Proceedings of the IEEE ... annual Northeast Bioengineering Conference. IEEE Northeast Bioengineering Conference最新文献

This study investigates the use of a chest-worn wearable computer, the eButton, to assess physical performance of older adults. The Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB), a standard cliniucal test, is first conducted on older human subjects. Then, a triaxial accelerometer and a triaxial gyroscope within the eButton are utilized to record acceleration and angular velocity of body motion on the same subjects for one week. The sensor data corresponding to walking episodes are segmented and features in the time and frequency domains are extracted. Comparison between these features and the total SPPB scores shows that the sensor data acquired in free-living conditions can be used as indicators of the subjects physical performance.

Current approaches for studying tumor activity in patients involve molecular characterization in excised tissue or biopsied samples. Recognizing that tumors are composed of heterogeneous arrays of cells and their environment, there is a compelling rationale to explore the macroscopic organization of tumor tissue. We present a novel methodology for probing the micro-structural constituents of tumors in vivo utilizing generalized Q-space MRI. This approach employs varying magnetic field gradients and diffusion sensitivities to yield voxel-scale probability distribution functions of proton diffusivity, and then maps multi-voxel cellular alignment with tractography. Using this methodology, we describe the presence of macroscopic organizational features in patients with head and neck cancers, specifically depicting regional differences between the geometrically coherent periphery and incoherent core region. Such methods may comprise a method for assessing attributes of tumor biology in vivo and for predicting the response of such tumors to various drugs and interventions.

This paper presents an image-based indoor localization system for tracking older individuals' movement at home. In this system, images are acquired at a low frame rate by a miniature camera worn conveniently at the chest position. The correspondence between adjacent frames is first established by matching the SIFT (scale-invariant feature transform) based key points in a pair of images. The location changes of these points are then used to estimate the position of the wearer based on use of the pinhole camera model. A preliminary study conducted in an indoor environment indicates that the location of the wearer can be estimated with an adequate accuracy.

Gene therapies have emerged as a promising treatment for congestive heart failure, yet they lack a method for minimally invasive, uniform delivery. To address this need we developed Cerberus, a minimally invasive parallel wire robot for cardiac interventions. Prior work on controlling the movement of Cerberus required accurate knowledge of device geometry. In order to determine the geometry of the device in vivo, this paper presents work on developing an auto-calibration procedure to measure the geometry of the robot using force sensors to move injector. The presented auto-calibration routine is able to identify the shape of the device to within 0.5 mm and 0.9°.

Traditional EEG systems are limited when utilized in point-of-care applications due to its immobility and tedious preparation procedures. We are designing a novel device named single-unit wireless EEG sensor to solve these problems. The sensor has a size similar to a U.S. penny. Four electrodes are installed within a 20mm diameter cylinder. It can be applied to scalp in seconds to amplify, digitize and wirelessly transmit EEG. Before the design and construction of an actual sensor, in this paper, we perform a set of simulations to quantitatively study: 1) can the sensor acquire EEG reliably? 2) will the selection of sensor orientation be an important factor to influence signal strength? Our results demonstrate positive answers to these questions. Moreover, the signal sensor acquired appears to be comparable to the signal from the standard 10-20 system. These results warrant the further design and construction of a single-unit wireless EEG sensor.

In this paper, an efficient field-programmable gate array (FPGA) implementation of the JPEG baseline image compression encoder is presented for wearable devices in health and wellness applications. In order to gain flexibility in developing FPGA-specific software and balance between real-time performance and resources utilization, A High Level Synthesis (HLS) tool is utilized in our system design. An optimized dataflow configuration with a padding scheme simplifies the timing control for data transfer. Our experiments with a system-on-chip multi-sensor system have verified our FPGA implementation with respect to real-time performance, computational efficiency, and FPGA resource utilization.

In this paper, the design of a low power heterogeneous wearable multi-sensor system, built with Zynq System-on-Chip (SoC), for human activity evaluation is presented. The powerful data processing capability and flexibility of this SoC represent significant improvements over our previous ARM based system designs. The new system captures and compresses multiple color images and sensor data simultaneously. Several strategies are adopted to minimize power consumption. Our wearable system provides a new tool for the evaluation of human activity, including diet, physical activity and lifestyle.

We present a novel binocular imaging system for wearable devices incorporating the biology knowledge of the human eyes. Unlike the camera system in smartphones, two fish-eye lenses with a larger angle of view are used, the visual field of the new system is larger, and the central resolution of output images is higher. This design leads to more effective image acquisition, facilitating computer vision tasks such as target recognition, navigation and object tracking.

Osteoarthritis is one of the leading causes of disability in the aging population. Long duration, low intensity therapeutic ultrasound has had promising impact in animal models to slow the progression of the disease and provide joint relief. Two pilot studies were conducted using a novel, wearable platform for delivering ultrasound to evaluate the potential clinical benefits of ultrasound therapy on knee osteoarthritis. There was a pain reduction effect from using ultrasound, as high as fifty two percent in one study. As well, initial data demonstrates that mobility may be increased for patients experiencing mild to moderate arthritis of the knee.

Our group has developed a novel dry electrode, the skin screw electrode, for EEG measurement. This electrode can be conveniently and rapidly installed on the human scalp requiring no electrolyte application and skin preparation. In this paper, we further evaluate the performance of this electrode by investigating its frequency-dependent electrical impedance at the skin-electrode interface. Comparing with the traditional disc electrode, we found that the two types of electrodes showed very different spectral properties. We also found that the impedance of the screw electrode decreases after coating with gold.