Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons^™

Development Of A Lab-On-A-Chip Device For Rapid Nanotoxicity Assessment In Vitro, Pratikkumar Shah

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Increasing useof nanomaterials in consumer products and biomedical applications creates the possibilities of intentional/unintentional exposure to humans and the environment. Beyond the physiological limit, the nanomaterialexposure to humans can induce toxicity. It is difficult to define toxicity of nanoparticles on humans as it varies by nanomaterialcomposition, size, surface properties and the target organ/cell line. Traditional tests for nanomaterialtoxicity assessment are mostly based on bulk-colorimetric assays. In many studies, nanomaterials have found to interfere with assay-dye to produce false results and usually require several hours or days to collect results. Therefore, there is a clear need for alternative tools that can …

Nanopulse Generators: Their Design And Application To Cancer Therapy Studies, Daniel P. Wernig

Senior Honors Theses

Effective nanopulse generators have become critical in recent decades concerning the study of subcellular affects in response to nanosecond pulsed electric fields. It has been observed that nanosecond duration electric pulses can target intracellular organelles, ultimately leading to cell apoptosis, suggesting the possibility of a new, minimally invasive, low risk cancer therapy methodology. The standard topology for developing a medical nanopulser is the Blumlein “transmission line” approach. This approach relies on the nearly infinitesimal, yet finite amount of time required for an electromagnetic field to propagate down a short transmission line. Prior to design, requirements and constraints must be defined …

Design Of A Haptic Interface For Medical Applications Using Magneto-Rheological Fluid Based Actuators, Nima Najmaei

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis reports on the design, construction, and evaluation of a prototype two degrees-of-freedom (DOF) haptic interface, which takes advantage of Magneto-Rheological Fluid (MRF) based clutches for actuation. Haptic information provides important cues in teleoperated systems and enables the user to feel the interaction with a remote or virtual environment during teleoperation. The two main objectives in designing a haptic interface are stability and transparency. Indeed, deficiencies in these factors in haptics-enabled telerobotic systems has the introduction of haptics in medical environments where safety and reliability are prime considerations. An actuator with poor dynamics, high inertia, large size, and heavy …

An Optogenetic Brain-Machine Interface For Spatiotemporal Neuromodulation, Ryan Andrew Baumgartner

Theses and Dissertations

Direct neural stimulation has recently become a standard therapy for neurological disorders such as Parkinson's Disease, Essential Tremors, and Dystonia. Currently, deep brain electro-stimulation and neuro-pharmaceutical treatments are the dominant therapeutic options available to the public. As our understanding of brain function and neurological diseases improves, we are able to develop more advanced neuromodulation techniques. These methods could become viable treatment solutions for treating brain dysfunction. Optogenetics, first introduced by a research team led by Karl Deisseroth at Stanford University, has proved to be a versatile technique with remarkable potential to be used in treatments for brain disorders, dysfunction, and …

Performance Comparison Of Windowing Techniques For Ecg Signal Enhancement, Innovative Research Publications Irp India, K.Sravan Kumar, Babak Yazdanpanah, Dr.G.S.N Raju

Innovative Research Publications IRP India

Electrocardiogram (ECG) signal is generally corrupted by various artifacts like baseline wander, power line interference (50/60 Hz) and electromyography noise and these must be removed before diagnosis. The task propounded in this article is removal of low frequency interference i.e. baseline wandering and high frequency noise i.e. electromyography in ECG signal and digital filters are implemented to delete it. The digital filters accomplished are FIR with various windowing methods as of Rectangular, Hann, Blackman, Hamming, and Kaiser. The results received are at order of 300,450,600.The signal taken of the MIT-BIH database which contains the normal and abnormal waveforms. The work …

Induction Of Differentiation Of Dental Pulp-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells (Dpsc), Aubrey Young

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Mesenchymal stem cells are derived from a variety of human tissues and are being bioengineered and studied for possible uses in the advancement of medicine. Recent efforts are being focused on Dental Pulp Stem Cells (DPSC's) due to the accessibility of this tissue. Many factors influence DPSC quality and quantity, including the specific methods used to isolate, collect, concentrate, and store these isolates once they are removed. Ancillary factors, such as the choice of media, the selection of early versus late passage cells, and cryopreservation techniques may also influence the differentiation potential and proliferative capacity of DPSC isolates.

The objective …

A Low-Power Approach For Front End Biological Signal Conditioning, Logan Smith Taylor

Masters Theses

In a lab-on-a-chip (LOC) application, the measurement of small analog signals such as local temperature variation often involves detection of very low-level signals in a noisy micro-scale environment. This is true for other biomedical monitoring systems as well. These systems observe various physiological parameters or electrochemical reactions that need to be tracked electrically. For temperature measurement pyroelectric transducers represent an efficient solution in terms of speed, sensitivity, and scale of integration, especially when prompt and accurate temperature monitoring is desired.

The ability to perform laboratory operations on a small scale using miniaturized LOC devices is a promising biosensing technique. The …

Estimating Effective Connectivity From Fmri Data Using Factor-Based Subspace Autoregressive Models, Chee-Ming Ting Phd, Abd-Krim Seghouane Phd, Sh-Hussain Salleh Phd, Alias M. Noor Phd

Chee-Ming Ting

Algorithm-Circuit Co-Design For Detecting Symptomatic Patterns In Biological Signals, Himanshu Markandeya

Open Access Dissertations

The advancement in scaled Silicon technology has accelerated the development of a wide range of applications in various fields including medical technology. It has immensely contributed to finding solutions for monitoring general health as well as alleviating intractable disorders in the form of implantable and wearable systems. This necessitates the development of energy efficient and functionally efficacious systems. This thesis has explored the algorithm-circuit co-design approach for developing an energy efficient epileptic seizure detection processor which could be used for implantable epilepsy prosthesis. Novel wavelet transform based algorithms are proposed for accurate detection of epileptic seizures. Energy efficient techniques at …

Characterization Of A Contact-Stylus Surface Digitization Method Using Collaborative Robots: Accuracy Evaluation In The Context Of Shoulder Replacement Or Resurfacing, Sara Saud Zimmo

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Total shoulder arthroplasty (TSA) is the third most common joint replacement. While robot-assisted hip and knee replacement technologies have enjoyed extensive development, this has been limited in the upper limb. This work focused on quantifying the localization accuracy of a robotic system, and evaluating its efficacy in the context of TSA.

A collaborative robot was fitted with a stylus tip to perform manual surface digitizations using the robot’s encoder output. In the first experiment, two precision-machined master cubes, representing the working volume around a glenoid structure, were used for system validation. Next, cadaveric glenoids were digitized and compared to a …

Breast Cancer Detection Using Interferometric Music: Experimental And Numerical Assessment, Giuseppe Ruvio, Raffaele Solimene, Antonio Cuccaro, Domenico Gaetano, Jacinta Browne, Max Ammann

Articles

Purpose: In microwave breast cancer detection, it is often beneficial to arrange sensors in close proximity to the breast. The resultant coupling generally changes the antenna response. As an a priori characterization of the radio frequency system becomes difficult, this can lead to severe degradation of the detection efficacy. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the advantages of adopting an interferometric multiple signal classification (I-MUSIC) approach due to its limited dependence from a priori information on the antenna. The performance of I-MUSIC detection was measured in terms of signal-to-clutter ratio (SCR), signal-to-mean ratio (SMR), and spatial displacement (SD) …

Multi-Channel Analysis For Gradient Artifact Removal From Concurrent Eeg-Fmri Studies, Miguel R. Castellanos, Zhongming Liu

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Concurrent electroencephalogram (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) recordings are susceptible to large amounts of noise due to the static and dynamic magnetic fields present inside the MR scanner. EEG-fMRI studies are conducted to provide better spatial and temporal resolution for each recording, respectively, but the artifacts found in the EEG render the data impossible to interpret. Past studies have focused on signal post-processing techniques which are able to effectively remove noise upon the completion of a study, but there are no techniques able to process the data in real-time without extensive calibration. This research addresses this issue by …

Medical Applications Of Mrc, Kyle Thackston, Henry Mei, Pedro Irazoqui

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Consistent powering is a limiting reagent for many medical implants and sensors. Powering in-vivo devices in animal studies requires either transcutaneous wiring (limiting mobility and increasing the chance of infection) or an implanted battery (limited lifetime and limits size of device). Wireless power transfer (WPT) would be able to overcome these challenges and permit the use of more advanced implantable devices in a research setting. Magnetic resonance coupling (MRC), an advanced form of inductive charging, allows good transfer efficiencies over significant air gaps, but works best a specific location and frequency, limiting mobility in animal studies. Using band-pass filter theory, …

Evaluating Human Performance For Image-Guided Surgical Tasks, Matthew Kenneth Kramers

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The following work focuses on the objective evaluation of human performance for two different interventional tasks; targeted prostate biopsy tasks using a tracked biopsy device, and external ventricular drain placement tasks using a mobile-based augmented reality device for visualization and guidance. In both tasks, a human performance methodology was utilized which respects the trade-off between speed and accuracy for users conducting a series of targeting tasks using each device. This work outlines the development and application of performance evaluation methods using these devices, as well as details regarding the implementation of the mobile AR application. It was determined that the …

Cryoimaging-Microscopy Implementation For 3d Optical Imaging, Mohammad Masoudimotlagh

Theses and Dissertations

The structures and biochemistry properties of biological tissues are mostly affected by diseases. The visualization of organ structure and biochemistry helps in early detection and progression monitoring of diseases.

Although, 2D imaging has traditionally been used to gain information from the tissue, it does not accurately represent many of the structures and functions. There currently exists a need for sensitive and specific methods to show detailed information about the structure of the tissue with high resolution and in 3D. The potential advantage of the high resolution 3D images is the ability to accurately probe structural and biochemical properties of the …

Improving Golf Putt Performance With Statistical Learning Of Eeg Signals, Qing Guo

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, a machine learning based method is proposed to predict the putt outcomes of golfers based on their electroencephalogram (EEG) data. The method can be used as a core building block of a brain-computer interface, which is designed to provide guidance to golf players based on their EEG patterns. The proposed method includes three steps. First, multi-channel 1-second EEG trials were extracted during golfers' preparation of putting. Second, different features are calculated such as correlation coefficient, power spectrum density and coherence, which are used as features for the classification algorithm. To predict golfers' performance, the support vector machine …

Cfd Simulation Of The Thermal Performance Of A Parallel Counter-Parallel Flow Heat Exchanger For The Treatment Of Hypothermia, Alex Heller

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Hypothermia is a life-threatening condition. Currently, active warming methods are the most effective treatment for dysthermic patients. The aim of this study is to investigate the use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) in evaluating the thermal performance of a parallel/counter-parallel flow heat exchanger used as part of a fluid warmer to treat Hypothermia. The 3D model of the heat exchanger is divided into three regions; Infusate (fluid to be heated), Hot Water (heating fluid), and a Solid Region (wall). At the end of the heat exchanger, an elbow section is used to create the counter-parallel flow arrangement specific to this …

Design Of The High-Speed Stereo Radiography System, John C. Ivester Iv

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Orthopaedic pathologies often involve disruption of the mechanical environment of a joint at/below the mm scale. The ability to measure biomechanical kinematics at the sub-mm scale is essential for obtaining valuable insight into pathologies, but small motions of the joints are difficult to quantify. Estimates of skeletal kinematics are commonly made from optical motion capture systems and markers placed on the skin. The error caused by external marker movement is largely avoided with x-ray motion capture. Dynamic radiography uses a series of x-ray images recorded at high-speed and captures in-vivo joint motion. Uncovering the mechanical foundation of orthopaedic pathologies requires …

Design, Characterization And Application Of A Multiple Input Stethoscope Apparatus, Spencer Geng Wong

Master's Theses

For this project, the design, implementation, characterization, calibration and possible applications of a multiple transducer stethoscope apparatus were investigated. The multi-transducer sensor array design consists of five standard stethoscope diaphragms mounted to a rigid frame for a-priori knowledge of their relative spatial locations in the x-y plane, with compliant z-direction positioning to ensure good contact and pressure against the subject’s skin for reliable acoustic coupling. When this apparatus is properly placed on the body, it can digitally capture the same important body sounds investigated with standard acoustic stethoscopes; especially heart sounds. Acoustic signal inputs from each diaphragm are converted to …

Human Metaphase Chromosome Analysis Using Image Processing, Akila M.S Subasinghe Arachchige

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Development of an effective human metaphase chromosome analysis algorithm can optimize expert time usage by increasing the efficiency of many clinical diagnosis processes. Although many methods exist in the literature, they are only applicable for limited morphological variations and are specific to the staining method used during cell preparation. They are also highly influenced by irregular chromosome boundaries as well as the presence of artifacts such as premature sister chromatid separation.

Therefore an algorithm is proposed in this research which can operate with any morphological variation of the chromosome across images from multiple staining methods. The proposed algorithm is capable …

Particle Swarm Optimization Using Multiple Neighborhood Connectivity And Winner Take All Activation Applied To Biophysical Models Of Inferior Colliculus Neurons, Brandon S. Coventry

Open Access Theses

Age-related hearing loss is a prevalent neurological disorder, affecting as many as 63% of adults over the age of 70. The inability to hear and understand speech is a cause of much distress in aged individuals and is becoming a major public health concern as age-related hearing loss has also been correlated with other neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's dementia. The Inferior Colliculus (IC) is a major integrative auditory center, receiving excitatory and inhibitory inputs from several brainstem nuclei. This complex balance of excitation and inhibition gives rise to complex neural responses, which are measured in terms of firing rate …

Empirical Modeling Of Asynchronous Scalp Recorded And Intracranial Eeg Potentials, Komalpreet Kaur

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

A Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) is a system that allows people with severe neuromuscular disorders to communicate and control devices using their brain signals. BCIs based on scalp-recorded electroencephalography (s-EEG) have recently been demonstrated to provide a practical, long-term communication channel to severely disabled users. These BCIs use time-domain s-EEG features based on the P300 event-related potential to convey the user's intent. The performance of s-EEG-based BCIs has generally stagnated in recent years, and high day-to-day performance variability exists for some disabled users. Recently intracranial EEG (i-EEG), which is recorded from the cortical surface or the hippocampus, has been successfully used …

Numerical Study Of Poration And Ionic Conduction In Nanopores Caused By High-Intensity, Nanosecond Pulses In Cell, Hao Qiu

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the dynamics and bioeffects of electroporation of biological cell and ionic conduction in nanopores under high-intensity, nanosecond pulses. The electroporation model utilized the current continuity equation and the asymptotic Smoluchowski equation to explore the transmembrane potential and pore density of the plasma and intracellular membranes; the ionic conduction model employed the Poisson-Nernst-Planck equations and the Navier-Stokes equations to analyze the ionic current and ion concentration profile.

Nanosecond electric pulses of high-intensity amplitude can initiate electroporation of intracellular organelles. The pulse parameters and cell electrical properties, that can selectively electroporate liposomes but keep the plasma and nuclear …

Preliminary Test Of A Real-Time, Interactive Silent Speech Interface Based On Electromagnetic Articulograph, Jun Wang, Ashok Samal, Jordan R. Green

CSE Conference and Workshop Papers

A silent speech interface (SSI) maps articulatory movement data to speech output. Although still in experimental stages, silent speech interfaces hold significant potential for facilitating oral communication in persons after laryngectomy or with other severe voice impairments. Despite the recent efforts on silent speech recognition algorithm development using offline data analysis, online test of SSIs have rarely been conducted. In this paper, we present a preliminary, online test of a real-time, interactive SSI based on electromagnetic motion tracking. The SSI played back synthesized speech sounds in response to the user’s tongue and lip movements. Three English talkers participated in this …

Estimation Of High-Dimensional Brain Connectivity From Fmri Data Using Factor Modeling, Chee-Ming Ting Phd, Abd-Krim Seghouane, Sh-Hussain Salleh, Alias M. Noor

Chee-Ming Ting

We consider identifying effective connectivity of brain networks from fMRI time series. The standard vector autoregressive (VAR) models fail to give reliable network estimates, typically involving very large number of nodes. This paper adopts a dimensionality reduction approach based on factor modeling, to enable effective and efficient high-dimensional VAR analysis of large network connectivity. We derive a subspace VAR (SVAR) model from the factor model (FM) in which the observations are driven by a lower dimensional subspace of common latent factors, following an autoregressive dynamics. We consider the principal components (PC) method which can produce consistent estimators for the FM, …

Estimating Dynamic Cortical Connectivity From Motor Imagery Eeg Using Kalman Smoother & Em Algorithm, S. Balqis Samdin, Chee-Ming Ting Phd, Sh-Hussain Salleh, Mahyar Hamedi, Alias Mohd Noor

Chee-Ming Ting

This paper considers identifying effective cortical connectivity from scalp EEG. Recent studies use time-varying multivariate autoregressive (TV-MAR) models to better describe the changing connectivity between cortical regions where the TV coefficients are estimated by Kalman filter (KF) within a state-space framework. We extend this approach by incorporating Kalman smoothing (KS) to improve the KF estimates, and the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm to infer the unknown model parameters from EEG. We also consider solving the volume conduction problem by modeling the induced instantaneous correlations using a full noise covariate. Simulation results show the superiority of KS in tracking the coefficient changes. We …

Biomaterial Testing Methodology For Long-Term In Vivo Applications: Silicon Carbide Corrosion Resistance, Biocompatibility And Hemocompatibility, Maysam Nezafati

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Biomedical devices that function in-vivo offer a tremendous promise to improve the quality of life for many who suffer from disease and trauma. The most important consideration for these devices is that they interact with the physiological environment as designed without initiating a deleterious inflammatory response. ISO 10993 outlines the current international guideline for investigating the biocompatibility of such devices. Numerous groups report the use of ISO 10993 as the basis for their experimental evaluation of candidate materials for neuroprosthetics, as well as other biomedical devices, however most of these reports fail to completely comply with the standard. This leads …

Plasmonic Optical Sensors: Performance Analysis And Engineering Towards Biosensing, Peipei Jia

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensing for quantitative analysis of chemical reactions and biological interactions has become one of the most promising applications of plasmonics. This thesis focuses on performance analysis for plasmonic sensors and implementation of plamonic optical sensors with novel nanofabrication techniques.

A universal performance analysis model is established for general two-dimensional plasmonic sensors. This model is based on the fundamental facts of surface plasmon theory. The sensitivity only depends on excitation light wavelength as well as dielectric properties of metal and dielectrics. The expression involves no structure-specified parameters, which validates this formula in broad cases of periodic, quasiperiodic …

Team Omnimouse, Derek J. Halman, Josh B. Porter, Steven A. Silver, Ian S. Stemper

Computer Engineering

INFORMATION, DATA, FIGURES AND DRAWINGS EMBODIED IN THIS DOCUMENT ARE STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL AND ARE SUPPLIED ON THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THEY WILL NOT BE DISCLOSED TO THIRD PARTIES WITHOUT THE PRIOR WRITTEN CONSENT OF QUALITY OF LIFE PLUS.

Clear Circuit Contact Lens, Paul Hecker Ii, Phillip Azar, Alexander Do, Benny Ng, Errol Leon

Electrical Engineering

The clear active contact lens project aims to address safety and hazard awareness with an unexplored field of eye wear technology. With advancements in nanotechnology and the advent of circuits on contact lens, this project is one of the first research and development into this new field, following University of Washington and Google. The team focuses on the safety and biocompatibility of the contact lens for a comfortable ease of use. The designs push the limits of thin film printed technology with its pursuit of fine designs of 250μm antennas. The project streamlines the manufacturing process for a combination substrate …