65-year old man presented at the emergency department with acute shortness of breath, chest pain, cough and haemoptysis. The patient is an ex-smoker with a total of 35 pack years and an extensive medical history, including a serious traffic accident with neurotrauma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, degenerative spine and hip disease, ethylism, a type A aortic dissection and atrial fibrillation. His medication list is extensive and includes a bronchodilator, an antiepileptic, several antihypertensive drugs, pain medication, amiodarone, acetylsalicyc acid and subcutaneous low molecular weight heparin. Chest X-ray showed a rounded opacity in the mediobasal segment of the right lower lobe that could not be seen on previous radiographs (Fig. A). Biochemistry demonstrated an elevated CRP (48 mg/L) and elevated D-dimers (2190 ng/ml). CT thorax was performed to rule out pulmonary embolism. CT thorax showed a sharply demarcated relatively hyperdense mass (mean density on pulmonary artery phase images of 46 HU) with a maximum diameter of 5,5 cm in the mediobasal segment of the right lower lobe abutting the distal vena cava superior (Fig. B). An endobronchial ultrasounded (EBUS) guided biopsy of the lesion was performed. Pathologic examination showed pulmonary tissue with signs of hemorhage and fibrotic changes. No signs of malignancy were seen. An old thorax CT made in another hospital revealed that the location of the mass corresponded exactly with the location of a large bulla (Fig. C). Based on this new information the diagnosis of pulmonary hematoma within a bulla was made