Biomedical Commons^™

Scaffold Based In-Vitro Osteodistraction For Bone Tissue Engineering, Cesar Adrian Terrazas

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Engineering of hard tissues such as bone is a challenge because of the limited ability of the body to heal large defects. Current treatment options, such as employing bone sections from the patient or a deceased donor have been utilized for some time now with various degrees of success. However, these methods still exhibit many limitations such as limited supply and the possibility of transmission of disease.

To address the many limitations of bone grafts, synthetic engineered substitutes have been developed and widely researched for nearly three decades. Generally termed scaffolds, these are matrices that serve the purpose of temporary …

Categorization Of Functional Impairments In Human Locomotion Using The Methods Of The Fusion Of Multiple Sensors And Computational Intelligence, Huiying Yu

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The main aim of this dissertation work was to develop an intelligent system to monitor, quantify and differentiate variances in human gait with high reliability and efficiency using the fusion of multiple sensor data and the methods of fuzzy inferential logic.

Gait disorders are heterogeneous and produce disabilities that vary substantially from individual to individual. The recognition, quantification and analysis of gait dysfunction is complex and, requires the integration of large amounts of data across multiple domains (kinetic, kinematic and electromyographic). Current systems for gait analysis generally require space and complex imaging equipment, as well as prolonged processing time, rendering …

Synthesis And Manufacture Of Photocrosslinkable Poly(Caprolactone)-Based 3d Scaffolds For Tissue Engineering Applications, Nathan Jonathan Castro

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

It is known that the body can efficiently repair hard tissue (bone) micro fractures by suturing the defect through the deposition of minerals resulting in an area that is stronger post-injury. Larger defects, however, generally cause more trouble since the body is incapable of repairing them. Bone defects can occur as a result of congenital abnormalities, trauma, or disease. Traditional methods for addressing these defects have involved the use of acellular cadaverous bone or autologous bone. Both contain innate problems associated with them; the former method can result in disease transmission, as well as very low integration with the host …

Multidisciplinary Collaborative Model For Complex, Angel Ernesto Delgado

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Nowadays, most devices with advanced technology require the development of embedded systems with mechanical and electrical components as well as software including more than one discipline. These are devices that are usually complex in terms of composition and functionality and that design must follow a methodology in order to successfully design and launch a device of this nature. Hence, the assembly of a multidisciplinary engineering group is required to carry out such complex devices and develop a fully functional product. The group may also need an expert on the field that can provide guidance and knowledge where needed. This is …

Fabrication Of Miniature Drug Screening Platform Using Low Cost Bioprinting Technology, Jorge Ivan Rodriguez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In the pharmaceutical industry, new chemicals and substances are being tested to find appropriate compounds or mix for treating a specific disease. The demand for screening large compound collections against and increasing number of therapeutic targets has stimulated technology development in the areas of assay automation and miniaturization. Current methods for evaluating the reactions of cells use a volume in the range of microliters. We have developed a new and low-cost deposition method to fabricate miniature drug screening platform that can realistically and inexpensively evaluate biochemical reactions up to 4 substances per trial in a picoliter-scale volume. This paper describes …

Computer-Aided Detection Of Sleep Apnea And Sleep Stage Classification Using Hrv And Eeg Signals, Edson F. Estrada

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Sleep is a circadian rhythm essential for human life. Many events occur in the body during this state. In the past, significant efforts have been made to provide clinicians with reliable and less intrusive tools to automatically classify the sleep stages and detect apnea events. A few systems are available in the market to accomplish this task. However, sleep specialists may not have full confidence and trust in such systems due to issues related to their accuracy, sensitivity and specificity. The main objective of this work is to explore possible relationships among sleep stages and apneic events and improve on …

Prediction Of Brain Tumor Progression Using A Machine Learning Technique, Yuzhong Shen, Debrup Banerjee, Jiang Li, Adam Chandler, Yufei Shen, Frederic D. Mckenzie, Jihong Wang, Nico Karssemeijer (Ed.), Ronald M. Summers (Ed.)

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

A machine learning technique is presented for assessing brain tumor progression by exploring six patients' complete MRI records scanned during their visits in the past two years. There are ten MRI series, including diffusion tensor image (DTI), for each visit. After registering all series to the corresponding DTI scan at the first visit, annotated normal and tumor regions were overlaid. Intensity value of each pixel inside the annotated regions were then extracted across all of the ten MRI series to compose a 10 dimensional vector. Each feature vector falls into one of three categories:normal, tumor, and normal but progressed to …

Bioelectric Applications For Treatment Of Melanoma, Stephen J. Beebe, Karl H. Schoenbach, Richard Heller

Bioelectrics Publications

Two new cancer therapies apply bioelectric principles. These methods target tumor structures locally and function by applying millisecond electric fields to deliver plasmid DNA encoding cytokines using electrogene transfer (EGT) or by applying rapid rise-time nanosecond pulsed electric fields (nsPEFs). EGT has been used to locally deliver cytokines such as IL-12 to activate an immune response, resulting in bystander effects. NsPEFs locally induce apoptosis-like effects and affect vascular networks, both promoting tumor demise and restoration of normal vascular homeostasis. EGT with IL-12 is in melanoma clinical trials and nsPEFs are used in models with B16F10 melanoma in vitro and in …

Prostate Cancer Region Prediction Using Maldi Mass Spectra, Ayyappa Vadlamudi, Shao-Hui Chuang, Xiaoyan Sun, Lisa Cazares, Julius Nyalwidhe, Dean Troyer, O. John Semmes, Jiang Li, Frederic D. Mckenzie

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

For the early detection of prostate cancer, the analysis of the Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in serum is currently the most popular approach. However, previous studies show that 15% of men have prostate cancer even their PSA concentrations are low. MALDI Mass Spectrometry (MS) proves to be a better technology to discover molecular tools for early cancer detection. The molecular tools or peptides are termed as biomarkers. Using MALDI MS data from prostate tissue samples, prostate cancer biomarkers can be identified by searching for molecular or molecular combination that can differentiate cancer tissue regions from normal ones. Cancer tissue regions are …