Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons^™

Ultra-High Field Mri Methods For Precise Anatomical And Spectroscopic Measurements In The Brain And Application To Neurological And Neuropsychiatric Diseases, Judy Alper

Dissertations and Theses

Neurological and neuropsychiatric diseases and disorders are a major burden on society, impairing the health and functioning of millions of people every year. There is a need to define the biological bases of these diseases and identify potential biomarkers to improve diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment efficacy across multiple diseases.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a noninvasive imaging technique which facilitates detection of brain lesions and visualization of the brain overall. However, limitations in contrast and resolution at clinical field strengths may hinder investigation of the underlying biological mechanisms of these diseases. Ultra-high field MRI scanners, such as those at 7-Tesla, …

Analysis Of Eye Movements To Cartoon Faces In Videos, Kaustubh Sapru

Dissertations and Theses

Saccades are rapid eye movements that move our gaze between successive points of fixation. They are indicative of how we direct our attention and therefore play a role in memory and cognition. For static images, it is established that saccades move faster to faces compared to other objects. We hypothesize that the same is true for videos. To test this hypothesis, saccades to faces in motion pictures have been analyzed. The analysis here entails the recording of saccades to two videos followed by a statistical study of saccades going towards faces or going away from faces. What makes this study …

Impact Of Percutaneous Transluminal Intervention On Vascular Hypoxia And The Role Of Micro-Calcifications On Atherosclerotic Plaque Rupture, Andrea Corti

Dissertations and Theses

Atherosclerotic disease is initiated by cholesterol build-up beneath the endothelium, which evolves into a fibroatheroma, a lipid-rich plaque covered by a fibrous cap. Many of these plaques are considered as vulnerable, as they grow to occlude the luminal section of the artery (chronically stenotic) or become mechanically unstable with a higher chance of rupturing (rupture-prone). On one hand, chronically stenotic vulnerable plaques are symptomatic lesions that are often treated with Percutaneous Transluminal Intervention (PTI). Unfortunately, approximately 10% of PTI procedures are followed by severe Neointima Hyperplasia (NH), which causes a new occlusion and failure of the implant. A significant precursor …

Neural Processing Of Semantic Content In Movies, Maximilian Nentwich

Dissertations and Theses

Naturalistic stimuli, such as movies, contain interacting, multimodal and semantic features and allow for free exploration through eye movements. The full extent of neural responses to features such as motion, film cuts and eye movement behavior has not been established. The main hypothesis of this thesis is that complex multimodal and semantic stimuli in naturalistic movies engage a widespread ensemble of locations across the entire brain. To address this question I analyzed simultaneous intracranial and eyetracking data from over 6,000 electrodes across 23 patients with intractable epilepsy. Responses to fast eye movements – saccades – and film cuts are widespread …

Development Of Light Actuated Chemical Delivery Platform On A 2-D Array Of Micropore Structure, Hojjat Rostami Azmand, Hojjat Rostami Azmand

Dissertations and Theses

Localized chemical delivery plays an essential role in the fundamental information transfers within biological systems. Thus, the ability to mimic the natural chemical signal modulation would provide significant contributions to understand the functional signaling pathway of biological cells and develop new prosthetic devices for neurological disorders. In this paper, we demonstrate a light-controlled hydrogel platform that can be used for localized chemical delivery in a high spatial resolution. By utilizing the photothermal behavior of graphene-hydrogel composites confined within micron-sized fluidic channels, patterned light illumination creates the parallel and independent actuation of chemical release in a group of fluidic ports. The …

Msg-Fast: Metagenomic Shotgun Data Fast Annotation Using Microbial Gene Catalogs, Stuart M. Brown, Hao Chen, Yuhan Hao, Bobby P. Laungani, Thahmina A. Ali, Changsu Dong, Carlos Lijeron, Baekdoo Kim, Claudia Wultsch, Zhiheng Pei, Konstantinos Krampis

Publications and Research

Background: Current methods used for annotating metagenomics shotgun sequencing (MGS) data rely on a computationally intensive and low-stringency approach of mapping each read to a generic database of proteins or reference microbial genomes.

Results: We developed MGS-Fast, an analysis approach for shotgun whole-genome metagenomic data utilizing Bowtie2 DNA-DNA alignment of reads that is an alternative to using the integrated catalog of reference genes database of well-annotated genes compiled from human microbiome data. This method is rapid and provides high-stringency matches (>90% DNA sequence identity) of the metagenomics reads to genes with annotated functions. We demonstrate the use of this …

A Microfluidic Tissue Array (Μfta) For Personalized Medicine Using Tumor Biopsies, A.H. R. Ahmed

Dissertations and Theses

Cancer is recognized as a complex disease with both genetic and epigenetic drivers that can vary from one individual to another. While very early research into cancer treated it as a clonal malfunction that could originate from as small as a single deregulated cell, the disease itself manifests itself with several more complexities beyond tumorigenic cells only. The tumor microenvironment itself – from the extracellular matrix to stromal cells - cooperate with tumor cells in a symbiotic manner towards metastatic progression. Clinical studies have provided more information regarding the degree of individualization possible, such that patients with similar genetic makeup …

Intensification Of Gas Absorption In A Downward Flow Microbubble Bioreactor, Manizheh Ansari

Dissertations and Theses

Bioreactors are of interest for value-upgrading of stranded or waste industrial gases, such as CO, CH₄, or syngas. Process economics requires reduction of reactor cost and size while maintaining high production rate via rapid delivery of gas feedstock to the liquid phase which in turn requires a high volumetric mass transfer rate (). One strategy to achieve this goal is to increase interfacial area density, a, to >3000 m² m^-3, while minimizing use of energy. Here we show a novel reactor column design that uses a micro-jet array to break feedstock at ambient pressure …

Knockdown Of Heparan Sulfate Via Ndst1 Knockout Does Not Inhibit Mouse Aortic Endothelial Cell Alignment In-Vivo, John Diaz De Leon Iii

Dissertations and Theses

Atherosclerotic plaque localizes in predictable areas such as arches and bifurcations which are characterized by disturbed flow patterns and the resulting damage and dysfunction to the endothelium. Endothelial cells (ECs) under sustained laminar flow align in the direction of flow; however, under disturbed flow conditions, ECs sustain damage to their glycocalyx (GCX) which results in unaligned and rounder cells. An investigation into the role of NDST1 sulfation of heparan sulfate (HS), a key component of many proteoglycans which make up the GCX, was conducted. The descending aortas (DAs) of transgenic mice with conditional knockouts (KOs) of NDST1 in vascular ECs …

Senior Design I, Alessandra Carriero, Luis Cardoso

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Design Development And Performance Study Of A Novel Assistive Device For Mobility Of Toddlers And Children With Visual Impairments, Joowon Jun

Dissertations and Theses

Being able to see allows mankind tremendous access to learn about the world, and because so much learning comes visually, children with visual impairments are delayed in developing range of skills: learning own languages, doing activities, socializing with peers, and etc. While children with vision can do virtually all the activities and tasks for granted, children with visual impairment require different types of tools or materials to do same tasks most of time. Amongst all the disadvantages that children with visual impairment have, one of the most critical disadvantageous area that visual impairment brings to toddler is learning to walk. …