The development of foot ulcers is a common consequence of severe diabetes. Due to vascular disorders and impeded healing caused by the disease, most foot ulcers have been reported to be affected by body weight and progress with time. Also, abnormal distribution of plantar pressures has been observed to cause the formation of additional ulcers, which may collectively lead to traumatic amputations. While

Objective Extraction of temporal features of neuronal activity from electrophysiological data can be used for accurate classification of neural networks in healthy and pathologically perturbed conditions. In this study, we provide an extensive approach for the classification of humanin vitroneural networks with and without an underlying pathology, from electrophysiological recordings obtained using

The use of energy-based devices to treat genitourinary syndrome of menopause, termed vaginal thermotherapy (VTT), has gained significant interest in recent years. Among the primary safety concerns of this relatively new procedure is the possibility of unintentionally heating tissues adjacent to the vaginal wall, i.e., heating too deeply. Herein we use numerical simulations to evaluate monopolar radiofrequency-based

The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate a framework to support automated standardized testing and analysis of Cone Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) image quality QA across multiple institutions. A survey was conducted among the participating institutions to understand the variability of the CBCT QA practices. A commercial, automated software platform was validated by seven institutions

Deep learning has gained much popularity in solving challenging machine learning problems related to image, speech classification, etc. Research has been conducted to apply deep learning models in emotion classification based on physiological signals such as EEG. Most of the research works have based their model on the spatial aspects of the EEG. However, the emotion features in EEG are spread across

Purpose To investigate image intensity histograms as a potential source of useful imaging biomarkers in both a clinical example of detecting immune-related colitis (irColitis) in18F-FDG PET/CT images of immunotherapy patients and an idealized case of classifying digital reference objects (DRO). Methods Retrospective analysis of bowel18F-FDG uptake in N=40 patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors

Microwave ablation is under investigation as a minimally-invasive treatment for uterine fibroids. Computational models play a vital role in the development, evaluation and characterization of candidate ablation devices. The temperature-dependent dielectric properties of fibroid tissue are essential for accurate computational modeling. OBJECTIVE To measure the broadband temperature-dependent dielectric

Numerous diseases alter the esophagus elasticity, such as eosinophilic esophagitis and esophageal motility disorders like achalasia. The possibility to measure these modifications using minimally invasive techniques is a key issue for the diagnosis of such pathologies. The commercially available EndoflipTM (endoluminal functional lumen imaging probe) can be used to measure the luminal cross-sectional

In view of efficiency, simple operation, and affordable cost and disposability, quartz tuning fork systems form good candidates for mechanical-based biosensors in point of care applications. Based on the geometrical structure, the frequency response of the tuning fork- based sensors is dependent on the location of absorbed samples. In order to have the maximum efficiency and sensitivity, the optimized

Objectives. Volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) allows for reduction of organs at risk (OAR) volumes receiving higher doses, but increases OAR volumes receiving lower radiation doses and can subsequently increasing associated toxicity. Therefore, reduction of this low-dose-bath is crucial. This study investigates personalizing the optimization of VMAT arc parameters (gantry start and stop angles)

Tissue mimicking phantom materials with thermal and dielectric equivalence are vital for the development of microwave diagnostics and treatment. The current phantoms representing fat tissue are challenged by mechanical integrity at relevant temperatures coupled with complex production protocols. We have employed two types of nanocellulose (cellulose nanocrystals and oxidized cellulose nanocrystals)

Application of multi-pinhole collimator in pinhole-based SPECT increases detection sensitivity. The presence of multiplexing in projection images due to the usage of multiple pinholes can further improve the sensitivity at the cost of adding data ambiguity. We are developing a next-generation adaptive brain-dedicated SPECT system -AdaptiSPECT-C. The AdaptiSPECT-C can adapt the multiplexing level and

Melanoma is one of the most aggressive skin cancers. However, there remain many limitations in the current clinical treatments of it. Zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) have been considered to be a promising antitumor drug due to their excellent biocompatibility, biodegradability and biofunctionality. In this study, we prepared spherical ZnO NPs with an average diameter of less than 10 nm by a simple

Styrene-ethylene/butylene-styrene (SEBS) copolymer-in-mineral oil gel is an appropriate tissue-mimicking material to manufacture stable phantoms for ultrasound and photoacoustic imaging. Glycerol dispersion has been proposed to further tune the acoustic properties and to incorporate hydrophilic additives into SEBS gel. However, this type of material has not been investigated to produce wall-less vascular

Objectives.To optimize the absorbed organ dose in relation to the field of view for temporomandibular joint examinations in four cone beam computed tomography devices.Methods.An anthropomorphic adult head and neck phantom, and 192 LiF dosimeters (TLD-100) were used. The dosimeters were placed in the region corresponding to the lens, parotid glands, submandibular glands, and thyroid. Small, medium and

High frequency electrical stimulation of brain is commonly used in research experiments and clinical trials as a modern tool for control of epileptic seizures. However, the mechanistic basis by which periodic external stimuli alter the brain state is not well understood. This study provides a computational insight into the mechanism of seizure suppression by high frequency stimulation (HFS). In particular

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) reconstructed image signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) can be improved by including the 511 keV photon pair coincidence time-of-flight (TOF) information. The degree of SNR improvement from this TOF capability depends on the coincidence time resolution (CTR) of the PET system, which is essentially the variation in photon arrival time differences over all coincident photon

In previous works, we showed that incorporating individual airways as organs-at-risk (OARs) in the treatment of lung stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SAbR) patients potentially mitigates post-SAbR radiation injury. However, the performance of common clinical dose calculation algorithms in airways has not been thoroughly studied. Airways are of particular concern because their small size and the

In this paper, we study the reversible electroporation process on normal and cancerous cervical cells. The 2D contour of the cervical cells is extracted using image processing techniques from the Pap smear images. The conductivity change in the cancer cell model has been used to differentiate the effects of the high-frequency electric field on normal and cancerous cells. The cells' dielectric constant

At the diagnostic reference level (DRL) related to medical radiation, DRL quantity for general radiography is the entrance surface dose (ESD). Calculation of the ESD in medical radiography requires the backscatter factor (BSF), but derivation of the BSF requires assessment of an irradiated simulation of a human body. The present study used optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dosimeters and an anthropomorphic

Attenuation correction of annihilation photons is essential in PET image reconstruction for providing accurate quantitative activity maps. In the absence of an aligned CT device to obtain attenuation information, we propose the high-resolution residual U-net (HRU-Net) to extract attenuation correction factors (ACF) directly from time-of-flight (TOF) PET emission data. HRU-Net is built upon the U-Net

This paper presents a novel two-dimensional (2D) computational modeling of the retinal oxygen delivery, transport, and consumption analysis. The 2D modeling allows the division of the retina into four layers to address different flow profiles. The retina domain was meshed using the ICEM CFD mesher, while the ANSYS Fluent was used to calculate the transport phenomena for the four different layers. Clinical

Introduction. Event-related desynchronization (ERD) is used in brain-computer interfaces (BCI) to detect the user’s motor intention (MI) and convert it into a command for an actuator to provide sensory feedback or mobility, for example by means of functional electrical stimulation (FES). Recent studies have proposed to evoke the nociceptive withdrawal reflex (NWR) using FES, in order to evoke synergistic

Purpose. Metastatic complications are responsible for 90% of cancer-associated mortality. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can be used to observe the brain’s microstructure and potentially correlate changes with metastasis occurrence. Diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) is an MRI technique that utilizes the kinetics of water molecules within the body. The aim of this study is to use DWI to characterize

Grasping of the objects is the most frequent activity performed by the human upper limb. The amputations of the upper limb results in the need for prosthetic devices. The myoelectric prosthetic devices use muscle signals and apply control techniques for identification of different levels of hand gesture and force levels. In this study; a different level force contraction experiment was performed in

Local post-stenotic hemodynamics has critical influence in the atherosclerotic plaque progression occurring in susceptible arterial sites, in particular the left main coronary artery (LMCA) bifurcation. Understanding the effects of plaque morphological characteristics: stenosis severity (SS), eccentricity index (EI) and lesion length (LL) on the post-stenotic flow behavior can significantly improve

Synchrony Respiratory Tracking system adapted from CyberKnife has been introduced in Radixact to compensate the tumor motion caused by respiration. This study aims to compare the modeling accuracy of the Synchrony system between Radixact and CyberKnife. Two Synchrony plans based on fiducial phantoms were created for CyberKnife and Radixact, respectively. Different respiratory motion traces were used

Objectives. anatomical changes are inevitable during the course of radiotherapy treatments and, if significant, can severely alter expected dose distributions and affect treatment outcome. Adaptive radiotherapy (ART) is employed to maintain the planned distribution and minimise detriment to predicted treatment outcome. Typically, patients who may benefit from adaptive planning are identified via a

Gelatin has emerged as a biocompatible polymer with high printability in scaffold-based tissue engineering. The aim of the current study was to investigate the potential of genipin-crosslinked 3D printed gelatin scaffolds for temporomandibular joint (TMJ) cartilage regeneration. Crosslinking with genipin increased the stability and mechanical properties, without any cytotoxic effects. Chondrogenic

This work proposes a pixel-classification approach for vessel segmentation in x-ray angiograms. The proposal uses textural features such as anisotropic diffusion, features based on the Hessian matrix, mathematical morphology and statistics. These features are extracted from the neighborhood of each pixel. The approach also uses the ELEMENT methodology, which consists of creating a pixel-classification

This review focuses on recently developed printable biomaterials for bone and mineralized tissue engineering. 3D printing or bioprinting is an advanced technology to design and fabricate complex functional 3D scaffolds, mimicking native tissue for in vivo applications. We categorized the biomaterials into two main classes: 3D printing and bioprinting. Various biomaterials, including natural, synthetic

Quality Control (QC) tests in mammography are very important, since mammograms have been used as a population-based screening test for more than 30 years and QCs lead to better image quality and radiation safety for patients. European guidelines, EUREF and EFOMP protocols provide comprehensive QC guidelines for digital mammography (DM) and digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) units, respectively. We

The treatment of obesity based only on lifestyle changes has been shown ineffectiveness in a long-term period. The development of more definitive and non-invasive therapies has been the subject of study. In this paper, a magnetically driven ingestible capsule with the capacity to inflate a gastric balloon is devised, simulated, and fabricated. The balloon is inflated to a volume of 150 ml using an

The Purpose. Radioisotope of 192Iradium (192Ir) has a half-life (74 days) and is not easily accessible in developing countries. As a result, by the time source shipment clearance and the customs paperwork are completed, a large proportion of useful activity had already been decayed away. In fact, 60Cobalt (60Co) remote afterloading systems are commercially available by many venders. As a result, it

Physical breast phantoms can be used to evaluate x-ray imaging systems such as mammography, digital breast tomosynthesis and dedicated breast computed tomography (bCT). These phantoms typically attempt to mimic x-ray attenuation properties of adipose and fibroglandular tissues within the breast. In order to use these phantoms for task-based objective assessment of image quality, relevant diagnostic

The supervised machine learning technique Gradient Tree Boosting (GTB) has shown good accuracy for position estimation of gamma interaction in PET crystals for bench-top experiments while its computational requirements can easily be adjusted. Transitioning to preclinical and clinical applications requires near real-time processing in the scale of full PET systems. In this work, a high throughput GTB-based

MR-guided radiotherapy (MRgRT) systems provide excellent soft tissue imaging immediately prior to and in real time during radiation delivery for cancer treatment. However, 2D cine MRI often has limited spatial resolution due to high temporal resolution. This work applies a super resolution machine learning framework to 3.5 mm pixel edge length, low resolution (LR), sagittal 2D cine MRI images acquired

Brachytherapy is a common treatment in cervical, uterine and vaginal cancer management. The technique is characterised by rapid developments in the fields of medical imaging, dosimetry planning and personalised medical device design. To reduce unnecessary burden on patients, assessments and training of these technologies should preferable be done using high-fidelity physical phantoms. In this study

This study aimed to demonstrate the feasibility of using optical coherence tomography (OCT) for locating the sectioning site of a specimen before characterizing the ultrastructural features of dentin surfaces as well as the inner wall of the dentinal tubules (DT) using a field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM). Eight sound human molar teeth were extracted, examined via cross-polarization

The quantitative ultrasound technique was used to evaluate bone-mimicking phantoms; however, these phantoms do not mimic the intermediate stages of cortical bone healing. We propose using windshield glass as an original material to produce phantoms that mimic the characteristics of three different stages of cortical bone healing. This material was processed via a route that included breaking, grinding

Monte Carlo (MC) codes serve as the gold standard simulation tool during design and optimisation of x-ray imaging systems. Such simulations often model Rayleigh scattering based on the Independent Atom Approximation Model (IAM). This model neglects the low range molecular interference (MI) effects of non-crystalline materials such as human tissues. Previous work has found discrepancies in the simulated

This technical note discloses our implementation of a six degree-of-freedom (DOF) high-precision robotic phantom on a commercially available industrial robot manipulator. These manipulators are designed to optimize their set point tracking accuracy as it is the most important performance metric for industrial manipulators. Their in-house controllers are tuned to suppress its error less than a few tens

In order to provide favorable conditions for bone regeneration, a lot of biomaterials have been developed and evaluated, worldwide. Composite biomaterials have gained notoriety, as they combine desirable properties of each isolated material. Thus, in this research, bone repair capacity of three developed formulations of ceramic scaffolds were evaluated histomorphometrically, after implantation. Scaffolds

Insulin signaling pathways in muscle tissue play a major role in maintaining glucose homeostasis. Dysregulation in these pathways results in the onset of serious metabolic disorders like type 2 diabetes. Robustness is an essential characteristic of insulin signaling pathways that ensures reliable signal transduction in the presence of perturbations as a result of several feedback mechanisms. Integral

Objective. To measure the impact of skull-to-brain conductivity ratios on interictal spikes source localizations, using high resolution EEG (HR EEG). In previous studies, two ratios were mainly employed: 1/80 and 1/40. Consequences of the employed ratios on source localization results are poorly studied. Methods. Twenty patients with drug-resistant epilepsy were studied using HR EEG (sixty-four scalp

177Lu-DOTATATE (Lutathera) enables targeted radionuclide therapy of neuroendocrine tumors expressing somatostatin receptor type 2. Though patient-specific dosimetry estimates may be clinically important for predicting absorbed dose-effect relationships, there are multiple relevant dosimetry paradigms which are distinct in terms of clinical effort, numerical output and added-value. This work compares

Tissue engineering is a branch of regenerative medicine that harnesses biomaterial and stem cell research to utilise the body’s natural healing responses to regenerate tissue and organs. There remain many unanswered questions in tissue engineering, with optimal biomaterial designs still to be developed and a lack of adequate stem cell knowledge limiting successful application. Advances in artificial

Head and neck (H&N) cancer patients often present anatomical and geometrical changes in tumors and organs at risk (OARs) during radiotherapy treatment. These changes may result in the need to adapt the existing treatment planning, using an expert’s subjective opinion, for offline adaptive radiotherapy and a new treatment planning before each treatment, for online adaptive radiotherapy. In the present

Background and purpose. Accurate volume delineation plays an essential role in radiotherapy. Contouring is a potential source of uncertainties in radiotherapy treatment planning that could affect treatment outcomes. Therefore, reducing the degree of contouring uncertainties is crucial. The role of utilized imaging modality in the organ delineation uncertainties has been investigated. This systematic

To achieve better performance for 4D multi-frame reconstruction with the parametric motion model (MF-PMM), a general simultaneous motion estimation and image reconstruction (G-SMEIR) method is proposed. In G-SMEIR, projection domain motion estimation and image domain motion estimation are performed alternatively to achieve better 4D reconstruction. This method can mitigate the local optimum trapping

Micro/nano hierarchical substrates with different micropillar spacings were designed and prepared for capture of tumor cells. The cell capture efficiency of hierarchical substrates with low-density micropillar arrays was similar to that of nanostructured substrate. Increasing the density of micopillars could significantly improve the capture efficiency. The maximum capture efficiency was achieved on

Purpose. This study explored a novel technique to improve the MV imaging based fiducial visibility for a cohort of prostate radiotherapy patients, without compromising the original treatment plan. The study also compared these results to visibility using single MLC control points, as well as short arcs. Methods. Geometric data from 68 prostate radiotherapy treatments, each with implanted gold fiducials

Polymer gel (PG) dosimetry is a valuable tool to measure complex dose distributions in 3D with a high spatial resolution. However, due to complex protocols that need to be followed for in-house produced PGs and the high costs of commercially available gels, PG gels are only rarely applied in quality assurance procedures worldwide. In this work, we provide an introduction to perform highly standardized

Quantitative assessment and classification of facial paralysis (FP) are essential for treatment selection and progress evaluation of the condition. As part of a comprehensive framework towards this goal, this study aims to classify five normal facial functions: smiling, eye closure, raising the eyebrows, blowing cheeks, and whistling as well as the rest state. 3D facial landmarks and facial animation

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) inputs are most noticeable in diagnosing brain tumors via computer and manual clinical understanding. Multi-level detection and classification of the images utilizing computer-aided processing depend on labels and annotations. Though the two processes are dynamic and time-consuming, without which the precise accuracy is less assured. For augmenting the accuracy in processing

Brain tumors are among the most serious cancers that can have a negative impact on a person’s quality of life. The magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) analysis detects abnormal cell growth in the skull. Recently, machine learning models such as artificial neural networks have been used to detect brain tumors more quickly. To classify brain tumors, this research introduces the Y-net, a new convolutional

Cardiac arrhythmias represent about 50% of the cardiovascular diseases which are the first cause of mortality in the world. Implantable medical devices play a major role for treating these arrhythmias. Nevertheless the leads induce an unwanted biological phenomenon called fibrosis. This phenomenon begins at a cellular level and is effective at a macroscopic scale causing tissue remodelling with a local

The hand gesture recognition (HGR) process is one of the most vital components in human-computer interaction systems. Especially, these systems facilitate hearing-impaired people to communicate with society. This study aims to design a deep learning CNN model that can classify hand gestures effectively from the analysis of near-infrared and colored natural images. This paper proposes a new deep learning

Monte Carlo simulation is appreciated as an extraordinary technique to investigate particle physic processes in Radiation Therapy. This task offers a new Virtual Source Model (VSM) based on an innovative reconstruction method to extract energy and angular distribution from the Python phase space output data. Extensive comparisons of dose distributions are performed to evaluate VSM simulation precision

Unpaired domain translation models with distribution matching loss such as CycleGAN are now widely being used to shift domain in medical images. However, synthesizing medical images using CycleGAN can lead to misdiagnosis of a medical condition as it might hallucinate unwanted features, especially if theres a data bias. This can potentially change the original class of the input image, which is a very