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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Effects Of Varus Knee Alignment And Using Toe-Cages On Frontal Plane Knee Biomechanics In Stationary Cycling, Guangping Shen Dec 2015

Effects Of Varus Knee Alignment And Using Toe-Cages On Frontal Plane Knee Biomechanics In Stationary Cycling, Guangping Shen

Masters Theses

Effects of varus knee alignment on the internal knee abduction moment (KAM) in walking has been widely studied. KAM has been shown to be closely associated with the development of medial knee osteoarthritis (OA). Despite the importance of the knee alignment, no studies have explored its effects on knee frontal plane biomechanics during stationary cycling. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of varus knee alignment and using a toe-cage on the knee frontal plane biomechanics during stationary cycling. Eleven participants in each of the varus and neutral groups participated in the study. The participants performed in …


Icloudecg: A Mobile Cardiac Telemedicine System, David S. Clifford Dec 2015

Icloudecg: A Mobile Cardiac Telemedicine System, David S. Clifford

Masters Theses

With rising healthcare costs and a substantially growing number of patients 65 or over, the benefits of telemedicine and patient self-monitoring systems are becoming increasingly evident. Patients, physicians, hospitals, and even insurance providers benefit from vigilant, cost-effective patient monitoring systems. This thesis describes the development of a portable, smart-phone connected system for continuous cardiac monitoring. The system is capable of continuously monitoring the conditions of the heart, automated detection of cardiac arrhythmias, and real-time notifying patients and physicians of the detected abnormalities. The system consists of four main subsystems: 1) a Bluetooth capable chest-strap ECG, 2) an Android-enabled mobile device, …


Optical Tracking System To Monitor Laparoscopic Training, William D. Rytlewski Aug 2015

Optical Tracking System To Monitor Laparoscopic Training, William D. Rytlewski

Masters Theses

Laparoscopic Surgery, also known as Minimally Invasive Surgery, is a surgical technique where surgeons perform surgery through small incisions in the patient’s abdomen using a camera to monitor the movements of the instruments inside the patient. In order for the surgery to be performed, the surgeon must possess a unique set of skills obtained through training using a variety of techniques. Simulators are the preferred method of training for laparoscopic surgery since they provide medical residents with real world scenarios as well as a tremendous amount of feedback on what he/she did wrong or right. However, due to the high …


Biodegradable Nano-Hybrid Polymer Composite Networks For Regulating Cellular Behavior, Charles Henley Sprague Aug 2015

Biodegradable Nano-Hybrid Polymer Composite Networks For Regulating Cellular Behavior, Charles Henley Sprague

Masters Theses

Photo-crosslinkable polymeric biomaterials have emerged in the field of biomedical research to promote tissue regeneration. For example, scaffolds that can be crosslinked and hardened in situ have been known to make suitable implant alternatives. Since injectable and photo-crosslinkable biomaterials offer the advantage of being minimally invasive, they have emerged to compete with autografts, a current highly invasive method to repair diseased tissue. A series of novel photo-crosslinkable, injectable, and biodegradable nano-hybrid polymers consisting of poly(ε-caprolactone fumarate) (PCLF) and polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) has been synthesized in our laboratory via polycondensation. To engineer the material properties of the nano-hybrid networks, varied …


Thermo-Responsive Poly(N-Isopropylacrylamide) And Its Critical Solution Temperature Type Behavior In Presence Of Hydrophilic Ionic Liquids, Purnendu K. Nayak Mar 2015

Thermo-Responsive Poly(N-Isopropylacrylamide) And Its Critical Solution Temperature Type Behavior In Presence Of Hydrophilic Ionic Liquids, Purnendu K. Nayak

Masters Theses

Thermo-responsive homopolymer poly(N-isopropylacrylamide), is a widely studied and used polymer. Our recent observations on thermal behavior of aqueous solutions of this polymer requires a short overview of existing results in order to understand the formation of different phases, both stable and unstable with the addition of hydrophilic Ionic liquids (ILs) 1-Butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate ([BMIM][BF4]), 1-Butyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate ([BMIM][OAc]) and 1-Butyl-3-methylimidazolium thiocyanate ([BMIM][SCN]) to the system. PNIPAM is soluble in cold water due to its inter- and intramolecular hydrogen bonding but phase separates upon heating at T > 32 , which is its lower critical solution temperature (LCST). PNIPAM exists in an …


Computer Aided Diagnosis Of Oral Cancer: Using Time-Step Ct Images, Jonathan T. Scott Jan 2015

Computer Aided Diagnosis Of Oral Cancer: Using Time-Step Ct Images, Jonathan T. Scott

Masters Theses

"In medical imaging it is a very common practice to use a technique known as Time-Step imaging in patients who might develop cancer. Time-Step imaging it a very powerful technique, however it can lead to unmanageable amounts of image data. Previously the only way to search all of this data was to manually look through all of the files. This had to be done by trained professionals who knew what to look for within the images and make a judgment about the patient based on the images. This paper discusses the development of an algorithm to have a computer search …


Computer Aided Detection Of Oral Lesions On Ct Images, Shaikat Mahmood Galib Jan 2015

Computer Aided Detection Of Oral Lesions On Ct Images, Shaikat Mahmood Galib

Masters Theses

"Oral lesions are important findings on computed tomography images. They are difficult to detect on CT images because of low contrast, arbitrary orientation of objects, complicated topology and lack of clear lines indicating lesions. In this thesis, a fully automatic method to detect oral lesions from dental CT images is proposed to identify (1) Closed boundary lesions and (2) Bone deformation lesions. Two algorithms were developed to recognize these two types of lesions, which cover most of the lesion types that can be found on CT images. The results were validated using a dataset of 52 patients. Using non training …


A Decision Support Simulation Model For Bed Management In Healthcare, Raja A. Baru Jan 2015

A Decision Support Simulation Model For Bed Management In Healthcare, Raja A. Baru

Masters Theses

"In order to provide access to care in a timely manner, it is necessary to effectively manage the allocation of limited resources such as beds. Bed management is key to the effective delivery of high-quality and low-cost healthcare. An efficient utilization of beds requires a detailed understanding of the hospital's operational behavior. It is necessary to understand the behavior of a hospital in order to make necessary adjustments to its resources, and policies, which can improve patient's access to care. The aim of this research was to develop a discrete event simulation to assist in planning and staff scheduling decisions. …