Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Robotically Steered Needles: A Survey Of Neurosurgical Applications And Technical Innovations, Michel A. Audette, Stéphane P.A. Bordas, Jason E. Blatt

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper surveys both the clinical applications and main technical innovations related to steered needles, with an emphasis on neurosurgery. Technical innovations generally center on curvilinear robots that can adopt a complex path that circumvents critical structures and eloquent brain tissue. These advances include several needle-steering approaches, which consist of tip-based, lengthwise, base motion-driven, and tissue-centered steering strategies. This paper also describes foundational mathematical models for steering, where potential fields, nonholonomic bicycle-like models, spring models, and stochastic approaches are cited. In addition, practical path planning systems are also addressed, where we cite uncertainty modeling in path planning, intraoperative soft tissue …

Surgical Gps Proof Of Concept For Scoliosis Surgery, Austin Tapp, Michel Audette

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Faculty Publications

Scoliotic deformities may be addressed with either anterior or posterior approaches for scoliosis correction procedures. While typically quite invasive, the impact of these operations may be reduced through the use of computer-assisted surgery. A combination of physician-designated anatomical landmarks and surgical ontologies allows for real-time intraoperative guidance during computer-assisted surgical interventions. Predetermined landmarks are labeled on an identical patient model, which seeks to encompass vertebrae, intervertebral disks, ligaments, and other soft tissues. The inclusion of this anatomy permits the consideration of hypothetical forces that are previously not well characterized in a patient-specific manner. Updated ontologies then suggest procedural directions throughout …

The Hsp90 Inhibitor, Auy-922, Ameliorates The Development Of Nitrogen Mustard-Induced Pulmonary Fibrosis And Lung Dysfunction In Mice, Pavel Solopov, Ruben M.L. Colunga Biancatelli, Margarita Marinova, Christiana Dimitropoulou, John D. Catravas

Bioelectrics Publications

Increased levels of heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) have been recently implicated in the pathogenesis of pulmonary fibrosis and the use of HSP90 inhibitors constitutes a potential therapeutic approach. Similarly, acute exposure to nitrogen mustard (NM) is related to the development of chronic lung injury driven by TNF-α, TGF-β, ERK and HSP90. Thus, we developed a murine model of NM-induced pulmonary fibrosis by instilling C57BI/6J mice with 0.625 mg/kg mechlorethamine hydrochloride. After 24 h, mice began receiving AUY-922, a second generation HSP90 inhibitor, at 1 mg/kg 2 times per week or 2 mg/kg 3 times per week, for either 10 …

Melatonin For The Treatment Of Sepsis: The Scientific Rationale, Ruben Manuel Luciano Colunga Biancatelli, Max Berrill, Yassen H. Mohammed, Paul E. Marik

Bioelectrics Publications

Sepsis affects 30 million people worldwide, leading to 6 million deaths every year (WHO), and despite decades of research, novel initiatives are drastically needed. According to the current literature, oxidative imbalance and mitochondrial dysfunction are common features of septic patients that can cause multiorgan failure and death. Melatonin, alongside its traditionally accepted role as the master hormonal regulator of the circadian rhythm, is a promising adjunctive drug for sepsis through its anti-inflammatory, antiapoptotic and powerful antioxidant properties. Several animal models of sepsis have demonstrated that melatonin can prevent multiorgan dysfunction and improve survival through restoring mitochondrial electron transport chain (ETC) …

Single-Molecule Analysis Of Subtelomeres And Telomeres In Alternative Lengthening Of Telomeres (Alt) Cells, Heba Z. Abid, Jennifer Mccaffrey, Kaitlin Raseley, Eleanor Young, Katy Lassahn, Dharma Varapula, Harold Riethman, Ming Xiao

Medical Diagnostics & Translational Sciences Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Telomeric DNA is typically comprised of G-rich tandem repeat motifs and maintained by telomerase (Greider CW, Blackburn EH; Cell 51:887-898; 1987). In eukaryotes lacking telomerase, a variety of DNA repair and DNA recombination based pathways for telomere maintenance have evolved in organisms normally dependent upon telomerase for telomere elongation (Webb CJ, Wu Y, Zakian VA; Cold Spring Harb Perspect Biol 5:a012666; 2013); collectively called Alternative Lengthening of Telomeres (ALT) pathways. By measuring (TTAGGG) n tract lengths from the same large DNA molecules that were optically mapped, we simultaneously analyzed telomere length dynamics and subtelomere-linked structural changes at a large …

Towards Making Videos Accessible For Low Vision Screen Magnifier Users, Ali Selman Aydin, Shirin Feiz, Vikas Ashok, Iv Ramakrishnan

Computer Science Faculty Publications

People with low vision who use screen magnifiers to interact with computing devices find it very challenging to interact with dynamically changing digital content such as videos, since they do not have the luxury of time to manually move, i.e., pan the magnifier lens to different regions of interest (ROIs) or zoom into these ROIs before the content changes across frames.

In this paper, we present SViM, a first of its kind screen-magnifier interface for such users that leverages advances in computer vision, particularly video saliency models, to identify salient ROIs in videos. SViM's interface allows users to zoom in/out …

Sail: Saliency-Driven Injection Of Aria Landmarks, Ali Selman Aydin, Shirin Feiz, Vikas Ashok, Iv Ramakrishnan

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Navigating webpages with screen readers is a challenge even with recent improvements in screen reader technologies and the increased adoption of web standards for accessibility, namely ARIA. ARIA landmarks, an important aspect of ARIA, lets screen reader users access different sections of the webpage quickly, by enabling them to skip over blocks of irrelevant or redundant content. However, these landmarks are sporadically and inconsistently used by web developers, and in many cases, even absent in numerous web pages. Therefore, we propose SaIL, a scalable approach that automatically detects the important sections of a web page, and then injects ARIA landmarks …

Pathways To Success In Anatomy And Physiology At The Community College: The Role Of Prerequisite Courses, Staci B. Forgey, Mitchell R. Williams, Shana Pribesh

Educational Foundations & Leadership Faculty Publications

Gatekeeper courses such as Anatomy and Physiology are often referenced in discussions regarding the national shortage of persons in allied health professions. In an attempt to bolster access to STEM professions, some community colleges are mandating prerequisite courses such as Natural Sciences and/or General Biology for STEM gatekeeping courses. In this study, we examined which of these prerequisite courses helped students to pass Anatomy and Physiology and whether the courses are an additional barrier to STEM field completion. This was the first study to evaluate whether a prerequisite course was predictive of success in Anatomy and Physiology, and it contributes …

Visual Estimates Of Blood Loss By Medical Laypeople: Effects Of Blood Loss Volume, Victim Gender, And Perspective, Rachel Phillips, Marc Friberg, Mattias Lantz Cronqvist, Carl-Oscar Jonson, Erik Prytz

Psychology Faculty Publications

A severe hemorrhage can result in death within minutes, before professional first responders have time to arrive. Thus, intervention by bystanders, who may lack medical training, may be necessary to save a victim's life in situations with bleeding injuries. Proper intervention requires that bystanders accurately assess the severity of the injury and respond appropriately. As many bystanders lack tools and training, they are limited in terms of the information they can use in their evaluative process. In hemorrhage situations, visible blood loss may serve as a dominant cue to action. Therefore, understanding how medically untrained bystanders (i.e., laypeople) perceive hemorrhage …

Saliva Microrna Biomarkers Of Cumulative Concussion, Steven D. Hicks, Robert P. Olympia, Cayce Onks, Raymond Y. Kim, Kevin J. Zhen, Gregory Fedorchak, Samantha Devita, Aakanksha Rangnekar, Matthew Heller, Hallie Zwibel, Chuck Monteith, Zofia Gagnon, Callan D. Mcloughlin, Jason Randall, Miguel Madeira, Thomas R. Campbell, Elise Fengler, Michael N. Dretsch, Christopher Neville, Frank A. Middleton

Rehabilitation Sciences Faculty Publications

Recurrent concussions increase risk for persistent post-concussion symptoms, and may lead to chronic neurocognitive deficits. Little is known about the molecular pathways that contribute to persistent concussion symptoms. We hypothesized that salivary measurement of microribonucleic acids (miRNAs), a class of epitranscriptional molecules implicated in concussion pathophysiology, would provide insights about the molecular cascade resulting from recurrent concussions. This hypothesis was tested in a case-control study involving 13 former professional football athletes with a history of recurrent concussion, and 18 age/sex-matched peers. Molecules of interest were further validated in a cross-sectional study of 310 younger individuals with a history of no …

Rotate-And-Press: A Non-Visual Alternative To Point-And-Click, Hae-Na Lee, Vikas Ashok, I. V. Ramakrishnan

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Most computer applications manifest visually rich and dense graphical user interfaces (GUIs) that are primarily tailored for an easy-and-efficient sighted interaction using a combination of two default input modalities, namely the keyboard and the mouse/touchpad. However, blind screen-reader users predominantly rely only on keyboard, and therefore struggle to interact with these applications, since it is both arduous and tedious to perform the visual 'point-and-click' tasks such as accessing the various application commands/features using just keyboard shortcuts supported by screen readers.

In this paper, we investigate the suitability of a 'rotate-and-press' input modality as an effective non-visual substitute for the visual …

Hsp90 Inhibitors For Ipf/Covid-19, Ruben Manuel Luciano Colunga Biancatelli, Pavel A. Solopov, John Catravas

Bioelectrics Publications

Heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) is an important chaperone that assists the late stage folding of several proteins involved in cell survival in response to environmental stressors. The inhibition of HSP90 is followed by a complex modulation of the proteome and the kinome, that has proved beneficial in cancer and various neurodegenerative diseases. Additionally, accumulating literature suggests that HSP90 may be a key target during the development of pulmonary fibrosis and that its inhibition could serve as a new and exciting therapeutic approach. We have summarized the current evidence about HSP90’s role in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF), the results from …

Malignant Insulinoma With Multiple Liver Metastases And Hypercalcitoninemia In A Patient With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Presenting As Recurrent Episodes Of Diaphoresis Due To Severe Hypoglycemia, Marco Ciacciarelli, Gianluca Caruso, Marco Rengo, Piero Maceroni, Carmen Misurale, Eleonora D'Armiento, Cristina Napoli, Alberto Lombardini, Umberto Ceratti, Ruben Manuel Luciano Colunga Biancatelli, Leonardo Calvosa, Romina Milanese, Sonia Ferri, Teresa Massaro, Andrea Larusso, Veronica Sorrentino, Vincenzo Petrozza

Bioelectrics Publications

Insulinoma is an insulin-producing pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor that can be malignant in about 10% of cases. Locoregional invasion, lymph node metastases, or remote metastases are the main criteria of malignant insulinoma. Its incidence in patients with pre-existing diabetes mellitus (DM) is exceptionally rare. In this report, we describe a 66-year-old man with long-standing type 2 DM who presented with recurrent episodes of diaphoresis due to severe hypoglycemia despite the withdrawal of insulin therapy, hypercalcitoninemia, and biochemical and radiological findings suggestive of metastatic malignant insulinoma. Unfortunately, after few days of diazoxide treatment, edema, hypotension, oliguria, and water retention were observed, patient’s …

Deformable Multisurface Segmentation Of The Spine For Orthopedic Surgery Planning And Simulation, Rabia Haq, Jérôme Schmid, Roderick Borgie, Joshua Cates, Michel Audette

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Faculty Publications

Purpose: We describe a shape-aware multisurface simplex deformable model for the segmentation of healthy as well as pathological lumbar spine in medical image data.

Approach: This model provides an accurate and robust segmentation scheme for the identification of intervertebral disc pathologies to enable the minimally supervised planning and patient-specific simulation of spine surgery, in a manner that combines multisurface and shape statistics-based variants of the deformable simplex model. Statistical shape variation within the dataset has been captured by application of principal component analysis and incorporated during the segmentation process to refine results. In the case where shape statistics hinder detection …

A Case Study On Accessible Reading With Deaf Children, Jody H. Cripps, Samuel J. Supalla, Laura A. Blackburn

Communication Disorders & Special Education Faculty Publications

The concept of accessible reading for deaf students is new and worthy of exploration. In the face of the reading difficulties often experienced by deaf students, the lack of a specialized reading methodology that works for them must be addressed. Central to the paper is a research case study undertaken with two young deaf students, proficient in American Sign Language (ASL) and learning to read. The students participated in a tutorial with a tutor knowledgeable in a specialized reading methodology called ASL Gloss. The participating students demonstrated progress in reading skills over time. Two reading measures were adapted from English …

Associations Between Sleep And In-Race Gastrointestinal Symptoms: An Observational Study Of Running And Triathlon Race Competitors, Patrick Benjamin Wilson

Human Movement Sciences & Special Education Faculty Publications

OBJECTIVE: It remains unstudied whether poor sleep is involved in the etiology of gastrointestinal (GI) problems in athletes.

METHODS: Eighty-seven running and triathlon/duathlon race (>60 minutes) participants completed questionnaires to quantify the Sleep Problems Index-(SPI)-I and sleep parameters from the night before races. For GI symptoms, participants reported the severity (0-10 scale) of four upper and three lower symptoms during races. Spearman's correlations examined whether sleep measures were associated with in-race GI symptoms. Partial correlations were calculated to control for age, resting GI symptoms, and anxiety.

RESULTS: SPI-I scores correlated with in-race upper GI symptoms (rho=0.26, p=0.013). Controlling for …

Statistical Analysis Of Fnirs Data: Consideration Of Spatial Varying Coefficient Model Of Prefrontal Cortex Activity Changes During Speech Motor Learning In Apraxia Of Speech, Rachel Johnson, Jennifer Matthews, Norou Diawara, Rachel Carroll

Communication Disorders & Special Education Faculty Publications

Apraxia of speech is an impairment in the planning and programming of speech typically accompanied by aphasia (language impairment) secondary to a left hemisphere stroke. It is unknown if the structural and functional connections to the damaged area implicate the integrity of the cognitive functions of the prefrontal cortex (PFC). The present study examines the feasibility of measuring hemodynamic activity in the PFC in response to the structure of practice and during treatment. This multiple-baseline single case-design study involving two individuals with chronic acquired apraxia of speech measured the hemodynamic changes in PFC activity during treatment across the intervention period …

Strategies For Safe And Effective Treatment Of Patients With Alzheimer Disease, Jafar Alabdullah, Ahmed Almuntashiri

Community & Environmental Health Faculty Publications

Alzheimer disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that causes cognition impairment and memory loss, affecting activities in daily living. In the United States, an estimated 4.5 million people have AD and this figure is expected to reach 14 million by 2050. Because patients with AD experience a deterioration of their mental functions, patients need more help with their activities of daily living, including oral hygiene, as their AD progresses. Studies have found that individuals with AD often experience poor oral health. As advanced age is a risk factor for AD and the number of older adults in the US continues …

The Additive Effects Of Cell Phone Use And Dental Hygiene Practice On Finger Muscle Strength: A Pilot Study, Jessica R. Suedbeck, Cortney N. Armitano-Lago, Emily A. Ludwig

Dental Hygiene Faculty Publications

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine strength of muscles involved with instrumentation (scaling) by dental hygienists and the additive effects of cellular (mobile) phone usage, as indicated by measurements of muscular force generation.

Methods: A convenience sample of licensed dental hygienists currently in clinical practice (n=16) and an equal number of individuals not currently using devices/tools repetitively for work (n=16), agreed to participate in this pilot study. All participants completed a modified cell phone usage questionnaire to determine their use pattern and frequency. Upon completion of the questionnaire, participants' force production in six muscle groups was measured …

Bioenergetic Functions In Subpopulations Of Heart Mitochondria Are Preserved In A Non-Obese Type 2 Diabetes Rat Model (Goto-Kakizaki), Nicola Lai, C. M. Kummitha, F. Loy, R. Isola, C. L. Hoppel

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

A distinct bioenergetic impairment of heart mitochondrial subpopulations in diabetic cardiomyopathy is associated with obesity; however, many type 2 diabetic (T2DM) patients with high-risk for cardiovascular disease are not obese. In the absence of obesity, it is unclear whether bioenergetic function in the subpopulations of mitochondria is affected in heart with T2DM. To address this issue, a rat model of non-obese T2DM was used to study heart mitochondrial energy metabolism, measuring bioenergetics and enzyme activities of the electron transport chain (ETC). Oxidative phosphorylation in the presence of substrates for ETC and ETC activities in both populations of heart mitochondria in …

Quality Of Life Of Adults With Chronic Spinal Cord Injury In Mainland China: A Cross-Sectional Study, Fengshui Chang, Haixia Xie, Qi Zhang, Mei Sun, Yuhui Yang, Gang Chen, Huifang Wang, Chengyue Li, Jun Lu

Community & Environmental Health Faculty Publications

Objective: To evaluate the quality of life of patients with chronic spinal cord injury in mainland China.

Design: Cross-sectional study. Subjects: A total of 247 adults ≥ 1 year post-SCI in mainland China.

Methods: The World Health Organization (WHO) Quality of Life Scale Brief Version (WHOQOL-BREF) and the add-on modules on disability-related QoL (WHOQOL-DIS) were used to assess quality of life. Anxiety/depression was measured using the Zung Self-Rating Anxiety/Depression Scale. Quality of life was compared with that of reference populations from China, Korea, the international field trial (23 countries). Multivariate linear regression was conducted to determine the factors that might …

Context Aware Deep Learning For Brain Tumor Segmentation, Subtype Classification, And Survival Prediction Using Radiology Images, Linmin Pei, Lasitha Vidyaratne, Md Monibor Rahman, Khan M. Iftekharuddin

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

A brain tumor is an uncontrolled growth of cancerous cells in the brain. Accurate segmentation and classification of tumors are critical for subsequent prognosis and treatment planning. This work proposes context aware deep learning for brain tumor segmentation, subtype classification, and overall survival prediction using structural multimodal magnetic resonance images (mMRI). We first propose a 3D context aware deep learning, that considers uncertainty of tumor location in the radiology mMRI image sub-regions, to obtain tumor segmentation. We then apply a regular 3D convolutional neural network (CNN) on the tumor segments to achieve tumor subtype classification. Finally, we perform survival prediction …

Deep Learning With Context Encoding For Semantic Brain Tumor Segmentation And Patient Survival Prediction, Linmin Pei, Lasitha Vidyaratne, Md Monibor Rahman, Khan M. Iftekharuddin

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

One of the most challenging problems encountered in deep learning-based brain tumor segmentation models is the misclassification of tumor tissue classes due to the inherent imbalance in the class representation. Consequently, strong regularization methods are typically considered when training large-scale deep learning models for brain tumor segmentation to overcome undue bias towards representative tissue types. However, these regularization methods tend to be computationally exhaustive, and may not guarantee the learning of features representing all tumor tissue types that exist in the input MRI examples. Recent work in context encoding with deep CNN models have shown promise for semantic segmentation of …

Efficacy Of Radiomics And Genomics In Predicting Tp53 Mutations In Diffuse Lower Grade Glioma, Zeina A. Shboul, Khan Iftekharuddin

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

An updated classification of diffuse lower-grade gliomas is established in the 2016 World Health Organization Classification of Tumors of the Central Nervous System based on their molecular mutations such as TP53 mutation. This study investigates machine learning methods for TP53 mutation status prediction and classification using radiomics and genomics features, respectively. Radiomics features represent patients' age and imaging features that are extracted from conventional MRI. Genomics feature is represented by patients’ gene expression using RNA sequencing. This study uses a total of 105 LGG patients, where the patient dataset is divided into a training set (80 patients) and testing set …