Analytical, Diagnostic and Therapeutic Techniques and Equipment Commons^™

Bioactive Lipid Coating Of Bone Allografts Direct Engraftment And Fate Determination Of Bone Marrow-Derived Cells In Rat Gfp Chimeras, Anusuya Das, Claire E. Segar, Yihsuan Chu, Tiffany W. Wang, Yon Lin, Chunxi Yang, Roy C. Ogle

School of Medical Diagnostics & Translational Sciences Publications

Bone grafting procedures are performed to treat wounds incurred during wartime trauma, accidents, and tumor resections. Endogenous mechanisms of repair are often insufficient to ensure integration between host and donor bone and subsequent restoration of function. We investigated the role that bone marrow-derived cells play in bone regeneration and sought to increase their contributions by functionalizing bone allografts with bioactive lipid coatings. Polymer-coated allografts were used to locally deliver the immunomodulatory small molecule FTY720 in tibial defects created in rat bone marrow chimeras containing genetically-labeled bone marrow for monitoring cell origin and fate. Donor bone marrow contributed significantly to both …

Erosive Hand Osteoarthritis Is Associated With Subclinical Atherosclerosis And Endothelial Dysfunction, Athanasios Koutroumpas, Athanasios Giannoukas, Elias Zintzaras, Ekaterini Exarchou, Aris Baliakos, Konstantinos Makaritsis, Lazaros I. Sakkas

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Chronic inflammatory disorders have been associated with accelerated atherosclerosis and increased cardiovascular (CV) risk. Recent evidence suggests that erosive hand osteoarthritis (EOA) has considerable inflammation; therefore, we examined the presence of subclinical atherosclerosis and endothelial dysfunction in EOA. Twenty-four patients with EOA and 24 age- and sex-matched healthy individuals without clinical OA were included in the study. No subject had a history of CV disease. Intima-media thickness (IMT) and atheromatous plaques in the common carotid and common femoral arteries were measured by Doppler ultrasonography. The endothelium-dependent, flow-mediated dilatation (FMD) and endothelium-independent, sublingual glyceryl trinitrate (NTG)-induced dilatation (NMD) of the brachial …

Bioelectrics In Basic Science And Medicine: Impact Of Electric Fields On Cellular Structures And Functions, Stephen J. Beebe

Bioelectrics Publications

Bioelectrics is a new interdisciplinary field that investigates electric field effects on cell membranes and other cellular components. It incorporates four main technologies, including electroporation, nanosecond pulsed electric fields, picosecond pulsed electric fields and cold plasmas. The parent technology in Bioelectrics is electroporation, which uses milli- and/or micro-second electric pulses to permeabilize cells and tissues, for delivery of membrane impermeable molecules. It is now being used for electro-gene delivery, with vascular endothelial growth factor, for revascularization in wound healing and cardiovascular and peripheral vascular disease. Plasmids expressing IL-12 are being delivered for immune system activation in melanoma treatment, now in …

Facilitation Of Electroporative Drug Uptake And Cell Killing By Electrosensitization, Olga N. Pakhomova, Betsy W. Gregory, Andrei G. Pakhomov

Bioelectrics Publications

Cell permeabilization by electric pulses (EP), or electroporation, is widely used for intracellular delivery of drugs and plasmids, as well as for tumour and tissue ablation. We found that cells pre-treated with 100-mus EP develop delayed hypersensitivity to subsequent EP applications. Sensitizing B16 and CHO cells by splitting a single train of eight 100-mus EP into two trains of four EP each (with 5-min. interval) decreased the LD(50) 1.5-2 times. Sensitization profoundly enhanced the electroporation-assisted uptake of bleomycin, a cell-impermeable cytotoxic agent accepted for killing tumours by electrochemotherapy. EP exposures that were not lethal per se caused cell death in …

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).

Orientation-Invariant Ecg-Based Virtual Pathology Stethoscope Tracking For Standardized Patient Heart Auscultation, Nahom B. Kidane

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Cardiac auscultation (CA), the act of listening to the heart sounds, is a critical physician's skill that provides substantial information for diagnosing many cardiovascular disorders; therefore, competent training can be a key for accurate and reliable diagnosis. The teaching of CA has been an area of recognized importance since the inception of the stethoscope. However, recent changes in health-care, such as limited student access to patients and higher reliance on competing technologies have made it challenging to teach bedside CA techniques.

Over the past few decades, standardized patients (SPs), individuals trained to portray real patients, have been widely used for …

A Voice-Based Automated System For Ptsd Screening And Monitoring, Roger Xu, Gang Mei, Guangfan Zhang, Pan Gao, Timothy Judkins, Michael Cannizzaro, 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

Comprehensive evaluation of PTSD includes diagnostic interviews, self-report testing, and physiological reactivity measures. It is often difficult and costly to diagnose PTSD due to patient access and the variability in symptoms presented. Additionally, potential patients are often reluctant to seek help due to the stigma associated with the disorder. A voice-based automated system that is able to remotely screen individuals at high risk for PTSD and monitor their symptoms during treatment has the potential to make great strides in alleviating the barriers to cost effective PTSD assessment and progress monitoring. In this paper we present a voice-based automated Tele-PTSD Monitor …

Cyberknife Radiation Modeling: Effects Of Relaxed Translational And Rotational Constraints On Healthy Tissue Irradiation, Sudha Bhavaroop Potineni

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The Cyberknife system is a robotic radio surgery instrument that is used to treat cancers in different parts of the human body. Because of its accuracy and precision, it has become one of the best radio surgery systems in the world. However, even with Cyberknife the treatment time for one session takes from 30 minutes up to 120 minutes depending on the size, shape, and position of the tumor in the human body. In this research, a solution is presented to aid in reducing this long treatment time. An algorithm is developed which simulates the amount of the healthy tissue …

Comparative Study Of Long-And Short-Pulsed Electric Fields For Treating Melanoma In An In Vivo Mouse Model, Xinhua Chen, Xinmei Chen, Karl H. Schoenbach, Shusen Zheng, R. James Swanson

Bioelectrics Publications

A mouse melanoma model was set up with green fluorescent protein (GFP) expression in vivo. With the same energy, long- (1 ms) and short- (300 ns) pulsed electric fields were delivered to two melanomas injected into the same mouse. The tumor growth and green fluorescence were followed up to compare the different treatment efficacy of long and short pulses. After two days post treatment, short pulse-treated tumors showed a significantly lower tumor volume compared with long pulse-treated tumors (n=8, p

An Integrated Computer-Aided Robotic System For Dental Implantation, Xiaoyan Sun, Yongki Yoon, Jiang Li, Frederic D. Mckenzie

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper describes an integrated system for dental implantation including both preoperative planning utilizing computer-aided technology and automatic robot operation during the intra-operative stage. A novel two-step registration procedure was applied for transforming the preoperative plan to the operation of the robot, with the help of a Coordinate Measurement Machine (CMM). Experiments with a patient-specific phantom were carried out to evaluate the registration error for both position and orientation. After adopting several improvements, registration accuracy of the system was significantly improved. Sub-millimeter accuracy with the Target Registration Errors (TREs) of 0.38±0.16 mm (N=5) was achieved. The target orientation errors after …

Bcc Skin Cancer Diagnosis Based On Texture Analysis Techniques, Shao-Hui Chuang, Xiaoyan Sun, Wen-Yu Chang, Gwo-Shing Chen, Adam Huang, Jiang Li, Frederic D. Mckenzie

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

In this paper, we present a texture analysis based method for diagnosing the Basal Cell Carcinoma (BCC) skin cancer using optical images taken from the suspicious skin regions. We first extracted the Run Length Matrix and Haralick texture features from the images and used a feature selection algorithm to identify the most effective feature set for the diagnosis. We then utilized a Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) classifier to classify the images to BCC or normal cases. Experiments showed that detecting BCC cancer based on optical images is feasible. The best sensitivity and specificity we achieved on our data set were 94% …

Prediction Of Brain Tumor Progression Using Multiple Histogram Matched Mri Scans, Debrup Banerjee, Loc Tran, Jiang Li, Yuzhong Shen, Frederic Mckenzie, Jihong Wang, Ronald M. Summers (Ed.), Bram Van Ginneken (Ed.)

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

In a recent study [1], we investigated the feasibility of predicting brain tumor progression based on multiple MRI series and we tested our methods on seven patients' MRI images scanned at three consecutive visits A, B and C. Experimental results showed that it is feasible to predict tumor progression from visit A to visit C using a model trained by the information from visit A to visit B. However, the trained model failed when we tried to predict tumor progression from visit B to visit C, though it is clinically more important. Upon a closer look at the MRI scans …

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 …

Adjacent Slice Prostate Cancer Prediction To Inform Maldi Imaging Biomarker Analysis, Shao-Hui Chuang, Xiaoyan Sun, Lisa Cazares, Julius Nyalwidhe, Dean Troyer, O. John Semmes, Jiang Li, Frederic D. Mckenzie, Nico Karssemeijer (Ed.), Ronald M. Summers (Ed.)

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Prostate cancer is the second most common type of cancer among men in US [1]. Traditionally, prostate cancer diagnosis is made by the analysis of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels and histopathological images of biopsy samples under microscopes. Proteomic biomarkers can improve upon these methods. MALDI molecular spectra imaging is used to visualize protein/peptide concentrations across biopsy samples to search for biomarker candidates. Unfortunately, traditional processing methods require histopathological examination on one slice of a biopsy sample while the adjacent slice is subjected to the tissue destroying desorption and ionization processes of MALDI. The highest confidence tumor regions gained from the …

Parameter Optimization For Image Denoising Based On Block Matching And 3d Collaborative Filtering, Ramu Pedada, Emin Kugu, Jiang Li, Zhanfeng Yue, Yuzhong Shen, Josien P.W. Pluim (Ed.), Benoit M. Dawant (Ed.)

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Clinical MRI images are generally corrupted by random noise during acquisition with blurred subtle structure features. Many denoising methods have been proposed to remove noise from corrupted images at the expense of distorted structure features. Therefore, there is always compromise between removing noise and preserving structure information for denoising methods. For a specific denoising method, it is crucial to tune it so that the best tradeoff can be obtained. In this paper, we define several cost functions to assess the quality of noise removal and that of structure information preserved in the denoised image. Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algorithm 2 (SPEA2) …

Automatic Diagnosis For Prostate Cancer Using Run-Length Matrix Method, Xiaoyan Sun, Shao-Hui Chuang, Jiang Li, Frederic Mckenzie, Nico Karssemeijer (Ed.), Maryellen L. Giger (Ed.)

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Prostate cancer is the most common type of cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death among men in US¹. Quantitative assessment of prostate histology provides potential automatic classification of prostate lesions and prediction of response to therapy. Traditionally, prostate cancer diagnosis is made by the analysis of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels and histopathological images of biopsy samples under microscopes. In this application, we utilize a texture analysis method based on the run-length matrix for identifying tissue abnormalities in prostate histology. A tissue sample was collected from a radical prostatectomy, H&E fixed, and assessed by a pathologist …

Medical Image Modeling And Processing, Ramu Pedada

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

During the last few decades of the twentieth century, medical imaging has been playing a prominent role in many fields of biomedical research and clinical practice. Image modalities such as x-rays, computed tomography (CT), and magnetic resonance images (MRI) have all been valuable additions to the radiologist's arsenal of imaging tools. Medical images assure quality diagnosis and patient safety by gathering valuable information without invading the human body. Apart from clinical diagnosis, medical images are used as tools for education where they are used for training individuals before operating on a patient. Many medical educators tum to simulation based training …

Using Pareto Fronts To Evaluate Polyp Detection Algorithms For Ct Colonography, Adam Huang, Jiang Li, Ronald M. Summers, Nicholas Petrick, Amy K. Hara

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

We evaluate and improve an existing curvature-based region growing algorithm for colonic polyp detection for our CT colonography (CTC) computer-aided detection (CAD) system by using Pareto fronts. The performance of a polyp detection algorithm involves two conflicting objectives, minimizing both false negative (FN) and false positive (FP) detection rates. This problem does not produce a single optimal solution but a set of solutions known as a Pareto front. Any solution in a Pareto front can only outperform other solutions in one of the two competing objectives. Using evolutionary algorithms to find the Pareto fronts for multi-objective optimization problems has been …

Validating Pareto Optimal Operation Parameters Of Polyp Detection Algorithms For Ct Colonography, Jiang Li, Adam Huang, Nicholas Petrick, Jianhua Yao, Ronald M. Summers, Maryellen L. Giger (Ed.), Nico Karssemeijer (Ed.)

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

We evaluated a Pareto front-based multi-objective evolutionary algorithm for optimizing our CT colonography (CTC) computer-aided detection (CAD) system. The system identifies colonic polyps based on curvature and volumetric based features, where a set of thresholds for these features was optimized by the evolutionary algorithm. We utilized a two-fold cross-validation (CV) method to test if the optimized thresholds can be generalized to new data sets. We performed the CV method on 133 patients; each patient had a prone and a supine scan. There were 103 colonoscopically confirmed polyps resulting in 188 positive detections in CTC reading from either the prone or …

Wavelet Analysis In Virtual Colonoscopy, Sharon Greenblum, Jiang Li, Adam Huang, Ronald M. Summers, Armando Manduca (Ed.), Amir A. Amini (Ed.)

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

The computed tomographic colonography (CTC) computer aided detection (CAD) program is a new method in development to detect colon polyps in virtual colonoscopy. While high sensitivity is consistently achieved, additional features are desired to increase specificity. In this paper, a wavelet analysis was applied to CTCCAD outputs in an attempt to filter out false positive detections. 52 CTCCAD detection images were obtained using a screen capture application. 26 of these images were real polyps, confirmed by optical colonoscopy and 26 were false positive detections. A discrete wavelet transform of each image was computed with the MATLAB wavelet toolbox using the …

Automatic Colonic Polyp Detection Using Multiobjective Evolutionary Techniques, Jiang Li, Adam Huang, Jianhua Yao, Ingmar Bitter, Nicholas Petrick, Ronald M. Summers, Perry J. Pickhardt, J. Richard Choi

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Colonie polyps appear like elliptical protrusions on the inner wall of the colon. Curvature based features for colonie polyp detection have proved to be successful in several computer-aided diagnostic CT colonography (CTC) systems. Some simple thresholds are set for those features for creating initial polyp candidates, sophisticated classification scheme are then applied on these polyp candidates to reduce false positives. There are two objective functions, the number of missed polyps and false positive rate, that need to be minimized when setting those thresholds. These two objectives conflict and it is usually difficult to optimize them both by a gradient search. …

Hybrid Committee Classifier For A Computerized Colonic Polyp Detection System, Jiang Li, Jianhua Yao, Nicholas Petrick, Ronald M. Summers, Amy K. Hara, Joseph M. Reinhardt (Ed.), Josien P.W. Pluim (Ed.)

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

We present a hybrid committee classifier for computer-aided detection (CAD) of colonic polyps in CT colonography (CTC). The classifier involved an ensemble of support vector machines (SVM) and neural networks (NN) for classification, a progressive search algorithm for selecting a set of features used by the SVMs and a floating search algorithm for selecting features used by the NNs. A total of 102 quantitative features were calculated for each polyp candidate found by a prototype CAD system. 3 features were selected for each of 7 SVM classifiers which were then combined to form a committee of SVMs classifier. Similarly, features …

Neural Correlates Of Art Therapy As Indicated Through Electroencephalography, Kerry A. Kruk

EVMS School of Health Professions Theses & Dissertations

Quantitative electroencephalograph (QEEG) reports of 14 healthy women participants engaged in art making in response to two general art therapy directives were generated and compared at Eastern Virginia Medical School. A Cadwell Easy-II 32-channel digital EEG and Physiometrx E-net which contains placements according to the International 10-20 system were used to collect brainwave activity. This study explored the effects of clay sculpting and marker drawing conditions on neural activity in the right and left frontal and parietal cortices.

One aim of the study was to illuminate what Lusebrink (1990) suggested - that different types of media and processes elicit different …

How Many Slides? Documented Cytotechnologist Workload, Sophie K, Thompson, Eileen Mason

School of Medical Diagnostics & Translational Sciences Publications

(First paragraph) This paper relays workload information obtained as part of an ergonomics survey.1 Data were obtained on the number of slides evaluated daily, workplace setting, hours worked, and demographic information.

Applications Of Wavelet Transforms In Biomedical Optoacoustics, Zibiao Wei, Shujun Yang, Amin N. Dharamsi, Barbara Hargrave

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

We discuss the utility of wavelet transform methods in signal processing in general, and in particular, demonstrate the technique in optoacoustic applications. In several optoacoustic experiments with different samples, we have successfully enhanced the signal to noise ratios. Wavelet transforms optimize resolution by utilizing a tailored, variable time-window in different frequency regions. The technique's great advantage lies in the fact that the wavelet transform adds some redundancy to the original signal, and some desired features can be enhanced in the transformed space. In addition, proper choice of the basis set allows a sparse representation of the signal. Therefore, even when …

The Accuracy Of Nitrous Oxide Passive Dosimeters As Compared With An Infra-Red Spectrographic Reference Method, Susan Allen

Community & Environmental Health Theses & Dissertations

Nitrous oxide is a gas often used in dental, surgical and veterinary operations as an anesthetic agent. Employees stationed in proximity of fugitive gas emissions may potentially suffer adverse health effects from chronic exposure to this agent. Passive dosimeters can be worn in the breathing zone of potentially affected personnel during exposure periods, then later analyzed to quantify nitrous oxide exposure. This study sought to establish the accuracy of several commercially available passive monitoring devices for nitrous oxide by comparison against an infra-red spectrophotometric reference method.

Electromyography (Emg) Signal Classification By Artificial Neural Networks, Behnam Dashtipour

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

EMG signal processing is one of the active fields of biomedical signal processing. One unanswered question is how to determine whether a muscle is fatigued by analyzing the EMG signal. Fatigue detection could be useful in several different practical situations. There are several studies which show there are differences between EMG signal features before fatigue and after fatigue. Generally studies are based on an analytical analysis of the EMG signal instead of a quantitative analysis. In all previous studies in EMG signal processing for fatigue/nonfatigue detection, the result is that there exist some differences between the EMG signal before muscle …

Quantitative Respirator Fit Testing: Probed Facepiece Versus Probed Cartridge, Sonya Melissa Seward

Community & Environmental Health Theses & Dissertations

This study was performed to determine if there is a quantifiable difference between quantitative fit testing using a probed facepiece and a probed cartridge. Four subjects were tested on four different respirators. The respirators used were MSA & 3M full and half face respirator. Each subject performed each method five times per respirator. The results indicated no correlation between the two fit testing methods overall. However, a moderate correlation was found between the MSA respirators and the two methods. This study found many variables which influence fit testing. These include the type of respirator used (brand and facepiece), the probe …

Factors That Influence Prepared Childbirth Couples' Use Of Epidural Anesthesia For Labor And Delivery, Terri S. Chambers

Community & Environmental Health Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to identify factors that influence a Prepared Childbirth couple's decision to utilize epidural anesthesia for labor and delivery. Review of the literature indicated a high correlation between epidural use for uncomplicated labors and deliveries and a high incidence of maternal complications and low neonatal neurological and behavioral scores.

A sample of twenty-nine couples was used in this prospective, non-experimental field study for the research. Data were collected utilizing two developed demographic and factual event tools, Rotter's Internal-External Locus of Control Tool and Spanier's Dyadic Marital Adjustment Tool.

Three hypotheses were developed and data were …