Sharif Digital Repository

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... 

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... 

It has been hypothesized that the muscular efforts exerted during standing may be altered by changes in personal factors, such as the body stature and muscular strength. The goal of this work was to assess the contribution of leg muscles using a biomechanical model in different physical conditions and various initial postures. An optimized inverse dynamics model was employed to find the maximum muscular effort in 23,040 postures. The simulation results showed that mid-range knee flexion could help the healthy and strong individuals maintain balance, but those with weaker muscle strength required more knee flexion. Individuals of weak muscular constitution as well as those with tall stature... 

Cotton fabrics have been prepared with smart properties by functional finishing with stimuli-responsive nano gel. A biopolymer (chitosan) and a synthetic polymer (poly-NiPAAm) have been used for the synthesis of nano gel through semi-batch surfactant-free dispersion polymerization (SB-SFDP) method. The incorporation of nano gel to textile fabrics is achieved by pad-dry-cure procedure, using an aqueous nano gel dispersion and 1,2,3,4-butantetracarboxylic acid as a crosslinking agent. With this cross linking method, it is possible to integrate the nano gel into the cotton fabric’s structure with good resistance to washing. The changes in physiological comfort parameters of cotton fabric such... 

Using a parallel mechanism in the wear test simulators of prosthetic knees provides an easy access to the femoral and tibial components during tests. Moreover, because of its higher accuracy and load capacity, in comparison with serial mechanisms, it allows simulation of heavier tasks, such as climbing stairs, to be performed. This paper describes a new 3 Degree of freedom (DoF) spatial 2T1R (T: Translational DoF; R: Rotational DoF) parallel mechanism, for reproducing the force and motion of the tibial component of the knee prostheses in a wear test simulator. Kinematics and dynamics analysis of the mechanism indicated that it can satisfy the required DoFs, workspace and load capacity... 

A bacterial strain, FBHYA2, capable of degrading naphthalene, was isolated from the American Petroleum Institute (API) separator of the Tehran Oil Refinery Complex (TORC). Strain FBHYA2 was identified as Achromobacter sp. based on physiological and biochemical characteristics and also phylogenetic similarity of 16S rRNA gene sequence. The optimal growth conditions for strain FBHYA2 were pH 6.0, 30°C and 1.0% NaCl. Strain FBHYA2 can utilize naphthalene as the sole source of carbon and energy and was able to degrade naphthalene aerobically very fast, 48 h for 96% removal at 500 mg/L concentration. The physiological response of Achromobacter sp., FBHYA2 to several hydrophobic chemicals... 

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... 

Recently a few methods have been proposed in the literature for non-invasive cuff-less estimation of systolic and diastolic blood pressures. One of the most prominent methods is to use the Pulse Transit Time (PTT). Although it is proven that PTT has a strong correlation with the systolic and diastolic blood pressures, this relation is highly dependent to each individuals physiological properties. Therefore, it requires per person calibration for accurate and reliable blood pressure estimation from PTT, which is a big drawback. To alleviate this issue, in this paper, a novel method is proposed for accurate and reliable estimation of blood pressure that is calibration-free. This goal is... 

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... 

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... 

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... 

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... 

Short-term interaction between heart rate (HR) and physiological measures like blood pressure and respiration reveals relevant information about autonomic nervous system (ANS) function. Complex mathematical models for describing their couplings have been proposed in the literature. However, an accurate estimation of their parameters in an inverse modeling problem is crucial to extract reliable ANS related indices. This study considers a physiologically-based model of the cardiovascular-respiratory system and ANS control that presents the neural and mechanical effects of respiration separately. The estimation method is evaluated on synthetic signals. An accurate estimation of the... 

Goal: Continuous blood pressure (BP) monitoring can provide invaluable information about individuals' health conditions. However, BP is conventionally measured using inconvenient cuff-based instruments, which prevents continuous BP monitoring. This paper presents an efficient algorithm, based on the pulse arrival time (PAT), for the continuous and cuffless estimation of the systolic BP, diastolic blood pressure (DBP), and mean arterial pressure (MAP) values. Methods: The proposed framework estimates the BP values through processing vital signals and extracting two types of features, which are based on either physiological parameters or whole-based representation of vital signals. Finally,... 

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.... 

Manual material handling (MMH) is considered as one of the main contributors to low back pain. While males traditionally perform MMH tasks, recently the number of females who undertake these physically-demanding activities is also increasing. To evaluate the risk of mechanical injuries, the majority of previous studies have estimated spinal forces using different modeling approaches that mostly focus on male individuals. Notable sex-dependent differences have, however, been reported in torso muscle strength and anatomy, segmental mass distribution, as well as lifting strategy during MMH. Therefore, this study aimed to use sex-specific models to estimate lumbar spinal and muscle forces during... 

Epidemiological studies are divided over the causative role of body weight (BW) in low back pain. Biomechanical modeling is a valuable approach to examine the effect of changes in BW on spinal loads and risk of back pain. Changes in BW have not been properly simulated by previous models as associated alterations in model inputs on the musculature and moment arm of gravity loads have been neglected. A detailed, multi-joint, scalable model of the thoracolumbar spine is used to study the effect of BW (varying at five levels, i.e., 51, 68, 85, 102, and 119kg) on the L5-S1 spinal loads during various static symmetric activities while scaling moment arms and physiological cross-sectional areas of... 

Greenhouses are complex systems that require considerable amounts of energy. In order to optimize their performance, it is necessary to reduce the amount of energy per unit of crop produced. This requires a combined assessment of greenhouse energy balance and crop growth, as well as their interaction. In this work, more than 30 existing greenhouse models are reviewed and different algorithms are combined to propose an integrated energy-yield model. The physical model of greenhouse energy demand is based on the dynamic energy and mass balance while yield production is based on a physiological crop model. The integrated model is validated with observed energy demand and crop yield datasets...