Sharif Digital Repository

In this paper, a two channel abdominal PPG instrumentation is developed. The proposed instrument consists of IR-LED and its driver, photo-detector and data acquisition card. The modulation frequency generation, demodulation and digital signal processing is done completely in the digital domain using LabView. The results show that the developed instrument is able to acquire signal from the abdomen even at 4 cm source to detector separation. This instrument is intended for future application in trans-abdominal fetal heart rate detection. © 2008 Springer-Verlag  

An approach based pulse on contour analysis is proposed for the development of an aging index for the vascular system. The approach is non-invasive, using photoplethysmography (PPG), which is in wide clinical use. A probe is applied to the subject's finger-tip to provide a measure of the pulse waveform. The measured waveforms are filtered, digitized and post-processed. Individual pulses are extracted and the best pulse was selected by using the best pulse selection algorithm. Pulse contour analysis is then performed with specially formulated PPG fitness equation. Results of measurements taken from 72 subjects are reported. The age range of the subjects was from 19 to 68 years, all of them... 

Segmentation of the human airway tree from volumetric computed tomography images is an important stage for many clinical applications such as virtual bronchoscopy. The main challenges of previously developed methods are to deal with two problems namely, leaking into the surrounding lung parenchyma during segmentation and the need to manually adjust the parameters. To overcome these problems, a multi-seeded fuzzy based region growing approach in conjuction with the spatial information of voxels is proposed. Comparison with a commonly used region growing segmentation algorithm shows that the proposed method retrieves more accurate results by achieving the specificity and sensitivity of 98.81%... 

In this paper we make use of M-band discrete wavelet transform (MDWT) and Wiener filter for speckle noise suppression of ultrasound images. Assuming multiplicative model for speckle noise, by applying logarithmic transform to noisy observation we convert multiplicative noise to additive one. Then, speckle noise can be reduced by taking the M-band wavelet transform of log-transformed observation and employing an adaptive thresholding technique. In order to improve the performance of this denosing approach, we propose a preprocessing stage which exploits Wiener filtering. Through this stage logtransformed observation is separated into two images and then each of these two images is denoised... 

Automatic cell segmentation has various applications in different parts of science. The development of automated methods for cell segmentation, remains challenging in situations where there are touching cells. In this paper we propose a new method for separating touching cells. As the first step, we use a combination of graph segmentation algorithm and thresholding for segmenting foreground objects and producing a binary image. Next, boundary points of separation zone are selected by using a corner detection algorithm. Finally, the marker controller watershed transform is applied to separate touching cells at selected points. © 2008 IEEE  

Estimating the depth of anesthesia (DOA) is still a challenging area in anesthesia research. The objective of this study was to design a fuzzy rule based system which integrates electroencephalogram (EEG) features to quantitatively estimate the DOA. The proposed method is based on the analysis of single-channel EEG using frequency and time domain features as well as Shannon entropy measure. The fuzzy classifier is trained with features obtained from four subsets of data comprising well-defined anesthesia states: awake, moderate, general anesthesia, and isoelectric. The classifier extracts efficient fuzzy if-then rules and the DOA index is derived between 100 (full awake) to 0 (isoelectric)... 

The anesthesia community has recently witnessed numerous advances in monitoring of the anesthetic state. This development has spurred a renewed interest in the automation of the clinical anesthesia. The absence of a precise model in biomedical field has motivated the authors to propose a novel approach capable of handling the uncertainties present in the model and moreover, to design a new approach which is subjective and can be adopted to patient specific requirements. In this regard a study has been conducted in this paper, in order to fit the intelligence of fuzzy controllers based on reinforcement learning in this clinical application. This study suggests that the chosen approach fits... 

In theory, diffusion and perfusion information in MRI maps can be combined to yield morphological information, such as capillary density, volume and possibly capillary plasma velocity. This paper suggests a new method for determination of mean radius, length and capillary density in normal regions using diffusion and perfusion MRI. Mean Transit Time (MTT), Cerebral Blood Volume (CBV), Apparent Diffusion Coefficient (ADC), pseudo-diffusion coefficient (D*) and ΔR2 and ΔR2* values were utilized to calculate mean radius, length and capillary density. To verify the proposed theory, a special protocol was designed and tested on normal regions of a male Wistar rat using obtained functions. Mean... 

Artifact removal is an essential part in electroencephalogram (EEG) recording and the raw EEG signals require preprocessing before feature extraction. In this work, we implemented three filtering methods and demonstrated their effects on the performance of different classifiers. Bandpass digital filtering, median filtering and facet method are three preprocessing approaches investigated in this paper. We used data set lib from the BCI competition 2003 for training and testing phase. Our accuracy varied between 80% and 96%. In our work, we demonstrated that the problems of choosing the classifier and preprocessing methods are not independent of each other. Two of our approaches could achieve... 

Microfluidic systems are an interesting topic for investigation due to their wide-spreading applications. Nowadays, polymeric solutions are used mainly for the generation of microparticles in biomedical engineering, food, and pharmaceutical industries. Droplet-based microfluidic devices have proposed an extensive interest in many applications such as chemical/biological/nanomaterial preparation to understand deeply the droplet size and formation in microchannels. However, numerous experimental and numerical studies have been done for oil-water combination, polymeric solutions behavior in the presence of oil has not been investigated widely. Therefore, it is important to understand the... 

Purpose: There is a scarcity of studies evaluating the variability of couplings between proximal segments (trunk, pelvis, and thigh) in individuals with patellofemoral pain (PFP) while emerging evidence has suggested that aberrant motions of trunk and pelvis can have a contributory role in the etiology of PFP. The purpose of this study was, therefore, to evaluate the trunk, pelvis, and thigh intersegmental coordination variability in PFP compared with healthy individuals. Methods: Thirty-four participants (17 with PFP and 17 healthy controls) walked (at preferred speed) and ran (at preferred and fixed speed) on a treadmill each trial for 30 seconds. Three-dimensional kinematics were recorded... 

In this paper, an approximate analysis for SNR improvement factor in non-coherent integrators for communication channels is introduced. The SNR improvement factor and loss function of the non-coherent integrator are calculated. Our results are very simple and illustrative. Although calculations are with some approximations and therefore the results are not exact, but the error is negligible, as it is shown. © 2005 IEEE  

Using multiple antenna transmitters and/or receivers is becoming a common method for improving spectral efficiency of wireless channels. The physical layer of the next generation of WLAN systems (802.11n) is based on a Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) system which seems to be an efficient solution for defects which could occur in wireless channels. In this paper, we investigate an adaptive bit allocation method to feed the quantized channel state data back to the transmitting antennas, depending on the channel condition in a Multiple Input Single Output (MISO) scheme. We have proposed an adaptive bit allocation scheme with a significant performance improvement over the fixed bit... 

During recording lung sounds over the chest, heart sounds (HS) are also recorded and interferes with the inteipretation of lung sounds especially at low frequencies. Hence, several methods have been proposed to remove or reduce HS from lung sounds. The first step in most of the methods developed for HS reduction is to localize the segments of lung sounds including HS. In this study a method based on multi-resolution product of lung sounds wavelet coefficients was implemented for HS localization and its performance was compared to that of three methods developed for HS localization. The methods were tested on data from 6 healthy subjects recorded at low (7.5ml/s/kg) and medium (15ml/s/kg)... 

Fibrin sealant and platelet gels are human blood-derived, biodegradable, non toxic, surgical products obtained by mixing a fibrinogen concentrate or a platelet rich plasma with thrombin, respectively. Fibrin sealant is now a well known surgical tool increasingly used to stop or control bleeding, or to provide air and fluid tightness in many surgical situations. Platelet gels are newly developed preparations that are of specific interest because they contain numerous physiological growth factors and cytikines that are released upon the activation of blood platelets by thrombin. These growth factors, including PDGF, TGF-β1, BMP, and VEGF have been shown to stimulate cell growth and... 

The human being in the environments of modern technology has to endure stresses of many and varied kinds of vibrations. Measuring vibration is an important tool in rehabilitation and biomechanical fields of research. We have proposed image processing as a new method to record and determine the frequency response of human body. The subjects were exposed to whole body periodical vibration while standing on a shaking table. Two digital camcorders were used to capture the motion of colored pencil-dot markers on the skin of human body (forehead) and on the edge of the shaking table. After color spotting each frame, the binary image results were processed using new circle factor criteria proposed... 

Drug loading in electrospun nanofibers has gained a lot of attention as a novel method for direct drug release in an injury site to accelerate wound healing. The present study deals with the fabrication of silk fibroin (SF)-chitosan (CS)-silver (Ag)-curcumin (CUR) nanofibers using the electrospinning method, which facilitates the pH-responsive release of CUR, accelerates wound healing, and improves mechanical properties. Response surface methodology (RSM) was used to investigate the effect of the solution parameters on the nanofiber diameter and morphology. The nanofibers were characterized via Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron... 

Tissue adhesives have been widely used for preventing wound leaks, sever bleeding, as well as for enhancing drug delivery and biosensing. However, only a few among suggested platforms cover the circumstances required for high-adhesion strength and biocompatibility, without toxicity. Antibacterial properties, controllable degradation, encapsulation capacity, detectability by image-guided procedures and affordable price are also centered to on-demand tissue adhesives. Herein we overview the history of tissue adhesives, different types of polysaccharide-based tissue adhesives, their mechanism of gluing, and different applications of polysaccharide-based tissue adhesives. We also highlight the... 

Titanium alloys are widely used in various areas, particularly in medical and dental industries, due to their remarkable properties. Still, the optimum cutting conditions for titanium alloys are under consideration. Ti alloyed with Cu has been reported to provide unique properties such as good mechanical performance, good biocompatibility, acceptable corrosion resistance, and relatively lower melting point. The properties of Ti-Cu alloys mentioned above are sensitive to microstructure. They are highly dependent on microstructural characteristics such as the formation, growth, and morphological features of intermetallics and precipitates, dependent on the amount of Cu and the manufacturing...