Biomedical Commons^™

Beneficial Effects Of Resveratrol Against Colitis And Colorectal Cancer Mediated By The Host Microbiome, Epigenome, And Immune Response, Haider Rasheed Daham Alrafas

Theses and Dissertations

Resveratrol, a natural polyphenol compound found in red wine, the skins of grapes, and other plant products, has been used as a traditional medicine for thousands of years throughout human history, but current research has revealed this natural component is capable of modulating a variety of immunological, microbial, and epigenetic mechanisms to improve overall health and well-being of hosts that consume it. Colitis, an inflammatory bowel disease characterized by chronic inflammation in the colon and rectum, which has been associated with colon cancer. This cancer incidence is rising in younger adults in the US. Thus, newer approaches to prevent colitis …

Three-Dimensional Plasma Cell Survival Microniche In Multiple Myeloma, Katrina A. Harmon

Theses and Dissertations

Multiple myeloma (MM) is an incurable malignancy characterized by the uncontrolled proliferation of long-lived plasma cells (PCs) in the bone marrow (BM), which constitute at least 10% of BM cellularity. Normally, long-lived plasma cells make up less than 1% of BM cells. Plasma cells become neoplastic when a clonal PC population produces a monoclonal immunoglobulin protein. A diagnosis of monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) is made when there is an increase in monoclonal PCs within the BM, but less than 10%, and the patient does not present with end-organ damage, which is associated with active MM. Though not considered …

Wearable Sensor Network Of Inertial Measurement Units To Track, Classify, And Assess Performance Of Complex Body Motions, Richard Tuggle

Research Horizons Day Posters

No abstract provided.

An Electrooculography Prosthetic Control System, Walker Arce

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

For many surface EMG (sEMG) prosthetic control systems, the muscles on the affected limb are used to trigger the control system. This can lead to fatigue in the user as they have to maintain continuous muscle activation and coactivation in order to achieve prosthetic control [3]. The crux of any prosthetic control system is the human machine interface that is developed, and at present many control systems have complicated interfaces that limit the degrees of freedom of the prosthetics. This study focuses on the development of a low-cost prosthetic control peripheral that is compatible with the prosthetics developed by Dr. …

A Voice Activated Prosthetic Mode Of Control, Will Picken

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

There are many options for a prosthetic mode of control. The most commonly created modes of control involve surface EMG (sEMG) and require that the user have well defined muscle activation in order to trigger the movement of the prosthetic. Unfortunately, many prosthetic users do not have the required muscle tone or strength to trigger these sensors, so the need for a control mechanism that doesn’t rely on sEMG is clear. This study focuses on the development of a low-cost, voice activated prosthetic mode of control compatible with the prosthetics developed by Dr. Zuniga and his research team.

The printed …

A Radio Frequency Identification (Rfid) Prosthetic Control System, Andrew Butler

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Item classification and tagging in embedded systems has become ubiquitous in our society due to radio frequency identification (RFID) and the cost has dropped significantly for hardware that can interact with these devices. Due to this, possibilities in the realm of prosthetic control systems opens up for dynamic grip selection without user intervention. This study focuses on the development of a device capable of this functionality that is compatible with the prosthetics designed by Dr. Zuniga and his research team.

The printed circuit board (PCB) was designed using the EAGLE EDA package and incorporates a lithium polymer battery with a …

Development Of A Myoelectric Detection Circuit Platform For Computer Interface Applications, Nickolas Andrew Butler

Master's Theses

Personal computers and portable electronics continue to rapidly advance and integrate into our lives as tools that facilitate efficient communication and interaction with the outside world. Now with a multitude of different devices available, personal computers are accessible to a wider audience than ever before. To continue to expand and reach new users, novel user interface technologies have been developed, such as touch input and gyroscopic motion, in which enhanced control fidelity can be achieved. For users with limited-to-no use of their hands, or for those who seek additional means to intuitively use and command a computer, novel sensory systems …

A Pulse Sensor Interface Design For Fpga Based Multisensor Health Monitoring Platform, Yu Wang, Sunghoon Jang

Publications and Research

The FPGA-based platform is critical for producing an inexpensive early validation platform design. In past years, sensor nodes based on the FPGA platform have been proposed to be IoT low-end devices. In this study, we present the FPGA based IoT low-end reconfigurable pulse sensor interface design that can be integrated with a multi-sensor healthcare platform to monitor a human pulse vital sign and be able to distinguish between user normal, Bradycardia, or Tachycardia heart rate. The pulse sensor interface is implemented by VHDL programming and FPGA technology. The designed pulse sensor peripheral interface is reliable and reconfigurable. It can collect …

Design And Optimization Of An Ionizing-Radiation-Free Dental Imaging Scheme By Near Infrared Fluorescence, Thomas Hartzler

LSU Master's Theses

There is a global need for access to oral health care. Proper oral health care is necessary for physiological and psychological health, as well as social and economic issues. Major oral diseases that must be screened include caries, cracked teeth, and impacted molars. These diseases are screened and diagnosed using a variety of medical imaging methods, computed tomography (CT) X-ray being the most popular and efficient method. The challenges in screening with X-ray technology include financial and time cost as well as health risk, including radiation exposure induced cancer (REIC). This thesis summarizes research to explore the possibility of overcoming …

Telemedicine: An Iot Application For Healthcare Systems, Mohammad Abdellatif, Walaa Mohamed

Electrical Engineering

Telemedicine is the abstract term used to define medical services delivered through Information Technology and Telecommunications. With the growing advancements in the field of data mining, pattern recognition, expert systems, and image processing, the motivation of such a technology has increased. This allowed Telemedicine to be a stable solution especially because people are starting to trust the system more for its higher accuracy. This paper proposes a Telemedicine platform between the patient and the doctor. This platform belongs to the internet of medical things (IoMT) by enabling multiple medical sensors to connect to a server either using Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or …

Segmentation And Registration Based Automatic Cancer Proton Treatment Analysis, Yang Zhang

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Due to its low side effects, proton therapy is rapidly developing around the world. However, the time and labor it takes to deliver the treatment have prevented widespread use in the clinic setting. For this reason, an automatic proton treatment analysis system is needed to improve efficiency during the treatment process.

The challenge lies in improving the accuracy and speed of the current proton treatment analysis system. The Range shifter correction factor is considered the same value under any given condition in our treatment system. This approximate algorithm limits the accuracy of the proton treatment analysis system. In addition, medical …

Raman Computational And Experimental Studies On Label-Free Biological Investigations, John Ciubuc

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Raman spectroscopy is an optical technique that allows for label-free biological investigations to take place. This approach presents both new perspectives and a means for visualizing investigations. This thesis confronts two biological cases: dopamine (DA) detection at physiological levels and assessment of renal osteodystrophy (ROD). We employed surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy on silver nanoparticles recording DA concentrations as low as 10−11 molar. Quantum chemical density functional calculations were carried out using Gaussian-09 analytical suite software. Good agreement between the simulated and experimentally determined results indicates the existence of distinct DA molecular forms, such as uncharged DA±, anionic DA−, and dopaminequinone. Disappearance …

Bioprinted Mcf7 Breast Cancer Cells, An In Vitro Model For Drug Discovery, Aleli Campbell

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Current breast cancer treatments are successful in eradicating this disease in the majority of patients, though there are quite a few cases where relapse or recurrence follow, which may lead to continued cancer therapy or death. Thermal inkjet bioprinting (BP) is a novel technique that is used to bioprint biomaterials or diverse cellular organisms to engineer tissue or organ models in vitro. In this Dissertation, we investigated the molecular effect of BP MCF7 breast cancer cells (BCC), cell survival of the cells when exposed to FDA approved systemic therapy alone and in combination with radiation and lastly, the ability of …

Nanosecond Pulsed Electric Fields Induce Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress Accompanied By Immunogenic Cell Death In Murine Models Of Lymphoma And Colorectal Cancer, Alessandra Rossi, Olga N. Pakhomova, Peter A. Mollica, Maura Casciola, Uma Mangalanathan, Andrei G. Pakhomov, Claudia Muratori

Bioelectrics Publications

Depending on the initiating stimulus, cancer cell death can be immunogenic or non-immunogenic. Inducers of immunogenic cell death (ICD) rely on endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress for the trafficking of danger signals such as calreticulin (CRT) and ATP. We found that nanosecond pulsed electric fields (nsPEF), an emerging new modality for tumor ablation, cause the activation of the ER-resident stress sensor PERK in both CT-26 colon carcinoma and EL-4 lymphoma cells. PERK activation correlates with sustained CRT exposure on the cell plasma membrane and apoptosis induction in both nsPEF-treated cell lines. Our results show that, in CT-26 cells, the activity of …

Mechanisms And Immunogenicity Of Nspef-Induced Cell Death In B16f10 Melanoma Tumors, Alessandra Rossi, Olga N. Pakhomova, Andrei G. Pakhomov, Samantha Weygandt, Anna A. Bulysheva, Len E. Murray, Peter A. Mollica, Claudia Muratori

Bioelectrics Publications

Accumulating data indicates that some cancer treatments can restore anticancer immunosurveillance through the induction of tumor immunogenic cell death (ICD). Nanosecond pulsed electric fields (nsPEF) have been shown to efficiently ablate melanoma tumors. In this study we investigated the mechanisms and immunogenicity of nsPEF-induced cell death in B16F10 melanoma tumors. Our data show that in vitro nsPEF (20-200, 200-ns pulses, 7 kV/cm, 2 Hz) caused a rapid dose-dependent cell death which was not accompanied by caspase activation or PARP cleavage. The lack of nsPEF-induced apoptosis was confirmed in vivo in B16F10 tumors. NsPEF also failed to trigger ICD-linked responses such …

Quantifying The Concentration And Penetration Depth Of Long-Lived Rons In Plasma Activated Water By Uv Absorption Spectroscopy, Zhijie Liu, Chunxi Zhou, Dingxin Liu, Tongtong He, Li Guo, Dehui Xu, Michael G. Kong

Bioelectrics Publications

Reactive oxygen and reactive nitrogen species (RONS) are believed to play a key role in biomedical applications, which means that RONS must reach the target tissue to produce a therapeutic effect. Existing methods (electron spin spectrometry and microplate reading) to determine the RONS concentration are not suitable for experimental real-time measurements because they require adding an indicating reagent to the plasma-treated medium, which may alter the chemical composition of the medium. In this paper, we propose a method to measure the long-lived RONS concentration in plasma-activated water (PAW) by using UV absorption spectroscopy. Based on an analysis and fit of …

Estimation Of Multi-Directional Ankle Impedance As A Function Of Lower Extremity Muscle Activation, Lauren Knop

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between the mechanical impedance of the human ankle and the corresponding lower extremity muscle activity. Three experimental studies were performed to measure the ankle impedance about multiple degrees of freedom (DOF), while the ankle was subjected to different loading conditions and different levels of muscle activity. The first study determined the non-loaded ankle impedance in the sagittal, frontal, and transverse anatomical planes while the ankle was suspended above the ground. The subjects actively co-contracted their agonist and antagonistic muscles to various levels, measured using electromyography (EMG). An Artificial Neural Network …

Varying Ratios Of Collagen I And Iii For The Study Of Fibrotic Conditions In Tissue Engineering, Brian Roman

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Maintenance of collagen I (Col I) and III (Col III) in a 3:1 ratio is necessary to promote cardiac health. Increase in the relative amount of Col I within the myocardium, leads to an imbalance of Col I:III during cardiac fibrosis, which has damaging effects on cardiomyocytes (CM). To represent fibrous- and normal-cardiac tissue, gels composed of Col I:III ratios of 9:1 and 3:1 were developed and used to study resultant changes in CM function. Second harmonic generation (SHG) microscopy, used to image Col I fibers, displayed a decrease in image intensity with the addition of the non-second harmonic Col …

Novel Applications Of Machine Learning In Bioinformatics, Yi Zhang

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

Technological advances in next-generation sequencing and biomedical imaging have led to a rapid increase in biomedical data dimension and acquisition rate, which is challenging the conventional data analysis strategies. Modern machine learning techniques promise to leverage large data sets for finding hidden patterns within them, and for making accurate predictions. This dissertation aims to design novel machine learning-based models to transform biomedical big data into valuable biological insights. The research presented in this dissertation focuses on three bioinformatics domains: splice junction classification, gene regulatory network reconstruction, and lesion detection in mammograms.

A critical step in defining gene structures and mRNA …

Relation Prediction Over Biomedical Knowledge Bases For Drug Repositioning, Mehmet Bakal

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

Identifying new potential treatment options for medical conditions that cause human disease burden is a central task of biomedical research. Since all candidate drugs cannot be tested with animal and clinical trials, in vitro approaches are first attempted to identify promising candidates. Likewise, identifying other essential relations (e.g., causation, prevention) between biomedical entities is also critical to understand biomedical processes. Hence, it is crucial to develop automated relation prediction systems that can yield plausible biomedical relations to expedite the discovery process. In this dissertation, we demonstrate three approaches to predict treatment relations between biomedical entities for the drug repositioning task …