Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons^™

Small-Separation Speckle Contrast Optical Spectroscopy For Intraoperative Assessment Of Parathyroid Glands Viability During Thyroid Surgery, Connor Berger

Symposium of Student Scholars

The parathyroid glands (PTGs) are often damaged during thyroid surgeries due to a lack of methods identifying PTGs and assessing their viability. Damage to PTGs can cause hypocalcemia, a deficiency of calcium in the body. This complication can lead to detrimental consequences with economic burden. The surgeon’s current method of viability assessment is qualitative and subjective. Our technical solution is to employ an optical technique called speckle contrast optical spectroscopy (SCOS) that noninvasively quantifies the blood flow index (Db) of biological tissues at deep tissue levels (>1cm). The goal of this project is to verify SCOS at small source-detector-separation …

Image Analysis For Swnt Growth On Shutter Sputtered Catalyst, Rebekah Arias

2022 MME Undergraduate Research Symposium

Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) have been used in remarkable ways since their discovery in 1991 by Sumio Iijima. Properties such as high thermal conductivity, good mechanical strength, and electrical conductivity are what make CNTs attractive. Some of their applications include water filtration, vehicles, energy storage, and now there is great potential in the biomedical field for CNTs as composites in tissue engineering, therapeutics carrier across the blood-brain barrier, cancer treatment, and much more. The issue that comes with Single-Walled Nanotubes (SWNTs) however is Ostwald ripening of catalyst and low CNT production. It is difficult to control gas parameters for hydrogen and …

Surface Treatment Of Polyester Fabric With Atmospheric Pressure Plasma, Srujana Yellapragada

2022 MME Undergraduate Research Symposium

Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) fabric, a recycled synthetic fiber, has been frequently studied to innovate increased usage in both the clothing and medical industry. Some include ways to dye the fabric so that it can be commercially used for the purpose of environmental conservation from frequent discard of nonrecyclable fabric. Some biomedical applications involve the application of plasma treatment to reduce bacteria adhesion and improve anti-bacterial properties on the fabric. However, neither has been successful due to a lack of understanding of the surface modification of PET fabric to enable such properties. The hypothesis is that hydrophobicity is an issue in …

Biomimetic Cellulose-Based Biocomposites, Zion Michael

2022 MME Undergraduate Research Symposium

Biological structures such as termite nests, silk worm cocoons and honey bee combs integrate material, structure and form to produce biodegradable polymers and composites. Synthetic production of biomaterials through additive or woven processes has failed to achieve comparable material properties to their natural counterparts. For example, cellulose-based biocomposites have markedly less strength and toughness than cellulose micro and nanofibers found in nature. Termites produce a cellulose-based composite called “Carton” which serves as construction material for their nests. The process by which termites produce Carton is similar to the manufacturing process for electrospun cellulose fibers. Studying how termites produce Carton, a …

Synthesis Of Bone Scaffold For Pediatric Bone Defects Using 3d Printing, Amy M. Ramos-Homs

2022 MME Undergraduate Research Symposium

Pediatric bone defects, requiring surgical interventions and implants, include malignant and nonmalignant bone tumors and trauma fractures. Malignant bone tumors (MBT), such as Osteosarcoma and Ewing sarcoma, are aggressive primary cancers that affect growing adolescent bones (10- to 19-year-olds) and require complex reconstruction due to large bone excision during surgical interventions. Pediatric bone fractures requiring surgical interventions peak in 10- to 14-year-olds and are a major public health concern in the US with an impact on patients, parents, and healthcare costs of approx. 350 billion. These diseases require bone tissue replacement in changing bones.

Bone reconstruction and medical implant design …

Open-Source And 3-D Printed Autoinjector, Anjutha Selvaraj

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Autoinjectors have become popular modern injectable medical devices used as drug delivery systems. Due to its ease, capability and reliability compared to other conventional injectable medical devices, the market and manufacturing demand for autoinjector devices are increasing at a staggering rate. Although autoinjectors can offset healthcare treatment costs through self-administered medication, they are expensive for consumers. This paper describes the design and manufacture of a spring-driven and 3-D printed autoinjector using open-source hardware. By making it an open-source resource for everyone, the barrier of advanced research in design and production can be lifted, thus making it easily manufacturable and cost-effective. …

Morphology And Strain In The Subchondral Trabeculae Of Osteoarthritic Humeral Heads, Anna Yang

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

This project compares the strains and morphological parameters of subchondral bone in osteoarthritic and non-pathogenic cadaveric humeral heads.

Normative Joint Angles And Compensation During Fit-Hansa Test, Jennifer J. Villeneuve

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Imagine a world where no injuries occurred, muscular compensation was able to be detected early on and imbalances resolved before any risks appear. Muscular compensation can cause injuries, especially with repetitive motion or through activities of daily living. The study I conducted focuses on the compensation methods of shoulder abduction and trunk lean during the FIT-HaNSA series. Determining the normative ranges of motion can increase early detection of fatigue for all individuals. This can help make repetitive jobs such as working in a factory much safer for all employees, as they can switch tasks as soon as fatigue is identified. …

Morphology Of The Acromion And Scapular Spine With Special Interest In The Strength & Failure Prediction After Reverse Total Shoulder Replacement, Andrei M. Matusa, Cole Fleet, George S. Athwal, James A. Johnson

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Scapular spine fractures following a reverse arthroplasty are a significant clinical concern. This ongoing study looks at the morphology of the acromion and scapular spine with an interest in the strength and failure prediction of the bone. Digital 3D models of the scapular spine were created from cadaver CTs, then bone density and distribution data was obtained. It was found that the cortical bone was most dense just medial of the lateral angle. The cross-sectional area here was also the largest and decreased medially. This has important implications for implant fixation hardware as cortical bone --compared to cancellous bone-- is …

Tca Fabrication Devices, Brendan R. Difabio

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Twisted coil actuators are a recent technology that has different properties from popular actuators used today. Being so new, there is still much to learn about these actuators. This project aims to create devices that can be used to make the fabrication process simple and repeatable.

Producing And Measuring Oscillatory Shear In A Novel Microfluidic Chip, Sanaz Lordfard, Daniel Lorusso, Tamie L. Poepping, Hristo N Nikolov, Kayla Soon, Stephen Sims, Jeffrey Dixon, David Holdsworth

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Purpose: To demonstrate the effectiveness of a novel microfluidic device mimicking oscillatory blood flow, allowing cell biologists to examine how endothelial cells respond to a range of oscillatory shear stress levels.

Methods: The microfluidic chip consists of a circular-shaped reservoir, leading to a rectangular channel that is examined under a microscope. The plunger is connected to a speaker system and oscilloscope, allowing the plunger to apply a range of frequencies (5-60Hz) and voltages (5-10 V, leading to a variety in oscillation amplitudes) to the reservoir region. 1.1 um fluorescent particles diluted in distilled water were used for tracking. Processing was …

Tensile Testing Of 3d Printed Tpu Samples For Pediatric Biomaterial Applications, Sheridan C. Perry, Rodriguez M. Rafael, Victor Huayamave, Bryan M. Gonzalez, Kim Dae-Won, Zachary R. Nadeau

PanaSoMM

Additive Manufacturing (AM) has, in recent years, become one of the most widespread and preferred prototyping methods. The most popular additive manufacturing method is Fused Deposition Modeling. FDM’s popularity is primarily attributed to its 3 major strengths of rapid prototyping, variability in material choice, and subject specific nature. The medical industry is one of the larger industries that has benefited from 3D printing especially in the terms of medical trainers. Unfortunately, most medical trainers that are developed (either being 3d printed or through traditional manufacturing processes) are poor substitutes for the human body. This can be attributed to either a …

Statistical Shape Model (Ssm) Of Infant Femurs And The Relationship With Severity Of Hip Dysplasia, Tamara Chambers, Penny Atkins, Victor Huayamave, Andrew Anderson, Charles Price

PanaSoMM

The objective is to assess the morphology of infant femurs using a statistical shape model (SSM). The Ortolani collection is used in this study and consists of untreated infant cadaveric specimens with both healthy and dysplastic hips. Computed Tomography (CT) scans of 4 of the 14 specimens in the collection were taken at the University of Padua. Manual and semi-automatic segmentation techniques were used to reconstruct the 2D slices of femurs and generate 3D surface models. The SSM model of the infant femurs will be developed using an open-source software called ShapeWorks developed by the University of Utah. The SSM …

Combination Of Statistical Shape Modeling And Statistical Parametric Mapping To Quantify Cartilage Contact Mechanics In Hip Dysplasia, Penny R. Atkins Phd, Shireen Y. Elhabian Phd, Jeffrey A. Weiss Phd, Ross T. Whitaker Phd, Christopher L. Peters Md, Andrew E. Anderson Phd

PanaSoMM

Finite element models can predict subject-specific chondrolabral stresses and help to elucidate the effect of under-coverage and incongruency of the hip joint in patients with dysplasia. However, complex stress patterns are difficult to generalize and evaluate statistically. With an established correspondence across shapes from statistical shape modeling (SSM), statistical parametric mapping (SPM) allows for evaluation of local variability while preserving model subject-specificity. Herein, we evaluated the combined application of SSM and SPM to compare cartilage contact stress between control subjects and patients with dysplasia.

Previously published hip joint contact stresses were mapped onto chondrolabral surface meshes and incorporated into an …

Application Of Statistical Shape Modeling To Predict Clinical Metric Of Femoral Head Coverage In Patients With Developmental Dysplasia, Penny R. Atkins Phd, Praful Agrawal Phd, Joseph D. Mozingo Phd, Keisuke Uemura Md, Phd, Kunihiko Tokunaga Md, Christopher L. Peters Md, Shireen Y. Elhabian Phd, Ross T. Whitaker Phd, Andrew E. Anderson Phd

PanaSoMM

Developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH) is described as under-coverage of the femoral head by the acetabulum, resulting in mechanical instability. Though DDH is often diagnosed using plain film radiographs, these images cannot adequately capture 3D joint coverage. Herein, we applied a 3D statistical shape model (SSM) to the femur and hemi-pelvis of patients with DDH to objectively measure shape variation and evaluated whether SSM outputs could predict measurements of joint coverage.

The femur and hemi-pelvis were semi-automatically segmented from CT images (83 hips from 47 females with DDH). Surfaces of each hip were reconstructed from segmentations, aligned, and input …

Optimal Design Of Bacterial Carpets For Fluid Pumping, Minghao W. Rostami, Weifan Liu, Amy Buchmann, Eva Strawbridge, Longhua Zhao

Biology and Medicine Through Mathematics Conference

No abstract provided.

Study Of Cardiovascular Dynamics During Graded Head-Up Tilt Test In The Young With Syncope Tendency, Martin A. Miranda Sr

Biology and Medicine Through Mathematics Conference

No abstract provided.

Scandy: Simulating Realistic Human Scanpaths In Dynamic Real-World Scenes, Nicolas Roth, Martin Rolfs, Klaus Obermayer

MODVIS Workshop

No abstract provided.

Evaluating The Use Of Nintendo Labo As A Rehabilitation Tool, Jacob Colwell, Logan Suiter, Amanda Wells

ONU Student Research Colloquium

Serious gaming is the practice of using video games, either commercial or specifically designed, for physical rehabilitation. Serious games have emerged in the last decade as a way to increase patient involvement in rehabilitation, increase the likelihood of patients continuing treatment after progress stalls, and generally increase mental health during treatment. However, the current literature has not kept pace with the evolution of technology and therefore the use of next-generation consoles for serious gaming is underdeveloped.

The Nintendo Switch could provide new avenues for serious gaming because of the advanced sensing ability of its controllers (Joy-Cons) and the engaging ways …

Fabrication Of Microfluidic Devices To Study Confined Collective Migration Of Breast Cancer Cells, Linh Luong

Symposium of Student Scholars

Cells in our body mostly exist in confined environments. They are surrounded by neighboring cells, tissues, and the extracellular matrix. The changes in these surrounding environments influence cell behaviors. Therefore, studying cell mechanics plays a significant role to understand how cancer cells migrate and what primary factors that control cancer metastasis. Many studies have been developed to study how cancer cells migrate in the body. However, these experiments in vivo are complicated and incredibly challenging. Another approach is to perform experiments in vitro instead. However, to obtain relevant results, a specific experimental apparatus must be designed to confine cells. Glass …

Design And Computational Validation Of A Shear Stress Bioreactor For Conditioning Vascular Tissue To Time-Varying Multidirectional Fluid Shear Stress, Rajeshwari Raja, Philippe Sucosky, Jason Shar

Symposium of Student Scholars

Design and Computational Validation of a Shear Stress Bioreactor for Conditioning Vascular Tissue to Time-Varying Multidirectional Fluid Shear Stress

Author: Rajeshwari Raja Mentor: Dr. Jason A. Shar Department of Mechanical Engineering Kennesaw State University 1100 South Marietta Pkwy SE, 30060

Altered biological environments and conditions, such as microgravity and pregnancy, can impact vascular blood flow and, in turn, generate fluid wall shear stress (WSS; frictional force generated on the tissue surface due to blood flow) abnormalities. These abnormalities are known to affect cardiovascular tissue biology and can be replicated experimentally using a cone-and-plate shear stress bioreactor. This device exposes tissue …

A Preliminary Comparative Study Of Molecular Visualization Software For Education, Ruoming Shen

Modeling, Simulation and Visualization Student Capstone Conference

Chemistry and biology are sciences vital for understanding metabolic processes, developing disease treatments, and improving environmental conditions. With extensive knowledge of biochemistry, we can take advantage of a material’s unique chemical composition and properties in various applications. Visualization software is essential for analyzing complex chemical and biological structures and predicting their interactions with each other. This paper presents a preliminary study of three open source molecular visualization software tools - Visual Molecular Dynamics (VMD), Jmol, and Mol*, and evaluates their strengths and deficiencies. This paper utilizes the March Molecule of the Month, Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF), from the Protein …

Medical Manikin Augmented Reality Simulation (M2ars), Pauline Delacruz, Jacob Gibson, Daniel Howard, Jaclyn Peacock, Kendall Robbins

Modeling, Simulation and Visualization Student Capstone Conference

The Medical Manikin Augmented Reality Simulation (M2ARS) is an augmented reality simulation application built for the Microsoft HoloLens 2 that uses the principles of anatomy transfer to overlay human anatomical structures onto a medical manikin digitally. These structures currently consist of the skeletal, muscular, and circulatory systems. In addition, a model of the lungs and an animated heart are also available within the simulation. M2ARS allows the user to view these structures in a manner that is both visually and spatially accurate to the human body. This application contains two modes; an augmented reality mode, which uses a manikin, and …

Multi-Modality Breast Mri Segmentation Using Nn-Unet For Preoperative Planning Of Robotic Surgery Navigation, Motaz Alqaoud, John Plemmons Md, Eric Feliberti Md, Facs, Krishnanand Kaipa, Siqin Dong, Gabor Fichtinger, Yimming Xiao, Michel Audette

Modeling, Simulation and Visualization Student Capstone Conference

Segmentation of the chest region and breast tissues is essential for surgery planning and navigation. This paper proposes the foundation for preoperative segmentation based on two cascaded architectures of deep neural networks (DNN) based on the state-of-the-art nnU-Net. Additionally, this study introduces a polyvinyl alcohol cryogel (PVA-C) breast phantom based on the segmentation of the DNN automated approach, enabling the experiments of navigation system for robotic breast surgery. Multi-modality breast MRI datasets of T2W and STIR images were acquired from 10 patients. Segmentation evaluation utilized the Dice Similarity Coefficient (DSC), segmentation accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity. First, a single class labeling …

Senior Subject Gait Analysis Using Self-Supervised Method, Haben Yhdego, Michel Audette

Modeling, Simulation and Visualization Student Capstone Conference

There are many issues regarding the technology used for fall detection gait analysis in the geriatric center of senior patients. The fall detection system used should examine the privacy of the patients and the flexibility of the system. Several researchers have developed fall detection using wearable sensors due to their flexibility and nature of privacy. Most of those developed methods are supervised deep learning methods. However, data annotation is expensive because we use camera video recording and playback of each participant’s recorded video to label the data. Moreover, labelling using a camera recording limits the flexible and private nature of …

Tracking Simulated Somatosensory Deficiencies That Affect Postural Stability Through Detrended Fluctuation Analysis, Cameron Steele

Scholar Week 2016 - present

Falls are a prevalent problem within elderly populations. Falls also increase the cost of healthcare, since they cause severe injuries frequently and negatively affect quality of life. Lack of postural stability is the consequence of falls, and postural stability is defined as the correct biomechanical execution based on sensory feedback. The types of sensory feedback are vision, vestibular (ear), proprioceptive (body awareness), and somatosensory (sensation of the environment). This study focuses on the lack of postural stability in quiet standing due to somatosensory and vision deficiencies. To track these deficiencies, 51 subjects stood for 60 seconds on two force plates, …

Two-Stage Transfer Learning For Facial Expression Classification In Children, Gregory Hubbard, Megan Witherow, Khan Iftekharuddin

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Studying facial expressions can provide insight into the development of social skills in children and provide support to individuals with developmental disorders. In afflicted individuals, such as children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), atypical interpretations of facial expressions are well-documented. In computer vision, many popular and state-of-the-art deep learning architectures (VGG16, EfficientNet, ResNet, etc.) are readily available with pre-trained weights for general object recognition. Transfer learning utilizes these pre-trained models to improve generalization on a new task. In this project, transfer learning is implemented to leverage the pretrained model (general object recognition) on facial expression classification. Though this method, the …

Optimization Of The Musculoskeletal Simulation In Estimation Of Metabolic Cost, Arash Mohammadzadeh Gonabadi, Philippe Malcolm

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Energy from food is supplied to the human body in the form of chemical energy in the muscles. This metabolic energy expenditure is one of the main determinants of the way we walk, and indirect calorimetry measurements are an essential tool for understanding how increases in metabolic cost restrict the mobility of clinical populations. Respiratory oxygen consumption measurements allow recording of the average metabolic cost of walking. However, the time required for these measurements prevents assessing metabolic rate in patients who cannot walk long enough. Musculoskeletal modeling techniques allow to estimate average muscle energy expenditure during locomotion in conjunction with …

Reducing Loading On The Contralateral Limb Using Human-In-The-Loop Optimization, Siena Senatore

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

In most everyday activities, we head towards a specific goal by updating our choices for a more direct path. However, there are specific clinical tasks where taking the direct path is more challenging. Clinical investigations of optimizing a prosthesis involve the assessment of multiple parameter settings through trial and error rather than goal-directed optimization. We investigate if a human-in-the-loop optimization algorithm can guide manual alterations to a prosthesis-simulating device to reduce the ground reaction force on the contralateral limb. In most participants, the optimal condition reduced the loading rate on the contralateral limb compared to the initial condition tested. These …

How Can Actuation Timing And Magnitude Of A Bilateral Semi-Rigid Hip Exoskeleton Optimize Metabolic Cost, Arash Mohammadzadeh Gonabadi, Prokopios Antonellis, Sara Myers, Iraklis Pipinos, Philippe Malcolm

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Semi-rigid exoskeletons could combine some advantages of rigid and soft approaches. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of timing and magnitude of assistance from a semi-rigid hip exoskeleton. For ten participants, we tested ten conditions that were combinations of 5 different end-timings, ranging from 21% to 49%, and 2 different moment magnitudes ranging from 0.06 to 0.12 Nm.kg^-1. The participants walked in two reference conditions: a condition without actuation and a condition without the exoskeleton. A semi-rigid hip exoskeleton could alter metabolic rate. However, to produce a net assistive effect, it is necessary to …