Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Mechanical Engineering Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Mechanical Engineering

Adaptive Kernel Estimation For Enhanced Filtering And Pattern Classification Of Magnetic Resonance Imaging: Novel Techniques For Evaluating The Biomechanics And Pathologic Conditions Of The Lumbar Spine, Nicholas Vincent Battaglia May 2016

Adaptive Kernel Estimation For Enhanced Filtering And Pattern Classification Of Magnetic Resonance Imaging: Novel Techniques For Evaluating The Biomechanics And Pathologic Conditions Of The Lumbar Spine, Nicholas Vincent Battaglia

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the contribution the lumbar spine musculature has on etiological and pathogenic characteristics of low back pain and lumbar spondylosis. This endeavor necessarily required a two-step process: 1) design of an accurate post-processing method for extracting relevant information via magnetic resonance images and 2) determine pathological trends by elucidating high-dimensional datasets through multivariate pattern classification. The lumbar musculature was initially evaluated by post-processing and segmentation of magnetic resonance (MR) images of the lumbar spine, which characteristically suffer from nonlinear corruption of the signal intensity. This so called intensity inhomogeneity degrades the efficacy of traditional intensity-based segmentation algorithms. Proposed …


Inter-Droplet Membranes For Mechanical Sensing Applications, Nima Tamaddoni Jahromi May 2016

Inter-Droplet Membranes For Mechanical Sensing Applications, Nima Tamaddoni Jahromi

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation combines self-assembly phenomena of amphiphilic molecules with soft materials to create and characterize mechanoelectrical transducers and sensors whose sensing elements are thin-film bioinspired membranes comprised of phospholipids or amphiphilic polymers. We show that the structures of these amphiphilic molecules tune the mechanical and electrical properties of these membranes. We show that these properties affect the mechanoelectrical sensing characteristic and range of operation of these membrane transducers. In the experiments, we construct and characterize a membrane-based hair cell embodiment that enables the membrane to be responsive to mechanical perturbations of the hair. The resulting oscillations of membranes formed between …