Compressive load bearing and bone architecture of lumbar vertebrae in terms of sex and aging

Relation between vertebral compressive strength and trabecular architecture is presented in terms of aging and sex. Complex in vitro medical-engineering analysis of cadaver human lumbar L1 and L2 vertebrae was executed: densitometry, CT, MRI, mechanical test and histology, in aspect of osteoporosis. In this paper the results of the mechanical test are detailed only. The compressive mechanical parameters, like limit stress and strain, proportional stress and strain, Young modulus, ductility, energy absorption capacity were determined. Morphometry analysis was based on the CT pictures. Density and diameter of trabeculae were measured. Correlation between morphometric and mechanical properties was evaluated in terms of aging, sex and bone mineral density

Reengineering Biomedical Engineering Curricula: A New Product Development Approach

Product development engineers in medical industries have created design control procedures to ensure high quality designs that are as error-free as possible. The reason is simple; companies must adhere to certain engineering and manufacturing best practices in order to obtain certification of their devices for sale in the US and abroad. We describe here an ongoing effort to apply these industrial best practices to the design and implementation of a novel sequence of undergraduate biomedical computing courses within the Department of Bio-medical Engineering at Marquette University (Milwaukee, Wisconsin). We have tightly integrated our industrial advisory board into this design and development effort. The board has contributed to significantly to the orderly generation of curricular requirements, the development of course implementation designs and the evaluation of these designs per requirements

Analysis of Vocal Disorders in a Feature Space

This paper provides a way to classify vocal disorders for clinical applications. This goal is achieved by means of geometric signal separation in a feature space. Typical quantities from chaos theory (like entropy, correlation dimension and first lyapunov exponent) and some conventional ones (like autocorrelation and spectral factor) are analysed and evaluated, in order to provide entries for the feature vectors. A way of quantifying the amount of disorder is proposed by means of an healthy index that measures the distance of a voice sample from the centre of mass of both healthy and sick clusters in the feature space. A successful application of the geometrical signal separation is reported, concerning distinction between normal and disordered phonation.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Medical Engineering & Physic

Aim and scope of the BMIRC at Kyutech

The Second BMIRC International Symposium on Advances in Bioinformatics and Medical Engineering: In Memory of Professor Akinori Sarai, January 29-30, 2014, Fukuoka, Japa

Screening of Obstructive Sleep Apnea with Empirical Mode Decomposition of Pulse Oximetry

Detection of desaturations on the pulse oximetry signal is of great importance for the diagnosis of sleep apneas. Using the counting of desaturations, an index can be built to help in the diagnosis of severe cases of obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome. It is important to have automatic detection methods that allows the screening for this syndrome, reducing the need of the expensive polysomnography based studies. In this paper a novel recognition method based on the empirical mode decomposition of the pulse oximetry signal is proposed. The desaturations produce a very specific wave pattern that is extracted in the modes of the decomposition. Using this information, a detector based on properly selected thresholds and a set of simple rules is built. The oxygen desaturation index constructed from these detections produces a detector for obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome with high sensitivity ($0.838$) and specificity ($0.855$) and yields better results than standard desaturation detection approaches.Comment: Accepted in Medical Engineering and Physic

4D printing technology in medical engineering: a narrative review

The addition of the time dimension to three-dimensional (3D) printing has introduced four-dimensional (4D) printing technology, which has gained considerable attention in different fields such as medical, art, and engineering. Nowadays, bioscience has introduced some ideas which can be fulfilled by 4D printing. Blending time with variations caused by the situation has many beneficial aspects such as perceptibility and adaptability. Since 4D printing can create a dynamic structure with stimuli-responsive materials, the applications of smart materials, stimulus, and 3D printing are the effective criteria in 4D printing technology. Smart materials with their flexible properties can reshape, recolor, or change function under the effect of the internal or exterior stimuli. Thus, an attractive prospect in the medical field is the integration of the 4D printing approach along with smart materials. This research aims to show the most recent applications of 4D printing technology and smart materials in medical engineering which can show better prospective of 4D printing applications in the future. Also, it describes smart medical implants, tissue engineering, and bioprinting and how they are being used for the 4D printing approach in medical engineering applications. In this regard, a particular emphasis is dedicated to the latest progress in the innovation and development of stimuli-responsive materials that are activated and respond over time to physical, chemical, and biological stimuli and their exploitation through 3D printing methods to fabrication 4D printing smart parts such as intelligent tissue-engineered scaffolds, smart orthopedic implants, and targeted drug delivery systems. On the other hand, major challenges in this technology are explained along with some suggestions for future works to address existing limitations. It is worth noting that despite significant research that has been carried out into 4D printing, it might be more valuable if some investigation is done into 4D bio-printing applications and how this approach will be developed

Measurement of Heart Rate Using the Withings ScanWatch Device during Free-living Activities : Validation Study

Funding Information: This research is part of the Eastern Corridor Medical Engineering (ECME) project, which has been funded by European Union’s INTERREG VA programme, managed by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

HPC-based uncertainty quantification for fluidstructure coupling in medical engineering

In recent decades biomedical studies with living probands (in vivo) and artificial experiments (in vitro) have been complemented more and more by computation and simulation (in silico). In silico techniques for medical engineering can give for example enhanced information for the diagnosis and risk stratification of cardiovascular disease, one of the most occurring causes of death in the developed countries. Other use cases for in silico methods are given by virtual prototyping and the simulation of possible surgery outcomes. High reliability is a requirement for cardiovascular diagnosis and risk stratification methods especially with surgical decision-making. Given uncertainties in the input data of a simulation, this implies a necessity to quantify the uncertainties in simulation results. Uncertainties can be propagated within a numerical simulation by methods of Uncertainty Quantification (UQ)