Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Preoperative Planning Of Robotics-Assisted Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery Under Uncertainty, Hamidreza Azimian

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this thesis, a computational framework for patient-specific preoperative planning of Robotics-Assisted Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery (RAMICS) is developed. It is expected that preoperative planning of RAMICS will improve the rate of success by considering robot kinematics, patient-specific thoracic anatomy, and procedure-specific intraoperative conditions. Given the significant anatomical features localized in the preoperative computed tomography images of a patient's thorax, port locations and robot orientations (with respect to the patient's body coordinate frame) are determined to optimize characteristics such as dexterity, reachability, tool approach angles and maneuverability. In this thesis, two approaches for preoperative planning of RAMICS are proposed that …

Security On Medical Wireless Sensor Networks, Eric D. Southern

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Wireless technology is fast becoming a very important tool for all aspects of communication. An area that lacks a strong implementation for wireless communication is the medical field. Wireless systems could be used by clinicians to be better able to diagnose and monitor patients. The reason behind the lack of adoption in healthcare is due to the need to meet the legislated and perceived requirements of security and privacy when dealing with clinical information. The current methods of wireless authentication are investigated and an existing issue in mobile networks is described and solved with two novel solutions; one solution within …

Electrohydrodynamic Enhancement Of Heat Transfer And Mass Transport In Gaseous Media, Bulk Dielectric Liquids And Dielectric Thin Liquid Films, Seyed Reza Mahmoudi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Controlling transport phenomena in liquid and gaseous media through electrostatic forces has brought new important scientific and industrial applications. Although numerous EHD applications have been explored and extensively studied so far, the fast-growing technologies, mainly in the semiconductor industry, introduce new challenges and demands. These challenges require enhancement of heat transfer and mass transport in small scales (sometimes in molecular scales) to remove highly concentrated heat fluxes from reduced size devices. Electric field induced flows, or electrohydrodynamics (EHD), have shown promise in both macro and micro-scale devices.

Several existing problems in EHD heat transfer enhancements were investigated in this thesis. …