Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons^™

Volume Introduction, I. Glenn Cohen, Timo Minssen, W. Nicholson Price Ii, Christopher Robertson, Carmel Shachar

Other Publications

Medical devices have historically been less regulated than their drug and biologic counterparts. A benefit of this less demanding regulatory regime is facilitating innovation by making new devices available to consumers in a timely fashion. Nevertheless, there is increasing concern that this approach raises serious public health and safety concerns. The Institute of Medicine in 2011 published a critique of the American pathway allowing moderate-risk devices to be brought to the market through the less-rigorous 501(k) pathway,1 flagging a need for increased postmarket review and surveillance. High-profile recalls of medical devices, such as vaginal mesh products, along with reports globally …

Finding Signal In The Noise: High-Fidelity, Quantitative, Optical Blood Perfusion Imaging With Interference, Abdul Mohaimen Safi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

For label-free, non-invasive, wide field-of-view (FOV) imaging/monitoring of blood flow, speckle-based approaches are gaining popularity. However, to obtain quantitative flow information, speckle techniques rely on the multi-exposure scheme which requires complex, bulky, and expensive instrumentation, limiting its application to preclinical studies. This dissertation directly addresses these issues. In the first part of this dissertation, we report a novel single shot synthetic multi-exposure speckle imaging (syMESI) method to synthetically produce multi-exposure images from one short single exposure speckle image using spatial binning/averaging. We demonstrate that syMESI can reimagine conventional hardware based MESI, with low-cost single exposure laser speckle imaging (LSCI) instrumentation. …

Synthesis Of Thiol-Acrylate Hydrogels For 3d Cell Culture And Microfluidic Applications, Anowar Hossain Khan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Globally cell culture is an $18.98 billion industry as of 2020, with an 11.6 percent annual growth rate. Drug discovery has an estimated worth of $69.8 billion in 2020 and is predicted to grow to $110.4 billion by 2025. Three-dimensional (3D) cell culture of cancer cells is one of the rapidly growing felids since it better recapitulates in vivo conditions compared to two-dimensional (2D) models. However, it is challenging to grow 3D tumor spheroids outside the body, and some of the existing technology can generate these spheroids outside the human body but poorly mimic in vivo tumor models. Therefore, there …

Two-Stage Transfer Learning For Facial Expression Classification In Children, Gregory Hubbard, Megan Witherow, Khan Iftekharuddin

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Studying facial expressions can provide insight into the development of social skills in children and provide support to individuals with developmental disorders. In afflicted individuals, such as children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), atypical interpretations of facial expressions are well-documented. In computer vision, many popular and state-of-the-art deep learning architectures (VGG16, EfficientNet, ResNet, etc.) are readily available with pre-trained weights for general object recognition. Transfer learning utilizes these pre-trained models to improve generalization on a new task. In this project, transfer learning is implemented to leverage the pretrained model (general object recognition) on facial expression classification. Though this method, the …

Bayesian Network-Based Diagnostic Support Tool With Limited Point-Of-Care Ultrasound For Work-Related Elbow Injuries, Cristina Maria Franceschini Sánchez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The upper extremity is commonly injured at the workplace, frequently involving the elbow. Currently, there are not many diagnostic support tools for elbow injuries. Developing a clinical decision support tool would allow for narrowing differential diagnoses and guide management steps in a timely and cost-effective manner. In a descriptive retrospective cohort study, 85 non-contrast elbow MRIs were obtained from a large Workers Compensation insurer database. MRIs were either (a) greater than 2 weeks after first clinic visit, or (b) more than 6 weeks after injury, but (c) not more than 3 months after injury. A Bayesian network-based diagnostic support tool …

Protocol To Engineer Nanofilms Embedded Lipid Nanoparticles For Controlled And Targeted Drug Delivery (Nectar), Rashi Porwal, Stephen L. Hayward, Srivatsan Kidambi

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering: Faculty Publications

We present a protocol to engineer a substrate-mediated delivery platform comprising hyaluronic acid-coated lipid nanoparticles (HALNPs) embedded into polyelectrolyte multilayer (PEM) films. This platform allows controlled spatiotemporal release of lipid nanoparticles (LNP) by embedding them within the polyelectrolyte multilayer films matrix. HALNP conjugate with antibodies also adds the ability for targeted delivery. The use of LNP enables this platform to encapsulate both hydrophobic and hydrophilic drugs. This platform can easily be reproduced and utilized for various biomedical drug delivery applications. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Hayward et al. (2015, 2016a, 2016b), …

Deep Learning Approach For Chemistry And Processing History Prediction From Materials Microstructure, Amir Abbas Kazemzadeh Farizhandi, Omar Betancourt, Mahmood Mamivand

Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Finding the chemical composition and processing history from a microstructure morphology for heterogeneous materials is desired in many applications. While the simulation methods based on physical concepts such as the phase-field method can predict the spatio-temporal evolution of the materials’ microstructure, they are not efficient techniques for predicting processing and chemistry if a specific morphology is desired. In this study, we propose a framework based on a deep learning approach that enables us to predict the chemistry and processing history just by reading the morphological distribution of one element. As a case study, we used a dataset from spinodal decomposition …

Modeling Of Temperature Swing Adsorption-Oxidation Of Volatile Organic Compounds, Busuyi O. Adebayo, Fateme Rezaei

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this work, we simulated a single-bed 4-step temperature swing adsorption-oxidation (TSAO) process for capture and in situ oxidation of benzene, as a model VOC, over Ni/ZrO₂-SiO₂, as a dual-function material (DFM). The TSAO cycles consisted of adsorption, preheating, desorption/oxidation, and cooling steps. The model sensitive parameters were estimated via parameter estimation and validated against experimental data. Extensive parametric analysis was carried out to investigate the effects of key process variables on the TSAO performance. Model results revealed relatively good prediction of the process. Under the conditions investigated, adsorption, oxidation and total removal efficiencies were estimated …

Annealing Post-Drawn Polycaprolactone (Pcl) Nanofibers Optimizes Crystallinity And Molecular Alignment And Enhances Mechanical Properties And Drug Release Profiles, M. D. Flamini, T. Lima, K. Corkum, N. J. Alvarez, Vincent Beachley

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Departmental Research

Post-drawn PCL nanofibers can be molecularly tuned to have a variety of mechanical properties and drug release profiles depending on the temperature and time of annealing, which has implications for regenerative medicine and drug delivery applications. Post-drawing polycaprolactone (PCL) nanofibers has previously been demonstrated to drastically increase their mechanical properties. Here the effects of annealing on post-drawn PCL nanofibers are characterized. It is shown that room temperature storage and in vivo temperatures increase crystallinity significantly on the order of weeks, and that high temperature annealing near melt significantly increases crystallinity and molecular orientation on the order of minutes. The kinetics …

Expanding Cherenkov Imaging Applications In Radiotherapy: Clinic-Wide In Vivo Treatment Monitoring And Mr-Linac Quality Assurance, Daniel A. Alexander

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Radiation therapy treatments have become increasingly complex, striving to improve patient outcomes by delivering sufficient dose for tumor control while sparing more normal tissue. This trend has necessitated the development of additional workflows, such as multilayered incident mitigation strategies and advanced techniques for adapting treatments to account for time-sensitive patient factors. Novel technologies such as optical 3D surface monitoring and magnetic resonance-guided linear accelerators have been developed to assist clinicians in implementing these workflows. We hypothesize that optical imaging methods developed for radiotherapy dose monitoring and measurement can be used to positively impact modern radiation therapy challenges. Cherenkov imaging allows …

Optimization Of The Musculoskeletal Simulation In Estimation Of Metabolic Cost, Arash Mohammadzadeh Gonabadi, Philippe Malcolm

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Energy from food is supplied to the human body in the form of chemical energy in the muscles. This metabolic energy expenditure is one of the main determinants of the way we walk, and indirect calorimetry measurements are an essential tool for understanding how increases in metabolic cost restrict the mobility of clinical populations. Respiratory oxygen consumption measurements allow recording of the average metabolic cost of walking. However, the time required for these measurements prevents assessing metabolic rate in patients who cannot walk long enough. Musculoskeletal modeling techniques allow to estimate average muscle energy expenditure during locomotion in conjunction with …

Reducing Loading On The Contralateral Limb Using Human-In-The-Loop Optimization, Siena Senatore

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

In most everyday activities, we head towards a specific goal by updating our choices for a more direct path. However, there are specific clinical tasks where taking the direct path is more challenging. Clinical investigations of optimizing a prosthesis involve the assessment of multiple parameter settings through trial and error rather than goal-directed optimization. We investigate if a human-in-the-loop optimization algorithm can guide manual alterations to a prosthesis-simulating device to reduce the ground reaction force on the contralateral limb. In most participants, the optimal condition reduced the loading rate on the contralateral limb compared to the initial condition tested. These …

How Can Actuation Timing And Magnitude Of A Bilateral Semi-Rigid Hip Exoskeleton Optimize Metabolic Cost, Arash Mohammadzadeh Gonabadi, Prokopios Antonellis, Sara Myers, Iraklis Pipinos, Philippe Malcolm

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Semi-rigid exoskeletons could combine some advantages of rigid and soft approaches. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of timing and magnitude of assistance from a semi-rigid hip exoskeleton. For ten participants, we tested ten conditions that were combinations of 5 different end-timings, ranging from 21% to 49%, and 2 different moment magnitudes ranging from 0.06 to 0.12 Nm.kg^-1. The participants walked in two reference conditions: a condition without actuation and a condition without the exoskeleton. A semi-rigid hip exoskeleton could alter metabolic rate. However, to produce a net assistive effect, it is necessary to …

Changes In Ankle Muscle Force And Power During Walking In Patients With Peripheral Artery Disease, Hafizur Rahman, Cody Anderson, Iraklis I. Pipinos, Jason M. Johanning, Jianghu Dong, Sara A. Myers

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Background: Patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD) have significantly reduced lower extremity muscle strength compared with healthy individuals as measured during isolated, single plane joint motion by isometric and isokinetic strength dynamometers. The objective of this study was to understand the contribution of the ankle muscles during walking in patients with PAD and compared to healthy older individuals.

Methods: A total of 12 patients diagnosed with Fontaine stage II PAD and 10 healthy older controls were recruited for the study. Each subject walked across a 10-meter pathway with reflective markers placed on specific anatomical locations on lower limbs while the …

Design And Development Of Software With A Graphical User Interface To Display And Convert Multiple Microscopic Histology Images, Sayed Ahmadreza Razian, Majid Jadidi, Alexey Kamenskiy

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Histological images are widely used to assess the microscopic anatomy of biological tissues. Recent advancements in image analysis allow the identification of structural features on histological sections that can help advance medical device development, brain and cancer research, drug discovery, vascular mechanobiology, and many other fields. Histological slide scanners create images in SVS and TIFF formats that were designed to archive image blocks and high-resolution textual information. Because these formats were primarily intended for storage, they are often not compatible with conventional image analysis software and require conversion before they can be used in research. We have developed a user-friendly …

Breaks In Longitudinal Elastic Fibers Of Human Femoropopliteal Arteries, Elham Zamani

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Breaks in Longitudinal Elastic Fibers of Human Femoropopliteal Arteries

Elham Zamani1, Majid Jadidi1

1 Department of Biomechanics, University of Nebraska Omaha, Omaha, NE

Introduction: Elastin is a major protein in the body with half-life >50 years. It is thought that elastic fibers are formed before the postnatal period. In the femoropopliteal artery (FPA), the main artery in the leg, longitudinal elastic fibers are present in External Elastic Lamina (EEL). Our team has studied more than 1000 cadaveric human FPA and has noticed that there are big breaks in their longitudinal elastic fibers in some subjects. Our goal in this work …

Effects Of Lower Limb Cycling Training On Different Components Of Force And Fatigue In Individuals With Parkinson’S Disease, Yen-Po Lin, Rou-Shayn Chen, Vincent Chiun-Fan Chen, Chun-Hsien Liu, Hsiao-Lung Chan, Ya-Ju Chang

Engineering Science Faculty Publications

The strength of lower extremity is important for individuals to maintain balance and ambulation functions. The previous studies showed that individuals with Parkinson’s disease suffered from fatigue and strength loss of central origin. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of lower extremities’ cycling training on different components of force and fatigue in individuals with Parkinson’s disease. Twenty-four individuals (13 males, 11 females, mean age: 60.58 ± 8.21 years) diagnosed with idiopathic Parkinson’s disease were randomized into training and control groups. The maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) force, voluntary activation level (VA), and twitch force of knee extensors …

Abbott Lab Instrumentation Validation, Brandon James Mukai, Bosung Josh Kim

Biomedical Engineering: Graduate Reports and Projects

Over the past 40 years, since the initial catheter ablation procedure was completed, cardiac mapping has become an essential part of electrophysiological procedures. Cardiac mapping is an electrophysiological study that allows physicians to analyze the electrical activity of the heart in order to diagnose and treat cardiovascular disease. Institutions like Cal Poly can utilize professional instrumentation systems with an appropriate wet lab to develop new devices and study various phenomena in an in-vitro physiological environment. Cardiac mapping systems used in tandem with catheter ablation procedures are essential to ensuring that the trend of deaths due to cardiovascular disease continues to …

Acl Risk Data Comparison And Turnout Analysis Of Female Dancers Trained In Ballet And Female Traditional Jumping Sport Athletes, Samantha A. Campbell

Master's Theses

INTRODUCTION: An increase in participation in females sports has created an increase of female athletes at risk for injuring their Anterior Cruciate Ligament(ACL)[12,21,29,44]. Traditional jumping sports have the highest rate of non contact ACL injuries, due to the use of movements of cutting, pivoting and landing on one foot[5,8,32,33,38]. ACL injuries can also be attributed to neuromuscular deficits such as the ‘Ligament Dominance Theory’, ‘Quadricep Dominance Theory’, ‘Trunk Dominance Theory’ and the ‘Leg Dominance Theory’[24,33]. The neuromuscular deficits are muscle strength, power or activation patterns that can cause an individual to have an increased risk of ACL injury[33]. Female traditional …

Optimization Of A Novel Nipam-Based Thermoresponsive Copolymer For Intramuscular Injection As A Myoblast Delivery Vehicle To Combat Peripheral Artery Occlusive Disease, Quentin R. Klueter

Master's Theses

There is a need for a minimally invasive delivery method to enable cell therapies to combat peripheral artery occlusive disease (PAOD) in end stage patients. Myoblasts show promise as a cell mediated therapy but warrant an improved delivery method to increase cell retention in the region of interest because of their adherent nature, relative to previously used BM-MNC’s that are non-adherent. Contemporary issues with achieving successful cell therapies of vasculature can be mainly characterized by the lack of clinical translation from promising animal studies and absence of cell delivery scaffolding. Naturally, polymers have been widely experimented with as grafts to …