Sharif Digital Repository

Simulation of cardiovascular system functionality during various physiological conditions is essential at different diagnostic and clinical levels. A first step in studying the roots of cardiovascular diseases and abnormal activity is to study a practical yet complete model of the cardiovascular system. In this thesis we introduced a new approach for defining the distributed model of the cardiovascular system. Initially, we chose an appropriate subsystem, namely Arch of Aorta, and proposed a distributed model for it. The elements of the proposed model were nonlinear RLC elements that simulate resistance, blood viscosity and vessel elasticity respectively. To minimize the system complexity,... 

Ultrasound hyperthermia is a commonly used noninvasive approach to destroy cancer tumors. High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) is a technique based on hyperthermia. It creates short and local elevations of temperature at a focus site within the tissue of interest. The main goal of HIFU is to maintain the temperature between 50 and 100 °C for a few seconds (typically less than 10 s), in order to cause tissue necrosis. In order to predict the effects of hyperthermia, accurate and effective modeling is needed. This study considers a 3D simulation of the hyperthermia based on HIFU method in the liver tissue. Temperature distribution and lesion volume changes, with a temperature of above... 

Heartbeat is the result of contractions of over 10 billion cardiac cells. These cells’ cytoplasms are connected to each other by gap junctions which are arrays of intercellular protein channels. Thus action potential can propagate from one cell to another and cause its contraction. In core-conductor model, one-dimensional microscopic representation of cardiac tissue, cells are attached to each other to form a ladder network. The parallel elements are connected to each other by series resistors which represent gap junctions. These resistors are nearly always considered as static elements. In this thesis I have investigated the effects of incorporating the dynamicity of gap junction resistors... 

The mankind has always utilized vision as the most essential tool in evaluating his environment. Currently, one of the most important research areas in computer vision is to characterize a three dimensional object through its features in a natural scene. This task may be conducted through a stereo vision system. The objective of this study is to introduce a quantitative measure in order to evaluate the operation of an automatic recognition system for selected hand postures. A key application of our proposed system is to train a prosthetic hand through surface electromyogram (sEMG) signals. At the onset of this process, the patient conducts a certain posture through application of sEMG... 

In this study a variational framework for joint segmentation and motion estimation is provided for inspecting heart in Cine MRI sequences. In the first work, a functional including Mumford-Shah segmentation and optical flow based dense motion estimation is proposed. However, the motion estimation technique is replaced with warping estimation in the second work to reach in more regular and smooth motion field based on tracking of cardiac boundaries. Both of these functionals are then approximated by using the phase-field method to make them suitable for extracting Euler-Lagrange equations. Numerical solution to the optimization problem, when the time and image spaces are discretized by finite... 

Gesture and motion evaluation are needed for a variety of applications. The use of human hand motions as a natural interface tool has motivated researchers to conduct research in the modeling, analysis and evaluation of various hand movements. In particular, human-computer intelligent interaction has been a focus of research in vision-based gesture recognition. In this work, we introduce a 3-D hand model evaluation method that offers flexible and elaborate representation of hand motion. We used landmarked points on tips and joints of the fingers and calculated the 3-D coordinates of these points through a stereo vision system followed by an HMM (Hidden Markov Model) to recognize hand... 

Disconnections in neural paths from the central nervous system to the muscles or vice versa cause different neuropathies, thus paralysis in different limbs may occur. As a result of the lack of muscular activity and the decrease in blood perfusion in paralyzed limbs, problems like osteoporosis, increase in the risk of breaking, decline in muscle size, cardiovascular diseases, renal dysfunction, bedsores, etc may happen. In order to induce movement in paralyzed limbs, thus preventingmentioned problems, rowing exercise through Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) may be utilized. In FES, electrical Stimulation using current stimulating pulses is applied to contracting and relaxing muscles,... 

Ability to speak lucidly plays a key role in social relations. Consequently the role of larynx is quite important and timely diagnosis of laryngeal diseases has proved to be crucial. Since conventional diagnostic methods of the larynx are usually expensive or bothersome, the aim of this project is to analyze and classify diseases of the larynx with the aid of signal processing which tend to be faster and easier to implement and quite economical. This study utilizes the vowel sound /a/ and a well referenced database, namely MEEI (Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary) which includes 53 normal and 213 abnormal voices in 7 classified diseases. In this work, using existing signal modeling and... 

World-wide, Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) takes hundreds of thousands of lives each year. This chronic heart disease causes poor performance of the heart and insufficient blood pumping to the organs. A significant percentage of patients with CHF require heart transplants for their survival. The high cost of heart transplant, shortage of donor hearts and possibility of its rejection by recipients are serious problems of this type of treatment. Therefore a large number of heart patients are potential beneficiaries of artificial blood pumps such as Ventricular Assist Device (VAD) and Total Artificial Heart (TAH). Performance of these systems must be compliant and complementary to the existing... 

Medical needle interventions are a common technique for accessing tissue structures.In these procedures, needles are used, for example, to extract biopsy samples, brachytherapy, and to insert drugs. In TRUS guided prostate brachytherapy application, Physicians used ulterasound imaging to steer the needle and insert radioactive seeds into cancerous tumors to irradiate surrounding tissue over several months. Prostate rotation, deformation, and unavailability of imaging data during part of the insertion path result in misplaced seeds. To overcome these problems, in this research, we modeled the prostate, its membrane and the surrounding fatty tissue as linearly elastic homogenous material, and... 

In many modern medical procedures, needle insertion is an inevitable part of the diagnosis or treatment protocols. The accuracy of the needle insertion is adversely affected by a number of factors. A needle, frequently assumed to be flexible, is inserted into a soft tissue and induces complex mechanical interactions that may result in considerable uncertainties. Tissue intrinsic characteristics as well as its deformation and rotation may cause dramatic complexities. This work considers the needle movement inside the tissue from the dynamics and control point of view. The proposed approach can be regarded as an initial step towards automation of needle insertion procedures; it can also be... 

With technological advances in fabrication and control of prosthesis and assistive devices the importance of such systems has increased drastically. On the other hand the appropriate coupling of these devices, especially the exoskeletal systems with the upper or lower extremities is of immense importance as it is an integral part of the control system. In particular, the control strategy and its ability to adapt the exoskeletal system with the existing and physiological functionality of the user, is an integral part of the system requirement. In the controller implementation, a number of methods are proposed including using the excitation signal, similar to the existing neuromuscular system.... 

Motor imagery causes Event related Synchronization/Desynchronization (ERS/ERD) in Electroencephalogram (EEG) signal. These potentials can be used as an input for a Brain Computer Interface (BCI) system. To do so, it is necessary for these inputs to be correctly classified. The quality of classification is severely affected by the features extracted. Common Spatial Patterns (CSP) algorithm is often used for this task. Some of this method disadvantages are neglecting non-stationary properties of EEG signal and its proneness to overfitting. Additionally, its success is highly dependent on the frequency band that the algorithm is performed in. The most suitable sub band is interchangeable... 

Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is one of the emerging technological trends that paves the way for the next generation medical systems by offering proactive wellness management and early detection of diseases. WBAN, as standardized by IEEE 802.15.6, is a network composed of intelligent, miniaturized, low power sensors that are strategically implanted in, placed on, or in close proximity to the human body. The sensors have responsibility for recording vital physiological signals and wirelessly transmitting them to a central hub for further processing. In this study, we have first investigated the applicable channel models for a typical WBAN. Considering various scenarios with different... 

In the literature of motor behavior, rapid and harmonious human movements and adaptation to limb dynamics are described with reference to internal models. Concepts of internal models in neuroscience cognitive sciences and computational modeling have been investigated and their structure and performance have been evaluated by behavioral, neurophysiological and medical imaging data. The purpose of the theory of internal models is to explain the mechanism of human movement. Based on this theory, the central nervous system uses internal models to predict and adjust movements and reduce uncertainty. Uncertainty refers to the unknown dynamics of the system due to the lack of access to accurate... 

Physiotherapy is a major part of the rehabilitation process that is used to retrieve patients' physical ability. The recuperation feedback in the physiotherapy process has a twofold significance for both physiotherapists and patients. It helps patients regain their ability to recover more quickly, prevent recurrence of injury to the treated area and other areas, and motivate the patient to continue treatment. It also helps the physiotherapist to monitor the process of rehabilitation and ensure the correctness of the procedure. Meanwhile, many patients cannot maintain continuous workouts due to lack of access to the physiotherapist at home and inability to provide required feedback.In this... 

Wireless area body networks (WBANs) are a set of sensors designed to monitor an individual’s health remotely. These networks are required to transfer the data properly to the healthcare professional. Since there is no guarantee that no faults might occur, these networks should have fault tolerance capability such that they can maintain their main function properly. In this thesis, a method for fault tolerance in WBANs is proposed.In this research, to test the proposed method, a case study on sleep apnea disorder is selected for monitoring patients who experience sleep apnea. To this end, the Apnea-ECG dataset from the PhysioNet repository was considered which contains five different types of... 

The Very-High Temperature Reactor (VHTR) design is one of the six candidates for the Generation IV nuclear reactors. The reactor core type of the VHTR design is either prismatic or pebble-bed. In pebble bed reactors, the core is filled of thousands of graphite and fuel pebbles. Fuel pebbles in these reactors consist of TRISO particles, which are embedded in a graphite matrix stochastically. The reactor core is also stochastically filled up of fuel and dummy pebbles with an unequal ratio. These two stochastic geometries are the so-called double heterogeneous of this type of reactors. In the current study, a...