Description of Cithaeron dippenaarae sp. n. from Morocco (Araneae: Cithaeronidae)

Cithaeron dippenaarae sp. n. is described from both sexes. The species occurs in stony regions in the south of Morocco

Description of the male of Steatoda ephippiata (Araneae: Theridiidae)

The previously unknown male of Steatoda ephippiata (Thorell, 1875) is described from recently collected material in Tunisia. Some new distribution records for the species are added and all known records are mapped

Enabling automated device size selection for transcatheter aortic valve implantation

The number of transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) procedures is expected to increase significantly in the coming years. Improving efficiency will become essential for experienced operators performing large TAVI volumes, while new operators will require training and may benefit from accurate support. In this work, we present a fast deep learning method that can predict aortic annulus perimeter and area automatically from aortic annular plane images. We propose a method combining two deep convolutional neural networks followed by a postprocessing step. The models were trained with 355 patients using modern deep learning techniques, and the method was evaluated on another 118 patients. The method was validated against an interoperator variability study of the same 118 patients. The differences between the manually obtained aortic annulus measurements and the automatic predictions were similar to the differences between two independent observers (paired diff. of 3.3 +/- 16.8 mm(2) vs. 1.3 +/- 21.1 mm(2) for the area and a paired diff. of 0.6 +/- 1.7 mm vs. 0.2 +/- 2.5 mm for the perimeter). The area and perimeter were used to retrieve the suggested prosthesis sizes for the Edwards Sapien 3 and the Medtronic Evolut device retrospectively. The automatically obtained device size selections accorded well with the device sizes selected by operator 1. The total analysis time from aortic annular plane to prosthesis size was below one second. This study showed that automated TAVI device size selection using the proposed method is fast, accurate, and reproducible. Comparison with the interobserver variability has shown the reliability of the strategy, and embedding this tool based on deep learning in the preoperative planning routine has the potential to increase the efficiency while ensuring accuracy

Dendritic Cells in Human Atherosclerosis: From Circulation to Atherosclerotic Plaques

Background. Atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease with atherosclerotic plaques containing inflammatory infiltrates predominantly consisting of monocytes/macrophages and activated T cells. More recent is the implication of dendritic cells (DCs) in the disease. Since DCs were demonstrated in human arteries in 1995, numerous studies in humans suggest a role for these professional antigen-presenting cells in atherosclerosis. Aim. This paper focuses on the observations made in blood and arteries of patients with atherosclerosis. In principal, flow cytometric analyses show that circulating myeloid (m) and plasmacytoid (p) DCs are diminished in coronary artery disease, while immunohistochemical studies describe increased intimal DC counts with evolving plaque stages. Moreover, mDCs and pDCs appear to behave differently in atherosclerosis. Yet, the origin of plaque DCs and their relationship with blood DCs are unknown. Therefore, several explanations for the observed changes are postulated. In addition, the technical challenges and discrepancies in the research field are discussed. Future. Future studies in humans, in combination with experimental animal studies will unravel mechanisms leading to altered blood and plaque DCs in atherosclerosis. As DCs are crucial for inducing but also dampening immune responses, understanding their life cycle, trafficking and function in atherosclerosis will determine potential use of DCs in antiatherogenic therapies

Ranks of elliptic curves with prescribed torsion over number fields

We study the structure of Mordell-Weil groups of elliptic curves over number fields of degrees 2, 3, and 4. We show that if T is a group, then either the class of all elliptic curves over quadratic fields with torsion subgroup T is empty or it contains curves of rank 0 as well as curves of positive rank. We prove a similar but slightly weaker result for cubic and quartic fields. On the other hand, we find a group T and a quartic field K such that among the elliptic curves over K with torsion subgroup T, there are curves of positive rank, but none of rank 0. We find examples of elliptic curves with positive rank and given torsion in many previously unknown cases. We also prove that all elliptic curves over quadratic fields with a point of order 13 or 18 and all elliptic curves over quartic fields with a point of order 22 are isogenous to one of their Galois conjugates and, by a phenomenon that we call false complex multiplication, have even rank. Finally, we discuss connections with elliptic curves over finite fields and applications to integer factorizatio

Sub-optimal presentation of painful facial expressions enhances readiness for action and pain perception following electrocutaneous stimulation

Observation of others’ painful facial expressions has been shown to facilitate behavioral response tendencies and to increase pain perception in the observer. However, in previous studies, expressions were clearly visible to the observer and none of those studies investigated the effect of presence of peripheral stimulation on response tendencies. This study focuses on the effect of sub-optimal presentation of painful facial expressions in the presence and absence of an electrocutaneous stimulus. Twenty-two healthy individuals categorized arrow targets which were preceded by a sub-optimally presented facial expression (painful, happy, or neutral in different blocks). On half of the trials, aversive electrocutaneous stimulation was delivered to the wrist of the non-dominant hand between the presentation of facial expression and target (an arrow directing to right or left). Participants’ task was to indicate direction of the arrow as soon as it appears on the screen by pressing the corresponding key on the keyboard and to rate their pain at the end of block. Analysis showed that responses were faster to targets preceded by aversive stimulation than to targets not preceded by stimulation, especially following painful expressions. Painfulness ratings were higher following painful expressions than following happy expressions. These findings suggest that sub-optimally presented painful expressions can enhance readiness to act to neutral, non-pain-related targets after aversive stimulation and can increase pain perception