Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons^™

High Frequency Oscillations In The Epileptic Brain: Accurate Detection, Effect Of Vigilance State, And Sample Size Considerations, Amir Fared Partu Al-Bakri

Theses and Dissertations--Biomedical Engineering

About a third of all epilepsy patients may experience seizures that are resistant to medication. Surgical resection may be an option for some of these patients, but localization of the epileptogenic zone is difficult and expensive. For this process, the seizures must be observed and recorded in a clinical setting over several days. High-frequency oscillations (HFOs) have emerged as a possible biomarker for predicting the epileptogenic zone from a brief interictal recording of brain electrical activity without having to wait for seizures. The broad objective of this dissertation is to devise methods and criteria for accurate detection, sampling and localization …

Work Related Diurnal Changes In Trunk Mechanical Behavior, Maeve Mcdonald

Theses and Dissertations--Biomedical Engineering

The objectives of this study were to analyze effects of day-long exposure to LBP risk factors on lumbo-pelvic coordination (LPC) in nursing occupations and to verify if physical activity level affects diurnal work-related changes in LPC. Thirty-three nurses were recruited into three groups based on workplace physical demands and each completed two data collection sessions, one before and one after their 8-12 hour work shift. Participants completed several stationary trunk forward-bending/backward-return exercises at self-selected “fast” and “slow” rotational speeds, and while holding a 15 lbs. load. Kinematic data collected during these exercises were then used to characterize the timing and …

Noncontact Multiscale Diffuse Optical Imaging Of Deep Tissue Hemodynamics In Animals And Humans, Siavash Mazdeyasna

Theses and Dissertations--Biomedical Engineering

Blood flow (BF) impacts the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to tissues and the removal of metabolic byproducts from tissues. Imaging of BF distributions helps characterize many diseases associated with tissue hypoxia/ischemia. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a novel, noninvasive, noncontact, high-density camera-based speckle contrast diffuse correlation tomography (scDCT) device for use in both animal and human studies. The scDCT uses a galvo-mirror to remotely deliver the focused point near-infrared light to source positions and a sensitive 2D camera to quantify spatial diffuse speckle fluctuations, resulting from the movement of red blood cells in deep …

Bacterial Cell Wall Characterization Via Atomic Force And Confocal Microscopy, Joree Sandin

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Poor oral hygiene is a severe global health issue, with about 44% of the Earth’s population suffering from untreated tooth decay, accounting for over $100 billion dollars spent on dental services per year in the United States, alone. Manual treatments, such as brushing, flossing, or swishing with antiseptic rinse are the main ways to alleviate harmful bacteria that cause these oral health problems. Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans) is a group of highly antibiotic, Gram-positive bacteria that heavily contribute to oral cavities, plaque build-up, and potential loosening or loss of dental implants if a biofilm develops. Currently, the mechanism …

Opendrop Software Development, Jiajun Guan

Electrical Engineering

To be able to transfer and mix solutions more efficiently and accurately during biology experiments, the Electrical Engineering department at Cal Poly University is planning to purchase or engineer the OpenDrop device. The OpenDrop device uses electro-wetting technology to control the movement of small droplets of water on a planar electrode array to transport and mix different solutions. This device is an open-source project and could be purchased online through the GaudiLab. The basic code of the system could be found in GitHub. With this code as a reference, the goal of this senior project is to develop the firmware, …

Gravity-Drawing Flexible Silicone Filaments As Fiber Optics And Model Foldamers, Katherine Snell

CMC Senior Theses

Here, we present a method of gravity-drawing polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) silicone fibers with application as fiber optics and as model foldamers. Beginning as a viscous liquid, PDMS is cured using heat until its measured viscosity reaches 4000 mPa•s. The semi-cured elastomer is then extruded through a tube furnace to produce thin (diameters on the order of hundred micrometers) filaments with scalable lengths. PDMS is biocompatible, gas-permeable, flexible, and hydrophobic. Additionally, the PDMS surface hydrophobicity can be modified via UV exposure, O2 plasma, and corona discharge. We demonstrate the patternibility (i.e patterns of hydrophobicity) of PDMS fibers, adding complexity to potential foldamer …

Deep Learning For Digitized Histology Image Analysis, Sudhir Sornapudi

Doctoral Dissertations

“Cervical cancer is the fourth most frequent cancer that affects women worldwide. Assessment of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) through histopathology remains as the standard for absolute determination of cancer. The examination of tissue samples under a microscope requires considerable time and effort from expert pathologists. There is a need to design an automated tool to assist pathologists for digitized histology slide analysis. Pre-cervical cancer is generally determined by examining the CIN which is the growth of atypical cells from the basement membrane (bottom) to the top of the epithelium. It has four grades, including: Normal, CIN1, CIN2, and CIN3. In …

Investigation On Nanoparticle Based Combination Therapy For Targeted Cancer Treatment, Muhammad Raisul Abedin

Doctoral Dissertations

“The current treatment methods in cancer are associated with toxicity in healthy tissues, partial therapeutic response, drug resistance and finally recurrence of the disease. The cancer drugs are challenged by non-specific binding, undesired toxicity in healthy cells, low therapeutic index and finally poor therapeutic outcome. In this work, a targeted nanoscale therapeutic system Antibody Drug Nanoparticle (ADN) was engineered to selectively inhibit the breast cancer cell growth with reduced toxicity in healthy cells. The ADNs were designed by synthesizing rod shaped anoparticles using pure chemotherapeutic drug and covalently conjugating a therapeutic monoclonal antibody (mAb) on the surface of the drug …

Electrotransfer Of Il-15/Il-15rα Complex For The Treatment Of Established Melanoma, Shawna A. Shirley, Cathryn G. Lundberg, Richard Heller

Bioelectrics Publications

Gene electrotransfer (GET) is a safe, reliable, and effective method of delivering plasmid DNA (pDNA) to solid tumors. GET has been previously used to deliver interleukin-15 (IL-15) to mouse melanoma, resulting in long-term tumor regression and the survival of a percentage of treated animals after challenge. To enhance this effect, we evaluated modulating the expression levels of IL-15 and co-expressing its receptor, IL-15Rα. GET was used to deliver plasmids encoding IL-15 and IL-15Rα to established B16.F10 tumors on days 0, 4, and 7. Two delivery protocols that yielded different expression profiles were utilized. Mice that were tumor-free for 50 days …

Hsp90 Inhibition And Modulation Of The Proteome: Therapeutical Implications For Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (Ipf), Ruben Manuel Luciano Colunga Biancatelli, Pavel Solopov, Betsy Gregory, John D. Catravas

Bioelectrics Publications

Idiopathic Pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a catastrophic disease with poor outcomes and limited pharmacological approaches. Heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) has been recently involved in the wound-healing pathological response that leads to collagen deposition in patients with IPF and its inhibition represents an exciting drug target against the development of pulmonary fibrosis. Under physiological conditions, HSP90 guarantees proteostasis through the refolding of damaged proteins and the degradation of irreversibly damaged ones. Additionally, its inhibition, by specific HSP90 inhibitors (e.g., 17 AAG, 17 DAG, and AUY-922) has proven beneficial in different preclinical models of human disease. HSP90 inhibition modulates a complex …

Cone Identification In Choroideremia: Repeatability, Reliability, And Automation Through Use Of A Convolutional Neural Network, Jessica I.W. Morgan, Min Chen, Andrew M. Huang, Yu You Jiang, Robert F. Cooper

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Purpose: Adaptive optics imaging has enabled the visualization of photoreceptors both in health and disease. However, there remains a need for automated accurate cone photoreceptor identification in images of disease. Here, we apply an open-source convolutional neural network (CNN) to automatically identify cones in images of choroideremia (CHM). We further compare the results to the repeatability and reliability of manual cone identifications in CHM.

Methods: We used split-detection adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscopy to image the inner segment cone mosaic of 17 patients with CHM. Cones were manually identified twice by one experienced grader and once by two …

Single-Pixel Camera Based Spatial Frequency Domain Imaging For Non-Contact Tissue Characterization, Alec M. Petrack

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Optical imaging has demonstrated potential as a medical imaging modality for measuring tissue functionality. Recently, interest in fluorescence guided surgery has emerged from improvements in optical imaging that have allowed real-time feedback. Of the optical imaging modalities, spatial frequency domain imaging (SFDI) has gained a lot of interest. Unlike spectroscopic techniques, such as functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and frequency domain spectroscopy that measure bulk tissue properties, SFDI quantifies tissue functionality locally and wide field making it practical for clinical applications. Unfortunately, traditional SFDI systems use multi-pixel detectors, which may not exhibit ideal spectral characteristics, have limited sensitivity, be expensive, …

Enhanced Blood Pressure Acquisition, Alison Targosky, Megan Laws, Alexandria Stephens, Jillian Savage

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Blood pressure is considered a primary vital sign that is regularly monitored in a healthcare setting. Current blood pressure measurement equipment lacks reproducible measurements which leads to questionable accuracy. Therefore, there is a need for an accurate and reproducible blood pressure measurement device that can take remote measurements. This project will be designed in The University of Akron's biomedical engineering capstone course. The goal of this senior design project is to design and fabricate a blood pressure measuring device that meets the customer requirements and engineering requirements identified by the team.

Utilizing Virtual High-Throughput Screens To Identify Promising Inhibitors Of Complement Factor C1s, Lyndsey Schmucker

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

A large study was conducted to identify possible drug candidates to treat various diseases using computer algorithms, virtual high-throughput screens, and experimental validation of activity. Since the algorithm has the capability to screen millions of compounds, it is beneficial to pharmaceutical development as it allows a larger pool of compounds to be considered that would have otherwise been overlooked. As part of this larger study, this project attempts to identify drug candidates to treat human complement factor C1, a protein which causes tissue damage when underregulated¹. A series of designed experiments validate candidates and confirm the performance of …

Adaptive Bike Pedals, Norman Hansen, Robert Csaky

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The Adaptive Bike Pedals project is set out to create a new attachment for tricycle pedals that improves on a previous model. The need for these attachments is common in rehabilitation and physical therapy centers to help patients keep their feet on pedals when they are not able to. They can also be used in homes of families that have children with disabilities, diseases, or disorders that inhibit them from keeping their feet on the pedals. There are attachments on the market already, but the problem with those models is that they are costly and made for specific pedals. The …

The Tera Multi Terrain Mobility Aid Chassis, Colton Kemp, Daniel Nicoll, Ibrahim Suleiman, Mohammad Alyami

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The natural environment poses a significant number of obstacles and dynamic settings that makes mobility difficult for those with physical and mobility impairments. To approach this problem, a suspension was designed using inspiration from the early Mars rovers developed by NASA for traversing the varied Martian landscape. The course of the project followed the direction of a start-up through problem identification, early design generation and review, and final design production. The project outcome, through client request and proven market research, aimed to produce a multi-terrain wheelchair. The final product is a kinematic body with mobile front “legs” and a rotational …

Prosthetic Hand, Nicholas Damiani, Eric Rassavong, John Zolton

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Development of a prosthetic hand for an above-the-wrist amputee. The hand will provide flexion and extension of the wrist, fingers and thumb. The device will be customized for each individual by utilizing an medical imaging of the amputation side stump and the normal arm/wrist as the input. An integral hand/wrist and socket will be 3D printed, and actuators will be mounted to the prosthetic to provide motion. The wrist will be a mirror-image of the normal hand. Materials utilized will be selected based on the medical image intensity for different tissue types (cartilage, bone, skin, fat, etc.) and will simulate …

Upper Extremity Mobility Device, Timothy J. Grassi, Jacob R. Miller

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The goal of this project was to evaluate a clinical problem, explore possible solutions, and produce a functioning prototype that would conform to all the established guidelines and requirements. The project focused on developing an upper extremity mobility device for a singular client with limited muscle activity in his arms due to childhood polio. Our design process was governed by an adapted form of the FDA Design Control Process, 21 CFR 820.30 [1]. The outcome of this project was a functioning prototype that utilized the concept of a motorized pulley system remote controlled using a key fob. This research project …

A Novel Approach To Mid-Foot Reconstruction Surgery In Patients With Charcot Arthropathy, Jessi Martin, Deborah Falokun

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This honors project details the design and development of an internal orthopedic implant that surgically corrects the midfoot fracture and subsequent arch collapse in patients with Charcot arthropathy. The client of the project is Dr. David Kay, an orthopedic surgeon with the Crystal Clinic in Akron, Ohio. He presented a problem surrounding surgical implants meant to repair Charcot arthropathy. Implants that repair the midfoot fracture failed at a rate of about 60%. A team of senior biomedical engineering students attending the University of Akron developed a goal to design a new surgical implant that would reduce the failure rate of …

Prosthetic Foot/Ankle Inversion & Eversion Enhancement, Jason Wiebrecht, Maddison Grimes

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Modify a prosthetic foot/ankle, that currently has power at the ankle joint, for dorsiflexion/flexion so that it supplies power across a simulated subtalar joint, making the joint capable of inversion/eversion.