The Use of Six Sigma to Assess Two Prostheses for Immediate Breast Reconstruction

Breast reconstruction is fundamental and urgent for patients in order to avoid future psychological and physical issues. That’s why immediate breast reconstruction has been requested increasingly in the last years. In this study two prosthesis with different structures and properties were compared according the aesthetic appearance (BREAST-Q© was employed) and five complications (seroma, hematoma, infections, dehiscence and red breast syndrome). The overall population was composed by 56 patients: 24 received a Tutomesh prosthesis and 32 received a Surgimend prosthesis. The DMAIC (define, measure, analyse, improve and control) cycle was implemented as a problem-solving strategy of the Six Sigma to compare the prostheses. While statistically significant difference between the two groups wasn’t found according to the overall BREAST-Q© (p-value = 0.674), the number of complications of the two groups resulted statistically different (p-value of chi-square test less than 0.001). Although it is not possible to understand from this study the reasons of the differences between the complications, this research proved that Surgimend and Tutomesh prostheses can be both implanted safely for immediate breast reconstruction since the higher costs of Surgimend could be neutralized with its lower hospitalization compared to Tutomesh. © 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG

Production of α\alpha-particle condensate states in heavy-ion collisions

The fragmentation of quasi-projectiles from the nuclear reaction $^{40}Ca$ + $^{12}C$ at 25 MeV/nucleon was used to produce excited states candidates to $\alpha$-particle condensation. The experiment was performed at LNS-Catania using the CHIMERA multidetector. Accepting the emission simultaneity and equality among the $\alpha$-particle kinetic energies as experimental criteria for deciding in favor of the condensate nature of an excited state, we analyze the $0_2^+$ and $2_2^+$ states of $^{12}$C and the $0_6^+$ state of $^{16}$O. A sub-class of events corresponding to the direct 3-$\alpha$ decay of the Hoyle state is isolated.Comment: contribution to the 2nd Workshop on "State of the Art in Nuclear Cluster Physics" (SOTANCP2), Universite Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium), May 25-28, 2010, to be published in the International Journal of Modern Physics

New mechanism for the production of the extremely fast light particles in heavy-ion collisions in the Fermi energy domain

Employing a four-body classical model, various mechanisms responsible for the production of fast light particles in heavy ion collisions at low and intermediate energies have been studied. It has been shown that at energies lower than 50 A MeV, light particles of velocities of more than two times higher than the projectile velocities are produced due to the acceleration of the target light-particles by the mean field of the incident nucleus. It has also been shown that precision experimental reaction research in normal and inverse kinematics is likely to provide vital information about which mechanism is dominant in the production of fast light particles.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, LaTeX, to be published in Proceedings of VII International School-Seminar on Heavy Ion Physics, May 27 - June 1, 2002, Dubna, Russi

Isotope correlations as a probe for freeze-out characterization: central 124Sn+64Ni, 112Sn+58Ni collisions

124Sn+64Ni and 112Sn+58Ni reactions at 35 AMeV incident energy were studied with the forward part of CHIMERA multi-detector. The most central collisions were selected by means of a multidimensional analysis. The characteristics of the source formed in the central collisions, as size, temperature and volume, were inspected. The measured isotopes of light fragments (3 <= Z <=8) were used to examine isotope yield ratios that provide information on the free neutron to proton densities.Comment: 4 pages, Contribution to 8th International Conference on Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions, Moscow 200

Critical influence of target-to-substrate distance on conductive properties of LaGaO3/SrTiO3 interfaces deposited at 10-1 mbar oxygen pressure

We investigate pulsed laser deposition of LaGaO3/SrTiO3 at 10-1 mbar oxygen background pressure, demonstrating the critical effect of the target-to-substrate distance, dTS, on the interface sheet resistance, Rs. The interface turns from insulating to metallic by progressively decreasing dTS. The analysis of the LaGaO3 plume evidences the important role of the plume propagation dynamics on the interface properties. These results demonstrate the growth of conducting interfaces at an oxygen pressure of 10-1 mbar, an experimental condition where a well-oxygenated heterostructures with a reduced content of oxygen defects is expected.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figure