Abdominoplasty: Thromboembolic Risks for Both Sexes

During surgical procedures, coagulation complications may occur. Discriminating factors are multiple and may vary because of the anatomical regions involved and because of preexisting diseases. The aim of this study was to analyze changes in such hematological parameters of patients undergoing conventional abdominoplasty with standard surgical procedures under general anaesthesia. For the study, 40 patients (20 men and 20 women) 30 to 60 years with normal coagulation assessments, no previous or current history of hemorrhagic or thrombotic disease, and no primary family history of such problems were selected. All the patients underwent conventional abdominoplasty surgical procedures. Analysis of the results suggests that immediately after surgery, in the absence of any preexisting hypo- or hypercoagulability state, there was no circumstantial modification in coagulation factors considered predictive for thromboembolic risk. However, an interesting difference between male and female patients was noted. In the male group, there was an insignificant uniform downward trend of all values immediately after surgery. In conclusion, women are less hypercoagulative than men in the postoperative period, suggesting that women have limited protection from the development of thromboembolic complications immediately after surgical procedures.During surgical procedures, coagulation complications may occur. Discriminating factors are multiple and may vary because of the anatomical regions involved and because of preexisting diseases. The aim of this study was to analyze changes in such hematological parameters of patients undergoing conventional abdominoplasty with standard surgical procedures under general anaesthesia. For the study, 40 patients (20 men and 20 women) 30 to 60 years with normal coagulation assessments, no previous or current history of hemorrhagic or thrombotic disease, and no primary family history of such problems were selected. All the patients underwent conventional abdominoplasty surgical procedures. Analysis of the results suggests that immediately after surgery, in the absence of any preexisting hypo- or hypercoagulability state, there was no circumstantial modification in coagulation factors considered predictive for thromboembolic risk. However, an interesting difference between male and female patients was noted. In the male group, there was an insignificant uniform downward trend of all values immediately after surgery. In conclusion, women are less hypercoagulative than men in the postoperative period, suggesting that women have limited protection from the development of thromboembolic complications immediately after surgical procedures. © 2004 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc

Status of Salerno Laboratory (Measurements in Nuclear Emulsion)

A report on the analysis work in the Salerno Emulsion Laboratory is presented. It is related to the search for nu_mu->nu_tau oscillations in CHORUS experiment, the calibrations in the WANF (West Area Neutrino Facility) at Cern and tests and preparation for new experiments.Comment: Proc. The First International Workshop of Nuclear Emulsion Techniques (12-24 June 1998, Nagoya, Japan), 15 pages, 11 figure

Role of subcutaneous abdominal fat on cardiac function and proinflammatory cytokines in premenopausal obese women

The role of surgically removing subcutaneous fat by abdominoplasty on circulating inflammatory markers and myocardial dysfunction, evaluated by myocardial performance index (MPI), were investigated. Twenty volunteers submitted to the abdominoplasty (abdominoplasty group), and other 28 women treated by hypocaloric diet (diet group) were evaluated. Echocardiographic parameters of MPI, circulating levels of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha and interleukin (IL)-6, were performed at baseline and 2 months later. Compared with nonobese women, obese women had increased concentrations of TNF-alpha (P < 0.01), IL-6 (P < 0.01), and higher MPI (P < 0.02), indicating ventricular dysfunction. Subcutaneous fat concentrations of TNF-alpha and IL-6 were related to MPI impairment. After 60 days, waist-to hip ratio was significantly reduced in the abdominoplasty group. Anthropometric changes were accompanied by a significant decline in plasma concentrations of TNF-alpha and IL-6 levels as well as by significant improvements of MPI in abdominoplasty group compared with diet group. Abdominoplasty may represent a safe method for ameliorating cardiac function in obese women

Mathematical model and experimental characterization of vertically stacked capacitive tactile sensors

Capacitive sensors are widely used in robotics for their compactness, high resolution, high sensitivity, and large dynamic range. In this article, we present a design solution for the manufacturing of capacitive tactile sensors with enhanced dynamic range and sensitivity. Herein, we adopted the approach of exploiting the vertical direction of the sensors by creating stacks of capacitors. The validation of the proposed model is conducted by means of finite element simulations and the effectiveness of stacked capacitors in suboptimal configurations has been experimentally tested by using inkjet printing and spin coating-based fabrication techniques. Results show that these sensors exhibit an enhanced dynamic range and sensitivity with respect to common single capacitors, for a given sensors area budget. Sensitivity increases of 235% passing from one-stack to two-stack capacitors (from 5.75 to 19.3 fF/kPa) and a growth of 23% from two-stack to three-stack capacitors (from 19.3 to 23.7 fF/kPa). These results suggest that the proposed methodology could be adopted for designing tactile sensors with higher spatial resolution and higher transduction sensitivity and dynamic range, in the perspective of an integration over large areas

Efficient Resolution of Anisotropic Structures

We highlight some recent new delevelopments concerning the sparse representation of possibly high-dimensional functions exhibiting strong anisotropic features and low regularity in isotropic Sobolev or Besov scales. Specifically, we focus on the solution of transport equations which exhibit propagation of singularities where, additionally, high-dimensionality enters when the convection field, and hence the solutions, depend on parameters varying over some compact set. Important constituents of our approach are directionally adaptive discretization concepts motivated by compactly supported shearlet systems, and well-conditioned stable variational formulations that support trial spaces with anisotropic refinements with arbitrary directionalities. We prove that they provide tight error-residual relations which are used to contrive rigorously founded adaptive refinement schemes which converge in $L_2$. Moreover, in the context of parameter dependent problems we discuss two approaches serving different purposes and working under different regularity assumptions. For frequent query problems, making essential use of the novel well-conditioned variational formulations, a new Reduced Basis Method is outlined which exhibits a certain rate-optimal performance for indefinite, unsymmetric or singularly perturbed problems. For the radiative transfer problem with scattering a sparse tensor method is presented which mitigates or even overcomes the curse of dimensionality under suitable (so far still isotropic) regularity assumptions. Numerical examples for both methods illustrate the theoretical findings

Short-Facelift Approach in Temporal Artery Biopsy: Is It Safe?

Giant cell arteritis (GCA) is a quite common panarteritis of the elderly that affects medium- and large-size arteries. Despite the increasing role of imaging with advancing technology, the gold standard for the diagnosis of GCA is still the temporal artery biopsy. A described complication of superficial temporal artery biopsy (STAB), for which incidence is not clear, is the accidental damage of the frontal branch of the facial nerve. In this paper, we described the short-scar facelift surgical approach for STAB on 23 consecutive patients who underwent unilateral superficial temporal artery biopsy for GCA suspicion. We collected data in terms of postoperative complications, biopsy specimen length, biopsy result and cosmetic appearance of the scar. In our experience, this surgical approach combines the advantage of avoiding incisions within the dangerous anatomical area, minimizing the risk of facial nerve damage, with an acceptable complication rate and a good final aesthetic result which avoids visible scarring

Blood pressure and cardiac autonomic nervous system in obese type 2 diabetic patients: Effect of metformin administration

Background: Hyperinsulinemia/insulin resistance and elevated plasma free fatty acids (FFA) levels are involved in the hypertension and cardiac sympathetic overactivity. Metformin improves insulin action and lower plasma FFA concentrations. We investigate the possible effect of metformin on arterial blood pressure (BP) and cardiac sympathetic nervous system. Methods: One hundred twenty overweight type 2 diabetic patients were treated by placebo (n = 60) + diet or metformin (850 mg twice daily) (n = 60) + diet for 4 months, to evaluate the effect of metformin treatment on the cardiac autonomic nervous system. Insulin resistance was measured by the Homeostasis Model Assessment (HOMA) index. Heart rate variability (HRV) assessed cardiac sympathovagal balance. Results: Metformin treatment, but not placebo treatment, was associated with a decrease in fasting plasma glucose (P < .05), insulin (P < .05), triglyceride (P < .05), and FFA (P < .03) concentrations and HOMA index (P < .03). Metformin treatment was also associated with a significant improvement in cardiac sympathovagal balance but not in mean arterial BP. Furthermore, in a multivariate analysis, delta change in sympathovagal balance index (LF/HF ratio) were associated with delta change in plasma FFA concentrations and HOMA index independently of gender and delta change in plasma triglyceride and HbA1c concentrations. Conclusions: Our study demonstrated that metformin treatment might be useful for improving cardiac sympathovagal balance in obese type 2 diabetic patients