Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons^™

Exploiting The Concept Of Hysteresis In Ankle Dysfunction And Ankle Strengthening, Akshay Narendra Pujara

Theses

The ankle joint is an important part of the body which is responsible for normal gait cycle. Dorsiflexion, plantar flexion, inversion and eversion are four types of movements controlled by the ankle joint. All these movements are controlled by the ligaments and the muscles associated with the ankle. Disorders of these ligaments and muscles leads to ankle dysfunction.

The hysteresis concept was employed to determine if there is any ankle dysfunction. A recently developed device, the Ankle Torsion Monitor (AnTm) was employed to evaluate the viscoelasticity and stiffness of the ankle joint. The greater the hysteresis loop area (HLA) the …

Automation Of Anatomic Torsion Monitor For Evaluation And Improvement Of Low Back Dysfunction, Vishal Kumar Singh

Theses

The existing Anatomical Torsion Monitor (ATM) to evaluate mechanical stiffness and viscoelasticity of the low back suffers from various inherent defects. This has to be replaced by an improved device. Also the existing ATM cannot provide oscillations to the low back.

The main objective is to automate the existing ATM for evaluating the low back immediately using objective methods. The specific objective is to provide oscillations for improving the low back dysfunction.

The laser platform and the target chart for recording the readings are dispensed with the existing ATM. Instead, the ultrasound transducers are attached to the pads to record …

Axon Guided Axon Growth In Drg Neurons From The Spinal Cord Of Rat Embryos, Neha Jain

Theses

Early studies in the area of neuronal physiology and injury have shown that axons are guided by a number of physical as well as chemical cues. Although the guidance effect of initial axons and their processes on later axons has been shown from a development point of view, little light has been thrown on the subject from the injury point of view. This important ability of axons which plays a key role during development and formation of neuronal networks could become crucial in repairing damaged nerves and disrupted neuronal tracts.

In the following study, the guidance effect of an older …

Comparison Between Different Techniques Of Preprocessing For Resting State Fmri Analysis, Megha Girdhar

Theses

Resting state functional connectivity as the name suggests is defined as significant temporal correlation between spatially distinct regions of the brain during rest. In this thesis, fMRI resting state dataset was analyzed using different available processing techniques with the same fMRI data to study differences between the various methods. All the imaging data from each of the subjects was processed in an identical fashion. The same method was used for detecting connectivity. The number of independent components in the data was used as the base to differentiate the effect of each of these methods. Independent component analysis was performed on …

Stiffness Of Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells From Aged Primates Measured Using Reconstituted Tissue Model, Shilpa Nagendra

Theses

Increased stiffness of the aorta is an important detrimental change that occurs with aging. Most previous research has implicated stiffening of the extracellular collagen matrix with age. The study reported in this thesis focused instead on the potential contribution from stiffening of the vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) with age.

VSMCs previously obtained from young and old monkeys (macaca fascicularis) were seeded into a collagen gel to form a reconstituted tissue. The aim of this study was to quantitatively characterize the mechanical properties of this reconstituted tissue model via uniaxially stretching each ring to defined levels of strain. The total …

A Comparative Analysis Of Haptic And Eeg Devices For Evaluation And Training Of Post-Stroke Patients Within A Virtual Environment, Gregory Nicholas Ranky

Theses

Virtual Rehabilitation benefits from the usage of interfaces other than the mouse and keyboard, but also possess disadvantages: haptic peripherals can utilize the subject's hand to provide position information or joint angles, and allow direct training for specific movements; but can also place unneeded strain on the limbs; brain-machine interfaces (BMI) can provide direct connections from the user to external hardware or software, but are currently inaccurate for the full diversity of user movements in daily life and require invasive surgery to implement. A compromise between these two extremes is a BMI that can be adapted to specific users, can …

Development Of A Device For Whole Body Stimulation Of The Otoliths, Jon Edward Weimer

Theses

Over the past few decades, research has been conducted to explore the effects of microgravity on human musculature, As seen in astronauts upon their return to Earth after prolonged spaceflight, extensive muscle atrophy due to adaptation to conditions of microgravity many times decreases a person's ability to walk or even stand, With an understanding of the anatomical mechanisms that provide postural control, the proper stimulation, resulting in a reduction in spasticity, could be provided by simulating these conditions of microgravity.

In order to simulate microgravity, a device has been developed that is capable of providing whole body stimulation of the …

The Influence Of Hydrogen Peroxide On The Static And Fatigue Properties Of Palacos-R Bone Cement, John M. Guerin

Theses

Aseptic loosening is a very costly complication of joint arthroplasty, both in terms of patient quality of life and financially. One potential contributing factor in its development - namely the use of hydrogen peroxide as an effervescent haemostatic agent - was investigated in this study. Clean bone cement samples and samples contaminated with 6% hydrogen peroxide were manufactured and stored either in room air or normal saline prior to testing. Thus four sample types were tested (clean stored wet or dry and contaminated stored wet or dry). Static (tension to failure) and fatigue testing was performed. Analysis was carried out …

Composition-Structure-Property Relationships In Multicomponent Bioactive Glasses, Sharon Murphy

Theses

Silicate glasses function effectively as bone grafts by stimulating bone regeneration through gene activation. However these materials offer little therapeutic potential for the regeneration of healthy bone in those suffering from metabolic bone diseases such as osteoporosis. Examining the composition-structure-property relationships arising from the incorporation of therapeutic ions such as strontium (Sr) and zinc (Zn) into such glasses in order to allow for healthy bone regeneration and antibacterial efficacy, as well as sodium (Na) to allow for controlled ion release was the objective of this work. Eight calcium-strontium-sodium-zinc-silicate glass compositions were produced, based on incremental additions of Sr and Na. …

Development Of A Toolbox For The Kinematic Evaluation Of Hands-Up Video Games, Brooke Marie Odle

Theses

Children with cerebral palsy (CP) often have limited upper extremity (UE) control, Virtual reality (VR) is a current technology being evaluated as a form of UE therapy for children with CP, The systems currently available have been developed with games that cannot be graded to match the skill level of children with severely impaired UE control. A novel video game platform, "Hands-Up", has been developed at New Jersey Institute of Technology. The platform features software that allows for the customization of games and encourages users to make purposeful UE movements. To quantify changes and improvement in movement due to increased …

An In Vitro Study To Characterize A New Automated High Throughput Neuronal Stretch Injury System, Nicolae Valerian Hususan

Theses

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the most prevalent long-term neurological conditions and its overall economic consequences rival that of stroke. Considering the importance of the topic, new models for studying TBI are often designed and created. Based on a model developed by the University of Pennsylvania, NJIT constructed a fully automated version, which injures neuronal cell cultures in uniaxial regime and provides the high experimental yield required in pharmaceutical and neuroscience studies.

In this investigation, a new methodology for culturing primary cortical neurons of rat origin was established. Viable cell cultures developed for the first time in NJIT …

In Vitro Comparison Of A New Stand-Alone Anterior Lumbar Interbody Cage Device With Established Fixation Techniques, Nitin Chawla

Theses

Around 70% of the population in the United States experience low back pain at some point of their lives, of these 4% underwent surgical intervention on the lumbar spine to relieve the pain. Spinal arthrodesis, i.e. joint fusion, is beneficial in many cases as the final option for patients suffering from certain types of low back pain (LBP). In order to promote solid fusion across a decompressed spinal segment, interbody spacers/cages are used with and without posterior instrumentation to provide an initial "rigid" fixation of the segment.

In this study three fresh/frozen human cadaveric lumbar spines were used. Each lumbar …

Reliability Of Resting Brain Networks Using Fmri, Suril Rajeshkumar Gohel

Theses

Resting state FMRI studies on human subjects are primarily focused on elaborating effects of resting state brain networks on task induced paradigm and to check consistency of these networks between different groups of populations. Recent studies have shown consistency of RSFC networks within same subjects with intra-site and intra-session variation.

The primary objective of this study was to check consistency of resting state networks between sites and between different groups of people in spite of change in scanning parameters and population. A total of 437 subjects resting state FMRI data from six different sites were collected varying in age group …

Development Of An Experimental System To Determine The Contribution Of Titin And Collagen To Passive Stiffness Of Myocardium, Saurin Bharat Shah

Theses

Diastolic dysfunction is known to be a major factor for congestive heart failure in aged humans and other mammals. The main contributors to increase in the myocardial stiffness, hindering the cardiac mechanics, are alterations in intracellular titin and extracellular collagen matrix. Titin is a giant extensible protein, the third filament of striated muscle after actin and myosin, which provides elasticity to passive sarcomeres. The aim of this study is to develop an efficient experimental system that will prove to be instrumental in comparing the contribution of titin against collagen to the passive stiffness of cardiac muscle extracted from experimental animals …

Dual Parametric Sensors For Highly Sensitive Nucleic Acid Detection, Manu Sebastian Mannoor

Theses

The primary focus of this research work was on the design and development of a molecular scale (nano-scale) capacitive sensing mechanism for the highly sensitive and label-free detection of Nucleic Acid hybridization. These novel capacitive sensors with nano-scale electrode spacing offer solutions to many problems suffered by the conventional signal transduction mechanisms, thereby immensely improving the sensitivity of the biomolecular detection processes. Reducing the separation between the capacitive electrodes to the same scale as the Debye length of the sample solution, results in the overlapping of the electrical double layers of the two electrodes, thereby confining them to occupy a …

Evaluation Of Medical Alarm Sounds, Elizbha Philip

Theses

Auditory alarms in medical equipments perform considerably below their optimal level. Concern has been expressed about the quality of medical alarms by a large number of researchers in recent years. A detailed literature survey on the medical alarm related problems has been carried out. Hospital visits were made to obtain real life information and data of alarm sounds in various type of monitors used in OR and ICU. A laboratory experiment has been conducted on selected melodic alarm sounds. These melodic alarm sounds are being implemented in medical equipments and the idea of design is proposed in ISO / IEC …

Aptamer-Based Nano-Scale Dielectric Sensor For Protein Detection, Teena James

Theses

The specific detection and precise quantification of protein molecules play an essential role in basic discovery research as well as in clinical practice. In this research work, a novel protein detection mechanism based on nanoscale dielectric sensor functionalized with aptamer probes is developed. This work has been done in collaboration with Rational Affinity Devices LLC. The use of aptamer based detection offers several advantages over the traditional labor intensive antibody based immunosensing. In the initial phase of the work, the binding affinities of rationally designed oligomers towards a specific protein molecule (IgG) was studied and optimized under varying conditions of …

Deciphering The Biology Of Axon Stretch-Growth, Joseph R. Loverde

Theses

Traditional nerve regeneration strategies focus on growth cone-mediated growth, a form of nerve growth that occurs primarily during embryogenesis. Early axons continue to grow from the end distal to the soma, seeking targets on which to synapse. It is believed that once the axons synapse, stretch-growth takes over and is responsible for the great lengths achieved by nerves of the central and peripheral nervous systems. Recent work has demonstrated stretch-growth in vitro resulting in dramatically increased growth rates compared to the growth cone. Here, the aim was to decipher the underlying biology associated with axon stretch-growth using two approaches. First, …

Study And Development Of Ultrasound Monitoring Of Skeletal Defects, Kavil Patel

Theses

Fatigue fractures are fine disruptions of normal bone architecture whose identification is often unreliable or difficult using x-rays (Robinson, Wilson et al.; Kundel 2004; Swischuk and Hernandez 2004). A fatigue fracture results from the application of abnormal loads to a bone with normal elastic resistance and is associated with new or different activity, and strenuous or repeated activity. The feasibility of using ultrasound to detect and monitor fatigue fractures and other structural damage in bone was established in this study.

The use of Low Transient Pulse (LTP) technology to drive the ultrasound transducers proved to enhance detection resolution and quality …

Finger Walking Control Of A Two-Dimensional Walking Model Through Inverse Kinematics, Jordan Ratcliff

Theses

Those people who have spinal cord injuries (SCI) must remain in wheelchairs due to disruption of the neural signaling to their muscles. Functional electrical stimulation (FES) has proved itself to be an option for restoring some motion and some walking for the patient. Electrodes can either be placed on the skin or muscle to provide an electrical impulse that stimulates the muscles into contraction. Current systems provide buttons that use set functions for left and right steps with constant direction and size. It is desired however that the user be allowed a more natural and variable control method of controlling …

Assessing Trainer Hand Forces For Manual Body Weight Supported Walking, Manish Raval

Theses

Spinal cord injuries occur in approximately 12,000 to 15,000 people per year in the U.S. About 10,000 of these people are permanently paralyzed. Most spinal cord traumas occur in young, healthy individuals. Males between 15 and 35 years old are most commonly affected.

Recently new approaches to facilitate walking recovery for individuals after a spinal cord injury, have been directed towards a therapy known as Locomotor Training (LT) that implements repetitive stepping on a treadmill using body weight support. A major intent of LT research is to investigate the effect of an extended period of LT on bilateral muscle activation …

Design And Fabrication Of A Microneedle For The Implantation Of Floating Microstimulators, Faysal Ahmed

Theses

Neural prosthetics are used to stimulate any remaining functional nervous tissue in order to restore function in visual, auditory, or other physiological components associated with the nervous system. Microelectrodes have been used in stimulating and detecting electrical activity in neurons. When stimulating or recording neural tissue activity using microelectrodes, there are usually many problems and difficulties in obtaining the correct functionality and results. There is great difficulty in placing these microelectrodes in a specific location in the central nervous system due to various problems with the methodology used. Many different techniques such as the traditional interconnected microelectrodes have been an …

Classification Of Hand Held Shapes And Locations In Continuous Signing, Swetha Karri

Theses

Sign language for the deaf and hearing impaired replaces speech with manually produced signs. Each sign has been categorized as being combinations of handshape, movement, orientation, location, and facial expressions. Of the five sign parameters, this thesis focuses on classification of two of the main parameters, the hand shapes and locations, in continuous signing.

Since the nature of hand shapes is transient and not static, neural networks was used as a classifier for hand shapes. And since locations in sign language are defined by linguistic variables rather than by hard core position values, fuzzy logic was used as a classifier …

Photoplethysmorgraph-Derived Respiration, Priyanka Pankaj Shah

Theses

Stress & Motivated Behavioral Institute (SMBI) has developed a research program to provide an objective evaluation of the physiological and neurocognitive impact of human electromuscular muscular interference (HEMI) devices in humans. The initial step is to understand their physiological impact, which is characterized by vital signs. Volunteers are recruited from HEMI training programs with the provision that data collection can not interfere with training. Thus, an ambulatory system was assembled. There are two main issues in the current ambulatory system, one of which is the reliability of the respiration signal obtained using a strain gauge respiration band, mainly due to …

Biomechanical Testing Of Upright Range Of Motion Versus Overhead Supine Range Of Motion, Linda Uko

Theses

Rehabilitation of an elbow, following injury, is not a well-studied subject. Clinically, there is not a general consensus on which recovery method is optimal for healing an unstable elbow. When dealing with medial collateral ligament deficiency, many authors have proposed several forearm positions that will yield proper healing of the unstable elbow. Some researchers believe that active mobilization of the elbow with the arm in a vertical position is a safe protocol for rehabilitation with the forearm oriented in a supine pronated position. It was also mentioned that the compressive forces due to the active mobilization of the arm will …

Altered Brain Activity In Autistic Children Versus Healthy Controls While Performing Simple Tasks Using Fmri, Donald Martin Adams Jr.

Theses

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies dealing with Autistic children have primarily been concerned with cognitive facial recognition. Recent studies have demonstrated that Autistic children, when compared to healthy matched controls, exhibit higher neuronal activity when identifying patterns or objects, but lower levels of activity in regards to facial recognition.

The objective of this study was to examine both facial and object recognition and compare them to simple sensorimotor tasks. All subjects were administered 5 stimuli each lasting 320 seconds. Subjects were instructed to use a button press box to identify between a Person/Object and an Arrow/Object. They were then …

Thermal And Morphological Analysis Of Collagen-Plla Electrospun Blends, Angana Banerjee

Theses

Electrospinning of bovine Type I collagen and Poly (L-lactic acid) produces blended nanofiber scaffolds that may have application in tissue engineering, wound dressing and drug delivery.

The goal of this research work was to produce and characterize blended nanofibers of a protein, collagen, and a synthetic polymer, poly (L-lactic acid). This study focuses on the in-depth analysis of the appearance of the structural relaxation occurring at the glass transition temperature of PLLA in the collagen-PLLA blended electrospun mats. It is speculated that occurrence of this thermal event is more prominent in PLLA with high molecular weight due to the presence …

Automated Multi-Well Neural Injury Device, Linda Y. Chen

Theses

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is a wide spread pathological problem occurring in 1.4 million individuals every year according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. There are several types of TBI and the most prominent ones are concussion, contusion, hematoma, coup-contrecoup injury and diffuse axonal injury (DAI). The most severe type and the one that is the hardest to diagnose is DAI. DAI occurs mostly due to accidents relating to automobile, motorcycles and in some cases fall and assault, resulting in a "shearing" phenomenon of the brain. Patients with DAI can range from being, mildly injured, severely disabled …

Synthesis Of Corn-Derived Carbohydrate Derivatives As Effective Multifunctional Sunscreen, Xianhong Feng

Theses

The eighty-years-old sunscreen industry is sustained by the growing incidence of skin cancer and the continual exploration of skin aging. From the UVB-induced erythema to the UVA-induced persistent pigment darkening, scientists have used versatile methods to reveal that not only does UVB damage skin but also that longer wavelengths such as UVAIL (290nm ~ 340nm) and UVAL rays (340nm ~ 400nm) trigger skin cancer, premature skin aging and immunosuppression.

To meet a significant demand for improved photoprotection, a broad-spectrum sunscreen with a high extinction coefficient has been desired. As part of our ongoing studies on isosorbide-cinnamate derivatives, this work have …

Surface Recordings Of Evoked Field Potentials From The Cerebellum With A Flexmea Microelectrode Array, Jonathan David Groth

Theses

The cerebellum is an integral part of multijoint control. There are two input pathways to the cerebellar cortex, the mossy fiber and the climbing fiber pathways. The mossy fiber pathway forms a disynaptic input to Purkinje cells through the granular cells. This disynaptic input produces a multicomponent field potential composed of the P1, N 1, N2, N3, N4, and P3 waves. The climbing fiber input forms a monosynaptic input to the Purkinje cells and thus creates a much simpler field potential.

The mossy and climbing fiber field potentials were recorded with a FlexMEA microelectrode array from the pial surface of …