Analytical, Diagnostic and Therapeutic Techniques and Equipment Commons^™

Session 12: Active Learning To Minimize The Possible Risk From Future Epidemics, Kc Santosh

SDSU Data Science Symposium

In medical imaging informatics, for any future epidemics (e.g., Covid-19), deep learning (DL) models are of no use as they require a large dataset as they take months and even years to collect enough data (with annotations). In such a context, active learning (or human/expert-in-the-loop) is the must, where a machine can learn from the first day with minimum possible labeled data. In unsupervised learning, we propose to build pre-trained DL models that iteratively learn independently over time, where human/expert intervenes only when it makes mistakes and for only a limited data. In our work, deep features are used to …

Pulmon-C: A Real-Time Monitoring Framework Of Pulmonary Function, Md Saiful Islam, Maria Valero, Shahriar Hossain

Symposium of Student Scholars

This project will develop PulMon-C, a real-time monitoring framework of pulmonary function to diagnose COVID-19 patients who are being self-quarantined at home. The tool will identify anomalies in breathe rate and predict pulmonary deterioration to raise alert for immediate actions. The uniqueness of the tool is using non-invasive sensors placed under-mattress that are able to communicate data about the respiratory signal. The customer segment of PulMon-C will be the diagnosed COVID-19 patients and healthcare providers. PulMon-C will assist with the remote monitoring of COVID-19 patients as an urgent need in the USA and will bring larger impact in delivering …

App Development For Wearable Sensors, Connor Pittman, Christopher Chappie, Patrick A. Tetreault

Thinking Matters Symposium

The objective of this research project was to create a wearable device that monitors bodily functions for the user to view on their smartphone. Sensor data is processed using the Arduino Nano 33 BLE microcontroller. The sensors used in this project include: proximity, temperature, humidity, heart rate, pressure, and skin impedance. This project takes advantage of the Arduino's Bluetooth low energy (BLE) capabilities so that all the data can be transmitted to a smartphone. This presentation shows the challenges faced during the project and how they were overcome. Some of these challenges include: programming, how heart rate sensors work, and …

Quantifying Iron Overload Using Mri, Active Contours, And Convolutional Neural Networks, Andrea Sajewski, Stacey Levine

Undergraduate Research and Scholarship Symposium

Iron overload, a complication of repeated blood transfusions, can cause tissue damage and organ failure. The body has no regulatory mechanism to excrete excess iron, so iron overload must be closely monitored to guide therapy and measure treatment response. The concentration of iron in the liver is a reliable marker for total body iron content and is now measured noninvasively with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). MRI produces a diagnostic image by measuring the signals emitted from the body in the presence of a constant magnetic field and radiofrequency pulses. At each pixel, the signal decay constant, T2*, can be calculated, …

Visual Contributions To Balance Control During Gait, Kyle Brozek

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

We propose to isolate the contributions of continuous OF to the orthogonal relationship between balance and gait control during treadmill walking using a series of conditions. Manipulating the direction of OF using a CAREN (Motek Medical, Amsterdam, Netherlands) virtual reality treadmill environment will isolate these visual contributions in human subjects as they walk. We plan to tease out the effect of OF direction on the relationship between gait and balance control by having healthy young adults perform a series of treadmill walking trials while immersed in a VR environment. This will be done by manipulating the direction of walking and …

Estimating Variations In Metabolic Cost Within The Stride Cycle During Level And Uphill Walking, Arash Mohammadzadeh Gonabadi

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Indirect calorimetry provides the average cost of a stride cycle and prevents from identifying which part of the gait cycle causes increased metabolic cost in patients, however, recent simulation methods allow estimating the time profile of metabolic cost within the stride cycle. In this study, we compare the estimations of the time profile of the metabolic cost of two simulation methods for level and uphill walking. We used kinematic, kinetic and electromyography data from level and uphill walking (one participant) to estimate the time profiles of metabolic cost using the muscle-level metabolic model of Umberger using electromyography and kinematic data …

The Comparison Of Verbalized Feedback In Human To Computer Interfacing Versus Human To Human Interaction, Kea Francis

EURēCA: Exhibition of Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement

The project evaluates response to social robots for purposeful tasks. The study uses a social robot, Rapiro, along with a smartphone that serves as a visual interface for the robot system. My role was to design a program on a Raspberry Pi that allows simultaneous control of Rapiro’s actions and a response from a phone application. The phone app is downloaded to an Android phone and designed using MIT App Inventor software. This allows pre-programmed and real-time control of the robot. The user inputs what they want the robot to say through the terminal of the Raspberry Pi. Through serial …

Computational Investigation Of The Interactions Between Bioactive Compounds And Biological Assemblies, Tye D. Martin

Shared Knowledge Conference

Design of small molecules is an ongoing focus for developing agents against pathogenic viruses and bacteria that are threats to worldwide health. Viruses such as Zika feature assemblies of repeat peptide subunits or capsid proteins which are potential targets for antiviral compounds. Other protein assemblies are implicated in pathology of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and additional neurodegenerative diseases characterized by large assemblies of misfolded proteins such as amyloid-beta (Aβ) and tau. Recent studies on a class of conjugated polyelectrolytes (CPEs) with phenylene ethynylene moieties and charged functional groups have shown potential both as bioactive antimicrobials and theragnostic sensing agents for tracking …

Cost-Effective Paper-Based Diagnostic Using Split Proteins To Detect Yeast Infections, Zachary R. Berglund, Kevin V. Solomon, Mohit S. Verma, Moiz Rasheed, Zachary Hartley, Kevin Fitzgerald, Kok Zhi Lee, Janice Chan, Julianne Dejoie, Makayla Schacht, Alex Zavala

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

The common yeast infection, vulvovaginal candidiasis, affects three out of four women throughout their lifetime and can be spread to their child in the form of oral candidiasis (thrush). This disease is caused by the fungal pathogen Candida albicans, which is also a major cause of systemic candidiasis, a rarer but deadly disease with up to a 49% lethality rate. Current widely-used diagnostic methods include cell cultures, pH tests, and antibody detection, to assist effective treatment. Despite availability of various diagnostic methods, there is no inexpensive, rapid, and accurate way to detect C. albicans infection. This project aims to …

Tissue Clearing As A Mechanism To Identify Changes In Fibronectin Structure During Breast Cancer Metastasis, Maryam Nuru, Kelsey Hopkins, Luis Solorio

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

With metastasis accounting for approximately 90% of breast cancer deaths and an alarming number of over 300,000 new breast cancer cases to be diagnosed by the end of 2018, there is growing need to understand the process of breast cancer. Changes in the extracellular matrix (ECM) of the tumor microenvironment play an essential role in this deadly tumor progression. Specifically, the glycoprotein fibronectin (FN), has been identified to be up-regulated in patients with worse clinical outcomes. During tumor progression fibronectin undergoes conformational changes that aid in metastatic dissemination. In order to analyze the dynamic changes in FN expression and evaluate …

Use Of Excel Spreadsheet Calculators In Handling Data Generated From Uv- Spectrometer, Mercy Okezue, Kari Clase, Steve Byrn

BIRS Symposium

To ease the complexities of handling data generated from different analytical procedures, validated excel spreadsheet containing relevant formulas are developed to ensure the process of data handling will consistently produce the expected results. This paper introduces the use of Excel spreadsheets in handling data generated from using a UV-Spectrometer in determination of analyte concentration in various dosage forms

Instituting Process Control Mechanisms In A Quality Control Analytical Chemistry Laboratory, Mercy Okezue, Kari Lynn Clase, Stephen Byrn

BIRS Symposium

Statistical Process Control by means of using control charts was a means of monitoring performance of analytical equipment. Quality control checks on test items using these equipment generated data used for plotting X-bar charts. The charts generated had warning and control limits which helped monitor system performance

Temporal Resolution Of Cell Death Signaling Events Induced By Cold Atmospheric Plasma And Electroporation In Human Cancer Cells, Danielle M. Krug, Prasoon K. Diwakar, Ahmed Hassanein

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Cancer treatment resistance and their invasive and expensive nature is propelling research towards developing alternate approaches to eradicate cancer in patients. Non-thermal, i.e., cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) and electroporation (EP) applied to the surface of cancerous tissue are new methods that are minimally invasive, safe, and selective. These approaches, both independently and synergistically, have been shown to deplete cancer cell populations, but the signaling mechanisms of death and their timelines of action are still widely unknown. To better understand the timeframe of signaling events occurring upon treatment, human cancer cell lines were treated with CAP, EP, and combined CAP with …

A Novel Hybrid Imaging System To Aid In Surgical Decision Making, Lawrence Yip, Madeleine Van De Kleut, Ivan Kosik, Astrid Chamson-Reig, Jeffrey Jl Carson

Western Research Forum

Background:

Breast cancer accounts for 25% of all cancer cases among women. In breast-conserving surgery, a common treatment, the tumour is excised with a healthy tissue margin. However, detection of the margin can be difficult. Current techniques to guide excision are often insufficient, and re-excision can occur up to 25% of the time.

Methods:

Photoacoustic imaging is a hybrid imaging modality that combines the advantages of optical imaging and ultrasound while using safe non-ionizing light. This project involves the development of a novel imaging system with a new scanner design to overcome common limitations and provide images to aid in …

Engineering Fret Biosensors For Microrna Presence/Absence Analysis, Nicholas E. Larkey, Sean M. Burrows

Biomedical Engineering Western Regional Conference

No abstract provided.

Characterization Of Left-Ventricular Thrombus Formation Using High Frequency Ultrasound, Kelsey A. Bullens, Arvin H. Soepriatna, Pavlos P. Vlachos, Craig J. Goergen

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Heart failure is a leading cause of death in the United States, and cardiac thrombus, a common morbidity associated with heart failure, significantly increases a patient’s risk of embolic events. The objective of this project is to characterize left-ventricular (LV) thrombus development using high frequency ultrasound imaging in a murine model. C57BL/6J wild-type mice (n=6) were injected intraperitoneally with iron dextran five times a week for six weeks to increase oxidative stress in the heart. Granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) was subcutaneously injected daily during the second week to initiate stem cell migration and stimulate endothelial cell activation, thus increasing the …

Initial Validation Of A Novel Method Of Presurgical Language Localization Through Functional Connectivity (Fcmri), Stephanie M. Noble, Dustin Scheinost, Susan Y. Bookheimer, Patricia Walshaw, R Todd Constable, Christopher F. Benjamin

Yale Day of Data

OBJECTIVE: Neurosurgery is potentially curative in chronic epilepsy but can only be offered to patients if the surgical risk to language is known. Clinical functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is an ideal, noninvasive method for localizing language cortex yet remains to be validated for this purpose. We have recently presented a novel method for localizing language cortex. Here we present a preliminary evaluation of this method’s validity. We hypothesized language regions identified using this novel method would demonstrate stronger functional connectivity than randomly generated set of proximal networks. METHOD: fMRI data were collected from sixteen temporal lobe patients …

Quantification Of Analyte Concentration From A Paper-Based Lateral Flow Assay Device Using Reflective Sensors, Megan Z. Chiu, Jacqueline Linnes

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Paper-based point-of-care (POC) diagnostics is a growing field in global health due to the extreme portability, accuracy, affordability, and ease of use of these tests. Advancements in recent years have led to more accurate detection and improved functionality using multistep molecular diagnostics. Many such assays utilize lateral flow detection strips for visualization of diagnostic results by eye, which limits the results to qualitative Yes/No readouts. This project focused on combining recent developments in paper-based POC diagnostics to develop and optimize an in-house built quantitative paper-based diagnostic reader for lateral flow detection in low-resource settings. Initially different sensors, including photocell sensors, …

A Non-Invasive Method Of Measuring Respiration While Providing Wireless Power For Rodents With Implantable Devices, Jynx O. Boyne, Daniel J. Pederson, Zhi Wang, Pedro Irazoqui Dr.

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Respiratory measurements can be used as diagnostic and research tools. Spirometry is the gold standard for gaining these measurements, but is difficult to use in rodents as it requires an invasive procedure. Total Body Plethysmograpy (TBP) is a non-invasive way to measure respiration rates that does not cause stress to the rodent. In this system, the subject is encased in a solid, constant volume chamber with measurements determining the subject’s respiration. When using TBP in medical or research settings, challenges occur in powering devices within the TBP chamber as wires and other recording equipment compromise the airtightness of the chamber. …

Direct Quantitative Analysis Of Biomarkers Using Mass Spectrometry, Morgan N. Mcluckey, Zheng Ouyang

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Point-of-care (POC) diagnostics describes a step in the medical treatment process where drugs can be monitored in a patient’s body on-site and in a timely fashion. Mass spectrometry (MS) can provide a quick, efficient, and highly accurate method of analysis of patient biofluids and tissues. Developing methods to bring this diagnostic mechanism to hospitals and clinics has the potential to improve patient care through, for example, personalized medicine. Our goal was to develop a way to effectively introduce internal standard (IS), a necessary chemical for the analytical process, to low-volume biofluid samples. Additionally, the effective direct quantitation of biomarkers with …