Medical engineering

Fundus photography, in combination with the ultra-wide-angle fundus (UWF) techniques, becomes an indispensable diagnostic tool in clinical settings by offering a more comprehensive view of the retina. Nonetheless, UWF fluorescein angiography (UWF-FA) necessitates the administration of a fluorescent dye via injection into the patient's hand or elbow unlike UWF scanning laser ophthalmoscopy (UWF-SLO). To mitigate potential adverse effects associated with injections, researchers have proposed the development of cross-modality medical image generation algorithms capable of converting UWF-SLO images into their UWF-FA counterparts...

Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) has gained attention as a reliable technique for investigating the intrinsic function patterns of the brain. It facilitates the extraction of functional connectivity networks (FCNs) that capture synchronized activity patterns among regions of interest (ROIs). Analyzing FCNs enables the identification of distinctive connectivity patterns associated with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). For MCI diagnosis, various sparse representation techniques have been introduced, including statistical- and deep learningbased methods...

To overcome the challenges posed by the complex structure and large parameter requirements of existing classification models, the authors propose an improved extreme learning machine (ELM) classifier for human locomotion intent recognition in this study, resulting in enhanced classification accuracy. The structure of the ELM algorithm is enhanced using the logistic regression (LR) algorithm, significantly reducing the number of hidden layer nodes. Hence, this algorithm can be adopted for real-time human locomotion intent recognition on portable devices with only 234 parameters to store...

Sleep is vital to our daily activity. Lack of proper sleep can impair functionality and overall health. While stress is known for its detrimental impact on sleep quality, the precise effect of pre-sleep stress on subsequent sleep structure remains unknown. This study introduced a novel approach to study the pre-sleep stress effect on sleep structure, specifically slow-wave sleep (SWS) deficiency. To achieve this, we selected forehead resting EEG immediately before and upon sleep onset to extract stress-related neurological markers through power spectra and entropy analysis...

Robot-assisted motor training is applied for neurorehabilitation in stroke patients, using motor imagery (MI) as a representative paradigm of brain-computer interfaces to offer real-life assistance to individuals facing movement challenges. However, the effectiveness of training with MI may vary depending on the location of the stroke lesion, which should be considered. This paper introduces a multi-task electroencephalogram-based heterogeneous ensemble learning (MEEG-HEL) specifically designed for cross-subject training...

OBJECTIVE: To study the safety and efficacy of algorithmically controlled electroporation (ACE) against spontaneous equine melanoma. METHODS: A custom temperature sensing coaxial electrode was paired with a high voltage pulse generation system with integrated temperature feedback controls. Computational modeling and ex vivo studies were conducted to evaluate the system's ability to achieve and maintain target temperatures. Twenty-five equine melanoma tumors were treated with a 2000V protocol consisting of a 2-5-2 waveform, 45ºC temperature set point, and integrated energized times of 0...

OBJECTIVE: Wearable devices are developed to measure head impact kinematics but are intrinsically noisy because of the imperfect interface with human bodies. This study aimed to improve the head impact kinematics measurements obtained from instrumented mouthguards using deep learning to enhance traumatic brain injury (TBI) risk monitoring. METHODS: We developed one-dimensional convolutional neural network (1D-CNN) models to denoise mouthguard kinematics measurements for tri-axial linear acceleration and tri-axial angular velocity from 163 laboratory dummy head impacts...

OBJECTIVE: Intraoperative liver deformation poses a considerable challenge during liver surgery, causing significant errors in image-guided surgical navigation systems. This study addresses a critical non-rigid registration problem in liver surgery: the alignment of intrahepatic vascular trees. The goal is to deform the complete vascular shape extracted from preoperative Computed Tomography (CT) volume, aligning it with sparse vascular contour points obtained from intraoperative ultrasound (iUS) images...

Ultrasound has expanded into the therapeutic field as a medical imaging and diagnostic technique. Low-intensity pulsed ultrasound (LIPUS) is a kind of therapeutic ultrasound that plays a vital role in promoting fracture healing, wound repair, immunomodulation, and reducing inflammation. Its anti-inflammatory effects are manifested by decreased pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines, accelerated regression of immune cell invasion, and accelerated damage repair. Although the anti-inflammatory mechanism of LIPUS is not very clear, many in vitro and in vivo studies have shown that LIPUS may play its anti-inflammatory role by activating signaling pathways such as integrin/Focal adhesion kinase (FAK)/Phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/Serine threonine kinase (Akt), Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)/endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS), or inhibiting signaling pathways such as Toll-like receptors (TLRs)/Nuclear factor kappa-B (NF-κB) and p38-Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK)...

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations are widely used to develop and analyze blood-contacting medical devices such as Left Ventricular Assist Devices (LVADs). This work presents an analysis of the transient behavior of two centrifugal LVADs with different designs: HeartWare VAD and HeartMate3. A scale-resolving methodology is followed through Large Eddy Simulations, which allows for the visualization of turbulent structures. The 3D LVAD models are coupled to a 0D 2-element Windkessel model, which accounts for the vascular resistance and compliance of the arterial system downstream of the device...

BACKGROUND: Our study aims to delineate the miRSNP-microRNA-gene-pathway interactions in the context of hypertrophic scars (HS) and keloids. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We performed a computational biology study involving differential expression analysis to identify genes and their mRNAs in HS and keloid tissues compared to normal skin, identifying key hub genes and enriching their functional roles, comprehensively analyzing microRNA-target genes and related signaling pathways through bioinformatics, identifying MiRSNPs, and constructing a pathway-based network to illustrate miRSNP-miRNA-gene-signaling pathway interactions...

BACKGROUND: This study focuses on the development of a neural network model to predict perceived sleep quality using data from wearable devices. We collected various physiological metrics from 18 participants over four weeks, including heart rate, physical activity, and both device-measured and self-reported sleep quality. OBJECTIVES: The primary objective was to correlate wearable device data with subjective sleep quality perceptions. METHODS: Our approach used data processing, feature engineering, and optimizing a Multi-Layer Perceptron classifier...

Secondary use of clinical health data implies a prior integration of mostly heterogenous and multidimensional data sets. A clinical data warehouse addresses the technological and organizational framework conditions required for this, by making any data available for analysis. However, users of a data warehouse often do not have a comprehensive overview of all available data and only know about their own data in their own systems - a situation which is also referred to as 'data siloed state'. This problem can be addressed and ultimately solved by implementation of a data catalog...

UNLABELLED: The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into digital healthcare, particularly in the anonymisation and processing of health information, holds considerable potential. OBJECTIVES: To develop a methodology using Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) models to preserve the essence of medical advice in doctors' responses, while editing them for use in scientific studies. METHODS: German and English responses from EXABO, a rare respiratory disease platform, were processed using iterative refinement and other prompt engineering techniques, with a focus on removing identifiable and irrelevant content...

Amyloidosis is a systemic disease initiated by deposition of misfolded proteins in the extracellular space, due to which multiple organs may be affected concomitantly. Cardiac amyloidosis, however, remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality in this population due to infiltrative /restrictive cardiomyopathy. This review attempts to focus on contemporary medical and surgical therapies for the different types of cardiac amyloidosis. Amyloidosis affecting the heart are predominantly of the transthyretin type (acquired in the older or genetic in the younger patients), and the monoclonal immunoglobulin light chain (AL) type which is solely acquired...

INTRODUCTION: Poison is defined as any chemical that has the potential to affect or harm human physiology due to its chemical activity. Poisoning is becoming a major preventable public health issue in many countries, including Ethiopia. There is a variation in acute poisoning mortality among the existing evidence in Ethiopia. This study aims to determine the pooled mortality rate from acute poisoning and its predictors in Ethiopia. METHODS: We searched available evidence of acute poisoning mortality in databases such as PubMed, Hinari, Cochrane, ScienceDirect, and other search engines...

Hospital pharmacies are integral to the healthcare system, and evaluating the factors influencing their efficiency and service standards is imperative. This analysis offers global insights to assist in developing strategies for future enhancements. The objective is to identify the optimal Lean Six Sigma methodologies to improve workflow and quality of hospital pharmacy services. A strategic search, aligned with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, encompassed an extensive range of academic databases, including Scopus, PubMed/Medline, Web of Science, and other sources for relevant studies published from 2009 to 2023...

INTRODUCTION: The hierarchical healthcare delivery system is an important measure to improve the allocation of medical resources and promote equitable distribution of basic medical and health services. It is one of the key factors in the success or failure of China's medical reform. This study aims to analyze the factors influencing patients' healthcare-seeking behaviors, including socioeconomic and clinical outcomes, under China's hierarchical healthcare delivery system, and to provide potential solutions...

Biohybrid machines (BHMs) are an amalgam of actuators composed of living cells with synthetic materials. They are engineered in order to improve autonomy, adaptability and energy efficiency beyond what conventional robots can offer. However, designing these machines is no trivial task for humans, provided the field's short history and, thus, the limited experience and expertise on designing and controlling similar entities, such as soft robots. To unveil the advantages of BHMs, we propose to overcome the hindrances of their design process by developing a modular modeling and simulation framework for the digital design of BHMs that incorporates Artificial Intelligence powered algorithms...

The biosynthetic capability of the bacterial ribosome motivates efforts to understand and harness sequence-optimized versions for synthetic biology. However, functional differences between natively occurring ribosomal RNA (rRNA) operon sequences remain poorly characterized. Here, we use an in vitro ribosome synthesis and translation platform to measure protein production capabilities of ribosomes derived from all unique combinations of 16S and 23S rRNAs from seven distinct Escherichia coli rRNA operon sequences...