Applied Mechanics and Materials Vols. 284-287

Abstract: Some indoor bio-aerosols trigger allergic reactions, including hypersensitivity pneumonitis, allergic rhinitis, and various types of asthma. Moreover, human influenza virus is one of the bio-aerosols that causes significant morbidity and mortality every year worldwide. Although vaccination is the most effective way to address the risk of airborne infection, they are not always feasible, available and practiced. An air cleaning device is effective and efficient in removing indoor bio-aerosols and thereby controlling or eliminating these airborne biological contaminants. An antimicrobial filter is developed and its antimicrobial activities against influenza viruses are measured. An extract from Gingko Biloba L. and Sumac (Rhus Javanica L.) possesses antifungal, antibacterial, and antiviral activities thus this class of natural products is used as an antimicrobial agent in this study. An antimicrobial air filters were prepared by coating the natural agent on polypropylene filter media. The antimicrobial rates of the filter against new influenza (H1N1) virus and A/PuertoRico/8/34 (A/PR/8) virus were greater than 99.9999%. The antimicrobial filters were effective in controlling the bio-aerosols by inhibiting bacterial and viral survival on the filter, thereby preventing secondary contamination of filter from breeding of bio-aerosols. An air cleaning device equipped with the antimicrobial air filter was tested for the inhibition effect on viruses and no virus was detected at the outlet of the purifier. Although the antimicrobial filters are developed and tested only for the inactivation of virus in this study, the filter could be also effective in removing other types of bio-aerosols, such as bacteria, fungi, and allergens. The antimicrobial filter appears to be promising application in air cleaning and biological protection fields.

Abstract: The prevalence of Diabetes Mellitus (DM) has increased in recent decades. So far, there have developed quite some methods for detecting DM, such as fasting plasma glucose (FPG) test, oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) and random plasma glucose test. However, there is no standard technique that is followed universally for detection of glucose in urine. In this study, application potential of corrugated long period fiber grating (CLPFG) sensor technology to detect glucosuria (glucosuria is the excretion of glucose into the urine) has been investigated. The CLPFG was coated with Copper (II) hydroxide - Cu (OH)2. After that, the coated CLPFG was utilized for detecting glucosuria. It was possible to increase the refractive index sensitivity of CLPFG for detecting the presence of glucose in urine and in other solutions as well. The implication of this result lies in an understanding of the new methodology employed to detect specific materials in solutions.

Abstract: The concepts of rapidly and automatically obtaining the stresses found in specific human teeth and performing quick parametric studies has been a persistent goal in bioengineering. Finite element analysis (FEA) is a powerful approach for human tooth stress analysis and has been applied to various dental researches. However, the whole FEA process is a major challenge to dental researchers since special simulation skills and expert knowledge in mechanics are required for constructing proper models and obtaining accurate results. This paper presents an expert system that permits dentists with no engineering expertise to obtain stress distributions accurately and rapidly for various dental applications. The expert system for 2D stress analysis of human teeth is developed on the customization platforms provided by commercial computer aided design (CAD) software (ProEngineer Wildfire 3.0, Parametric Technology Corporation, Needham, MA, USA) and FEA software (MD Patran R2, MSC Software Corporation, CA, USA), respectively. A knowledge based system is built for helping users carry out the whole FEA process automatically. Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) are constructed for inputting the necessary tooth information such as dimensions, material properties, etc. An orthodontic application is presented for showing how the expert system works. The approaches developed and applied here can be expanded to provide automatic stress analyses for many other applications as well.

Abstract: A wireless EEG-based brain-computer interface (BCI) and an FPGA-based system to control electric wheelchairs through a Bluetooth interface was proposed in this paper for paralyzed patients. Paralytic patients can not move freely and only use wheelchairs in their daily life. Especially, people getting motor neuron disease (MND) can only use their eyes and brain to exercise their willpower. Therefore, real-time EEG and winking signals can help these patients effectively. However, current BCI systems are usually complex and have to send the brain waves to a personal computer or a single-chip microcontroller to process the EEG signals. In this paper, a simple BCI system with two channels and an FPGA-based circuit for controlling DC motor can help paralytic patients easily to drive the electric wheelchair. The proposed BCI system consists of a wireless physiological with two-channel acquisition module and an FPGA-based signal processing unit. Here, the physiological signal acquisition module and signal processing unit were designed for extracting EEG and winking signals from brain waves which can directly transformed into control signals to drive the electric wheelchairs. The advantages of the proposed BCI system are low power consumption and compact size so that the system can be suitable for the paralytic patients. The experimental results showed feasible action for the proposed BCI system and drive circuit with a practical operating in electric wheelchair applications.

Abstract: Non-rigid image registration plays an important role in medical imaging. Classic Demons algorithm is a good method for image registration in some domain. One disadvantage of classic Demons algorithm is that the topological preservation can not be ensured, and it can only adapt to deal with the single modality image registration. In medical image analysis, the different modal images comparison and fusion are needed to give the doctor enough information for making a decision. The mutual information algorithm has been validated useful for multi-modality image registration. By analyzing the critical points of Demons registration like mis-registration, an improved Demons algorithm with mutual information evaluation is proposed. Experiment results on liver images between CT and MRI modality show that the proposed algorithm can deal with multi-modality image registration well and it can hold the abilities even faces the noise and distortion.

Abstract: An ultra-low power, portable, and easily implemented Holter recorder is necessary for patients or researchers of electrocardiogram (ECG). Such a Holter recorder with off-the-shelf components is realized with mixed signal processor (MSP) in this paper. To decrease the complexity of analog circuits and the interference of 60 Hz noise from power line, we use the MSP to implement a finite impulse response (FIR) filter which is equiripple design. We also integrate the ring buffer for the input samples and the symmetrical characteristic of the FIR filter for efficiently computing convolution. The experimental results show that the ECG output signal with the PQRST feature is easy to be distinguished. This ECG signal is recorded for 24 hours using a SD card. Furthermore, the ECG signal is transmitted with a smartphone via Bluetooth to decrease the burden of the Holter recorder. As a result, this paper uses the Lomb method for the spectral analysis of Heart Rate Variability (HRV) better than Fast Fourier Transform (FFT).

Abstract: Dental Implant is a sophisticated dental surgery. Dentists must suffer fine oral surgery training so that the development of a professional dentist is quite time-consuming. We combine the medical image processing reconstruction and optical tracking techniques to provide a realistic teaching environment. The system can help dentists learning all steps during the surgery. We hope this system can increase the success ratio of surgery and lower the surgery risks. Our medical image reconstruction is reached by the toolkits named VTK. The stereo vision algorithm is introduced into this study to construct the optical tracking system. This system will provide a good study experience for dentists and to assist them during the implant surgery. After several dental medical materials show, most responses are positive. Most dentists are very interested in our system and recognize our system can greatly shorten the dental training time. During the surgery, the difficulty will also be drop down with the assistance of our system.

Abstract: We invented this system “Bed Site Health Care Video Phone System” aiming to increase process efficiency in medical care. This system includes three functions. First, patients can have instant direct contact with medical professional when they need help through a video call. In consideration to patients’ privacy, this device is designed to hide the camera lens unless activated through pressing the nursing call button. The second function is patients’ family and friends can have a remote video visit instead of an in-person visit. Third, it can detect record and analyze patients’ temperature, blood pressure, heart beat.

Abstract: he stent is a major breakthrough in the treatment of coronary artery diseases. The permanent vascular implant of a stent, however, changes the intra-stent blood hemodynamics. There is a growing consensus that the stent implant may change the artery wall shear stress distribution and therefore trigger the restenosis process. Several studies have suggested that low shear stress, particularly the shear stress less than 5 dyne/cm2, may lead to endothelial proliferation of smooth muscle cells. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has been widely used to analyze hemodynamics in stented arteries. In this paper, CFD models were developed to investigate the effects of cardiovascular stent design on the wall shear stress distribution in straight and curved arteries. Results show that the stent design pattern alone did not have a significant impact on the stent hemodynamics; however, stenting in curved arteries increased the low shear stress area which may lead to higher restenosis rate. The low shear stress area was almost doubled when the degree of artery curvature increased from 0o to 90o. The proposed methodology and findings will provide great insight for future optimization of stent design to reduce the risk of restenosis.

Abstract: As a medical software industry develops in a variety of its fields, the studies on medical software using 3D a virtual model are also being constantly conducted. In orthodontia, one of the fields where the 3D virtual model can be applied, this 3D virtual model is used to simulate treatments of orthodontic patients through several stages of tooth movement, ranging from initial malocclusion to final malocclusion. The set-up model is made into the most ideal treatment objective. This set-up model forms the foundation in manufacturing transparent and thin overlay equipment. It is esthetic and easy to use, so a number of patients prefer to use it. However, there have been few studies on it, and the satisfaction level is not so high because of high cost and much time for checking out their treatment process. In this paper, we propose a 3D orthodontia system to raise the satisfaction level by providing the patients with a simulation and a set-up model in improvement in high treatment expenses and on all the processes in advance through exact and scientific diagnosis materials.