Analytical, Diagnostic and Therapeutic Techniques and Equipment Commons^™

Identification Of Fiducial Points In Seismocardiographic Cycles Using Manual And Automated Annotation Methods, Jasmine-Vy T. Truong

Honors Undergraduate Theses

There is currently a need for complementary methods for non-invasive cardiac monitoring. Seismocardiography (SCG), the measurement of cardiac-induced vibrations at the chest surface, has shown potential clinical utility. Improving the reliability of detecting fiducial points of electrocardiography (ECG) and SCG, which collectively capture the electro-mechanical cardiac activities, could expand ECG/SCG utility as a low-cost, accessible tool for clinical assessment. This study identifies commonly accepted criteria for fiducial point detection in SCG and ECG through an extensive literature review and signal processing techniques. The previous criteria were evaluated to identify their strengths and weaknesses. Based on the findings, an improved set …

Procedural Skills Gaps And Ultrasound Training In Saudi Medical Interns: A Cross-Sectional Survey, Rajkumar Rajendram, Abdullah Abdulrahman Alshamrani, Waleed Khalid Jarwan, Afnan Ali Alghamdi, Arif Hussain

Health Professions Education

Purpose: Medical internships lay the foundation for physicians' careers. While the scope of medical practice has broadened, the emphasis on procedural skills remains crucial. However, concerns persist regarding the adequacy of current internship training programs, particularly in the context of the increasing importance of ultrasound-guided procedures (UGPs). This study aims to assess the perceived relevance of procedural skills training and identify skill gaps among medical interns at our institution.

Aim: To assess medical interns' perceptions of the relevance of procedural skills training, with a specific focus on ultrasound guidance and to identify skill gaps within the internship program at our …

Exosomes And Encapsulated Exomirs In Breast Cancer: Theragnostic Applications And Clinical Implications, Muhammad Imran Sajid, Shafia Bukhari, Hamid Ilyas, Rubina Malik, Minahil Fatima, Rakesh Kumar Tiwari, Surya M. Nauli, Khawaja Husnain Haider

Pharmacy Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Exosomes, released by cells, are small vesicles that have emerged as critical theranostic tools in breast cancer due to their unique ability to transport diverse biomolecules such as proteins, lipids, and RNAs, including microRNAs (ExomiRs). These vesicles are critical in modulating the tumor microenvironment, driving processes like cancer proliferation, invasion, metastasis, and drug resistance. Exosomal microRNAs such as ExomiR-21, ExomiR-1246, and ExomiR-155, with their profound influence on the gene expressions in the recipient cells, are the unsung heroes in tumor progression and immune modulation. This chapter delves into exosome's dual diagnostic and therapeutic potential in breast cancer. It highlights their …

Patellar Vs Hamstring Grafts For Acl Reconstruction, Taylor Jernigan

The PA Department Journal of Medical Science

Abstract

Introduction: The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is one of the most common injuries in orthopedic medicine, resulting in 400,000 reconstructions every year in the United States. Bone-Patellar Tendon-Bone (BPTB) and Hamstring Tendon (HT) grafts are the most common graft types used. The objective of this review is to compare HT grafts and BPTB grafts when it comes to return to sport, returning to pre-injury level, and overall long-term functional outcomes.

Methods: A complete search was conducted using Pub Med to look for randomized controlled trials (RCTs), systematic reviews, and meta-analyses on HT vs BPTB grafts. The variables studied were …

Evaluation Of The Dnazyme Gr5 For The Determination Of Lead Speciation In Natural Waters, Gaganprit Gill

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis explores the development and application of a DNAzyme-based biosensor designed to detect labile metal species in environmental samples. Real time and on-site monitoring of labile metal fractions would make a valuable contribution to environmental management, as these fractions are the most bioavailable and pose significant toxicity risks to aquatic organisms. Conventional methods for detecting labile metals, while effective, are often burdened by high costs, complexity, and lengthy processing times, making them less ideal for rapid and widespread environmental assessments.

The first manuscript of this thesis (chapter 2) establishes the fundamental capabilities of the Pb²⁺-specific DNAzyme GR5 …

Formulation Development Of Dual-Compartment Topical Inserts Combining Tenofovir Alafenamide And Elvitegravir For Flexible On-Demand Hiv Prevention, Vivek Agrahari, M. Melissa Peet, Neelima Chandra, Prakash Ramalingam, Pardeep K. Gupta, Sriramakamal Jonnalagadda, Onkar N. Singh, Timothy J. Mccormick, Gustavo F. Doncel, Meredith R. Clark

Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology Faculty Publications

Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) has emerged as a prominent approach for the prevention of HIV infections. While the latest advances have resulted in effective oral and injectable product options, there are still gaps in on-demand, event-driven, topical products for HIV prevention that are safe and effective. Here we describe the formulation development of a dual-compartment topical insert containing tenofovir alafenamide fumarate (TAF) and elvitegravir (EVG) that may be administered when needed, vaginally or rectally, pre- or post-coitus, for flexible HIV prophylaxis. Specifically, we describe the lab-scale formulation development, preclinical mucosal safety and pharmacokinetics (PK) testing in rabbits, long-term stability, and scale-up …

Multi-Modal Mri Based Segmentation Of Brain Metastases Using Adaptive Self-Attention, Evan Savaria

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Brain metastases (BMs) are the most common adult central nervous system malignancy, affecting 20–40% of cancer patients. Accurate segmentation of metastatic lesions in multi-modal MRI is essential for treatment planning and prognosis however, manual delineation is time consuming and prone to variability. Traditional deep learning models such as U-Net, have improved segmentation accuracy but capture limited long-range dependencies and struggle with variations in metastasis size, shape, and distribution. This study introduces the Adaptive Integrated Multi-modal Segmentation (AIMS) model, an adaptive self-attention framework within a hybrid U-Net and Transformer architecture to enhance BM segmentation by leveraging multi-modal MRI integration. The proposed …

Optiselect And Enshap: Integrating Machine Learning And Game Theory For Ischemic Stroke Prediction, Pritam Chakraborty, Anjan Bandyopadhyay, Sricheta Parul, Sujata Swain, Partha Sarathy Banerjee, Tapas Si, Hong Qin, Saurav Mallik

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Stroke analysis using game theory and machine learning techniques. The study investigates the use of the Shapley value in predictive ischemic brain stroke analysis. Initially, preference algorithms identify the most important features in various machine learning models, including logistic regression, K-nearest neighbor, decision tree, support vector machine (linear kernel), support vector machine ( RBF kernel), neural networks, etc. For each sample, the top 3, 4, and 5 features are evaluated and selected to evaluate their performance. The Shapley value method was used to rank the models using their best four features based on their predictive capabilities. As a result, better-performing …

Delivery Of Medical Supplies To Remote Locations Via Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Approaches, Challenges, And Solutions, Meshari Aljohani, Ravi Mukkamala, Stephanie Olariu

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are becoming more important in improving healthcare logistics, in particular due to their cost effectiveness, minimized risk, and versatile operational capabilities. This study explores the deployment of autonomous UAVs to deliver medical supplies to remote areas. Advances in ledger technology, smart contracts, and machine learning have transformed tasks previously managed by human teams or manually controlled UAVs into fully autonomous missions. We present a comprehensive analysis of the challenges and initial solutions vital for the effective use of autonomous UAVs in the delivery of medical supplies. In addition, we propose a machine-learning model to optimize UAV …

The Pre-Polarization And Concentration Of Cells Near Micro-Electrodes Using Ac Electric Fields Enhances The Electrical Cell Lysis In A Sessile Drop, Kishor Kaphle, Dharmakeerthi Nawarathna

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Cell lysis is the starting step of many biomedical assays. Electric field-based cell lysis is widely used in many applications, including point-of-care (POC) applications, because it provides an easy one-step solution. Many electric field-based lysis methods utilize micro-electrodes to apply short electric pulses across cells. Unfortunately, these cell lysis devices produce relatively low cell lysis efficiency as electric fields do not reach a significant portion of cells in the sample. Additionally, the utility of syringe pumps for flow cells in and out of the microfluidics channel causes cell loss and low throughput cell lysis. To address these critical issues, we …

Epicardial Cryoablation During Cardiopulmonary Bypass In A Pig Survival Model, Federica Serra, Jonathan M. Philpott, Anna Bulysheva, Christian W. Zemlin

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Objective

Atrial cryolesions are usually created from the endocardium with the heart arrested. Some cardiac surgeons have used cryoablation epicardially during cardiopulmonary bypass, which is convenient because it does not require an incision into the atrial wall. Here, we analyzed the transmurality of epicardial cryoablations created during cardiopulmonary bypass in an arrested heart 30 days after ablation.

Methods

In Yucatan minipigs (n=5), hearts were exposed via sternotomy. Both caval veins were cannulated to collect blood for the cardiopulmonary bypass. Cryolesions were created applying a cryoprobe for 4 minutes per lesion. Hearts were harvested 30 days after the surgery. The transmurality …

Adaptive Fusion Neural Networks For Sparse-Angle X-Ray 3d Reconstruction, Shaoyong Hong, Bo Yang, Yan Chen, Hao Quan, Shan Liu, Minyi Tang, Jiawei Tian

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

3D medical image reconstruction has significantly enhanced diagnostic accuracy, yet the reliance on densely sampled projection data remains a major limitation in clinical practice. Sparse-angle X-ray imaging, though safer and faster, poses challenges for accurate volumetric reconstruction due to limited spatial information. This study proposes a 3D reconstruction neural network based on adaptive weight fusion (AdapFusionNet) to achieve high-quality 3D medical image reconstruction from sparse-angle X-ray images. To address the issue of spatial inconsistency in multi-angle image reconstruction, an innovative adaptive fusion module was designed to score initial reconstruction results during the inference stage and perform weighted fusion, thereby improving …

High-Fidelity Soh Prediction In Lithium-Ion Batteries Using Hybrid Ml Networks, Shafiyee Islam, Gon Namkoong

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Accurate and efficient prediction of lithium-ion battery state of health (SOH) is critical for ensuring reliability in electric vehicles, grid storage, and aerospace systems. Traditional SOH estimation methods often struggle with nonlinear degradation behaviors and lack sensitivity to subtle electrochemical signals, limiting their real-world deployment. To address these challenges, this study examines hybrid deep learning models that integrate differential capacity (dQ/dV) analysis to enhance predictive accuracy. Four hybrid architectures - hybrid CNN-LSTM multihead, CNN extractor for LSTM, DNN-LSTM, and DNN Bi-LSTM - were developed and evaluated using the NASA randomized battery usage dataset, offering a realistic benchmark under diverse operational …

Development Of 2d Microfluidics Surface With Low-Frequency Electric Fields For Cell Separation Applications, Madushan Wickramasinghe, Dharmakeerthi Nawarathna

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Cell separation techniques are widely used in many biomedical and clinical applications for the development of screening, diagnosis and therapeutic tests. Current 3D microfluidics-based cell separation methods have limited applications in part due to low throughput and technical complexity. To address these critical needs, we have developed a 2D microfluidics surface which is the miniaturized version of a 3D microfluids cell separation device. Using low-frequency electric fields (1–10 Vpp and 1 kHz–20 MHz), we have first studied dielectrophoresis, AC electro-osmosis and capillary flow within a sessile drop, and finally utilized the results to develop the 2D cell separation surface. Our …

Enhancing Channel Data Savings And Information Transfer Efficiency In Ultrasound Imaging, Sai Konda, Hicham Chaoui

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Ultrasound is a popular imaging technique mainly due to its non-invasive nature. And so, it is being used in a variety of applications. Due to plane wave imaging technique in ultrasound, frame rate of ultrasound imaging has the potential for being very high. Due to which, many channel data frames are being generated within a few seconds. As a result, tasks such as storing data frames and transferring them from front end ultrasonic system to processing computers are presenting significant challenges. Our current research work minimized these issues. We proposed and implemented: (a) Data encoding technique - We combined every …

Implementing A Chatbot To Promote Hereditary Breast & Ovarian Cancer Genetic Screening In Women's Health: Identifying Barriers And Facilitators To Screening Adoption, Easton N. Wollney, Shireen Madani Sims, Luisel J. Ricks-Santi, Elizabeth Eddy, Daniel Wiesman, Carla L. Fisher

Department of Biomedical and Translational Sciences Faculty Publications

Background

To promote genetic screening among women at risk for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer (HBOC), the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends that risk assessment be integrated into practice. Chatbots like the Genetic Information Assistant (Gia®) are increasingly implemented to expand access to hereditary genetic screening. Factors that impact chatbot implementation for HBOC risk screening and women's uptake are not fully realized. To refine implementation strategies prior to full scale implementation, we sought to identify women's perceived facilitators/barriers to adopting Gia screening in a rural population within a large healthcare system in the southern United States.

Methods

We …

Educational Case: Bullous Pemphigoid, Ryan C. Saal, Alice A. Roberts, Richard M. Conran

Department of Medicine Faculty Publications

The following fictional case is intended as a learning tool within the Pathology Competencies for Medical Education (PCME), a set of national standards for teaching pathology. These are divided into three basic competencies: Disease Mechanisms and Processes, Organ System Pathology, and Diagnostic Medicine and Therapeutic Pathology. For additional information, and a full list of learning objectives for all three competencies, see https://www.academicpathologyjournal.org/pcme.1

American Heart Association Blood Pressure Classification And Subsequent Risk Of Preeclampsia, Rebecca Horgan, Erkan Kalafat, Elena Sinkovskaya, Alfred Abuhamad, George Saade

Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology Faculty Publications

Background: In 2017, the American Heart Association (AHA) and American College of Cardiology updated their hypertension guidelines for the nonpregnant population, lowering the diagnostic thresholds to systolic blood pressure ≥130 mmHg or diastolic blood pressure ≥80 mmHg. This reclassification has raised important questions regarding whether blood pressure (BP) values previously considered within the normal range in pregnancy may, in fact, confer an increased risk for hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDPs).

Objective: To evaluate the association between first-trimester BP classified by AHA thresholds and the subsequent development of HDPs.

Study design: This was a secondary analysis of a prospective, multicenter cohort …

A Rare Complication Of Dilation And Evacuation: Unrecognized Extrauterine Retained Products Of Conception, Aviana Terschueren, Lauren Siewertsz Van Reesema, Joseph Hudgens

Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology Faculty Publications

Introduction: Surgical abortions, including dilation and evacuation, are among the safest gynecological procedures, with complication rates ranging from 0.5–4.0%. Uterine perforation, though rare (0.2–0.8%), can result in serious sequela, including translocation of retained products of conception into the abdominal cavity. We present a rare case of abdominal retained products of conception following a second-trimester dilation and evacuation.

Case Report: A 29-year-old G3P1112 underwent an elective surgical abortion at 17 weeks’ gestation, complicated by hemorrhage necessitating transfer to an outside hospital. She was treated with uterotonics and a blood transfusion and was discharged after a 6-day hospitalization. Initial transvaginal ultrasound showed …

Wrongful Migration: A Hidden Culprit Behind Flank Pain, Ryan Miller, Anjeza Cipi, Emma Pierce

Department of Emergency Medicine Faculty Publications

[Introduction] A 32-year-old woman with no significant past medical history presented to the emergency department with 11 days of fever, fatigue, chills, and new-onset fullness in her left flank. She denied dysuria, abdominal pain, or vaginal bleeding. Vital signs showed fever and mild hypotension, and the physical examination revealed left-sided abdominal distension. Laboratory results demonstrated leukocytosis and a lactate of 3.2 mmol/L. She appeared nontoxic but was persistently febrile despite initial fluids and antibiotics. Computed tomography—shown in Figure 1, and ultrasound—shown in Figure 2, were obtained and revealed the diagnosis.