Feasibility and Safety in Outpatient Clinic

Abstract Throughout the last decade, aesthetic breast surgery has enormously spread in the outpatient clinic setting where plastic surgeons perform the vast majority of procedures under local anesthesia as day-case operations. The "tumescent anesthesia" is defined as the injection of a dilute solution of local anesthetic combined with epinephrine and sodium bicarbonate into subcutaneous tissue until it becomes firm and tense, which is "tumescent." The "cold tumescent anesthesia" (CTA) derives from Klein's solution with the introduction of a new concept, which is the low temperature (4°C) of the injected solution. This novelty adds further anesthetic and hemostatic power to the well-known benefits of tumescent anesthesia. The authors report their experience with CTA in the last 15 years in the setting of aesthetic breast surgery, describing in detail the anesthesia protocol, surgical outcomes, and patient satisfaction. A total of 1541 patients were operated on during the study period and were included in this retrospective analysis. The types of breast procedures were breast augmentation in 762 cases (49.4%), mastopexy with implants in 123 patients (8.0%), mastopexy without implants in 452 cases (29.3%), and breast reduction in 204 cases (13.3%). Patient mean age was 42.8 years (range, 18–67 years). The mean operating time was 37 ± 32 minutes for breast augmentation, 78 ± 24 minutes for mastopexy with implants, 58 ± 18 minutes for mastopexy without implants, and 95 ± 19 minutes for breast reduction. No major complications occurred, and no conversion to general anesthesia was required. The median recovery time was 150 minutes (range, 120–210 minutes), and all patients were discharged within 3 hours after surgery. Wound or implant infections occurred in 33 patients (2.1%), wound dehiscences in 21 (1.4%), and postoperative bleeding requiring return to theater in 2 cases (0.1%). Thirteen patients (0.8%) developed capsular contracture. Fifteen patients (1%) required reintervention due to implant rotation or rupture. The median visual analog scale score was 1.8 (interquartile range, 1–3) after discharge. Patient satisfaction was very high in 91.3% (n = 1407) of the cases. In experienced hands, CTA can shorten operating time with high patient satisfaction and a low complication rate. These preliminary data could be hypothesis generating for future multicenter prospective trials done to confirm the benefits of CTA in other surgical fields

Helmholtz cage design and validation for nanosatellites HWIL testing

This paper deals with the design, realization and testing of an Earth magnetic field simulator, that allows to validate hardware in the loop algorithms, as well as to test new actuators. The design is driven by typical small satellites functional requirements. The subsystems that compose the simulator are described in detail. The validation of the simulator is performed by assessing its functioning, the uniformity of the recreated magnetic field and the functionality of a magnetorquer

Altitude control of a remote-sensing balloon platform

This paper addresses the problem of altitude control of stratospheric balloon platforms. Over the last years, there has been an increasing interest in the development of balloon platforms with the ability of maneuvering and fluctuating at the stratosphere for different applications on the basis of remote-sensing. Considering the current trend of a high connected world with sensor grids spread in wide geographical areas, the interest in balloon platform applications has increased posing new challenges for future applications. One of the major problems encountered in this context is how to guarantee constant altitude sustainability. Although the technologies required to address this problem already exist, low cost and easy to launch solutions are still needed considering applications on a wide scale. In this work, a theoretical model of the balloon dynamic is presented and validated. A valve control loop mechanism is proposed for rubber balloons. The controller is tuned empirically and numerical simulations conducted for performance analysis and a case study in a real mission. The proposed solution contributes to increase the capacity of rubber balloons by proposing an altitude control system that allows fluctuation stages which, in general, are not common with this type of balloon

Innate immunity in myasthenia gravis thymus: Pathogenic effects of Toll-like receptor 4 signaling on autoimmunity

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Design Analysis of a New On-Board Computer for the LAICAnSat Platform

The present work describes the new requirements for LAICAnSat project, a high altitude platform (HAP) developed at University of Brasilia (UnB). An analysis of previous missions and a detailed comparison with respect to the previous OBC version is presented to assist with the design decision making. More specifically, a study of mission lifecycle is conducted to evaluate power consumption and a survey is carried out in order to estimate new power demands