Implementation of the blunt tip cannula for dermal fillers to decrease adverse events intra and post treatment

Abstract Title: Decreasing Adverse Events by Implementing Blunt Tip Cannula in the Administration of Dermal Fillers Intra and Post Treatment Background: Dermal filler administration has become one of the most popular cosmetic procedures since dermal fillers were FDA approved in 1981. Although decreasing adverse events in dermal filler administration is a primary concern, aesthetic providers strive to provide patients with the most comfortable treatment experience possible without compromising aesthetic outcomes. Evidence has suggested that blunt tip cannulas provide a more comfortable delivery of dermal fillers and a lower risk of adverse events when compared with the standard practice of using a hypodermic needle. However, there is little clinical data comparing intra-procedure and post-procedure adverse events of the two techniques. Purpose: The primary purpose of this evidence-based project is to compare adverse events when using either a blunt tip cannula, or the standard procedure of a hypodermic needle for the administration of dermal filler. Facial injections of dermal filler using a blunt tip cannula were compared to patients that were previously injected using a hypodermic needle. Pain/discomfort and the overall desired aesthetic effect of the two techniques were evaluated for statistical significance and best practice application. Methods: 73 total patients, including both male and female adults, ages 24-77 years old, seeking facial augmentation using hyaluronic acid dermal fillers were included in the evidence-based project. Individuals who were pregnant, lactating or had received dermal fillers within the past 24 months were excluded. Once the participants were consented for the treatment and a photo release was obtained, participants were prepared for administration of dermal fillers via a blunt tip cannula. Each injection site was cleaned using Isopropyl Alcohol and 4% Chlorhexidine Gluconate. Topical anesthesia was provided by applying a topical cream consisting of Benzocaine, Tetracaine and Lidocaine, 15 minutes prior to beginning the procedure. As part of the standard procedure for cannula insertion, a 20-gauge hypodermic needle was used to make an entry point for insertion of the cannula into the correct dermal plane. Administration of hyaluronic acid into the anterior and lateral mid-face was then performed using a retrograde injection technique. The treatment area was then compared to the data sets of patients previously injected with the standard practice hypodermic needle for pain, and aesthetic outcome. Patients were evaluated intra-procedure, immediately post-procedure procedure and then again 14 days after the treatment. Pain was assessed and recorded using the Wong Baker FACES pain scale whereas 0 is no pain, 1 is the least amount of pain and then increases to 10, with 10 as the most pain possible. Aesthetic outcome was measured by utilization of the Global Aesthetic Improvement Scale (GAIN). The GAIN measuring tool is a 5-point scale rating and measuring the aesthetic improvement in appearance. The degree and description are as follows; 5 is very much improved with an excellent corrective result, 4 is much improved with a marked improvement of the overall appearance but not completely optimal, 3 is an improvement compared to the initial condition, but an additional treatment may be needed, 2 is unchanged and the appearance remains the same compared with the original condition and 1 is a worsened where the appearance has worsened compared to the original condition. Results: 14 days post treatment, all patients who were injected with dermal fillers by the blunt tip cannula overall had less pain and discomfort compared to the data set of patients that were treated by the hypodermic needle. In addition, all 73 patients scored a 5 on the GAIN improvement scale reporting a significant increase in overall aesthetic effect and outcome. Conclusion: When compared to the standard procedure of dermal filler administration by hypodermic needle, blunt tip cannula administration results in less pain and bruising with no decrease in aesthetic outcome. The addition of the blunt tip cannula to the clinical setting should be considered by providers who seek to provide their patients with techniques that offer less pain and bruising without compromising aesthetic outcome

Dynamic Base Station Repositioning to Improve Spectral Efficiency of Drone Small Cells

With recent advancements in drone technology, researchers are now considering the possibility of deploying small cells served by base stations mounted on flying drones. A major advantage of such drone small cells is that the operators can quickly provide cellular services in areas of urgent demand without having to pre-install any infrastructure. Since the base station is attached to the drone, technically it is feasible for the base station to dynamic reposition itself in response to the changing locations of users for reducing the communication distance, decreasing the probability of signal blocking, and ultimately increasing the spectral efficiency. In this paper, we first propose distributed algorithms for autonomous control of drone movements, and then model and analyse the spectral efficiency performance of a drone small cell to shed new light on the fundamental benefits of dynamic repositioning. We show that, with dynamic repositioning, the spectral efficiency of drone small cells can be increased by nearly 100\% for realistic drone speed, height, and user traffic model and without incurring any major increase in drone energy consumption.Comment: Accepted at IEEE WoWMoM 2017 - 9 pages, 2 tables, 4 figure

Accuracy Assessment on Drone Measured Heights at Different Height Levels

The advancement in unmanned aerial system (UAS) technology has made it possible to attain an aerial unit, commonly known as a drone, at an affordable price with increasing precision and accuracy in positioning and photographing. While aerial photography is the most common use of a drone, many of the models available in the market are also capable of measuring height, the height of the drone above ground, or the altitude above the mean sea level. On board a drone, a barometer is used to control the flight height by detecting the atmospheric pressure change; while a GPS receiver is mainly used to determine the horizontal position of the drone. While both barometer and GPS are capable of measuring height, they are based on different algorithms. Our study goal was to assess the accuracy of height measurement by a drone, with different landing procedures and GPS settings

AlphaPilot: Autonomous Drone Racing

This paper presents a novel system for autonomous, vision-based drone racing combining learned data abstraction, nonlinear filtering, and time-optimal trajectory planning. The system has successfully been deployed at the first autonomous drone racing world championship: the 2019 AlphaPilot Challenge. Contrary to traditional drone racing systems, which only detect the next gate, our approach makes use of any visible gate and takes advantage of multiple, simultaneous gate detections to compensate for drift in the state estimate and build a global map of the gates. The global map and drift-compensated state estimate allow the drone to navigate through the race course even when the gates are not immediately visible and further enable to plan a near time-optimal path through the race course in real time based on approximate drone dynamics. The proposed system has been demonstrated to successfully guide the drone through tight race courses reaching speeds up to 8m/s and ranked second at the 2019 AlphaPilot Challenge.Comment: Accepted at Robotics: Science and Systems 2020, associated video at https://youtu.be/DGjwm5PZQT

Drones and Cognitive Dissonance

There’s something about drones that makes sane people crazy. Is it those lean, futurist profiles? The activities drone technologies enable? Or perhaps it’s just the word itself–drone–a mindless, unpleasant, dissonant thrum. Whatever the cause, drones seem to produce an unusual kind of cognitive dissonance in many people. Some demonize drones, denouncing them for causing civilian deaths or enabling long-distance killing, even as they ignore the fact that the same (or worse) could be said of many other weapons delivery systems. Others glorify them as a low-cost way to “take out terrorists,” despite the strategic vacuum in which most drone strikes occur. Still others insist that US drone policy is just “business as usual,” despite the fact that these attacks may undermine US foreign policy goals while creating an array of new problems. It is worth taking a closer look at what is and is not new and noteworthy about drone technologies and the activities they enable. Ultimately, “drones” as such present few new issues—but the manner in which the US has been using them raises grave questions about their strategic efficacy and unintended consequences. In fact, the legal theories used to justify many US drone strikes risk dangerously hollowing out the rule of law itself