Fused mechanomyography and inertial measurement for human-robot interface

Human-Machine Interfaces (HMI) are the technology through which we interact with the ever-increasing quantity of smart devices surrounding us. The fundamental goal of an HMI is to facilitate robot control through uniting a human operator as the supervisor with a machine as the task executor. Sensors, actuators, and onboard intelligence have not reached the point where robotic manipulators may function with complete autonomy and therefore some form of HMI is still necessary in unstructured environments. These may include environments where direct human action is undesirable or infeasible, and situations where a robot must assist and/or interface with people. Contemporary literature has introduced concepts such as body-worn mechanical devices, instrumented gloves, inertial or electromagnetic motion tracking sensors on the arms, head, or legs, electroencephalographic (EEG) brain activity sensors, electromyographic (EMG) muscular activity sensors and camera-based (vision) interfaces to recognize hand gestures and/or track arm motions for assessment of operator intent and generation of robotic control signals. While these developments offer a wealth of future potential their utility has been largely restricted to laboratory demonstrations in controlled environments due to issues such as lack of portability and robustness and an inability to extract operator intent for both arm and hand motion. Wearable physiological sensors hold particular promise for capture of human intent/command. EMG-based gesture recognition systems in particular have received significant attention in recent literature. As wearable pervasive devices, they offer benefits over camera or physical input systems in that they neither inhibit the user physically nor constrain the user to a location where the sensors are deployed. Despite these benefits, EMG alone has yet to demonstrate the capacity to recognize both gross movement (e.g. arm motion) and finer grasping (e.g. hand movement). As such, many researchers have proposed fusing muscle activity (EMG) and motion tracking e.g. (inertial measurement) to combine arm motion and grasp intent as HMI input for manipulator control. However, such work has arguably reached a plateau since EMG suffers from interference from environmental factors which cause signal degradation over time, demands an electrical connection with the skin, and has not demonstrated the capacity to function out of controlled environments for long periods of time. This thesis proposes a new form of gesture-based interface utilising a novel combination of inertial measurement units (IMUs) and mechanomyography sensors (MMGs). The modular system permits numerous configurations of IMU to derive body kinematics in real-time and uses this to convert arm movements into control signals. Additionally, bands containing six mechanomyography sensors were used to observe muscular contractions in the forearm which are generated using specific hand motions. This combination of continuous and discrete control signals allows a large variety of smart devices to be controlled. Several methods of pattern recognition were implemented to provide accurate decoding of the mechanomyographic information, including Linear Discriminant Analysis and Support Vector Machines. Based on these techniques, accuracies of 94.5% and 94.6% respectively were achieved for 12 gesture classification. In real-time tests, accuracies of 95.6% were achieved in 5 gesture classification. It has previously been noted that MMG sensors are susceptible to motion induced interference. The thesis also established that arm pose also changes the measured signal. This thesis introduces a new method of fusing of IMU and MMG to provide a classification that is robust to both of these sources of interference. Additionally, an improvement in orientation estimation, and a new orientation estimation algorithm are proposed. These improvements to the robustness of the system provide the first solution that is able to reliably track both motion and muscle activity for extended periods of time for HMI outside a clinical environment. Application in robot teleoperation in both real-world and virtual environments were explored. With multiple degrees of freedom, robot teleoperation provides an ideal test platform for HMI devices, since it requires a combination of continuous and discrete control signals. The field of prosthetics also represents a unique challenge for HMI applications. In an ideal situation, the sensor suite should be capable of detecting the muscular activity in the residual limb which is naturally indicative of intent to perform a specific hand pose and trigger this post in the prosthetic device. Dynamic environmental conditions within a socket such as skin impedance have delayed the translation of gesture control systems into prosthetic devices, however mechanomyography sensors are unaffected by such issues. There is huge potential for a system like this to be utilised as a controller as ubiquitous computing systems become more prevalent, and as the desire for a simple, universal interface increases. Such systems have the potential to impact significantly on the quality of life of prosthetic users and others.Open Acces

Dynamics of DNA-repair factors and chromosomes studied by laser-UVA-microirradiation and laser-photobleaching

Modern light microscopical techniques were employed to follow dynamical nuclear processes during the cell cycle and during DNA-repair. Laser-UVA-microirradiation The protein Rad51 is essential for the repair of double-strand breaks (DSBs) via the conservative homologous recombination repair pathway. To test the hypothesis that Rad51 localizes to damaged sites during DSB repair, a laser-UVA-microirradiation system was established. With this system spots with sizes around 1 µm in nuclei of living cells can be irradiated with UVA-light. After sensitization of cells by incorporation of BrdU into nuclear DNA and staining with the live cell dye Hoechst 33258, the system can be used to introduce double-strand breaks and single-strand breaks in the irradiated spots. The response of Rad51 to microirradiation By use of laser-UVA microirradiation the localization of Rad51 at damaged sites containing DNA double-strand breaks could be demonstrated. The accumulation of Rad51 at microirradiated sites was followed in cells fixed at increasing times after microirradiation. First Rad51 accumulations were visible 5 - 10 minutes after irradiation, and the number of cells with Rad51 accumulations increased until a plateau was reached 20 - 30 minutes after irradiation. In contrast, the majority of irradiated cells had accumulations of Mre11 protein already 5 - 10 minutes after irradiation. This is consistent with reports that nuclear Mre11 foci appeared early in the response to ionizing radiation, but absolute response times were faster after microirradiation than after ionizing radiation. Large-scale nuclear patterns were microirradiated, and Rad51 accumulations that reflected the shape of the irradiated patterns were found up to eight hours after irradiation. This conservation of the pattern of Rad51 accumulations, which reflect sites containing the damaged DNA, indicated that the chromatin in the irradiated cells performs no large scale reordering in response to DNA damage. The dynamics of chromosomes and chromosome territories In 1909 Theodor Boveri forwarded the hypothesis that arrangements of chromosome territories (CTs) are stably maintained during interphase, but subject to changes during mitosis. In the last decade several groups reported evidence for the stability of CT arrangements, but considerable movements of chromosomal subregions were also observed. The data concerning the maintenance or reordering of CTs during mitosis have been contradictory. Live cell imaging To follow the movements of chromosomes and CTs, a novel experimental approach was taken. Cells expressing a fusion protein of the core histone H2B with GFP (H2B-GFP) stably incorporate H2B-GFP into nucleosomes. In these cells chromatin regions were selectively marked by laser-photobleaching and followed by live cell microscopy. To this end, a live cell imaging system was established at a confocal laser-scanning microscope, which allows the observation of living cells for several days. Chromatin movements visualized by photobleached H2B-GFP To track possible movements in interphase cell nuclei, stripe patterns were bleached into nuclei at several stages of interphase. These patterns were retained for up to two hours, until they became invisible due to the replacement of bleached H2B-GFP by unbleached H2B-GFP, supporting the hypothesis that CT order is stably maintained during interphase. Nuclei, in which all chromatin except for a contiguous zone at one nuclear pole was bleached, were followed through mitosis. At prophase a number of unbleached chromosomal segments became visible. The segments showed a variable degree of clustering in metaphase. When daughter nuclei were formed, the segments locally decondensed into patches of unbleached chromatin. In all daughter cells the patches were separated by bleached chromatin, and clustered to a variable extent. These observations support the hypothesis that changes of chromosome neighborhoods occur during mitosis and that CT neighborhoods can profoundly vary from one cell cycle to the next

Preclinical evaluation of nanoparticle enhanced breast cancer diagnosis and radiation therapy

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive type of cancer which makes up 15-20% of all newly diagnosed cases, lacking the main target molecules for tumor specific treatment. Surgery or systemic therapy by chemotherapy are frequently used in the clinic and combined with radiation therapy to improve locoregional control in breast cancer patients after surgery. With a poor prognosis, there is a clear need to explore new treatment options for TNBC. The aim of the here presented PhD project was to evaluate the feasibility to enhance the biological effect of radiation therapy and increase tumor contrast for diagnosis by applying an in vivo microCT imaging system in combination with barium nanoparticles (BaNPs) in a pH8N8 WAP-T-NP8 mouse model for TNBC. Characterization of the BaNPs revealed strong x-ray attenuation and no toxic effects in different cancer and normal cell lines. Furthermore, irradiation of cancer cells using low energy x-rays in the keV range by a microCT resulted in a significant reduction on colony formation capability. In vitro, this low energy irradiation effect on clonogenic tumor cell survival was enhanced in the presence of BaNPs. Next, a subcutaneous lung cancer mouse model in immunodeficient mice and an orthotopic syngeneic mouse model for breast cancer was applied for further in vivo evaluation. Once the treatment plan was optimized regarding the applied x-ray doses and the frequency of irradiation, low energy radiation therapy within a classical in vivo microCT significantly reduced tumor growth or even resulted in shrinkage of the tumors without visible side effects and weight loss in comparison to untreated controls. However, the intratumoral application of BaNPs was not able to increase the irradiation effect on tumor growth kinetics. This might be in part due to inhomogeneous distribution of BaNPs within the tumor observed by microCT imaging. K-edge subtraction imaging as well as x-ray fluorescence of explanted tumor samples confirmed these findings. To localize the BaNPs in 3D to specific sites within the tumor environment and to detect morphological alterations within the tumor due to irradiation in proximity to BaNPs an ex-vivo imaging based analytic platform was established, utilizing co-registration of microCT and histology data. This imaging approach co-localized BaNPs with CD68 positive phagocytic cells and revealed a non-uniform distribution of the BaNPs within the tumor, however with no signs of locally enhanced radiation effects. Furthermore, antibody functionalized BaNPs were generated for systemic application. Analysis of biodistribution revealed that EpCAM labeled BaNPs did not reach the tumor after intra-venous administration, but accumulated in liver and spleen, demonstrated by a strong CT contrast within these organs. In summary, I showed that low energy radiation therapy by applying an in vivo microCT significantly reduced tumor volumes in comparison to untreated tumors in a syngeneic breast cancer tumor mouse model resembling TNBC. However, BaNPs while enhancing the effectiveness of irradiation on tumor cells in vitro, did not improve the irradiation effect on tumor growth in vivo.2021-07-1

A conceptual framework for the direct marketing process using business intelligence

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Direct marketing is becoming a key strategy for organisations to develop and maintain strong customer relationships. This method targets specific customers with personalised advertising and promotional campaigns in order to help organisations increase campaign responses and to get a higher return on their investments. There are, however, many issues related to direct marketing, ranging from the highly technical to the more organisational and managerial aspects. This research focuses on the organisational and managerial issues of the direct marketing process and investigates the stages, activities and technologies required to effectively execute direct marketing. The direct marketing process integrates a complex collection of marketing concepts and business analytics principles, which form an entirely ‘self-contained’ choice for organisations. This makes direct marketing a significantly difficult process to perform. As a result, many scholars have attempted to tackle the complexity of executing the direct marketing process. However, most of their research efforts did not consider an integrated information system platform capable of effectively supporting the direct marketing process. This research attempts to address the above issues by developing a conceptual framework for the Direct Marketing Process with Business Intelligence (DMP-BI). The conceptual framework is developed using the identified marketing concepts and business analytics principles for the direct marketing process. It also proposes Business Intelligence (BI) as an integrated information system platform to effectively execute the direct marketing process. In order to evaluate and illustrate the practicality and impact of the DMP-BI framework, this thesis adopts a case study approach. Three case studies have been carried out in different industries including retailing, telecommunication and higher education. The aim of the case studies is also to demonstrate the usage of the DMP-BI framework within an organisational context. Based on the case studies’ findings, this thesis compares the DMP-BI framework with existing rival methodologies. The comparisons provide clear indications of the DMP-BI framework’s benefits over existing rival methodologies

Book of Abstracts 15th International Symposium on Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering and 3rd Conference on Imaging and Visualization

In this edition, the two events will run together as a single conference, highlighting the strong connection with the Taylor & Francis journals: Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering (John Middleton and Christopher Jacobs, Eds.) and Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering: Imaging and Visualization (JoãoManuel R.S. Tavares, Ed.). The conference has become a major international meeting on computational biomechanics, imaging andvisualization. In this edition, the main program includes 212 presentations. In addition, sixteen renowned researchers will give plenary keynotes, addressing current challenges in computational biomechanics and biomedical imaging. In Lisbon, for the first time, a session dedicated to award the winner of the Best Paper in CMBBE Journal will take place. We believe that CMBBE2018 will have a strong impact on the development of computational biomechanics and biomedical imaging and visualization, identifying emerging areas of research and promoting the collaboration and networking between participants. This impact is evidenced through the well-known research groups, commercial companies and scientific organizations, who continue to support and sponsor the CMBBE meeting series. In fact, the conference is enriched with five workshops on specific scientific topics and commercial software.info:eu-repo/semantics/draf

Theoretical and experimental models of the diffuse radar backscatter from Mars

The general objective for this work was to develop a theoretically and experimentally consistent explanation for the diffuse component of radar backscatter from Mars. The strength, variability, and wavelength independence of Mars' diffuse backscatter are unique among our Moon and the terrestrial planets. This diffuse backscatter is generally attributed to wavelength-scale surface roughness and to rock clasts within the Martian regolith. Through the combination of theory and experiment, the authors attempted to bound the range of surface characteristics that could produce the observed diffuse backscatter. Through these bounds they gained a limited capability for data inversion. Within this umbrella, specific objectives were: (1) To better define the statistical roughness parameters of Mars' surface so that they are consistent with observed radar backscatter data, and with the physical and chemical characteristics of Mars' surface as inferred from Mariner 9, the Viking probes, and Earth-based spectroscopy; (2) To better understand the partitioning between surface and volume scattering in the Mars regolith; (3) To develop computational models of Mars' radio emission that incorporate frequency dependent, surface and volume scattering