Biomedical Commons^™

Characterizing Hypoxia And Its Behavioral Effects In 3-Dimensional Cell Aggregates, Matthew Lorincz Skiles

Theses and Dissertations

Cell transplantation can be considered a regenerative therapy, an intervention which attempts to replace or restore the function of compromised tissue by harnessing innate properties of cells that cannot be replicated artificially. For such therapies to succeed, it will be necessary to understand and closely match the physiological conditions that govern cell behaviors in vivo. One important factor is low oxygen tension, termed hypoxia, which is often overlooked in vitro. Because oxygen insufficiency can lead to cell death, hypoxia has traditionally been viewed as a negative condition. However, hypoxia can also serve as a potent regulator of crucial cell behaviors …

Tpm: Cloud-Based Tele Ptsd Monitor Using Multi-Dimensional Information, Roger Xu, Gang Mei, Guangfan Zhang, Pan Gao, Aaron Pepe, Jiang Li, James D. Westwood (Ed.), Susan W. Westwood (Ed.), Li Felländer-Tsai (Ed.), Randy S. Haluck (Ed.), Richard A. Robb (Ed.), Steven Senger (Ed.), Kirby G. Vosburgh (Ed.)

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

An automated system that can remotely and non-intrusively screen individuals at high risk for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and monitor their progress during treatment would be desired by many Veterans Affairs (VAs) as well as other PTSD treatment and research organizations. In this paper, we present an automated, cloud-based Tele-PTSD Monitor (TPM) system based on the fusion of multiple sources of information. The TPM system can be hosted in a cloud environment and accessed through landline or cell phones, or on the Internet through a web portal or mobile application (app).

Energy Harvesting Of Human Kinetic Movement, David Marusiak, Julia Carrillo

Electrical Engineering

Development of kinetic energy scavenging applications from the human body necessitates additional research to assist in designating a mounting position for a potential device. A data acquisition system adequately provides a parametric average power comparison among four locations on the body (waist, upper arm, hand, and calf) for both a male and female subject. Experimentally, the hand-held device provided the highest average power. Thus, subsequent investigation at set speeds provides further analysis of the output’s characteristically linear behavior. The physical energy-harvesting device features a plastic tube casing wrapped with the stationary coiled wire through which a neodymium magnet oscillates. While …

Nonthermal Plasma Jet Efficacy On Candida Kefyr, Amber Marie Mattson Jackson

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The inactivation abilities of a nonthermal plasma jet were investigated with the yeast C. kefyr, a pathogen with increasing importance in healthcare. The plasma is generated using a microhollow cathode discharge (MHCD) geometry operated with a DC voltage of 2 kV and a current of 30 mA using air as the operating gas at an airflow rate of 8 SLM. The plasma discharge approaches room temperature at a few mm away from the plasma jet allowing for the use on heat sensitive surfaces. Dry air and humid air were used as the operating gas to see if humidity plays …

Subnanosecond Exposure Systems For Biological Studies, Jongbong Nah

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The research of bioelectrics has expanded to subnanosecond pulse region and entered a new domain of biophysics of cell interaction with ultra-short and intense electric fields. As subnanosecond pulses may be delivered by antennas to the human body and is very attractive to the medical community, the study of subnanosecond pulse effects calls for exposure systems for both cells and tissues. Two systems were designed in the scope of this thesis, used for cells and tissues respectively. The exposure system designed for cell exposure is a cuvette consisting of two parallel aluminum gaps. This cuvette is placed in a coaxial …

Microcontroller Based Ecg Amplifier, Berney Montavon

Undergraduate Research Posters 2012

A microprocessor that reads ECG data and detects heart arrhythmias can help keep people safe while working in high-risk environments.

Low Power Data Acquisition For Microimplant Biometric Monitoring Of Tremors, Tania Khanna '01

Doctoral Dissertations

In recent years, trends in the medical industry have created a growing demand for implantable medical devices. In particular, the need to provide doctors a means to continuously monitor biometrics over long time scales with increased precision is paramount to efficient healthcare. To make medical implants more attractive, there is a need to reduce their size and power consumption. Small medical implants would allow for less invasive procedures, greater comfort for patients, and increased patient compliance. Reductions in power consumption translate to longer battery life. The two primary limitations to the size of small medical implants are the batteries that …

Fabrication And Characterization Of Thinner Solid-State Nanopores, Denis Forbi Tita

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Solid State nanopores that are fabricated by the ion beam sculpting process and electron beam drilling have shown great promise as a sensing device for DNA and protein molecules. Even though biological pores such as the alpha-Haemolysin have been in use for quite some time, the use of solid state Nanopores in single biomolecule detection has been on the rise since the mid 1990s. Solid State nanopores have an advantage over biological pores in that they are more robust, stable, and can be sculpted to any desired size for use in translocation experiments. One of the major challenges in Nanopore …

A Wireless And Digital Electrode Bus Topology For Biopotential Measurement, Mark Nolan, Edward Burke, Eugene Coyle

Conference Papers

The conventional biopotential measurement configuration utilises long lead wires which connect measuring electrodes to signal conditioning circuitry. The majority of bioelectric signals that are measured from the human body have a tiny signal amplitude (5µV-5mV range) and thus any interference that is induced on the lead wires can have a detrimental effect on the original signal. In this paper, we present an alternative configuration, in which digitisation occurs on the electrode, potentially providing enhanced signal measurement as well as significant benefits in terms of the simplification of the physical interconnections between electrodes. Multiple electrodes are combined to form a digital …

A Knowledge-Based Clinical Toxicology Consultant For Diagnosing Single Exposures, Joel D. Schipper, Douglas D. Dankel Ii, A. Antonio Arroyo, Jay L. Schauben

Publications

Objective: Every year, toxic exposures kill twelve hundred Americans. To aid in the timely diagnosis and treatment of such exposures, this research investigates the feasibility of a knowledge-based system capable of generating differential diagnoses for human exposures involving unknown toxins.

Methods: Data mining techniques automatically extract prior probabilities and likelihood ratios from a database managed by the Florida Poison Information Center. Using observed clinical effects, the trained system produces a ranked list of plausible toxic exposures. The resulting system was evaluated using 30,152 single exposure cases. In addition, the effects of two filters for refining diagnosis based on …

Control System For Glucose Detector System, David Smith

Electrical Engineering

In this paper I design and test on a prove of concept level a control/timing circuit for a blood glucose detector built in a previous senior project. The specifications of the design given are to properly power the detector with a low power source. The design is completed on a transistor level basis using Cadence Virtuoso Software. The system is design from the ground up; designing, building, and testing smaller circuits first then combined into increasingly larger circuits till the completed circuit is finished. The design used to based off of the 555 Timer and uses differential pairs, CMOS designed …

Polygrasp: Reach; Myoelectric Prosthetic Hand Iteration, Devon Patrick Augustus, Mighells Blaed Deuel, Ian Noel Fraser, Nicholas Philip Moesser

Mechanical Engineering

Amputations are a common occurrence in soldiers returning home who have suffered the effects of IED and munitions explosions. For upper limb amputees, trans-radial amputations are the most common. Traditional hook devices do not offer an adequate level of normalcy for users, prompting the use of myoelectric devices. While current myoelectric devices do offer a more natural experience, they come with a host of other problems that makes their adoption by service personnel not desirable or not permitted by the VA. PolyGrasp Reach seeks to reduce weight and cost and improve performance. This addresses several of the issues with devices …

Biomedical Matching Gui Development, Nazia Sarang

Electrical and Computer Engineering Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Biomedical researchers constantly search for new methods to diagnose the extent of joint injuries in live human subjects. In order to achieve this, the researchers need to know the accurate three dimensional kinematic data of bones and joints and to accurately quantify how bones in a joint move relative to one another during dynamic activities. Algorithms have been developed previously to estimate the exact spatial position and movement of the bones. These methods involved generation of digitally reconstructed radiographs (DRR) from a three dimensional CT scan image of human joint with known position and orientation and comparing it with the …

Multi-Circle Detections For An Automatic Medical Diagnosis System, Dingran Lu

Master's Theses

Real-time multi-circle detection has been a challenging problem in the field of biomedical image processing, due to the variable sizes and non-ideal shapes of cells in microscopic images. In this study, two new multi-circle detection algorithms are developed to facilitate an automatic bladder cancer diagnosis system: one is a modified circular Hough Transform algorithm integrated with edge gradient information; and the other one is a stochastic search approach based on real valued artificial immune systems. Computer simulation results show both algorithms outperform traditional methods such as the Hough Transform and the geometric feature based method, in terms of both precision …

A Refreshable And Portable E-Braille System For The Blind And Visually Impaired, Mohammad Saadeh, Mohamed Trabia

College of Engineering: Graduate Celebration Programs

• Braille is a communication system to assist the blind and visually impaired.
• Present an approach to measure fingertip forces while identifying Braille characters.
• Implement a force sensory feedback in the device to measure the force developed on the fingertip.
• Introduce a preliminary design for the device.
• Build a prototype for the device and evaluate its functionality and integrate its components

The Presence Of Regional Accents In Electrolarynx Speech And The Resultant Effect On Overall Intelligibility., Brian Madden, Eugene Coyle

Conference Papers

During voiced speech, the larynx provides quasi-periodic acoustic excitation of the vocal tract. In most electrolarynxes, mechanical vibrations are produced by a linear electromechanical actuator, the armature of which percusses against a metal or plastic plate at a frequency within the range of glottal excitation. In this paper, a phonological analysis of a section of results from an online perceptual intelligibility test was performed which compared speech produced using a novel hands-free electrolarynx and a commercially available electrolarynx. A portion of the test consisted of a closed-set format containing a selection of four sets of four random CVC audio samples …

The Use Of An In Vitro 3d Melanoma Model To Predict In Vivo Plasmid Transfection Using Electroporation, Benadette Marrero, Richard Heller

Bioelectrics Publications

A large-scale in vitro 3D tumor model was generated to evaluate gene delivery procedures in vivo. This 3D tumor model consists of a "tissue-like" spheroid that provides a micro-environment supportive of melanoma proliferation, allowing cells to behave similarly to cells in vivo. This functional spheroid measures approximately 1 cm in diameter and can be used to effectively evaluate plasmid transfection when testing various electroporation (EP) electrode applicators. In this study, we identified EP conditions that efficiently transfect green fluorescent protein (GFP) and interleukin 15 (IL-15) plasmids into tumor cells residing in the 3D construct. We found that plasmids …

Assessing The Therapeutic Effect Of 630 Nm Light-Emitting Diodes Irradiation On The Recovery Of Exercise-Induced Hand Muscle Fatigue With Surface Electromyogram, Dandan Yang, Xiaoying Wu, Wensheng Hou, Xiaolin Zheng, Jun Zheng, Yingtao Jiang

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Research

This paper aims to investigate the effect of light emitting diode therapy (LEDT) on exercise-induced hand muscle fatigue by measuring the surface electromyography (sEMG) of flexor digitorum superficialis. Ten healthy volunteers were randomly placed in the equal sized LEDT group and control group. All subjects performed a sustained fatiguing isometric contraction with the combination of four fingertips except thumb at 30% of maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) until exhaustion. The active LEDT or an identical passive rest therapy was then applied to flexor digitorum superficialis. Each subject was required to perform a re-fatigue task immediately after therapy which was the same …

Oxidative Effects Of Nanosecond Pulsed Electric Field Exposure In Cells And Cell-Free Media, Olga N. Pakhomova, Vera A. Khorokhorina, Angela M. Bowman, Raminta Rodaitė-Riševičienė, Gintautas Saulis, Shu Xiao, Andrei G. Pakhomov

Bioelectrics Publications

Nanosecond pulsed electric field (nsPEF) is a novel modality for permeabilization of membranous structures and intracellular delivery of xenobiotics. We hypothesized that oxidative effects of nsPEF could be a separate primary mechanism responsible for bioeffects. ROS production in cultured cells and media exposed to 300-ns PEF (1–13 kV/cm) was assessed by oxidation of 2′, 7′-dichlorodihydrofluoresein (H₂DCF), dihidroethidium (DHE), or Amplex Red. When a suspension of H₂DCF-loaded cells was subjected to nsPEF, the yield of fluorescent 2′,7′dichlorofluorescein (DCF) increased proportionally to the pulse number and cell density. DCF emission increased with time after exposure in nsPEF-sensitive Jurkat …

Procedural Wound Geometry And Blood Flow Generation For Medical Training Simulators, Rifat Aras, Yuzhong Shen, Jiang Li, David R. Holmes Iii (Ed.), Kenneth H. Wong (Ed.)

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Efficient application of wound treatment procedures is vital in both emergency room and battle zone scenes. In order to train first responders for such situations, physical casualty simulation kits, which are composed of tens of individual items, are commonly used. Similar to any other training scenarios, computer simulations can be effective means for wound treatment training purposes. For immersive and high fidelity virtual reality applications, realistic 3D models are key components. However, creation of such models is a labor intensive process. In this paper, we propose a procedural wound geometry generation technique that parameterizes key simulation inputs to establish the …