Biomechanics and Biotransport Commons^™

Lower Extremity Exoskeleton, Kelly Haslett, Jacalyn Everhart

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Develop a lower extremity device that provides assistance, support, and gait correction for children with cerebral palsy who display crouch gait as a symptom. The device will be designed for children ages 7-12. The device will be adjustable to accommodate varying levels of gait irregularity, weakness and human growth. The device would assist walking and stair climbing by providing bilateral support at hips, knees and ankle joints. The device will be designed for ease of donning and doffing. Battery, drive and control electronics will be designed to reside in a minimalistic backpack (outside the scope of this project).

The Impact Of Aging And Mechanical Injury On Alveolar Epithelial And Macrophage Responses In Acute Lung Injury And Inflammation, Michael S. Valentine

Theses and Dissertations

Patients with severe lung pathologies, such as Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), often require mechanical ventilation as a clinical intervention; however, this procedure frequently exacerbates the original pulmonary issue and produces an exaggerated inflammatory response that potentially leads to sepsis, multisystem organ failure, and mortality. This acute lung injury (ALI) condition has been termed Ventilator-Induced Lung Injury (VILI). Alveolar overdistension, cyclic atelectasis, and biotrauma are the primary injury mechanisms in VILI that lead to the loss of alveolar barrier integrity and pulmonary inflammation. Stress and strains during mechanical ventilation are believed to initiate alveolar epithelial mechanotransduction signaling mechanisms that contribute …

Quantification And Modeling Of Bladder Biomechanics Mechanisms Linking Spontaneous Rhythmic Contractions And Dynamic Elasticity To Detrusor Overactivity, Zachary E. Cullingsworth

Theses and Dissertations

Overactive bladder (OAB) is a chronic condition affecting approximately 20% of adults in the United States. Detrusor overactivity (DO) is the presence of non-voiding contractions in the detrusor (bladder) muscle during filling and is present in some individuals with OAB. DO is currently identified visually during a urodynamics (UD) study involving pressure catheters and filling and voiding of the bladder to evaluate function. UD provides limited subtyping of DO, and an incomplete understanding of mechanisms contributing to OAB.

Aim 1 of this study was to develop objective tools to quantify, subgroup and better understand …

In Vivo Data Capture Using Hssr For Calibration Of Computational Models, Thor Erik Andreassen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Computational modeling is a vital tool for understanding and evaluating healthy and unhealthy function of the musculoskeletal aspects of the human body. However, the accuracy of the musculoskeletal models depends significantly on the accuracy of the input data used to calibrate various behavioral parameters of the model. To date, most computational models have been built using generic in vitro data, mostly because of a lack of accurate and meaningful datasets from in vivo testing. The next major step in computational modeling is to create subject-specific computational models using calibration data taken from in vivo testing. The overall goal was to …

A Longitudinal Examination Of Biomechanical Balance And Quantitative Multidomain Assessments During Recovery Following Sport-Related Concussion, Moira Kate Pyrhoda

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Sport-related concussion is an inherent risk to athlete health in contact and collision sports. Both short- and long-term risks are associated with the injury. Short-term, athletes may develop post-concussion syndrome (PCS), the persistence of cognitive, physical, and emotional symptoms for weeks or months after injury. Athletes who return to play (RTP) prematurely are at increased risk for lower extremity injury and repeated concussion injuries. Long-term, history of multiple concussions have been linked to neurodegenerative diseases. Due to these risks, concussion assessments must be sensitive to the injury and useful in the diagnosis, recovery, and RTP phases of the injury.

Sideline …

Development Of A Clinical Marker-Less Motion Capture System For Patient Monitoring, Abigail Eustace

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The ability to understand human movement is beneficial for deciding surgical procedures, tracking disease progression over time and helping with patient rehabilitation. The current gold-standard for collecting human movement is the use of 3-dimensional marker-based systems. Several studies have presented the many limitations to the current gold-standard that reduces the number of people who are able to benefit from a gait analysis. Those limitations in the current gold-standard include the requirements of large laboratory space, costly equipment, long instrumentation and collection time, and the potential for motion artifact from markers being placed on the skin. The purpose of this study …

Multidisciplinary Education And Research In Biomathematics For Solving Global Challenges, Padmanabhan Seshaiyer

Annual Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research

No abstract provided.

Biophysical And Biomechanical Properties Of Neural Progenitor Cells As Indicators Of Developmental Neurotoxicity, Gautam Mahajan, Moo-Yeal Lee, Chandrasekhar R. Kothapalli

Chemical & Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications

Conventional in vitro toxicity studies have focused on identifying IC50 and the underlying mechanisms, but how toxicants influence biophysical and biomechanical changes in human cells, especially during developmental stages, remain understudied. Here, using an atomic force microscope, we characterized changes in biophysical (cell area, actin organization) and biomechanical (Young's modulus, force of adhesion, tether force, membrane tension, tether radius) aspects of human fetal brain-derived neural progenitor cells (NPCs) induced by four classes of widely used toxic compounds, including rotenone, digoxin, N-arachidonoylethanolamide (AEA), and chlorpyrifos, under exposure up to 36 h. The sub-cellular mechanisms (apoptosis, mitochondria membrane potential, DNA damage, glutathione …

The Effect Of Implant Conformity On Muscle Force Requirements In The Implanted Knee, Grace Mcconnochie

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Implant geometry is a significant factor in determining knee stability and patient satisfaction following total knee replacement (TKR). Ineffective muscle recruitment, impaired joint functionality and increased implant wear are consequences of an unstable knee replacement. Current knee laxity evaluation techniques are limited in their ability to account for the muscular response to knee instability. This study utilizes a subject specific lower-body musculoskeletal finite element (FE) model with dynamic muscle loading to evaluate implant laxity during activities of daily living. The effect of varying implant conformity on the muscle forces required to maintain a target kinematic profile during simulated laxity testing …

Development Of A Statistical Shape-Function Model Of The Implanted Knee For Real-Time Prediction Of Joint Mechanics, Kalin Gibbons

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Outcomes of total knee arthroplasty (TKA) are dependent on surgical technique, patient variability, and implant design. Non-optimal design or alignment choices may result in undesirable contact mechanics and joint kinematics, including poor joint alignment, instability, and reduced range of motion. Implant design and surgical alignment are modifiable factors with potential to improve patient outcomes, and there is a need for robust implant designs that can accommodate patient variability. Our objective was to develop a statistical shape-function model (SFM) of a posterior stabilized implant knee to instantaneously predict output mechanics in an efficient manner. Finite element methods were combined with Latin …

Investigation Of Fundamental Principles Of Rigid Body Impact Mechanics, Khalid Alluhydan

Mechanical Engineering Research Theses and Dissertations

In impact mechanics, the collision between two or more bodies is a common, yet a very challenging problem. Producing analytical solutions that can predict the post-collision motion of the colliding bodies require consistent modeling of the dynamics of the colliding bodies. This dissertation presents a new method for solving the two and multibody impact problems that can be used to predict the post-collision motion of the colliding bodies. Also, we solve the rigid body collision problem of planar kinematic chains with multiple contacts with external surfaces.

In the first part of this dissertation, we study planar collisions of Balls and …

Sand Foot: A Prosthesis For Walking On Sand, Samantha A. Galicinao, John Dewing, Daniel Dugan Dotson, Christopher Urasaki

Biomedical Engineering

This critical design report describes the product development of a prosthesis for use on sand. Quality of Life Plus (QL+), a national non-profit organization aimed to develop prostheses for veterans and people with disabilities, introduced this project and its accompanying challenger, Sgt. Brady, to Cal Poly’s Interdisciplinary Senior Project class in September 2018. After consulting with Sgt. Brady and QL+ and performing extensive research, the Sand Foot team defined customer requirements and engineering specifications to meet these requirements. Comfortability, durability, and sandproof were key customer requirements. Several conceptual models were brainstormed and a final design was selected based on the …

Transmission Probability Of Embolic Debris Through The Aortic Arch And Daughter Vessels During A Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement Procedure, Jessica Lena Wirth

Master's Theses

Cerebral ischemia leading to an ischemic stroke is a possible complication of a transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) procedure. This is because embolic debris can become dislodged and travel through the aortic arch, where they either continue to the descending aorta and join the systemic circulation or travel into the cerebral vasculature through the three daughter vessels that branch off the top of the aortic arch. These three vessels are the brachiocephalic artery, the left subclavian artery, and the left common carotid artery. These three vessels lead either directly or indirectly to the cerebral vasculature, where the diameter of vessels …

Composite Biomaterial Repair Strategy To Restore Biomechanical Function And Reduce Herniation Risk In An Ex Vivo Large Animal Model Of Intervertebral Disc Herniation With Varying Injury Severity, Warren W. Hom, Melanie Tschopp, Huizi A. Lin, Philip Nasser, Damien M. Laudier, Andrew C. Hecht, Steven B. Nicoll, James C. Iatridis

Publications and Research

Back pain commonly arises from intervertebral disc (IVD) damage including annulus fibrosus (AF) defects and nucleus pulposus (NP) loss. Poor IVD healing motivates developing tissue engineering repair strategies. This study evaluated a composite injectable IVD biomaterial repair strategy using carboxymethylcellulose-methylcellulose (CMC-MC) and genipincrosslinked fibrin (FibGen) that mimic NP and AF properties, respectively. Bovine ex vivo caudal IVDs were evaluated in cyclic compression-tension, torsion, and compression-to-failure tests to determine IVD biomechanical properties, height loss, and herniation risk following experimentally-induced severe herniation injury and discectomy (4 mm biopsy defect with 20% NP removed). FibGen with and without CMC-MC had failure strength similar …

Developing An Optomechanical Approach For Characterizing Mechanical Properties Of Single Adherent Cells, Ali Mehrnezhad

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Mechanical properties of a cell reflect its biological and pathological conditions including cellular disorders and fundamental cellular processes such as cell division and differentiation. There have been active research efforts to develop high-throughput platforms to mechanically characterize single cells. Yet, many of these research efforts are focused on suspended cells and use a flow-through configuration. Therefore, adherent cells are detached prior to the characterization, which seriously perturbs the cellular conditions. Also, methods for adherent cells are limited in their throughput.

My study is aimed to fill the technical gap in the field of single cell analysis, which is a high-throughput …

Static Accuracy Analysis Of Vicon T40s Motion Capture Cameras Arranged Externally For Motion Capture In Constrained Aquatic Environments, Shreyas L. Raghu, Chang-Kwon Kang, Paul Whitehead, Akifumi Takeyama, Ryan Conners

PRC-Affiliated Research

While the capabilities of land-based motion capture systems in biomechanical applications have been previously reported, the possibility of using motion tracking systems externally to reconstruct markers submerged inside an aquatic environment has been under explored. This study assesses the ability of a motion capture system (Vicon T40s) arranged externally to track a retro-reflective marker inside a glass tank filled with water and without water. The reflective tape used for marker creation in this study was of Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) grade as the conventional marker loses its reflective properties when submerged. The overall trueness calculated based on the …

Static Accuracy Analysis Of Vicon T40s Motion Capture Cameras Arranged Externally For Motion Capture In Constrained Aquatic Environments, Shreyas L. Raghu, Chang-Kwon Kang, Paul Whitehead, Akifumi Takeyama, Ryan Conners

PRC-Affiliated Research

While the capabilities of land-based motion capture systems in biomechanical applications have been previously reported, the possibility of using motion tracking systems externally to reconstruct markers submerged inside an aquatic environment has been under explored. This study assesses the ability of a motion capture system (Vicon T40s) arranged externally to track a retro-reflective marker inside a glass tank filled with water and without water. The reflective tape used for marker creation in this study was of Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) grade as the conventional marker loses its reflective properties when submerged. The overall trueness calculated based on the …

Static Accuracy Analysis Of Vicon T40s Motion Capture Cameras Arranged Externally For Motion Capture In Constrained Aquatic Environments, Shreyas L. Raghu, Chang-Kwon Kang, Paul Whitehead, Akifumi Takeyama, Ryan Conners

PRC-Affiliated Research

While the capabilities of land-based motion capture systems in biomechanical applications have been previously reported, the possibility of using motion tracking systems externally to reconstruct markers submerged inside an aquatic environment has been under explored. This study assesses the ability of a motion capture system (Vicon T40s) arranged externally to track a retro-reflective marker inside a glass tank filled with water and without water. The reflective tape used for marker creation in this study was of Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) grade as the conventional marker loses its reflective properties when submerged. The overall trueness calculated based on the …

Energy Expenditure And Stability During Self-Paced Walking On Different Slopes, Alanna Raffaelli

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Metabolic power and cost of transport (COT) are common quantifiers for effort when performing tasks including walking and running. Most studies focus on using a range of normal walking speeds over level ground or varied slopes. However, these studies use fixed-speed conditions. Fatigue, stability, metabolic expenditure, heart rate, and many other factors contribute to normal walking speed varying over time. This study aimed to show that allowing a subject to walk with a self-paced speed should correlate to a minimum COT at a given slope. This study also aimed to determine if a preferred slope exists based on minimizing metabolic …

Vector Flow Imaging In Pediatric Cardiology - Extracting And Validating Data, Mason Belue

Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

In the field of bedside cardiac diagnostic imaging, Doppler Ultrasound (DU) is the gold standard for diagnosing heart conditions. The largest benefit of DU is its ability to noninvasively image cardiac flow and allow the estimation of blood velocity and quantification of anatomical disease. However, to get correct velocity estimation, the position of the transducer in relation to the flow field needs to be known. This is the problem of angle/direction dependency and limits DUs accuracy when imaging in areas where perfect alignment or exact position of the transducer in relation to flow field is not possible or known, such …