Engineering Commons^™

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 …

Computer-Aided Classification Of Impulse Oscillometric Measures Of Respiratory Small Airways Function In Children, Nancy Selene Avila

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Computer-aided classification of respiratory small airways dysfunction is not an easy task. There is a need to develop more robust classifiers, specifically for children as the classification studies performed to date have the following limitations: 1) they include features derived from tests that are not suitable for children and 2) they cannot distinguish between mild and severe small airway dysfunction.

This Dissertation describes the classification algorithms with high discriminative capacity to distinguish different levels of respiratory small airways function in children (Asthma, Small Airways Impairment, Possible Small Airways Impairment, and Normal lung function). This ability came from innovative feature selection, …

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 …

Image Analysis For Lung Cancer Diagnosis And Superresolution Localization Microscopy, Xia Huang

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

With the development of imaging analysis techniques, flurry of applications associated with it has been hatched. In this paper, image analysis on both organ and cellular levels will be demonstrated. For organ level images, a deep learning based computer aided lung cancer diagnosis based on computer tomography images is studied. Deep learning techniques have been extensively used in computerized pulmonary nodule analysis recent years. Many reported studies still utilized hybrid methods for diagnosis, in which convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are used only as one part of the pipeline, and the whole system still needs either traditional image processing modules 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 …

Synthesis, Characterization And Antibacterial Properties Of Silver(I) N-(4-Pyridyl) Benzamide Complexes With Varying Conterions, Mauro J. Ruiz

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Organic semiconductor materials composed of - stacking aromatic compounds have been under intense investigation for their potential uses in flexible electronics and other advanced technologies. Herein we report a new family of seven - stacking compounds of Silver(I) N-(4-pyridyl) Benzamide with varying counterions, namely [Ag(NPBA)2]X, where NPBA is N-(4-pyridyl) Benzamine, X = NO3- (1), ClO4- (2), CF3SO3- (3), PF6- (4), BF4- (5), CH3PhSO3- (6), and PhSO3- (7), which form extended - stacking networks in one-dimensional (1D), 2D and 3D directions in the crystalline solid-state via the phenyl moiety, with average inter-ring distances of 3.823 Å. Interestingly, the counterions that contain …

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 …

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 …

Platelet Biology And Thrombosis: Juul E-Cigarette Exposure And 5ht2a Receptor Drug Discovery, Jean Emmanuel Montes Ramirez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

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