Sharif Digital Repository

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is widely-used for detection of the brain's neural activity. The signals and images acquired through this imaging technique demonstrate the human brain's response to pre-scheduled tasks. Several studies on blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signal responses demonstrate nonlinear behavior in response to a stimulus. In this paper we propose a new mathematical approach for modeling BOLD signal activity, which is able to model nonlinear and time variant behaviors of this physiological system. We employ the Nonlinear Auto Regressive Moving Average (NARMA) model to describe the mathematical relationship between output signals and predesigned... 

A two-dimensional, seven link, nine degrees of freedom biped model was developed to investigate the dynamic characteristics of normal and transfemoral amputee locomotion during the entire gait cycle. The equations of motion were derived using the Lagrange method and the stance foot-ground contact was simulated using a five-point penetration model. The joint driving torques were obtained using forward dynamic optimization of the normal human gait and applied to the intact joints of the amputee. Three types of motion controllers; frictional, elastic and hydraulic were considered for the prosthetic joints of the amputee and their design parameters were optimized to achieve the closest... 

A two-dimensional seven link biped dynamic model was developed to investigate the mechanical characteristics of the normal and amputee locomotion during the complete gait cycle. The foot-ground contact was simulated using a five-point penetration contact model. The equations of motion were derived using Lagrange method. Optimization of the normal human walking model provided constant coefficients for the driving torque equations that could reasonably reproduce the normal kinematical pattern. The resulting torques were then applied to the intact joints of the amputee model with a prosthetic leg equipped with a kinematical driver controller for the ankle and either a hydraulic, elastic or... 

Knee osteoarthritis (KOA) is a common musculoskeletal disorder resulting in altered gait patterns. Uncontrolled manifold (UCM) analysis has been demonstrated as a useful approach for quantitative analysis of motor variability and synergies. The present study aimed to investigate the changes in the kinematic synergy, controlling the center of mass (COM) position while walking on normal and narrow paths in people with KOA compared to asymptomatic participants. In this cross-sectional study, twenty people with mild to moderate KOA and twenty asymptomatic individuals walked at their comfortable preferred speed across normal and narrow paths on a treadmill. The UCM analysis was performed... 

This paper focuses on developing a new configuration on magnetorheological (MR) brake damper as prosthetic knee. Knee uses magnetic fields to vary the viscosity of the MR fluid, and thereby its flexion resistance. Exerted transmissibility torque of the knee greatly depends on the magnetic field intensity in the MR fluid. In this study a rotary damper using MR fluid is addressed in which a single rotary disc will act as a brake while MR fluid is activated by magnetic field in different walking gait. The main objective of this study is to investigate a prosthetic knee with one activating rotary disc to accomplish necessary braking torque in walking gait via implementing of Newton's equation of... 

A fast algorithm based on the nonlinear dynamical model for the electrocardiogram (ECG) is presented for the precise extraction of the characteristic points of these signals with baseline drift. Using the adaptive bionic wavelet transform, the baseline wander is removed efficiently. In fact by the means of the bionic wavelet transform, the resolution in the time-frequency domain can be adaptively adjusted not only by the signal frequency but also by the signal instantaneous amplitude and its first-order differential, which results in a better baseline wander cancellation. At the next step the parameters of the model are chosen to have the least square error with the original ECG. Determining... 

Gas embolotherapy (GE) is a developing medical method which can be utilized either as an autonomous therapeutic method to treat vascularized solid tumors, or it can be combined with other medical procedures—such as high-intensity focused ultrasound—to improve their efficiency. This paper is dedicated to investigating the different parameters which influence bubble lodging inside human vasculature via 2D-modeling of bubble dynamics in arteries’ and arterioles’ bifurcations which are potential sticking positions. Values used in the simulations are in accordance with the non-dimensional physiological numbers. It is found out that inlet pressure plays a decisive role in bubble lodging; the lower... 

Conventional models of cardiovascular system frequently lack required detail and focus primarily on the overall relationship between pressure, flow and volume. This study proposes a localized and regional model of the cardiovascular system. It utilizes noninvasive blood flow and pressure seed data and temporal cardiac muscle regional activity to predict the operation of the heart under normal and congestive heart failure conditions. The analysis considers specific regions of the heart, namely, base, mid and apex of left ventricle. The proposed method of parameter estimation for hydraulic electric analogy model is recursive least squares algorithm. Based on simulation results and comparison... 

Conventional models of cardiovascular system (CV) frequently lack required detail. Once utilized to study the heart function, these models focus primarily on the overall relationship between pressure, flow and volume. This study proposes a localized and regional model of the CV system. It utilizes non-invasive blood flow and pressure seed data and temporal cardiac muscle regional activation to predict the operation of the heart. Proposed localized analysis considers specific regions of the heart, namely base, mid and apex sections of the left ventricle. This modular system is based on a hydraulic electric analogy model, estimating desired parameters, namely resistance (R), compliance (C),... 

Left Ventricular Assist Devices (LVAD) have received renewed interest as a bridge-to-transplantation as well as a bridge-to-recovery device. Ironically, reports of malfunction and complications have hindered the growth of this device. In particular, the main concern is LVAD's susceptibility to excessive backlash and suction as a result of ows that are either too low or high, respectively. This study utilizes a well-established physiological model of the cardiovascular system as a reliable platform to study a proposed adaptive robust controller for a rotary motor based LVAD which overcomes such shortcomings. Proposed controller performance is evaluated by comparing simulated natural heart... 

Non-invasive measurement of flow-mediated dilation (FMD) in the brachial artery for assessing endothelial function is costly and operator-dependent, limiting its application to research cases. In this paper, an approach based on a physiological model between normalized central blood pressure and finger photoplethysmogram is presented. Baseline model parameters are estimated using a genetic algorithm in 30 subjects consisting of ten normal blood pressure (BP), ten high-BP and ten elderly volunteers. Beat-to-beat fitness values after reactive hyperaemia are calculated using baseline (before cuff occlusion) data. Results show that stimulus-induced changes are fairly described with a first order... 

Computational models of the central nervous system after a stroke helps to reveal the physiological mechanisms that may have strong impacts on the neuro-motor rehabilitation approaches. This paper studies the stroke subject's motor control mechanism in reaching movements by extending the previous study by incorporating the kinematics of motion as well as neural disconnection between the muscles and the CNS to further develop a planar patient specific neuro-musculoskeletal model of arm. The developed model was calibrated to eight post-stroke individuals by altering the Muscle Significance Factors (MFS) using numerical optimization to match the simulated motions with those measured... 

Surface registration is a necessary step and widely used in medical image-aided surgery. It's relevance to medical imaging is that there is much useful anatomical information in the form of collected surface points which originate from complimentary modalities. In this study, the kinematic relations between two point clouds with different coordinate definitions have been generated. Using Influence Method of surface modeling for extracting point clouds functions, the transformation matrix would be resulted. The proposed method was applied for an experimental femur data points(651 points) using the MRI images. These data points were transformed in a 30 degrees flexion of knee. This... 

Body posture measurement approaches, required in biomechanical models to assess risk of musculoskeletal injuries, are usually costly and/or impractical for use in real workplaces. Therefore, we recently developed three artificial neural networks (ANNs), based on measured posture data on several individuals, to predict whole body 3D posture (coordinates of 15 markers located on body's main joints), segmental orientations (Euler angles of 14 body segments), and lumbosacral (L5-S1) moments during static manual material handling (MMH) activities (ANNPosture, ANNAngle, and ANNMoment, respectively). These ANNs require worker's body height, body weight (only for ANNMoment), hand-load 3D position,... 

This paper adopts a holistic approach to stress detection issues in software and hardware phases and aims to develop and evaluate a specific low-power and low-cost sensor using physiological signals. First, a stress detection model is presented using a public data set, where four types of signals, temperature, respiration, electrocardiogram (ECG), and electrodermal activity (EDA), are processed to extract 65 features. Using Kruskal-Wallis analysis, it is shown that 43 out of 65 features demonstrate a significant difference between stress and relaxed states. K nearest neighbor (KNN) algorithm is implemented to distinguish these states, which yields a classification accuracy of 96.0 ± 2.4%. It... 

The model introduced in this article for neural system describes both physiological and psychological concepts of neural system and is based on the models of individual elements of the system. This model includes psychological characteristics such as; perception, prediction, learning and response planning, and physiological features such as; sensory analysis, memory and motor execution. The model is designed in such a way that it describes the performance of the neural system for a key-pressing test. The key-pressing experiment consists of a screen with numbers from 1 to 9, which is shown to the operator where one of the numbers is specified by a special color and the operator is to push the... 

Person authentication based on only the name, password or person identification number is not secured enough. In recent years researchers have focused on human physiological and behavioral parameters, because these parameters are more unique and human-specific than traditional ones. This approach of person authentication is usually called biometric authentication. Signature is the most commonly used behavioral biometric which is investigated in two ways of online and offline by researchers. In online procedure, the temporal indices of signature such as signing velocity, and acceleration are involved to increase the accuracy relative to offline methods and to recognize counterfeit signatures.... 

Keratoconus (KC) is a progressive corneal disease. It is mostly characterized by corneal thinning and irregular steepening as well as formation of cone-shaped regions on the cornea. Amongst treatment modalities, implantation of Intrastromal Corneal Ring Segments (ICRSs) could decrease corneal surface irregularities. However, controversy exists over the selection of proper ICRSs. Here, the aim was to compare the effects of two sets of ICRSs. The ICRSs were identical both in cross-section and total arc length. The results showed that under normal physiological range of intraocular pressures (IOPs), the two selected ICRSs caused slightly different deformations in the same in-silico keratoconic...