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Full-Text Articles in Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering

Biomechanics Of Prosthetic Knee Systems : Role Of Dampening And Energy Storage Systems, Hande Argunsah Bayram Jan 2013

Biomechanics Of Prosthetic Knee Systems : Role Of Dampening And Energy Storage Systems, Hande Argunsah Bayram

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One significant drawback of the commercial passive and microprocessored prosthetic devices, the inability of delivering positive energy when needed, is due to the absence of the knee flexion during stance phase. Moreover, consequences such as circumduction and disturbed gait pattern take place due to the improper energy flow at the knee and the absence of the positive energy delivery during the swing phase. Current generation powered design has solved these problems by delivering the needed energy with heavy battery demanding motors, which increase the mass of the device significantly. Hence, the gait quality of transfemoral amputees has not improved significantly …


Scalp Eeg And Tms Based Electrophysiological Study Of Brain Function Of Motor Control In Aging, Mehmed Satuk Bayram Jan 2013

Scalp Eeg And Tms Based Electrophysiological Study Of Brain Function Of Motor Control In Aging, Mehmed Satuk Bayram

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Voluntary movements of human body are controlled by the brain through corticomuscular pathways. Although neuromuscular control mechanisms of voluntary movements have been studied extensively, many remain to be learned, especially neuromuscular adaptations related to clinical conditions such as neurological disorders and aging. This research aims at a better understanding of functional connection between the brain and muscle during voluntary motor activities in aging and the extent to which this connection can be changed by training the neuromuscular system. Three research projects were conducted to achieve this aim. The analyses in the first two projects are based on comparisons of non-invasive …


An In Silico Liver: Model Of Gluconeogenesis, Elie R. Chalhoub Jan 2013

An In Silico Liver: Model Of Gluconeogenesis, Elie R. Chalhoub

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An in silico liver was developed in attempt to represent the in vivo state of the fasted liver. It featured two conceptual models. The first one represented carbohydrate metabolism of the human liver, which included the heterogeneous nature of the liver by incorporating spatial variation of key enzyme activities. This model was able to predict the overall fluxes in tissue and the effect of high intensity exercise on the various hepatic fluxes. A second model of hepatic metabolism was developed to represent the complex interplay between gluconeogenesis, lipid metabolism, and alcohol metabolism in the fasted rat liver. Biochemical pathways are …


A Robotic Neuro-Musculoskeletal Simulator For Spine Research, Robb W. Colbrunn Jan 2013

A Robotic Neuro-Musculoskeletal Simulator For Spine Research, Robb W. Colbrunn

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An influential conceptual framework advanced by Panjabi represents the living spine as a complex neuromusculoskeletal system whose biomechanical functioning is rather finely dependent upon the interactions among and between three principal subsystems: the passive musculoskeletal subsystem (osteoligamentous spine plus passive mechanical contributions of the muscles), the active musculoskeletal subsystem (muscles and tendons), and the neural and feedback subsystem (neural control centers and feedback elements such as mechanoreceptors located in the soft tissues) [1]. The interplay between subsystems readily encourages "thought experiments" of how pathologic changes in one subsystem might influence another--for example, prompting one to speculate how painful arthritic changes …


Method For Determination Of Kinematic Sensor Position And Orientation From Magnetic Resonance Images, Caglar Ozturk Jan 2013

Method For Determination Of Kinematic Sensor Position And Orientation From Magnetic Resonance Images, Caglar Ozturk

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Concussion and mild traumatic brain injury risk remain high for young athletes participating in helmeted and non-helmeted sports. Because of the short and potential long-term effects on young athletes and early onset Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, there is a dire need to correlate a relationship between head impact intensity, frequency, duration and athlete brain health. To address this need, the Cleveland Clinic is developing a custom mouthguard embedded with flexible circuitry and sensors, known as the 'Intelligent Mouthguard'(IMG). To accurately quantify peak values of head impacts or concussions, orientation and position of each sensor relative to CG (Center of Gravity) …


Radial Diffusion Of Florescein Molecules (376 Da) In Canine Bone Tissue, Daniel O'Conor Jan 2013

Radial Diffusion Of Florescein Molecules (376 Da) In Canine Bone Tissue, Daniel O'Conor

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No abstract provided.


Lipid Production By Scenedesmus Dimorphus: Comparison Of Extraction Techniques And Effect Of Sodium Nitrate Concentration, Bahareh Kanani Jan 2013

Lipid Production By Scenedesmus Dimorphus: Comparison Of Extraction Techniques And Effect Of Sodium Nitrate Concentration, Bahareh Kanani

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No abstract provided.


Synthesis And Characterization Of Ph-Responsive Elastin-Like Polypeptides With Different Configurations, Mingjie Tang Jan 2013

Synthesis And Characterization Of Ph-Responsive Elastin-Like Polypeptides With Different Configurations, Mingjie Tang

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Elastin-like polypeptides (ELP) are environmentally responsive polymers that exhibit phase transition behavior in response to various stimuli such as temperature, pH and irradiation. In this work, we focused on pH-responsive ELPs. It has been shown that pH value, configurations of ELPs, ELP concentration, and salt concentration can impact the phase transition behavior of pH-responsive ELPs. Quantitative models have been developed to engineer various linear ELPs, but there has not been any detailed study for engineering ionizable ELP with non-linear configurations. In this study, we designed, synthesized, and characterized pH-responsive ELPs with two different configurations. One is linear ELP, (GVGVPGEGVPGVGVP)12, and …


External Control Interface, Dynamic Modeling And Parameter Estimation Of A Research Treadmill, Omer Sirin Jan 2013

External Control Interface, Dynamic Modeling And Parameter Estimation Of A Research Treadmill, Omer Sirin

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Treadmills providing linear continuous movement are used for robotic testing of prostheses in order to study their operating characteristics. However, traditional exercise treadmills are not able to simulate various conditions such as avoiding an obstacle, climbing, descending, reversing direction, or stopping instantly. The focus of this thesis is to examine control algorithms (position, speed and force) for the drive mechanism of a research treadmill to fulll the gap in the situations described above. The system consists of a power supply, a computer with Matlab, and the treadmill that includes a DC motor, a pulley and belt. Also, an external encoder …


Pure Component Adsorption Of Methane, Ethylene, Propylene And Carbon Dioxide In Silicalite, Qianqian Zhou Jan 2013

Pure Component Adsorption Of Methane, Ethylene, Propylene And Carbon Dioxide In Silicalite, Qianqian Zhou

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Adsorption isotherms are measured for pure methane, ethylene, propylene and carbon dioxide in silicalite. Isotherm data are collected using a volumetric method at three different temperatures of 10C, 35C and 65C at pressure up to 100psi. The Virial equation and Langmuir equation have been applied to represent excess amount adsorbed in each pure component system. The binary adsorption equilibrium for various mixtures are predicted from the pure component adsorption data, using the Ideal Adsorption Solution Theory (IAST)


State Estimation Based On Nested Particle Filters, Swathi Srinivasan Jan 2013

State Estimation Based On Nested Particle Filters, Swathi Srinivasan

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In reality many processes are nonlinear and in order to have a knowledge about the true process conditions, it is important to make decisions based on the state of the system. Process measurements such as pressure, temperature, and pH, are available at time instances and this information is necessary in order to obtain the state of the system. Filtering is a state estimation technique by which the estimate is obtained at a time instant, given the process measurements at their respective time instances. Several lters have been developed so far for the estimation of the states of the system. Kalman …


Scaffold Composition And Architecture Critically Regulate Extracellular Matrix Synthesis By Cardiomyocytes, Arsela Gishto Jan 2013

Scaffold Composition And Architecture Critically Regulate Extracellular Matrix Synthesis By Cardiomyocytes, Arsela Gishto

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Heart failure accounts for over 5 million cases in the U.S. A major onset of this is myocardial infarction, which causes the myocardium to loose cardiomyocytes and transform into a scar tissue. Given that the adult infarcted cardiac tissue has a limited ability to regenerate, alternative methods to restore the damaged area need to be developed. The goal of these approaches is to design an optimal scaffold that can retain and deliver cardiomyocytes at the site of damaged myocardium. This tissue engineering approach would allow cardiac reconstruction by replacing the lost cardiomyocytes, delivering the required biomolecules, as well as remodeling …


Bench-Top Validation Of "Intelligent" Mouth Guard, Alper Aksu Jan 2013

Bench-Top Validation Of "Intelligent" Mouth Guard, Alper Aksu

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Concussion is the signature athletics injury of the 21st Century. Scientists are hard at work monitoring effects of hard impacts on the human brain. However, existing tools and devices are inadequate to screen the effects. Hence, a new approach is required to accurately quantify peak values of head impacts or concussions and relate these values to clinical brain health outcomes. A new head impact dosimeter, the "Intelligent Mouth Guard" (IMG) has been developed and can be conveniently located inside the mouth. In this study, the IMG printed circuit board (PCB) including four (4) high-quality shock resistant sensors has been developed …


Moving Horizon Estimation With Dynamic Programming, Mohan Kumar Ramalingam Jan 2013

Moving Horizon Estimation With Dynamic Programming, Mohan Kumar Ramalingam

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Moving Horizon Estimation(MHE) is a optimization based strategy to state estimation. It involves computation of arrival cost, a penalty term, based on the MHE cost function. Minimization of this arrival cost is done through various methods. All these methods use nonlinear programming optimization technique which gives the estimate. The main idea of MHE revolves around minimizing the estimation cost function. The cost function is dependent on prediction error computation from data and arrival cost summarization. The major issue that hampers the MHE is choosing the arrival cost for ensuring stability of the overall estimation and computational time. In order to …


A Microfluidic Platform To Quantify Spatio-Temporal Diffusion Of Chemo-Gradients Within 3d Scaffolds: Applications In Axonal Biology, Michael A. Sawonik Jan 2013

A Microfluidic Platform To Quantify Spatio-Temporal Diffusion Of Chemo-Gradients Within 3d Scaffolds: Applications In Axonal Biology, Michael A. Sawonik

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Axonal outgrowth and guidance play an important role in wiring the developing and regenerating nervous system. The critical role of biomolecular gradients in facilitating this axonal sensitivity and directionality along specific trajectories needs to be elucidated for designing effective therapeutic treatments under injury or disease conditions. However, previous in vitro approaches based on micropipette assay or gel-turning assay proved to be unsuitable or inefficient for precise generation and quantification of diffusive gradients. In this study, we utilized a microfluidic device to generate and quantify physiologically-relevant biomolecular gradients in a simple and reliable manner. Using a combination of computational and experimental …


Computational Fluid Dynamics Modeling Of A Gravity Settler For Algae Dewatering, Scott A. Hug Jan 2013

Computational Fluid Dynamics Modeling Of A Gravity Settler For Algae Dewatering, Scott A. Hug

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Algae are the future of lipid sources for biodiesel production. Algae can produce more biodiesel than soybean and canola oil and can be grown in more diverse locations. Algae concentrations are naturally around 0.1 by weight. Enough water must be removed for the algae level to reach 5 , the minimum concentration in which lipids can be used in the transesterification process for biofuel production is 5 . Current dewatering methods involve the use of settling tanks and centrifugation. The costs of centrifugation limit the commercial viability of algae based biodiesel. A novel inclined gravity settler design at Cleveland State …