Cooking Hand Multi-Tool, Amanda D. Meares, Amy H. Wilson, Ethan G. Littlejohn, Duania A. Evans

Biomedical Engineering

The purpose of this project was to devise a solution for Jorge Segura, a US Marine who was wounded in Afghanistan and had to have his non-dominant arm amputated above the elbow. His current prosthetic attachments are not suited to cooking tasks, so he needed a way to cook more effectively with either prosthetic attachments or accessibility devices. The main tasks that he needed help with was holding down food on cutting boards and stabilizing pots, pans, and bowls especially when stirring. After background research, exploring commercially available devices, and talking with our challenger, our solution was to design three …

Cej Ankle Support Report, Christine Prothe, James Baldwin, Erik Espinoza

Biomedical Engineering

This document provides information about an ankle support device designed to allow for ankle dorsiflexion and plantar flexion. In this document the product’s specifications, objectives and expectations are outlined. Included in this document is background information, stage gate process, prototype design development and considerations, and qualification requirements.

House Calls Mobile Virtual Stethoscope, Abigail Lindquist, Abigael Donohue, Trey Nahhas

Biomedical Engineering

The purpose of this scope of work is to outline the progress of the Virtual Stethoscope design and development project as sponsored by House Calls Mobile. This device looks to provide accessible at-home care for patients all over the country through the mobile phone stethoscope attachment. With the virtual stethoscope technology, patients will be able to perform high-quality, in-home observation of heart, stomach, and lung sounds to be transmitted to a physician in real time. Eliminating the need to travel to a doctor’s office encourages patients to perform more regular checkups, increasing their likelihood potentially of life-saving early diagnoses. This …

Sand Foot: A Prosthesis For Walking On Sand, Samantha A. Galicinao, John Dewing, Daniel Dugan Dotson, Christopher Urasaki

Biomedical Engineering

This critical design report describes the product development of a prosthesis for use on sand. Quality of Life Plus (QL+), a national non-profit organization aimed to develop prostheses for veterans and people with disabilities, introduced this project and its accompanying challenger, Sgt. Brady, to Cal Poly’s Interdisciplinary Senior Project class in September 2018. After consulting with Sgt. Brady and QL+ and performing extensive research, the Sand Foot team defined customer requirements and engineering specifications to meet these requirements. Comfortability, durability, and sandproof were key customer requirements. Several conceptual models were brainstormed and a final design was selected based on the …

A 3-Dimensional In Silico Test Bed For Radiofrequency Ablation Catheter Design Evaluation And Optimization, Carolyn Teng

Master's Theses

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the disordered activation of the atrial myocardium, which is a major cause of stroke. Currently, the most effective, minimally traumatic treatment for AF is percutaneous catheter ablation to isolate arrhythmogenic areas from the rest of the atrium. The standard in vitro evaluation of ablation catheters through lesion studies is a resource intensive effort due to tissue variability and visual measurement methods, necessitating large sample sizes and multiple prototype builds. A computational test bed for ablation catheter evaluation was built in SolidWorks® using the morphology and dimensions of the left atrium adjacent structures. From this geometry, the …

Transmission Probability Of Embolic Debris Through The Aortic Arch And Daughter Vessels During A Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement Procedure, Jessica Lena Wirth

Master's Theses

Cerebral ischemia leading to an ischemic stroke is a possible complication of a transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) procedure. This is because embolic debris can become dislodged and travel through the aortic arch, where they either continue to the descending aorta and join the systemic circulation or travel into the cerebral vasculature through the three daughter vessels that branch off the top of the aortic arch. These three vessels are the brachiocephalic artery, the left subclavian artery, and the left common carotid artery. These three vessels lead either directly or indirectly to the cerebral vasculature, where the diameter of vessels …

Developing An Optomechanical Approach For Characterizing Mechanical Properties Of Single Adherent Cells, Ali Mehrnezhad

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Mechanical properties of a cell reflect its biological and pathological conditions including cellular disorders and fundamental cellular processes such as cell division and differentiation. There have been active research efforts to develop high-throughput platforms to mechanically characterize single cells. Yet, many of these research efforts are focused on suspended cells and use a flow-through configuration. Therefore, adherent cells are detached prior to the characterization, which seriously perturbs the cellular conditions. Also, methods for adherent cells are limited in their throughput.

My study is aimed to fill the technical gap in the field of single cell analysis, which is a high-throughput …

Development Of A Sonically Powered Biodegradable Nanogenerator For Bone Regeneration, Avi S. Patel

University Scholar Projects

Background: Reconstruction of bone fractures and defects remains a big challenge in orthopedic surgery. While regenerative engineering has advanced the field greatly using a combination of biomaterial scaffolds and stem cells, one matter of difficulty is inducing osteogenesis in these cells. Recent works have shown electricity’s ability to promote osteogenesis in stem cell lines when seeded in bone scaffolds; however, typical electrical stimulators are either (a) externally housed and require overcomplex percutaneous wires be connected to the implanted scaffold or (b) implanted non-degradable devices which contain toxic batteries and require invasive removal surgeries.

Objective: Here, we establish a biodegradable, piezoelectric …

Vector Flow Imaging In Pediatric Cardiology - Extracting And Validating Data, Mason Belue

Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

In the field of bedside cardiac diagnostic imaging, Doppler Ultrasound (DU) is the gold standard for diagnosing heart conditions. The largest benefit of DU is its ability to noninvasively image cardiac flow and allow the estimation of blood velocity and quantification of anatomical disease. However, to get correct velocity estimation, the position of the transducer in relation to the flow field needs to be known. This is the problem of angle/direction dependency and limits DUs accuracy when imaging in areas where perfect alignment or exact position of the transducer in relation to flow field is not possible or known, such …

Seeing Eye To Eye: A Machine Learning Approach To Automated Saccade Analysis, Maigh Attre

Honors Scholar Theses

Abnormal ocular motility is a common manifestation of many underlying pathologies particularly those that are neurological. Dynamics of saccades, when the eye rapidly changes its point of fixation, have been characterized for many neurological disorders including concussions, traumatic brain injuries (TBI), and Parkinson’s disease. However, widespread saccade analysis for diagnostic and research purposes requires the recognition of certain eye movement parameters. Key information such as velocity and duration must be determined from data based on a wide set of patients’ characteristics that may range in eye shapes and iris, hair and skin pigmentation [36]. Previous work on saccade analysis has …

A Bioinstrumentation Active Learning Educational Module: The Design Of A Working Temperature Sensor Using A Ntc Thermistor, Baylor Bush

Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Arkansas has continued to develop over the years, with more students enrolling in the program each year. Within the first biomedical engineering course, Introduction to Biomedical Engineering, various topics are introduced to students, and the topic of bioinstrumentation has been one of the most complex and difficult topics for students to comprehend through just a few lectures. In order to aid students in grasping these intricate concepts, an active learning module was developed in which students can work in groups to build a simple thermistor circuit as a temperature sensor. The …

Effects Of Ambient And Laser Light On Water Evaporation From The Surface Of Polyurethane Swabs Doped With Surfactant, Collin Campbell

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Polyurethane swabs are a common instrument for environmental sampling in the food, medical, and forensic fields due to their high recovery of organisms like viruses, spores, and bacteria. For sampling microbes in food and medical facilities, storage of the collected samples occurs under the absence of light to promote growth for more accurate testing. In the forensic fields, microbial growth results in sample contamination so the inhibition of this growth requires the drying of the swabs. This work studies the evaporation rates of water from polyurethane swabs under zero watt incident light, 30 W fluorescent bulb, 50 mW 532 nm …

Using Peripheral Venous Pressure Waveforms To Predict Key Hemodynamic Parameters, Ali Zohair A Alalawi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Analysis of peripheral venous pressure (PVP) waveforms is a novel method of monitoring intravascular volume. Two cohorts were used to study the hemodynamics change of the body state and its influence on the PVP using (1) dehydration setting with infants suffering from pyloric stenosis and (2) hemorrhage setting during a craniosynostosis elective surgery. The goal of this research is to develop a minimally invasive method of analyzing the PVP waveforms and find correlations with volume loss.

Twenty-three pyloric stenosis patients PVP were acquired at five stages and were divided into euvolemic, normal fluid volume, and hypovolemic, significant fluid loss. Seven …

Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy To Quantify In Vivo Tissue Optical Properties: Applications In Human Epithelium And Subcutaneous Murine Colon Cancer, Gage Joseph Greening

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Colorectal cancer is the 4th most common and 2nd deadliest cancer. Problems exist with predicting which patients will respond best to certain therapy regimens. Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy has been suggested as a candidate to optically monitor a patient’s early response to therapy and has been received favorably in experimentally managing other cancers such as breast and skin. In this dissertation, two diffuse reflectance spectroscopy probes were designed: one with a combined high-resolution microendoscopy modality, and one that was optimized for acquiring data from subcutaneous murine tumors. For both probes, percent errors for estimating tissue optical properties (reduced scattering coefficient and …

The Affective Perceptual Model: Enhancing Communication Quality For Persons With Pimd, Jadin Tredup

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Methods for prolonged compassionate care for persons with Profound Intellectual and Multiple Disabilities (PIMD) require a rotating cast of import people in the subjects life in order to facilitate interaction with the external environment. As subjects continue to age, dependency on these people increases with complexity of communications while the quality of communication decreases. It is theorized that a machine learning (ML) system could replicate the attuning process and replace these people to promote independence. This thesis extends this idea to develop a conceptual and formal model and system prototype.

The main contributions of this thesis are: (1) proposal of …

The Effects Of Bone Morphogenic Protein 2 On The Viability And Proliferation Of Dental Pulp Stem Cell Isolates, Joseph Cinelli

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Growth factor is an umbrella term used to describe a signaling molecule present in organisms that serves the purpose of influencing a stimulatory or inhibitory response from the target cell it acts on. Growth factors are categorized and classified by the types of tissues they act on and the cellular responses they illicit. For example, there are growth factors that act primarily in connective tissue on fibroblasts and they are aptly classified as the fibroblast growth factor family. Similarly, there is another family of growth factors that act on bone forming cells, among others, and they are known as bone …

On-Demand Label Production, Robert A. Zimmerman

Master's Theses

The production and approval process for the various labels used in clinical trials wastes significant time and resources through the need to outsource label production or rely on large reams of pre-cut label stock for each revision throughout the process. An in-house, on-demand label printing and cutting system is a potential remedy to this waste. Previous work by Cheadle et al. resulted in a functional electomechanical prototype of the label cutting aspect of this research, capable of rudimentary linear cuts. In this continued research, emphasis was placed on improved label cutting capabilities and creating PC control software for label design. …

Brain Image Clustering By Wavelet Energy And Cbsso Optimization Algorithm, Hasan Hosseinzadeh, Mohammad Sedaghat

Journal of Mind and Medical Sciences

Previously, the diagnosis of brain abnormality was significantly important in the saving of social and hospital resources. Wavelet energy is known as an effective feature detection which has great efficiency in different utilities. This paper suggests a new method based on wavelet energy to automatically classify magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain images into two groups (normal and abnormal), utilizing support vector machine (SVM) classification based on chaotic binary shark smell optimization (CBSSO) to optimize the SVM weights.

The results of the suggested CBSSO-based KSVM are compared favorably to several other methods in terms of better sensitivity and authenticity. The proposed …

The Modeling, Design, Fabrication, And Application Of Biosensor Based On Electric Cell-Substrate Impedance Sensing (Ecis) Technique In Environmental Monitoring, Xudong Zhang, William Wang, Sunghoon Jang

Publications and Research

In this research, the modeling, design, fabrication, and application of ECIS sensors in environmental monitoringare studied. The ECIS sensors are able to qualify the water toxicity through measuring the cell impedance. A novel mathematical model is proposed to analyze the distribution of electric potential and current of ECIS. This mathematical model is validated by experimental data and can be used to optimize the dimension of ECIS electrodes in order to satisfy environmental monitors. The detection sensitivity of ECIS sensors is analyzed by the mathematical model and experimental data. The simulated and experimental results show that ECIS sensors with smaller radius …

An Arm And A Leg: Medtech Perspectives On Human-Centered Design, Evan D. Poff

Marriott Student Review

The art of human-centered design accounts for both technological and emotional specifications in order to deliver meaningful products that meet the specific needs of the individual customer. Every business professional can deepen his or her understanding of human-centered design – regardless of our industry of choice – by looking to perspectives that the business of medical technology offers. To that end, this article draws upon interviews with three figures in this remarkable field, distilling their insights on how to cultivate businesses that produce human-centered solutions.

Suture-Less Trocar Site Closure Clip, Hares A. Patel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: Following laparoscopic surgery, there is a need, in many cases, to close trocar sites to prevent hernias. Currently, devices that exist on the market are suture based, but the lack of standardization in the suturing techniques together with the time-consuming nature of the procedure leads to the need for improvement in trocar site closure products. Trocar closure sites do not need to be fully closed on the fascial layer; rather, sufficiently blocking the hole at the abdominal wall can significantly reduce post-operative herniation. A retrospective study on trocar site herniation (TSH) after laparoscopic surgery indicates a TSH incidence …

Developing And Testing Of An Upper Limb Exoskeleton For Stroke Patients, Drew Dudley, David Salazar

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Objective: The main objective of this study was to determine functional and neuromuscular outcomes of stroke patients using their non-preferred hand with and without a 3D printed passive exoskeleton compared to controls using their non-preferred hand with and without the passive exoskeleton. Methods: Adults at least six months post stroke (Stroke, n = 5) and age- and sex- matched healthy controls (Control, n = 5) performed nine trials of a gross motor task while having their brain activity measured. The Fugl-Meyer and “Box and Block” test was used to measure the gross dexterity of the subjects with and without the …

Effects Of A Passive Dynamic Lower-Leg Exoskeleton During Walking, Blake Beier

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

The ankle joint is one of the most important joints during walking. If the muscles surrounding the ankle are weak, there are reductions in the ability to generate appropriate torques and powers at the ankle. This leads to slower self-selected walking speeds, which correlate with poor physical functioning, more disabilities, increased hospitalization visits and costs, and even mortality. Because of this, many orthotic and exoskeletal devices have been created to restore proper ankle function by promoting ankle plantar flexion. Utilizing 3D printing and an extension spring, we created an easily accessible, reproducible, and modifiable exoskeleton that has the potential to …

The Time Of Slip Onset During Stance Influences The Characteristics Of The Unconstrained Perturbation, Corbin Rasmussen, Nathaniel Hunt

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Falls pose a significant health hazard, resulting in devastating injuries like broken wrists, fractured hips, and traumatic brain injuries that exceed $50 billion in U.S. medical costs. To address these risks, biomechanists have subjected individuals to simulated slips in order to study the factors that lead to falls. These studies have focused on slips that happen immediately after heel-strike and are unnaturally restricted by the methods used to cause the slip. Therefore, the effects of unconstrained slips that occur throughout stance phase are unknown. To address this knowledge gap, we examined the relationship between the timing of slip onset and …

Humeral Guide For Intraosseous Vascular Access, Alexa Lewis, Colin Minor, Josephine Kalshoven, Ellie Ng, Gabriela Lowry, Alana Tucker

ENGS 89/90 Reports

Intraosseous (IO) infusion is a procedure performed in emergency situations, in order to rapidly infuse fluid or medications into a patient’s vascular system via bone marrow in the humerus or tibia. Unfortunately, the current method for identifying the humeral insertion site (palpation) can be impossible in heavily muscled or obese patients, which may result in needle misplacement, the leading cause of complications. To overcome these difficulties, this project, sponsored by IOMETRY, Inc., focused on the development of an insertion site guide, which is compatible with current IO access equipment and allows rapid and accurate identification of the humeral insertion site.

Rethinking Solutions For Male Incontinence, Martin S. Gross, Jayanth V. Batchu, Douglas R. Beahm, Rebecca J. Conway, Aamuktha Porika, Noura Srour

ENGS 89/90 Reports

Following a radical prostatectomy, the main surgical treatment for prostate cancer, a majority of men will experience some level of urinary incontinence. When severe, this incontinence creates social isolation, leads to risk of infection from dried urine, and prevents men from participating in activities they love. The most common treatment in the US is a surgically placed AMS 800, produced by Boston Scientific. The AMS 800 surgery is highly invasive with a lengthy recovery time. Also, the device requires manual activation using a pump in the scrotum and erodes the urethra over time by constant compression.

Our group’s design is …

Heat Stress Identification, Nathanial Nyberg, Christina Santini, Zachary Miller

Biomedical Engineering

This document contains all information pertinent to the creation of the desired product and how the desired product fulfills the problem statement. This document clearly defines the customer requirements and how they relate to engineering specifications, metrics that will define the boundaries that the desired product must lie within. This document will then reveal all concepts that were considered during the design phase of this project and how those concepts were compared. This includes all quantitative parameters that provided a clear front-runner concept and the rationale for those parameters and the values and weight assigned to them.

Then this document …

Esophageal Mapping And Temperature Regulation For Catheter Ablation, Madison J. Keith, Morgan A. Jawitz, Sarah L. Sanders

Biomedical Engineering

The purpose of this document is to provide a development summary for a proposed esophageal temperature mapping device used during catheter ablation. Catheter ablation therapy is performed in the left atria with hot or cold materials to create scar tissue to treat atrial fibrillation. However, utilized temperatures and absorbed energies from the catheter can cause undesired esophageal damage. Therefore, this medical device is designed to monitor esophageal temperature and map its location during catheter ablation. If dangerous temperatures are reached, the device will alarm the surgeon.

This document provides an in-depth overview of the esophageal temperaturemapping device’s development and contains …

Fluid Delivery System For A Cell Culture On A Microfluidic Chip, Austin J. Roeder, Colleen A. Richards, Emily A. Matteson

Biomedical Engineering

This project report provides a description of the progress made in the development of a fluid delivery system for a microfluidic cell culture on a chip. The system is intended to be used in a humidified incubator in a university laboratory and the fluid delivery system is required to exist and operate within that incubator for extended periods of time. Therefore, the system will be gravity-driven and contain no electronic components. The key specification of the system is to provide fluid flow at a constant velocity.

After manufacturing and testing the device, all specifications were met except for the fluid …

Pressure Cylinder Controlled Release Valve, Alexa Dominique Balbuena

Biomedical Engineering

This project aims to integrate an automatic gas release system in a pre-existing scaffold fabrication process for tissue engineering applications.

To form the proper scaffold structure, the fabrication process is heavily influenced by the change in its surrounding pressure. The current production involves a pressure transducer and electric valve that is managed manually to create a suitable pressure environment for the scaffold. This method, although functional, proves to be ineffective when creating several batches; the user needs to constantly monitor the developing pressure profile and alter voltage parameters accordingly to create a linear gas release under a predetermined slope.

To …