Non-invasive monitoring of bone health using ultrasound

Bone fractures are estimated to afflict everyone at least once in his/her lifetime. Monitoring this becomes crucial especially when it comes to athletes in order for them to safely resume their regular activities as soon as possible. Technologies currently employed are either very expensive or use harmful radiation. Ultrasound can monitor bone fractures in a non-invasive manner, as discussed in United States Patent # 5143069. Three transducers are mounted over the test specimen. A pulse generator excites the transmitting receiver. The second receiver is mounted next to the transmitter and acts as a reference receiver that displays the response across a normal area. The third transducer is mounted across the area suspected to have some defect and acts as the sample receiver to display the response across the discontinuity. Both the received signals are viewed on a dual channel digital oscilloscope, saved onto a diskette and processed for data analysis by quantifying parameters such as flight time and amplitude. Experiments were conducted on mock bones (wood and metal), cow bone with some meat on it, the human arm and the human tibia. Discontinuity in the first two test specimens resulted in rise in flight time and loss of amplitude. Results from the other three experiments displayed two packets of signals, the first packet corresponding to bone and the second to the soft tissue around it

Eternal Sunshine of the Mechanical Mind: The Irreconcilability of Machine Learning and the Right to be Forgotten

As we keep rapidly advancing toward an era where artificial intelligence is a constant and normative experience for most of us, we must also be aware of what this vision and this progress entail. By first approximating neural connections and activities in computer circuits and then creating more and more sophisticated versions of this crude approximation, we are now facing an age to come where modern deep learning-based artificial intelligence systems can rightly be called thinking machines, and they are sometimes even lauded for their emergent behavior and black-box approaches. But as we create more powerful electronic brains, with billions of neural connections and parameters, can we guarantee that these mammoths built of artificial neurons will be able to forget the data that we store in them? If they are at some level like a brain, can the right to be forgotten still be protected while dealing with these AIs? The essential gap between machine learning and the RTBF is explored in this article, with a premonition of far-reaching conclusions if the gap is not bridged or reconciled any time soon. The core argument is that deep learning models, due to their structure and size, cannot be expected to forget or delete a data as it would be expected from a tabular database, and they should be treated more like a mechanical brain, albeit still in development

Learning Wavefront Coding for Extended Depth of Field Imaging

Depth of field is an important factor of imaging systems that highly affects the quality of the acquired spatial information. Extended depth of field (EDoF) imaging is a challenging ill-posed problem and has been extensively addressed in the literature. We propose a computational imaging approach for EDoF, where we employ wavefront coding via a diffractive optical element (DOE) and we achieve deblurring through a convolutional neural network. Thanks to the end-to-end differentiable modeling of optical image formation and computational post-processing, we jointly optimize the optical design, i.e., DOE, and the deblurring through standard gradient descent methods. Based on the properties of the underlying refractive lens and the desired EDoF range, we provide an analytical expression for the search space of the DOE, which is instrumental in the convergence of the end-to-end network. We achieve superior EDoF imaging performance compared to the state of the art, where we demonstrate results with minimal artifacts in various scenarios, including deep 3D scenes and broadband imaging

Mechanics and Dynamics of Soft Additively Manufactured Elastomers with Extreme Stretchability

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is the process of building a 3D part layer by layer from metal/polymer feedstock. Digital Light Processing (DLP) is the AM method used in this project. Soft stretchable elastomers, thin sphere Mechanical properties are dependent on DLP process parameters. Goal: Investigate how different process parameters impact the tensile properties of soft 3D-printed elastomers and how a spherical membrane of such material dynamically responds to pressure Applications:Prosthetics, soft robotics, on-demand components for legacy aircrafthttps://ecommons.udayton.edu/grad_showcase/1022/thumbnail.jp

Role of NGOs in Combating Violence against Women: A Comparative Study on NGOs Intervention and Non-Intervention Areas of Barguna District, Bangladesh

Gender-based violence is universal irrespective of race religion and geographical location In many societies along with Government Non-Government Organizations NGOs are playing an important role to address the problem of violence against women The aim of this paper is to identify the existing trends of violence against women in Barguna district Bangladesh It focuses on the issues by comparing the situation of violence against women between NGOs intervention areas and non-NGOs intervention areas by analyzing police filed cases of 2010 to 2015 It also focuses on the community perceptions of the study area about the reasons of violence against women and the role of NGOs to solve the problem The findings of the study indicate that the people of NGO intervention areas filed the highest number of cases compared to the non NGOs intervention areas because of its different initiatives and programs On the other hand in non-NGO intervention areas violence against women is more severe but the tendencies of case filing in minimal and the reasons behind the trend is lack of awareness insufficiency of legal and economic support et

Broadband lightweight flat lenses for longwave-infrared imaging

We experimentally demonstrate imaging in the longwave-infrared (LWIR) spectral band (8um to 12um) using a single polymer flat lens based upon multi-level diffractive optics. The device thickness is only 10{\mu}m, and chromatic aberrations are corrected over the entire LWIR band with one surface. Due to the drastic reduction in device thickness, we are able to utilize polymers with absorption in the LWIR, allowing for inexpensive manufacturing via imprint lithography. The weight of our lens is less than 100 times those of comparable refractive lenses. We fabricated and characterized two different flat lenses. Even with about 25% absorption losses, experiments show that our flat polymer lenses obtain good imaging with field of view of ~35degrees and angular resolution less than 0.013 degrees. The flat lenses were characterized with two different commercial LWIR image sensors. Finally, we show that by using lossless, higher-refractive-index materials like silicon, focusing efficiencies in excess of 70% can be achieved over the entire LWIR band. Our results firmly establish the potential for lightweight, ultra-thin, broadband lenses for high-quality imaging in the LWIR band

Comparative Study of the Rates of Dispersal of Triadica sebifera (Chinese Tallow) and Imperata Cylindrica (Japanese Blood Grass) in North America

Chinese Tallow (Triadica sebifera) and Japanese Blood Grass (Imperata cylindrica) are two invasive species that wreck havoc on their invaded areas by reducing the biodiversity of their new environments. We studied the rate of dispersal of these two species in North America to determine which species spreads faster. We hypothesized that Chinese Tallow spreads faster than Japanese Blood Grass since Chinese Tallow was introduced in North America long before Japanese Blood Grass and has a greater number of seed dispersal methods (e.g. wind, water, bird, etc.) than Japanese Blood Grass. To test our hypothesis, we collected the record of Chinese Tallow and Japanese Blood Grass in North America from their year of introduction to present and determined the area covered by each species individually over time. After comparing the range covered by the two species over time, we observed that though Chinese Tallow spread faster in its early years, yet in sum, Japanese Blood Grass spreads faster than Chinese Tallow, which opposes our hypothesis. For the log transformed total range difference of Japanese Blood Grass subtracted by Chinese Tallow 70-120 years after introduction, our equation for the trendline was y= =-0.0302*x + 3.39 with an R^2 value of 0.934. This negative slope evident from the trendline refutes our initial hypothesis. For the data analysis, our t=-5.31, d.f=2, p(one-tailed)=.016842. Based on our experiment, it was clear that the rate of dispersal of the Japanese Blood Grass in North America is increasing at an alarming rate and it is necessary to control this species as it is extremely harmful for the environment and biodiversity. As our data showed that the rate of dispersal of the Chinese Tallow is decreasing, the management methods for the Chinese Tallow can be studied to find effective ways to control the Japanese Blood Grass