Využití sériového rozhraní glukometrů nevidomými

Many of the personal diagnostic systems mainly glucometers (for measuring glucose) contain a serial interface for PC connection. Through this interface it is possible to receive useful data that will be used mainly for an attending physician’s purpose to evaluate the treatment process over a long time period and to set down further treatment procedures. For purblind or sightless diabetics people it is impossible to read the current data showed on displays of the personal diagnostic systems. Those who are sightless need a help of another person at disposal when measuring. The newly designed unique electronic construction in conjunction with the personal diagnostic system enables a purblind or a sightless people to identify measured data and use them suitable for the further treatment processes. The purblind or sightless people will be able to perform selfmonitoring (observation of disease trend and a dosage adjustment by a person himself)

Pomiar parametrów elektrycznych i testowanie implantowanych cardio-stymulatorów

The aim of the work was measurement and testing of implantable cardioverter - defibrillator (ICDs) device. There was realised electronic measuring circuit which substitutes human body tissue during the device accuracy testing. This circuit enables to measure defibrillation shock discharge in the whole energy range (0.1- 41J). The presented measuring and testing procedures can easy check-up precision of parameters and functionality of embedded electronic device circuit’s part of the ICDs. Presented suggestion and results of this work can be implemented as verification procedure in various types of ICDs and also pacemakers before their implantation as well.W artykule przedstawiono wpływ indukcji i częstotliwości na straty w żelazie w blachach elektrotechnicznych wykorzystywanych w dławikach pracujących w filtrach wyższych harmonicznych. Podano uogólnioną zależność pozwalającą na obliczenie strat histerezowych i wiroprądowych z uwzględnieniem zastępczej eliptycznej pętli histerezy. Otrzymane wyniki porównano z pomiarami. Wprowadzony do rozważań współczynnik An zależy w praktyce od średniej wartości indukcji występującej w przekroju poprzecznym rdzenia. Uogólniona zależność zawierająca współczynnik An może być stosowana w szerokim zakresie częstotliwości

Design and development of a novel Invasive Blood Pressure simulator for patient's monitor testing

This paper presents a newly-designed and realized Invasive Blood Pressure (IBP) device for the simulation on patient’s monitors. This device shows improvements and presents extended features with respect to a first prototype presented by the authors and similar systems available in the state-of-the-art. A peculiarity of the presented device is that all implemented features can be customized from the developer and from the point of view of the end user. The realized device has been tested, and its performances in terms of accuracy and of the back-loop measurement of the output for the blood pressure regulation utilization have been described. In particular, an accuracy of ±1 mmHg at 25 °C, on a range from −30 to 300 mmHg, was evaluated under different test conditions. The designed device is an ideal tool for testing IBP modules, for zero setting, and for calibrations. The implemented extended features, like the generation of custom waveforms and the Universal Serial Bus (USB) connectivity, allow use of this device in a wide range of applications, from research to equipment maintenance in clinical environments to educational purposes. Moreover, the presented device represents an innovation, both in terms of technology and methodologies: It allows quick and efficient tests to verify the proper functioning of IBP module of patients’ monitors. With this innovative device, tests can be performed directly in the field and faster procedures can be implemented by the clinical maintenance personnel. This device is an open source project and all materials, hardware, and software are fully available for interested developers or researchers.Web of Science201art. no. 25

Segmentation of articular cartilage and early osteoarthritis based on the fuzzy soft thresholding approach driven by modified evolutionary ABC optimization and local statistical aggregation

Articular cartilage assessment, with the aim of the cartilage loss identification, is a crucial task for the clinical practice of orthopedics. Conventional software (SW) instruments allow for just a visualization of the knee structure, without post processing, offering objective cartilage modeling. In this paper, we propose the multiregional segmentation method, having ambitions to bring a mathematical model reflecting the physiological cartilage morphological structure and spots, corresponding with the early cartilage loss, which is poorly recognizable by the naked eye from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The proposed segmentation model is composed from two pixel's classification parts. Firstly, the image histogram is decomposed by using a sequence of the triangular fuzzy membership functions, when their localization is driven by the modified artificial bee colony (ABC) optimization algorithm, utilizing a random sequence of considered solutions based on the real cartilage features. In the second part of the segmentation model, the original pixel's membership in a respective segmentation class may be modified by using the local statistical aggregation, taking into account the spatial relationships regarding adjacent pixels. By this way, the image noise and artefacts, which are commonly presented in the MR images, may be identified and eliminated. This fact makes the model robust and sensitive with regards to distorting signals. We analyzed the proposed model on the 2D spatial MR image records. We show different MR clinical cases for the articular cartilage segmentation, with identification of the cartilage loss. In the final part of the analysis, we compared our model performance against the selected conventional methods in application on the MR image records being corrupted by additive image noise.Web of Science117art. no. 86

The evaluation of light conditions influence and corrections upon Doppler blood perfusion imagining

The paper deals with theoretical and experimental research of the ambient light influence upon the measuring reliability of the perfusion maps by the laser Doppler method using the device PeriScan PIM 3. The main applicable result of the analysis is a set of recommendations for the standardization, the improving of reliability and the compactness of the blood perfusion measuring in the clinical practise. The improvement of examination brings more accurate results and contributes to the optimization of diagnostic process and therapy

The potential of medical device industry in technological and economical context

The high quality of public health improves not only healthy life expectancy, but also the productivity of labor. The most important part of the health care sector is the medical technology industry. The aim of this study is to analyze the current situation in the medical device industry in Europe, its potential strengths and weaknesses in the context of topical economic and demographic development. The contribution specifies an analysis of the economic state of the medical device industry in the context of demographic development of European Union's macroeconomic indicators and views of experts in the field of medical device development, concerning the opportunities for entities involved in the medical device market. There is fierce competition on the European market. The innovative activity is stable and well regulated by responsible authorities. Worldwide, the medical device market is expected to grow.Web of Science111514150

Monitoring of CRT-D devices during radiation therapy in vitro

Background: Using of active cardiac medical devices increases steadily. In Europe, there were 183 implants of ICD and 944 implants of PM, 119 of biventricular ICD and 41 of biventricular PM, all per million inhabitants in 2014. Healthcare environments, including radiotherapy treatment rooms, are considered challenging for these implantable devices. Exposure to radiation may cause the device to experience premature elective replacement indicator, decreased pacing amplitude or pacing inhibition, inappropriate shocks or inhibition of tachyarrhythmia therapy and loss of device function. These impacts may be temporary or permanent. The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of linear accelerator ionizing radiation dose of 10 Gy on the activity of the biventricular cardioverter-defibrillator in different position in radiation beam. Methods: Two identical wireless communication devices with all three leads were used for the measurement. Both systems were soused into solution saline and exposed in different position in the beam of linear accelerator per 10 Gy fractions. In comparison of usually used maximum recommended dose of 2 Gy, the radiation doses used in test were five times higher. Using the simultaneous monitoring wireless communication between device and its programmer allowed watching of the devices activities, noise occurrence or drop of biventricular pacing on the programmer screen, observed by local television loop camera. Results: At any device position in radiation beam, there were no influences of the device activity at dose of 10 Gy neither a significant increase of a solution saline temperature in any of the measured positions of CRT-D systems in linear accelerator. Conclusions: The results of the study indicated, that the recommendation dose for treating the patients with implantable devices are too conservative and the risk of device failure is not so high. The systems can easily withstand the dose fractions of tens Gy, which would allow current single-dose-procedure treatment in radiation therapy. Even though the process of the random alteration of device memory and electrical components by scatter particles not allowed to specify a safe dose during ionizing radiation, this study showed that the safe limit are above the today used dose fractions.Web of Science15art. no. 2

The modelling of the post-operative perfusion in burns from LDI data

The paper deals with an empirical mathematical model serving for the time evolution of post-operative blood perfusion in burn wounds developed in the setting of surgical treatment of full thickness, or non-healing deep dermal burns involving application of Split Thickness Skin Grafts (STSG), and Autologous Platelet Concentrate (APC), with the main goal of early assessment enhancement and healing prognosis of burns. Numerical parameters of the model including a 95% confidence level prediction interval were determined using the nonlinear fit procedure. We cautiously claim that the suggested model could serve as a beneficial tool in objective comparisons of treatment efficacy and facilitating the decision making process. However, reliably determined model parameters still require a large amount of laser Doppler imaging data to be processed for individual kinds of treatment

Similarity analysis of EEG data based on self organizing map neural network

The Electroencephalography (EEG) is the recording of electrical activity along the scalp. This recorded data are very complex. EEG has a big role in several applications such as in the diagnosis of human brain diseases and epilepsy. Also, we can use the EEG signals to control an external device via Brain Computer Interface (BCI) by our mind. There are many algorithms to analyse the recorded EEG data, but it still remains one of the big challenges in the world. In this article, we extended our previous proposed method. Our extended method uses Self-organizing Map (SOM) as an EEG data classifier. The proposed method we can divide in following steps: capturing EEG raw data from the sensors, applying filters on this data, we will use the frequencies in the range from 0.5~Hz to 60~Hz, smoothing the data with 15-th order of Polynomial Curve Fitting, converting filtered data into text using Turtle Graphic, Lempel-Ziv complexity for measuring similarity between two EEG data trials and Self-Organizing Map Neural Network as a final classifiers. The experiment results show that our model is able to detect up to 96% finger movements correctly

Measurements of generated energy/electrical quantities from locomotion activities using piezoelectric wearable sensors for body motion energy harvesting

In this paper, two different piezoelectric transducers—a ceramic piezoelectric, lead zirconate titanate (PZT), and a polymeric piezoelectric, polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF)—were compared in terms of energy that could be harvested during locomotion activities. The transducers were placed into a tight suit in proximity of the main body joints. Initial testing was performed by placing the transducers on the neck, shoulder, elbow, wrist, hip, knee and ankle; then, five locomotion activities—walking, walking up and down stairs, jogging and running—were chosen for the tests. The values of the power output measured during the five activities were in the range 6 W–74 W using both transducers for each joint.Web of Science164art. no. 52