Robotic assisted Laparoscopic partial Nephrectomy for suspected Renal Cell Carcinoma: Retrospective review of surgical outcomes of 35 Cases

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens

A Novel Application of Polynomial Solvers in mmWave Analog Radio Beamforming

Beamforming is a signal processing technique where an array of antenna elements can be steered to transmit and receive radio signals in a specific direction. The usage of millimeter wave (mmWave) frequencies and multiple input multiple output (MIMO) beamforming are considered as the key innovations of 5th Generation (5G) and beyond communication systems. The technique initially performs a beam alignment procedure, followed by data transfer in the aligned directions between the transmitter and the receiver. Traditionally, beam alignment involves periodical and exhaustive beam sweeping at both transmitter and the receiver, which is a slow process causing extra communication overhead with MIMO and massive MIMO radio units. In applications such as beam tracking, angular velocity, beam steering etc., the beam alignment procedure is optimized by estimating the beam directions using first order polynomial approximations. Recent learning-based SOTA strategies for fast mmWave beam alignment also require exploration over exhaustive beam pairs during the training procedure, causing overhead to learning strategies for higher antenna configurations. In this work, we first optimize the beam alignment cost functions e.g. the data rate, to reduce the beam sweeping overhead by applying polynomial approximations of its partial derivatives which can then be solved as a system of polynomial equations using well-known tools from algebraic geometry. At this point, a question arises: 'what is a good polynomial approximation?' In this work, we attempt to obtain a 'good polynomial approximation'. Preliminary experiments indicate that our estimated polynomial approximations attain a so-called sweet-spot in terms of the solver speed and accuracy, when evaluated on test beamforming problems.Comment: Accepted for publication in the SIGSAM's ACM Communications in Computer Algebra, as an extended abstrac

Surgical cyst decortication in autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease

PURPOSE: To provide a summary of the relevant literature regarding the impact of surgical cyst decortication on hypertension, renal function, and pain management in patients with autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD). METHODS: Data collection was conducted via a Medline search using the subject headings autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease, surgery, decortication, and marsupialization. Additional reports were derived from references included within these articles. RESULTS: Despite a trend for improved blood pressure control after cyst decortication in some studies, this cumulative review of the literature did not provide consistent evidence supporting the role of this procedure in blood pressure management in patients with ADPKD. Surgical cyst decortication was associated with renal deterioration in a subset of patients with compromised baseline renal function but did not otherwise appear to have a significant impact on renal function in the majority of studies reviewed. Improvement in chronic pain after this procedure was ubiquitously reported across all studies examined. CONCLUSIONS: Despite a potential role in blood pressure management in the setting of ADPKD, surgical cyst decortication has not been definitively shown to alleviate hypertension in this clinical setting. Renal function does not appear to improve following this surgery. Patients with compromised baseline renal function appear to be at increased risk for further deterioration in renal function after cyst decortication, although the role of this procedure in altering the natural trajectory of renal failure in this patient subset needs further investigation. Cyst decortication is highly effective in the management of disease-related chronic pain for the majority of patients with ADPKD, providing durable pain relief in this patient population