Bio-Medical Materials and Engineering - Volume 24, issue 1

Authors: Yu, Chang Ho | Shin, Sun Hye | Jeong, Ho Choon | Go, Deung Young | Kwon, Tae Kyu

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: The objectives were to assess the trunk and leg muscle activities during the trunk tilt exercise by a 3D dynamic exercise device capable of active and passive movements, to study the evaluation of Root Mean Squire (RMS), and to investigation the influence of the trunk positions on these muscle activities. Eighteen healthy volunteers were selected. None of the subjects had any history of lumber and trunk muscle problems. Rotation capability was enabled for the investigation of A (anterior), R (right), P (posterior), L (left), AR (anterior right), AL (anterior left), PR (posterior right), PL (posterior left) tilt directions. EMG signals …of trunk (rectus abdominis, external obliques, latissimus dorsi, erector spinae) muscles and leg (rectus femoris, Biceps femoris, Tibialis Anterior, gastrocnemius) muscles were taken out. Root Mean Squire (RMS) values were calculated. The results of this study indicate that different exercise patterns can be applied depending on the exercise types, which are appropriate and necessary to each user. We believe that the human body can be maintained in equilibrium through the interaction between the position and movement execution of the human body, contributing to the improvement of body balance control. Further quantitative data collection and analysis related to the development of various spinal stabilization exercise programs is required. In the near future, we will conduct a study concerning the effects of trunk tilt exercise in active and passive modes on the strength of the tilting muscles and postural balancing ability. Show more

Keywords: Trunk stabilization exercise, whole body tilt, active Tilt, passive tilt, EMG

DOI: 10.3233/BME-130805

Citation: Bio-Medical Materials and Engineering, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 245-254, 2014

Authors: Sun, Xin | Li, Ke | Ren, Hongwei | Li, Peng | Wang, Xinpei | Liu, Changchun

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: The baPWV measurement is a non-invasive and convenient technique in an assessment of arterial stiffness. Despite its widespread application, the influence of different timing algorithms is still unclear. The present study was conducted to investigate the influence of six timing algorithms (MIN, MAX, D1, D2, MDP and INS) on the baPWV measurement and to evaluate the performance of them. Forty-five CAD patients and fifty-five healthy subjects were recruited in this study. A PVR acquisition apparatus was built up for baPWV measurement. The baPWV and other related parameters were calculated separately by the six timing algorithms. The influence and performance of …the six algorithms was analyzed. The six timing algorithms generate significantly different baPWV values (left: F=29.036, P<0.001; right: F=40.076, P<0.001). In terms of reproducibility, the MAX has significantly higher CV value (≥ 18.6%) than the other methods, while the INS has the lowest CV value (≤ 2.7%). On the performance of classification, the INS produces the highest AUC values (left: 0.854; right: 0.872). The MIN and D2 also have a passable performance (AUC > 0.8). The choice of timing algorithm affects baPWV values and the quality of measurement. The INS method is recommended for baPWV measurement. Show more

Keywords: Coronary artery disease, arterial stiffness, brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity, timing algorithm

DOI: 10.3233/BME-130806

Citation: Bio-Medical Materials and Engineering, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 255-261, 2014

Authors: Liu, Yong-jie | Cui, Shi-ming | He, Chao | Li, Jiu-kai | Wang, Qing-yuan

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Ti-6Al-4V implants that function as artificial joints are usually subjected to long-term cyclic loading. To study long-term fatigue behaviors of implant Ti-6Al-4V in vitro and in vivo conditions exceeding 107 cycles, constant stress amplitude fatigue experiments were carried out at ultrasonic frequency (20 kHz) with two different surface conditions (ground and polished) in ambient air and in a simulated body fluid. The initiation mechanisms of fatigue cracks were investigated with scanning electron microscopy. Improvement of fatigue strength is pronounced for polished specimens below 106 cycles in ambient air since fatigue cracks are initiated from surfaces of specimens. While …the cycles exceed 106 , surface conditions have no effect on fatigue behaviors because the defects located within the specimens become favorable sites for crack initiation. The endurance limit at 108 cycles of polished Ti-6Al-4V specimens decreases by 7% if it is cycled in simulated body fluid instead of ambient air. Fracture surfaces show that fatigue failure is initiated from surfaces in simulated body fluid. Surface improvement has a beneficial effect on fatigue behaviors of Ti-6Al-4V at high stress amplitudes. The fatigue properties of Ti-6Al-4V deteriorate and the mean endurance limits decrease significantly in simulated body fluid. Show more

Keywords: Ti-6Al-4V, high cycle fatigue, surface condition, simulated body fluid, S-N curve

DOI: 10.3233/BME-130807

Citation: Bio-Medical Materials and Engineering, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 263-269, 2014

Authors: Liu, Chengyu | Zheng, Dingchang | Zhao, Lina | Liu, Changchun

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: It has been reported that Gaussian functions could accurately and reliably model both carotid and radial artery pressure waveforms (CAPW and RAPW). However, the physiological relevance of the characteristic features from the modeled Gaussian functions has been little investigated. This study thus aimed to determine characteristic features from the Gaussian functions and to make comparisons of them between normal subjects and heart failure patients. Fifty-six normal subjects and 51 patients with heart failure were studied with the CAPW and RAPW signals recorded simultaneously. The two signals were normalized first and then modeled by three positive Gaussian functions, with their peak …amplitude, peak time, and half-width determined. Comparisons of these features were finally made between the two groups. Results indicated that the peak amplitude of the first Gaussian curve was significantly decreased in heart failure patients compared with normal subjects (P<0.001). Significantly increased peak amplitude of the second Gaussian curves (P<0.001) and significantly shortened peak times of the second and third Gaussian curves (both P<0.001) were also presented in heart failure patients. These results were true for both CAPW and RAPW signals, indicating the clinical significance of the Gaussian modeling, which should provide essential tools for further understanding the underlying physiological mechanisms of the artery pressure waveform. Show more

Keywords: Artery pressure waveform analysis, waveform matching, Gaussian function, heart failure

DOI: 10.3233/BME-130808

Citation: Bio-Medical Materials and Engineering, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 271-277, 2014

Authors: Liang, Ding | Ivanov, Kamen | Li, Huiqi | Ning, Yunkun | Zhang, Qi | Wang, Lei | Zhao, Guoru

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Research on falls in elderly people has a great social significance because of the rapidly growing of the aging population. The pre-impact lead time of fall (PLT) is an important part of the human fall theory. PLT is the longest time for a person who is going to fall to take action in order to prevent the fall or to reduce bodily injuries from the fall impact. However, there is no clear definition of PLT so far. There is also no comparative study for active and passive falls. In this study, we proposed a theoretical definition of the PLT, based …on a new method of fall event division. We also compared the differences of PLT and the related angles between active and passive falls. Eight healthy adult subjects were arranged to perform three kinds of activities of daily living (sitting, walking and lying), and two kinds fall activities (active and passive) in three directions (forward, backward and lateral fall). Nine inertial sensor modules were used to measure the body segmental kinematic characteristics of each subject in our experimental activities. In this paper, a fall event was suggested to divide into three or four phases and then the critical phase could be divided into three periods (pre-impact, impact, and post-impact). Two fall models were developed for active and passive falls using acceleration data. The average value of PLT for active falls is about 514 ± 112 ms and it is smaller than the value for passive falls, which is 731 ± 104 ms. The longest PLTs were measured on the chest or waist instead of other locations, such as the thigh and shank. The PLTs of the three kinds of fall activities were slightly different, but there was a significant difference between two fall modes. The PLT showed the correlation to the body angle at the start of PLT, but it was uncorrelated at the end of PLT. The angles at the start of PLT had slight variations (<10 degrees) from the steady standing state except in passive forward falls (max 16 degrees) due to the self-control. The landing angles were significantly different in the both fall modes in all the three directions of fall, indicating the state of the trunk was uncertain when the hip contacted the ground. It can be concluded that it is feasible to prevent falls by using an early pre-impact fall alarm device; the present study provides important reference for development of pre-impact fall alarm devices. Show more

Keywords: fall prevention, pre-impact fall detection, pre-impact lead time (PLT), inertial sensors

DOI: 10.3233/BME-130809

Citation: Bio-Medical Materials and Engineering, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 279-288, 2014

Authors: Wong, Derek F. | Chao, Lidia S. | Zeng, Xiao Dong

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Discretization of a continuous-valued symptom (attribute) in medical data set is a crucial preprocessing step for the medical classification task. This paper proposes a supportive attribute – assisted discretization (SAAD) model for medical diagnostic problems. The intent of this approach is to discover the best supportive symptom that correlates closely with the continuous-valued symptom being discretized and to conduct the discretization process using the significant supportive information that is provided by the best supportive symptom, because we hypothesize that a good discretization scheme should rely heavily on the interaction between a continuous-valued attribute and both its supportive attribute and the …class attribute. SAAD can consider each continuous-valued symptom differently and intelligently, which allows it to be capable of minimizing the information lost and the data uncertainty. Hence, SAAD results in higher classification accuracy. Empirical experiments using ten real-life datasets from the UCI repository were conducted to compare the classification accuracy achieved by several prestigious classifiers with SAAD and other state-of-the-art discretization approaches. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness and usefulness of the proposed approach in enhancing the diagnostic accuracy. Show more

Keywords: Discretization, data preprocessing, supportive attribute interdependence, bioinformatics, medical classification

DOI: 10.3233/BME-130810

Citation: Bio-Medical Materials and Engineering, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 289-295, 2014

Authors: Yu, Chang Ho | Piao, Young Jun | Kim, Kyung | Kwon, Tae Kyu

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: A new training system that can adjust training intensity and indicate the center pressure of a subject was proposed by applying controlled electric current to the Magneto-Rheological damper. The experimental studying on the muscular activities were performed in lower extremities during maintaining and moving exercises, which were processed on an unstable platform with Magneto rheological dampers and recorded in a monitor. The electromyography (EMG) signals of the eight muscles in lower extremities were recorded and analyzed in certain time and frequency domain. Muscles researched in this paper were rectus femoris (RF), biceps femoris (BF), tensor fasciae latae (TFL), vastuslateralis (VL), …vastusmedialis (VM), gastrocnemius (Ga), tibialis anterior (TA), and soleus (So). Differences of muscular activities during four moving exercises were studied in our experimental results. The rate of the increment of the muscular activities was affected by the condition of the unstable platform with MR dampers, which suggested the difference of moving exercises could selectively train each muscle with varying intensities. Furthermore, these findings also proposed that this training system can improve the ability of postural balance. Show more

Keywords: Muscular activities, magneto-rheological damper, unstable platform

DOI: 10.3233/BME-130811

Citation: Bio-Medical Materials and Engineering, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 297-306, 2014

Authors: Zhou, Xiaoming | Zhang, Congyao | Liu, Dong C.

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Color flow imaging has been well applied in clinical diagnosis. For the high quality color flow images, clutter filter is important to separate the Doppler signals from blood and tissue. Traditional clutter filters, such as finite impulse response, infinite impulse response and regression filters, were applied, which are based on the hypothesis that the clutter signal is stationary or tissue moves slowly. However, in realistic clinic color flow imaging, the signals are non-stationary signals because of accelerated moving tissue. For most related papers, simulated RF signals are widely used without in vivo I/Q signal. Hence, in this paper, adaptive polynomial …regression filter, which is down mixing with instantaneous clutter frequency, was proposed based on in vivo carotid I/Q signal in realistic color flow imaging. To get the best performance, the optimal polynomial order of polynomial regression filter and the optimal polynomial order for estimation of instantaneous clutter frequency respectively were confirmed. Finally, compared with the mean blood velocity and quality of 2-D color flow image, the experiment results show that adaptive polynomial regression filter, which is down mixing with instantaneous clutter frequency, can significantly enhance the mean blood velocity and get high quality 2-D color flow image. Show more

Keywords: Color flow imaging, clutter filter, polynomial regression filter, mean clutter frequency, instantaneous clutter frequency

DOI: 10.3233/BME-130812

Citation: Bio-Medical Materials and Engineering, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 307-313, 2014

Authors: Guo, Xuemei | Zhai, Fei | Nan, Qun

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Renal sympathetic denervation (RSD) by the radiofrequency ablation was used to treat the resistant hypertension in clinic and has achieved curative effect. But the temperature distribution in the artery walls and the blood flow have not been investigated. Finite element method (FEM) based on Comsol Multiphysics 4.3a software was used to simulate the temperature distribution in the renal artery. The results of renal artery temperature distribution as well as blood flow effect on the temperature field were obtained, which demonstrated that the blood velocity is very crucial in the temperature distribution of blood vessel near antenna. When the speed of …blood is 0.4 m/s, the highest temperature rise of arterial wall near the antenna is 8.882°C (37°C to 45.882°C) and contralateral artery wall's highest temperature rise is about 5°C (37°C to 42°C). This temperature value can damage renal sympathetic nerves to cure the resistant hypertension. Due to the blood flow, the temperature field stretches to the direction of blood flow. The temperature rise of blood is only in a small range (37°C to 41°C) at both ends of the antenna. The simulation of RSD by the radiofrequency ablation can give doctors a better scheme to avoid the vascular injury in different blood flow rates and radiofrequency voltages. Show more

Keywords: Renal sympathetic denervation, resistant hypertension, finite element method, temperature distribution, radiofrequency ablation

DOI: 10.3233/BME-130813

Citation: Bio-Medical Materials and Engineering, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 315-321, 2014

Authors: Bernad, Elena S. | Bernad, Sandor I. | Craina, Marius L.

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: In this study, effects of serial stenosis on coronary hemodynamics were investigated in the human right coronary artery (RCA) using blood flow analysis. A 3-D model of a serial stenosed RCA was reconstructed based on multislice computerized tomography images. Numerical analysis examined the effect of multiple serial stenoses on the hemodynamic characteristics such as flow separation, pressure drop and FFR. Pressure loss associated with flow expansion after each constriction was large. Overall pressure drop increased from 1700 Pa (12.75 mmHg) at the end diastole to 11000 Pa (82.5 mmHg) at the peak systole. In two stenoses the corresponding pressure gradients …werearound 30 mmHg and corresponded to the stenosis with FFR < 0.7 (associated to the sever stenosis). Severe stenosies caused large pressure drops across the throat. Blood flow distal to the stenosis was associated with fluctuations of the wall shear stress and vorticity. Show more

Keywords: serial stenosis, right coronary artery, hemodynamics, fractional flow reserve, pressure drop

DOI: 10.3233/BME-130814

Citation: Bio-Medical Materials and Engineering, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 323-334, 2014