Ultrasound Guided Robot for Human Liver Biopsy using High Intensity Focused Ultrasound for Hemostasis

Percutaneous liver biopsy is the gold standard among clinician\u27s tool to diagnose and guide subsequent therapy for liver disease. Ultrasound image guidance is being increasingly used to reduce associated procedural risks but post–biopsy complications still persist. The major and most common complication is hemorrhage, which is highly unpredictable and may sometimes lead to death. Though the risk of mortality is low, it is too high for a diagnostic procedure. Post-biopsy care and additional surgical intervention to arrest hemorrhage make liver biopsy a costly procedure for health care delivery systems. Non-invasive methods to stop bleeding exist like electro–cautery, microwave, lasers, radio frequency, argon–beam, and High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU). All the methods except HIFU require direct exposure of the needle puncture site for hemostasis. HIFU is an ultrasound modality and uses mechanical sound waves for focused energy delivery. Ultrasound waves are minimally affected by tissue attenuation and focus internal targets without direct exposure. Human error in focusing HIFU renders it unusable for a medical procedure especially when noninvasive. In this project we designed and developed an ultrasound guided prototype robot for accurate HIFU targeting to induce hemostasis. The robotic system performs percutaneous needle biopsy and a 7.5 cm focal length HIFU is fired at the puncture point when the needle tip retracts to the liver surface after sample collection. The robot has 4 degrees of freedom (DOF) for biopsy needle insertion, HIFU positioning, needle angle alignment and US probe image plane orientation. As the needle puncture point is always in the needle path, mechanically constraining the HIFU to focus on the needle reduced the required functionality significantly. Two mini c-arms are designed for needle angle alignment and US probe image plane orientation. This reduced the contact foot print of the robot over the patient providing a greater dexterity for positioning the robot. The robot is validated for HIFU hemostasis by a series of experiments on chicken breasts. HIFU initiated hemorrhage control with robotic biopsy ensures arrest of post-biopsy hemorrhage and decreases patient anxiety, hospital stay, morbidity, time of procedure, and cost. This can also be extended to other organs like kidneys, lungs etc. and has widespread implications such as control of hemorrhage in post-biopsies in patients with reduced ability for hemostasis. This research opens a greater scope for research for automation and design making it a physician friendly tool for eventual clinical use

Focal Spot, Summer 1988

https://digitalcommons.wustl.edu/focal_spot_archives/1049/thumbnail.jp

Excellentia Eminentia Effectio

"In these pages you will learn about the fascinating research endeavors that each of our faculty members is undertaking. We have divided their research into the broad categories of health, sustainability, information, and systems. While we recognize the imperfect nature of categorizing research that, by its very nature may be interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary, we nonetheless believe it will be helpful as a way to see the depth and breadth of our research endeavors within each grouping. As you read the profiles on these pages, I know you will begin to appreciate that, taken as a whole, the research spectrum at Columbia Engineering is exceptional and that, as our professors go about their work, they are at the cusp of making breakthroughs that will have a major impact on the way we live our lives today and tomorrow.

Engineering@Nebraska - Fall 2008

Table of Contents: Front & Center A Welcome Home: Zero Net Energy Test House unites university and industry as students\u27 learning is caught green-handed Making their mark on mars: Huskers at Honeybee, a New York City robotics firm, work on Mars missions Epigenetics: A dialogue between biologists and engineers: Joe Turner, professor and chair of the Department of Engineering Mechanics, collaborates with UNL plant scientist Sally McKenzie on nanoscale work with huge potential Energy monitoring on the home front: Together with OPPD, Nebraska Engineering studies devices to promote efficiency Wave of the future: Biological Systems Engineering professor Greg Bashford creates a new ultrasound process to detect the severity of tendon injury Study eyes predicting tenderness of steaks: BSE\u27s Jeyamkondan Subbiah innovates a process with hyperspectral imaging toward better beef UNL, UC-Irvine partnership engineers a talent pipeline: The connection draws more students to UNL\u27s online M.Eng. program Cargill plant goes ergo-friendly with help from Nebraska Engineering: IMSE professor David Cochran shows that ergo is the way to go Accomplishments Class notes Play-by-play with the Nebraska Engineering flag team Heart of a Husker, mind of a mechanical engineer: How does he do it? Blackshirt senior Tyler Wortman keeps a 3.955 grade point average while playing linebacker for the Huskers After Hours: ride on: Nebraska Engineering\u27s web developer David Sockrider maintains an eco- and budget-friendly commute across the season

Investigating the build-up of precedence effect using reflection masking

The auditory processing level involved in the build‐up of precedence [Freyman et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 90, 874–884 (1991)] has been investigated here by employing reflection masked threshold (RMT) techniques. Given that RMT techniques are generally assumed to address lower levels of the auditory signal processing, such an approach represents a bottom‐up approach to the buildup of precedence. Three conditioner configurations measuring a possible buildup of reflection suppression were compared to the baseline RMT for four reflection delays ranging from 2.5–15 ms. No buildup of reflection suppression was observed for any of the conditioner configurations. Buildup of template (decrease in RMT for two of the conditioners), on the other hand, was found to be delay dependent. For five of six listeners, with reflection delay=2.5 and 15 ms, RMT decreased relative to the baseline. For 5‐ and 10‐ms delay, no change in threshold was observed. It is concluded that the low‐level auditory processing involved in RMT is not sufficient to realize a buildup of reflection suppression. This confirms suggestions that higher level processing is involved in PE buildup. The observed enhancement of reflection detection (RMT) may contribute to active suppression at higher processing levels

Effects of errorless learning on the acquisition of velopharyngeal movement control

Session 1pSC - Speech Communication: Cross-Linguistic Studies of Speech Sound Learning of the Languages of Hong Kong (Poster Session)The implicit motor learning literature suggests a benefit for learning if errors are minimized during practice. This study investigated whether the same principle holds for learning velopharyngeal movement control. Normal speaking participants learned to produce hypernasal speech in either an errorless learning condition (in which the possibility for errors was limited) or an errorful learning condition (in which the possibility for errors was not limited). Nasality level of the participants’ speech was measured by nasometer and reflected by nasalance scores (in %). Errorless learners practiced producing hypernasal speech with a threshold nasalance score of 10% at the beginning, which gradually increased to a threshold of 50% at the end. The same set of threshold targets were presented to errorful learners but in a reversed order. Errors were defined by the proportion of speech with a nasalance score below the threshold. The results showed that, relative to errorful learners, errorless learners displayed fewer errors (50.7% vs. 17.7%) and a higher mean nasalance score (31.3% vs. 46.7%) during the acquisition phase. Furthermore, errorless learners outperformed errorful learners in both retention and novel transfer tests. Acknowledgment: Supported by The University of Hong Kong Strategic Research Theme for Sciences of Learning © 2012 Acoustical Society of Americapublished_or_final_versio