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Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is the most common type of sleep apnea. OSA is caused by an obstruction in the upper airway, which actually stops the air flow in the nose and mouth during sleep. The current gold standard of diagnosis, called polysomnography (PSG), requires a fullnight hospital stay connected to over ten channels of measurements requiring physical contact with sensors. PSG is inconvenient, expensive and unsuited for community screening. OSA is commonly accompanied by snoring, but its potential in clinical diagnosis is not fully recognized yet. In this paper, we use the snore sounds (SS) as diagnostic systems, and propose the novel technique to track the sleep state of OSA patient in the connection weight space (CWS) of neural networks (NN) after the process of supervised training. While the SS data/database of OSA patient provides an excellent medium to test our methods, we carry out experiments using two variations of the basic back-propagation (BP) algorithm: the steepest descent (SD) algorithm and the Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) algorithm. This paper compares the performance of SD with that of LM algorithm in an attempt to find an ideal artificial NN-training algorithm to model the SS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a method of detecting camera posture from endoscopic images. In epipolar geometry, the fundamental matrix provides some geometric information including translation and rotation of cameras. Although it is well known that DLT(Direct Linear Transform) algorithm can be an efficient method to calculate the matrix, it depends upon performance of matching points. The Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm which is robust for estimation with Gaussian noise can be a good method for this reason. In this paper, the distance between matched points and epipolar lines is defined and the fundamental matrix is accurately computed by the Levenberg- Marquardt algorithm using DLT algorithm to find the initial value. Also, good translation and rotation information can be obtained by decomposing the fundamental matrix. Experimental results show the improvement of the result of the fundamental matrix that result in improvement of the camera posture also. The detection of the pose of endoscope is important for compute added diagnosis in medical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is a disease in which airways involuntarily collapse during sleep, leading to serious consequences. The current standard of diagnosis for OSA, polysomnography (PSG), requires that the patients spend one full day in a hospital, wired to a multitude of instruments. PSG is complicated, expensive, and unsuitable for mass screening of the population. Since OSA is commonly accompanied by snoring, the analysis of snoring sounds plays important role in the diagnosis of OSA. Conventional methods use the signal amplitude, power, pitch, zero-cross rate, etc. in the diagnosis. In this paper, we propose a new feature, which is the parameter vector of the autoregressive moving average (ARMA) process. Since the snoring signal is nonstationary, we propose to use Kalman smoother in the estimation of ARMA parameter vector. Simulation results show that the proposed method is robust to the variation of the input signal power as well as the setting of the analysis systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a tracking method for an in vivo robotic capsule whose power is supplied from one of the multiple power transmission coils. The proposed method is aiming at selecting the best coupled one among the arrayed power transmission coils. It utilizes the fact that the driving current of the power transmitter is increased when the receiver coil inside the capsule is inductively coupled with the transmitter coil. By investigating the current increase characteristic according to its location relative to the transmission coils, we can draw the strategy on tracing the in vivo robotic capsules. This paper shows some promising results with two transmission coils and a two-dimensional power receiver. Experimental results gave the possibility of selecting the best coils by estimating the relative location of the capsule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we propose a novel biological reasoning technique to find genetic palindrome using the resolution- based ATP (automated theorem proving) computing strategy. To retrieve the palindromic sequence, we apply automated deduction software with some resolution strategies to increase program performance. While the conventional reasoning or logic programming oriented method is basically top-down process, our method is bottom-up, resolution-based and also enhanced by direction and restriction reasoning strategies. Proposal method is divided into two steps. First, each element of sequence is represented as one state clause. Second, biological reasoning program resolve these states to retrieve palindrome motif from genetic sequence. Besides, to make this resolution process faster, we apply a reasoning strategy called resonance restriction. This resolution strategy blocks the biological reasoning by avoiding expression that do not mach the patterns set by researchers. This pattern is called "resonator" which is expressed by symbol patterns in automated reasoning. In our model, researcher assigns resonators to the gap between repeated regions which prevent his program from redundant search related non-symmetric parts of genetic sequence. Resonators restrict discovery process by discarding clauses generated around the gap between palindromic motifs, which enhance sharply the performance of reasoning program. In experiment, we translate whole genome sequence of Escherichia coli into clausal representation. Numerical results are presented about the retrieval of palindrome in Escherichia coli to valid the effectiveness of proposal technique. We validate that resonance restriction makes reasoning process faster with experimental output of generated clauses, CPU time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Review and analysis of continuous EEG recordings may be impeded by physiological artifacts such as blinks, eye movements, or cardiac activity. Many methods have been proposed to remove artifacts from EEG recordings, especially arising from eye movements and blinks. Often regression in the time or frequency domain is performed on EEG recordings to derive parameters characterizing the appearance and spread of eye artifacts in the EEG channels. Because EEG and ocular activity mix bidirectionally, regressing eye artifacts inevitably involves subtracting relevant EEG signals from each record as well. This paper presents noise can filter using an artificial neural network for removal of blink interference from EEG signals. The input to the neural network, used in this work, is not a raw sampled signal. We used a simple EEG model expressed by the sinusoidal waves with the Markov process amplitude as the training data of NN. This EEG model in both a frequency domain and a time domain can be applied to quantitatively express the features of the EEG. After training, input to the neural network EEG signals containing blink as the test data. Results of computer simulations indicate that blink artifact is eliminated by this method. Removing artifacts from EEG signal may aid the work of medical doctors, because artifacts disturb their attention. Removing artifacts is also important in analysis of EEG signal. It may be used as a preprocessing in diagnostic system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents three-dimensional finite element analyses of hepatic cancer ablation. The analyses performed in this paper are composed of two systems. In the first system, the simulation was microwave ablation by using open-tip monopole antenna. We analyses microwave ablation at frequency of 2.45GHz. Additional simulations of radiofrequency ablation by using monopolar probe. All simulations, we studied and compared the characteristics of the electric field and temperature distributions between monopole antenna and monopolar probe. From the simulation results, the electric field distribution of open-tip monopole was a wide electric field distribution while the electric field distribution of monopolar has a narrower. The temperature distribution has distributed same with electric field distribution. The temperature distribution of open-tip monopole was larger when compared with monopolar probe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We're approaching to the Ubiquitous age with development of the internet, recently. The standardization is going to progress in wireless communication. For example, IEEE 802.15.1, IEEE 802.15.4, IEEE 1451. We will refer to IEEE 1451. Attributes of IEEE 1451 are PnP and flexibility and so on. And there is a standard for a e- Health, HL7(Health level seven). HL7 accredited Standards Developing Organizations (SDOs) operating in the healthcare arena. Transducers, defined here as sensors or actuators, serve a wide variety of industry's needs, manufacturing, industrial control, and biomedicine are but a few. This paper we will explain HL7 and IEEE 1451, in briefly. The present time we will realize sensor networking for e- Health using IEEE 1451 standard. For example, in hospital, doctors use sensor. Because, for catch hold of patient's health. In brief, sensor is a STIM and server is a NCAP. So, we will get model for sensor-networking in hospital. We will explain NCAP and STIM more So, this paper will introduce implementation of the IEEE1451.1 and IEEE1451.2. And introduce IEEE1451 and HL7. So we will say that relation between IEEE1451 and HL7. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is an extension of our earlier dynamic mechanic and dielectric characterization of collagen modified by some polysaccharide. In this paper the synthesis and the effects of different methods of collagen cross-linking on its biological and thermo-mechanical stability have been elaborated. Enzymatical analyses showed the stabilizing effect of all modifiers on collagen. The lowest collagenase biodegradation was observed for collagen modified by HA and Lys. The low biodegradation degree corresponds to the high thermal stability of these materials. The results of the thermal and dynamic viscoelastic measurements (the elastic-E′ and viscous-E″ moduli vs. temperature) support strongly the conclusion that the collagen modified by the amino acid - Lys or some polysaccharides making the materials stiffer and gave rise to a marked elevation of their structure thermostability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we describe that Independent Component Analysis (ICA) method for computing the brain signals of unknown source parameters for the inverse problem. We apply Blind Source Separation (BSS) based on ICA for separating multichannel EEG evoked by multiple dipoles into temporally independent stationary sources. For every independent source, we manage to know electrode potentials evoked by every dipole separately by the projection of independent activation maps back onto the electrode arrays. Then for every set of electrode potentials, we need to perform a source localization procedure, and search only for one dipole, thus dramatically reducing the search complexity. In the paper, it is explored that the possibility of applying ICA for EEG multiple dipoles localization when the data are corrupted by additive noise. Before ICA processing, we apply a method to estimate the dipoles number beforehand and reduce dimensionality that can reduce the ICA complexity and improve the unmixing accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In magnetoencephalography (MEG) source localization, simplex method is widely used because it is simple and does not need the derivatives of the function. However, the simplex method is very sensitive to the choice of initial points. Thus, in this paper, a method of choosing the good initial starting points is proposed. First, the brain is divided into several partitions and the value of center of each partition is evaluated. Then, the point which has the lowest value is determined to be the initial point. In addition, we estimate the calculation time and the accuracy of the source localization according to increasing the number of partitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Computer-Aided Detection (CAD) of lung nodules in x-ray computed tomography (CT) scans of the thorax, lung segmentation is the preliminary step. This paper proposes a fast, fully automated lung segmentation method for application in X-ray computed tomography. The segmentation method bases on mathematical morphology, which is known for its speed. The method operates slice and slice by three main steps: (1) the lung region is extracted from the CT images by gray-level thresholding, (2) the trachea or bronchi is removed from lung regions and the lung borders are smoothed by morphological operations, and (3) the left and right lungs are separated by geodesic dilation. The performance of the automated segmentation method was evaluated using 1099 computed tomography images (126 thick slice and 973 thin slice scans). The proposed method successfully segmented 95.6% of the 126 thick slice images and 98.3% of the 973 thin slice images. The fast, fully automated lung segmentation method has advantages over other methods in speed, robustness and accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Instructions for preparing papers for WC2006 Proceedings Series are presented. They are intended to guide the authors in preparing the electronic version of their paper. Only papers prepared according to these instructions will be published in the paper and online version of Proceedings. Provide an abstract of your paper no longer than 300 words. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the detection of arousals from sleep in patients with respiratory sleep disorder using a single channel EEG signal and support vector machine classifier. Determining the occurrence and the frequency of occurrence of arousals from sleep is very important because it is directly related to the quality of sleep. In this paper we used twenty polysomnographic recordings of patients with respiratory sleep disorder. Six recordings were used as training sets and fourteen recordings were used as test sets. We extracted three types of features, which are six indices relating to sleep states, the powers of each of four frequency bands and variations of power of EEG frequency, using time-frequency analysis. We detected arousals from sleep using the above features and SVM classifier. From the results, the sensitivity of 79.65% and the specificity of 89.52% were obtained. The error between the total arousal time detected by the proposed method and the annotated data was 15.09±10.76 min and it showed the possibility of application for the detection of arousal from sleep using a single channel EEG signal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presented a design of an x-ray-detector using CMOS image sensor. The main components consist of CMOS sensor, taper fiber optic, and image intensifier screen. CMOS sensor offers various advantages including miniature-sized, low power consumption and cost effective. CMOS-based digital camera becomes hence very demanding due to its potential application in multimedia and information technology. To apply the CMOS sensor as x-ray detector, x-ray-to-visible light convector is required. Our key component of x-ray-to-visible light converter is an image intensifier screen mounted on the wider end of taper fiber optic. The narrow end of the taper fiber optic is coupled on the half-inch CMOS image sensor. In order to get higher image quality and system flexibility, more versatile CMOS image-sensor controller are preferable. Such complicate designs are made possible by the creation of entirely VHDL reconfiguration and programmable components- the so-called Field programmable Gate Array (FPGA). The designed x-ray-detector with CMOS sensor camera has been tested to capture a bony structure. The result is very promising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper natural immune system and artificial immune system are described. Natural immune system is an example of evolutionary learning mechanism which possesses a content addressable memory and the ability to forget little-used information, it is highly complicated and appears to be precisely turned to the problem of detecting and eliminating infection. A novel information processing system inspired by immune system of human and other animals, the artificial immune system is introduced in this paper, AIS is a computational system designed on the principles of natural immune system, which is highly distributed, adaptive and diverse system. AIS research, being interdisciplinary, demands significant knowledge of immunology and computational science. Due to the different in the nature of two fields, researchers in either field face difficulties in having mutual understanding and effectively contributing for AIS research. The paper reviews the mechanism of immune system, the basis of artificial immune system, its development history, content of research and Immune Engineering which is applied in processing control. And a major method of AIS is described, so that it explains to how to set up artificial immune network and system models. The AIS is an example of a system developed around the current understanding of the immune system. It has proved artificial immune system can capture the basic elements of the immune system and exhibit some of its chief characteristics. Through this paper, we know it is more suitable than simulated annealing and genetic algorithms for solving problem. At last, the disadvantage of AIS and the development tendency are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physiological signal monitoring is a key function in the application of home health care. In recent years, various devices for physiological signal monitoring in different environment were developed for assisting health care. However, monitoring alone can't fit the needs of many scenarios. As such, it is often that the patient requires some daily healthcare related interaction. It is also essential that a system not only monitors but also serves as an assistance to the patient, such as medicine taking reminder, home visiting arrangement, etc. for supporting the patient with interaction capabilities in daily care scenarios. Based on this consideration, this paper has presented a home health care box which provides health monitor and fits a variety of scenarios to achieve health management. In order for the home health box to be able to adapt for different scenarios, a message embedding mechanism is also presented in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When a thenar muscle is performing a maximum isometric contraction and supramaximal stimulus is applied to median nerve, there is a silent period (pause in electrical activity) in the electromyogram(EMG). In this paper, a new model of EMG-signal generation including silent period in thenar muscle is proposed. This work was based on anatomical structure of spinal nerve system and characteristics of neuro-physiological data that are related on carpal tunnel syndrome. Also in this paper, to obtain real EMG-signal including silent period from normal subjects without neurological alterations and carpal tunnel syndrome patients. As a result, if there is the symptom of carpal tunnel syndrome, the EMG-signal, the summation of silent period is in normal silent period. It is possible to see that the summation of silent period is long as the symptom of carpal tunnel syndrome is severe and that there is correlation between carpal tunnel syndrome and silent period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under certain situations, the eye pupils or heart of any human being represent the body's states. The measurement of pupil size is one of the most immediate, accurate, and direct methods of autonomic-activity monitoring. For example, the autonomic activity of a subject in a spontaneous state or under any stimulus can be estimated through the size of the subject's pupil, particularly through the pupil-light reflex (PLR) or pupil-size variability (PSV). Thus, the proper equipment (pupil-monitoring system) and experimental setting (dark room and pupil-image acquisition system) designed to not affect the subjects physically and emotionally have been developed. The pupil-monitoring system used in this paper features a helmet and weighs about 130 g. It provides a wide field of vision and allows one to vary the position of one's eyes. It is non-invasive and is less prone to affect the subject. So, it can be used under various postures during an experiment. It also allows the subject to be given certain visual stimuli, such as a visible-light stimulus for pupil-light reflex, or visual-cognitive tasks for pupil-size variability. Because visible light would affect pupil size, infrared light-emitting diode (LED) and monochrome infrared camera were instead used to illuminate and capture the pupil. An infrared passing filter was added in front of the camera lens to capture the images under various illumination conditions. The pupil-image acquisition system proposed in this paper produces and saves an 8-bit, 640 x 480-pixel grayscale image, with a specific sampling rate, from the output of the pupil-monitoring system. The image-processing algorithm proposed in this paper efficiently distinguishes the pupil from other tissues in the acquired images, which ensures an accurate estimation of pupil size. In the future, the image may be focused and the camera position may be fixed through simple automation, thereby reducing the length of preparation time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the interactive image-guided high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) tumor therapy, fast and precise target localization is very important for treatment planning. Current localization techniques under ultrasound image guidance can not satisfy the requirement of precision. This paper presents a method of target localization based on 2D multimodality image registration. CT images prior to therapy were introduced into the system to aid tumor localization. According to the characteristics of the image series scanning mode in abdominal HIFU surgery, both CT and ultrasound images were re-sampled as slices parallel to the treatment plane, and with the CT/ultrasound image registration of the same anatomical layer, a spatial transform of the clear tumor contour from CT to the ultrasound coordinate system can be accomplished. A HIFU surgery localization system has been designed and preliminarily simulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to use tactile sensor to compensate the error rate. Most automated sphygmomanometers use oscillometric method and characteristic ratio to estimate systolic and diastolic blood pressure. However, from the face that maximum amplitude of oscillometric waveform and characteristic ratio are affected by compliance of aorta and large arteries, a method to measure the stiffness of arteries by using tactile sensor was chosen in order to integrate it with sphygmomanometer in the future instead of using photoplethysmography. Since tactile sensor is very weak in movements, efforts were made to maintain subject's arm fixed, and 40Hz low pass filter was used to eliminate noise from power source and high frequency noise. Analyzing program was made to get time delay between first and second peak of averaged digital volume pulse(ΔTDVP), and subject's height was divided by ΔTDVP to calculate stiffness index of arteries(SIDVP). Regression equations of systolic and diastolic pressure using SIDVP and mean arterial pressure(MAP) were computed from the training set(23 subjects) among total 46 subjects(age: 26.80±3.12, male: female = 32: 14) and were tested in 61 subjects to compensate error rate. Error rate in total subjects were systolic 6.51±9.25mmHg, diastolic 3.83±11.67mmHg, and those in the test setv were −5.50±9.27mmHg and 4.34±10.80mmHg each. Consequently, error rates were compensated especially in diastolic pressure using SIDVP, various slopes from digital volume pulse and MAP to systolic 2.57±8.05mmHg and diastolic 2.08±8.75mmHg. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seamless exchange of information and communication between disparate and physically distributed systems or business applications is needed and desired by most organizations today. Healthcare is one of those most important application areas where such technology solutions are required. Physical Fitness Testing Systems (HIMS) are distributed at different locations. HIMS measures the individual's physiological signals during rest and exercise, evaluates physical fitness and prescribes personalized exercise in terms of exercise intensity, duration and frequency by using automatic exercise prescription algorithm. Many HIMS deployed in various locations of a hospital need to communicate with the Hospital Information Systems (HIS) in order to make test reservations for patients and also for receiving test results and exercise prescriptions. This paper proposes a Communication Gateway between HIMS and HIS systems, which can ensure easily accessible, platform independent, reliable and timely exchange of information between them. The gateway is provided through a central web service hosted on a web site. When any HIS client accesses the site, it first gets authenticated through the central web service hosted there. It can then make reservation for its patients on the site. The list is stored in the central database and after being composed as an XML string by the service working on the site; it is sent to a remote service that is running on individual HIMS system. The system service then parses and stores the reservation lists in its database. Later when a client wants to retrieve patients test results and exercise prescription, it can access them from the site. The service working on the site communicates with the remote system service, gets the required information as XML string, parses and stores the information in central database and then displays according to the user's preference, thus providing clients ease of access to their required information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wireless networks and hand-held devices are permanently evolving and becoming a more effective alternative to actual network technologies and applications that are used by the health service providers. We envision a Hospital Area Network (HAN) that is formed mainly using WLAN and Zigbee. A Zigbee sensor network of wearable health monitoring devices, medical equipments and PDA's is formed enabling the hospital staff to be connected to their critical systems independent of their location in the medical facility. However, to take advantage of the high mobility enabled by the wireless sensor networks (WSN) in the HAN application, a series of problems have to be solved, like: choosing a good abstraction level to work with the WSN (e.g. appropriate middleware), design software that increases interoperability between heterogeneous medical devices, design hardware that are energy efficient and miniaturized, find techniques and algorithms that are appropriate for an increasing complexity, dynamic and ad-hoc behavior of the network. In this paper, we will tackle some of these problems and refer to hardware and software aspects. On the hardware side, the low power Zigbee-ready motes are suggested as the hardware platform for on the body medical sensor nodes and medical devices. On the software side, the OSA+ II middleware that scales down to the miniaturized medical sensor nodes and that allows a good interoperability between them is explained. Then, we will show how organic computing can be used in HAN. Organic computing consists of techniques and principles used in nature, like: self-organization that can be applied for building an HAN that is easy to deploy and flexible to adapt for hospital specific situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper a novel conductivity reconstruction algorithm for MREIT was proposed. The algorithm can be implemented utilizing permanent magnetic resonance imaging system (Generally the main magnetic field is perpendicular to the horizontal plane.). We distribute the electrodes on the boundary of the selected slice which is not perpendicular to the main magnetic field. The magnetic flux density induced by the applied currents in the selected slice has a component in the direction of the main magnetic field and the component can be measured. Then the equation expressing the relation between the conductivity and the measured magnetic flux density was obtained. In order to guarantee the uniqueness of the reconstructed conductivity, two different solutions were given. The corresponding algorithm was proposed and analyzed. The performance of the algorithm was also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new electrical impedance tomography (EIT) software system for image monitoring of slow internal hemorrhage. The software is designed with object-oriented techniques and consists of several data acquisition modules, reconstruction algorithm modules and post-analysis modules. Lots of work has been done on the completion of the monitoring process, optimization of the data control and image visualization and user-friendly interface. Image monitoring experiments on both healthy human body for more than 24 hours and animal models were performed. The test results indicate that this software can meet the monitoring requirement. The software has provided a firm foundation for further researches on the improvement of reconstruction algorithm, data analysis and image processing, and has opened up a new prospect of long-term monitoring of slow impedance change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a parallel implementation of a Magnetic Induction Tomography (MIT) forward model on a PC workstation cluster. The forward modeler is a finite-difference based algorithm and is used to compute the sensitivity matrix with the reciprocity theorem. The parallelization works by either splitting the problem by different excitation and detection coils or by splitting the physical space into multiple layers. This paper provides results of parallelization by coils. A distributed memory approach was implemented using a Message Passing Interface library (MPICH) with FORTRAN. For a 16-coil system with the detection volume discretised into 40*40*40 voxels, parallelization by different coils reduced the computation time from 126s on a single workstation to 8.3s on a 16-node cluster representing an efficiency of 95%. The computational speed scaled linearly with the increasing number of cluster nodes, due to the "embarrassingly parallel" nature of the algorithm and hence limited inter-node communication requirement. The efficiency was observed to decrease slightly however with increasing voxel number. The efficiency figures for 20*20*20, 40*40*40 and 60*60*60 voxels were 98%, 95% and 89% respectively. Load imbalances also caused some reduction in speed and efficiency, to a minimum of 52% for 60*60*60 voxels and 14 cluster nodes, when the total number of coils was not evenly divided among the cluster nodes. This approach of using inexpensive cluster computers, either dedicated to the application or composed of existing computer and network resources, is promising for complex modeling and tomographic reconstruction. In the context of MIT, it may allow both finer discretisation and the application of a non-linear iterative reconstruction algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presently, the movement toward home medical care serves is increasing in order to maintain the Quality of Life of the Japanese aged society. The Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare recently permitted medical staffs performing X-ray photography in home medical care if required. However, taking a photograph is very difficult with a conventional system. Because the taken image cannot be checked on that spot unless and until it bring to the hospital. A flat type detector that can be viewed on that spot is very expensive and its maintenance is troublesome for use as portable radiographs in home medical care. Therefore in this study, we proposed a preview system, which supports X-ray photography by a conventional film screen system or an imaging plate system. This system is composed by X-ray intensity paper and an array of optical resistances. The optical resistance unit is piled up under the X-ray film cassette and use the X-ray penetrated by the cassette. The optical resistance array is composed with 30 CdS in its row and 30 CdS in the column that set on a 35cm x 35cm cassette. With this form, only one expose is enough for one patient. As our proposed system is integrated into the correctional X-ray film cassette it neither generate additional expose, nor increase additional workload for taking photographs. As a fundamental study, we have investigated electrical and optical properties as well as measured penetrated intensity of the X-ray. The result showed good characteristic suggesting high possibility of its clinical use. It also suggested that our proposed system is not only effective for home medical care but also can play an important role during disaster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to propose a neural network (NN) model to predict sequential human bio signal data for decreasing the risk of acute and likely fatal diseases and syndromes in patients (e.g., COPD and hypertension) based on a simulated learning algorithm. Our approach uses a sequential neural network with back-propagation learning. The modeling is done using time-varying inputs such as heart rate, SpO2, and blood pressure as measured and communicated by wireless devices. The output of the prediction system results into distinct classification levels for patient's condition through sequential points. Such a prediction facilitates an early detection of exacerbating risk factors thereby saving a sudden death and other high risk diseases. The system is plausible to be used for the prevention and management of high risk diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The electrode is the front-end of EIT system and directly contacts human body. The structure and parameter of the electrode greatly influence the original information extraction, real time property of the system and image resolving power, especially the information extraction of the center area where the EIT measurement sensitivity is poor. EIT electrode system is one of the most sensitive and the pivotal parts of EIT. The compound electrode has 4 structure parameters: the excitation electrode width, the measurement electrode width, the space between the excitation electrode and the measurement electrode, and the distance of two adjacent compound electrodes. For an EIT electrode system with certain boundary, when the electrode numbers and elements divided in FEM are determined, the sum of the electrode width and the distance of two adjacent electrodes is fixed too. Therefore only 3 among 4 structure parameters of the compound electrode are independent. The influences of the compound electrode parameters on the imaging quality and measurement sensitivity of EIT system are studied. The conclusion is that because of the circular boundary of EIT object, parameters of the compound electrode restrict each other and the mutual influence are much complex. The influences of all 4 parameters should be considered comprehensively, especially for the distance of two adjacent compound electrodes and the width of measurement electrode. Using only the overlay rate of electrodes is not a good way to deal with optimizing design of the compound electrode. This simulation conclusion is different from that of others made before. The simulation study of EIT electrode structure and parameter influence can be carried out according to this paper to determine the optimizing design of the electrode structure and its parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tinnitus is a symptom of perceiving phantom sounds. The majority of tinnitus cases are caused by misinterpreting null sounds from ears as significant nervous signals in the cerebral limbic system. There are two typical sound therapies for tinnitus: Tinnitus Masking (TM) and Tinnitus Retraining Therapy (TRT). Their effects have been discussed from clinical assessments. To account for the mechanism of perceiving tinnitus and the clinical effects from the viewpoint of engineering, this paper describes a neural oscillator model with a plastic coupling for a cerebral limbic system and its dynamic behavior. We observed a bi-stable state such that a stable equilibrium and a stable oscillation coexist in a certain range of parameters. It was also discovered that the value of the plastic coupling changes by external stimulation, and then the oscillation is inhibited. This could explain the fact that the retrained cerebral limbic system temporarily stops perceiving tinnitus after sound therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To know a characteristic of the whole blood cardiovascular system, we need to measure the blood flow respond in relation to giving exercise stress to our body. In this paper, we have developed a noninvasive device to be able to measure blood flow velocity in the carotid during physical exercise by using a Doppler ultrasound method. The purpose of this study is that we focus attention on measured maximum blood flow velocity (Vmax) and analyze the physiological function change of blood flow dynamic system in the carotid during physical exercise by a cicycle-ergometer. Generally biological information (eg. brain wave) is known as a nonlinear signal. Correspondingly, neural networks (NN) have recently been known as one of nonlinear signals analysis tools. For such occasions, we suggest that we identify Vmax (non-linear time series) variation using an MA (Moving Average) model associated with back-propagation (BP) algorithm. After simulating Vmax variation, we found out that the neural network (BPNN) can capture the regularity from that, and the adaptive changes of the system dynamics are evaluated in the connection-weight-space (CWS), a kind of internal representation of the trained network. As a result, we can abstract respective characteristic from that. This technique is expected to estimate a physical exercise quantitatively and rehabilitation training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scaffold technology is integral in advancing tissue engineering as an alternative treatment for ligament related injuries. Bombyx mori silk, though used as biomedical suture for decades due to its excellent mechanical properties, biocompatibility and biodegradability, has recently been considered for ligament tissue engineering applications. The objective of this research is to construct a full silk-based scaffold and to investigate its potential for ligament tissue engineering applications. The scaffold was constructed by knitting silk fibres, followed by the removal of sericin. The knitted silk scaffold was then electrospun with silk nano fibers, forming a micro-nano composite structure. This resulting micro-nano silk scaffold, after a 28 day in vitro cell culture, was found to have better composite-material integrity, a longer in-vitro degradation period, and better cell adhesion than previous PLGA-based scaffolds. Good cell proliferation and collagen growth were also observed throughout the 28 day in vitro cell culture. Additional investigation and innovations by this paper includes a novel tensile pull test method of single aligned electrospun fibers, a novel inclined electrospinning technique for better nano-micro fiber integration and a degradation test between Silk and PLGA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many industrial processes specific working conditions could cause hazardous effects on human personnel. Among the technologies in question are steel and some alloy manufacture, welding and cutting of metals, chemical treatments, some dimensional processing, the ceramic materials processing, etc. The protective action could be mechanic as a barrier against exogenous noxes or combined mechanochemical. The systems with mechanical barrier usually do not contain active compounds and consist in a blend of recipients with hydrophobic or hydrophilic character. The systems with mechano-chemical barrier include chemical compounds able to counteract the alergenic agent by neutralization, complexation or other way of removal. In this paper new dermato-products are prepared based on micro- and nano-structured composites containing bioactive principles, with high protective activity and with increased favorable impact on cutaneous tissue of human operators. A number of three new formulations containing proteins and natural lipidic compounds are tested and characterized, which could assure a maximum protective effect of selected bioactive principles. The techniques used are UV-VIS-NIR and FT-IR spectra for structural characterization, chemiluminescence for antioxidant activity, and biophysical parameters for the evaluation of protective agents' efficacy. In vivo experiments allowed the evaluation of biocompatibility of these three formulations with human skin and their efficacy. The tests under dermatological and ophthalmological control proved to be safe for human health, with good skin and eye tolerance in normal or reasonably foreseeable conditions of use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A differential floating mass transducer (DFMT), with high vibration efficiency and simple attachment for implant, has been developed in Korea for fully implantable middle ear hearing devices (F-IMEHDs). The vibration equation and the mechanical model of the DFMT have been defined to analyze the vibration characteristic of the DFMT. In this paper, the mechanical model is transformed to the electrical model by the equivalent relationship between each other because the electrical model enables the simple analysis of the DFMT vibration characteristics using a computer program such as PSpice. Then, the electrical model has been simulated through the PSpice program as change the values of the passive elements in the electrical model. The simulation results showed that the resonant frequency and the vibration displacement characteristics of the simulated DFMT depend on the capacitance in the electrical model. After experiment for measuring vibration displacement of the implemented DFMT has been performed, the measured vibration characteristic has been compared with the simulated result using the selected values of the passive elements to generate proper displacement at the resonant frequency and flat region in the frequency response. The compared results showed that the vibration characteristic of the DFMT through the electrical model is similar to the measured vibration characteristics of the implemented DFMT. Through the comparison, it is verified that the electrical model of the DFMT is useful to analyze the vibration characteristic of the DFMT without solving the vibration equation extracted from the mechanical model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, Artificial Heart (AH) is recognized as the alternate method of the heart graft. Though there are many problems and defect on AH, long term durability, miniaturization and weight saving interfaced with flow rate performance, efficiency of device. Considering rehabilitation into the society and advancement of QOL (Quality of Life), the construction of power source which supplies electric power to the device is important and has many problems. Especially, the electric feeder line restricts behavior of the transplant recipient and disturbs rehabilitation into the society. For solving these problems, Transcutaneous Energy Transmission System (TETS) is noticed and studied. This study proposes core-type TETS. It achieves high magnetic coupling compared with aircore- type TETS which is carried out on clinical study. Because core-type TETS has high magnetic coupling, it is possible to reduce the input current and to miniaturize trans size. This paper mentions the characteristic of core-type TETS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have been developing the externally-coupled transcutaneous energy transmission system (ECTETS) for a totally-implantable artificial heart (TIAH). The transcutaneous energy transmission (TET) system enables the TIAH to supply the driving energy without infectious disease and reduction of patient's QOL (quality of life). Since the TET system uses the electromagnetic induction between the external (primary) and the internal (secondary) coils, it is necessary for the TET system to be compatible electromagnetically. In the practical use of artificial heart, such as a patient going out, the artificial heart is driven by the energy from the portable rechargeable battery outside of the body. In this paper, the drive performance and the electromagnetic compatibility of the TET system were investigated in case of using the external rechargeable battery. As a result, the ECTETS, driven by the external rechargeable battery consisting of the Lithium ion battery pack with a weight of 430 g, was able to drive the TIAH actuator for 4 hours and 9 minutes. The radiated emission from the ECTETS was suppressed within the regulation of class-B and group-1 in CISPR (international special committee on radio interference) Pub.11, and the ECTETS satisfied the electrostatic discharge immunity test based on IEC61000-4-2 (International Electrotechnical Commission), the radiation immunity test based on IEC61000-4-3, and the power supply frequency magnetic field immunity test based on IEC61000-4-8. Therefore, it was concluded that the ECTETS investigated had satisfactory characteristics in the drive performance and the electromagnetic compatibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent advances of the interventional MRI, ‘surgery in the Open MRI', proceeds safer and assured minimally invasive therapy with a plenty of useful information of MR images acquired during the operation. In this paper, we present a small MRI compatible robots for horizontal gap open MRI which controls needle orientation effectively in narrow gantry space. Registration between MRI, MR image, and the robot is performed with affine matrix transformation using 100 small markers and the 3D measurement sensor. Markers are distributed with 20mm clearance and each 50 (half of 100) markers represent the XZ- and YZ- plane. They are mutually-perpendicular to achieve accurate registration. The accuracy in the total system was 1.24 to 4.10(mm) including the registration error and the mechanical error and MRI image distortion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose an architecture of walking assistant robot for the elderly which is usable at outdoor environment. It equips PXA255 embedded board, motors, laser range finder and GPS receiver. User operates it using smart handle bar. It is useful to the elderly for more comfortable walking and path guidance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finger Braille is one of tactual communication medium of deafblind people. In two-handed Finger Braille, index finger, middle finger and ring finger of both hands are likened to keys of a Braille typewriter. A sender dots Braille code on the fingers of a receiver like whether he/she does the type of the Braille typewriter. Then the receiver recognizes the Braille code. Deafblind people who are skilled in Finger Braille can catch up with speech conversation and express various emotions. Because there are small non-disabled people who are skilled in Finger Braille, deafblind people communicate only with interpreters. In this study, we note one-handed Finger Braille. In one-handed Finger Braille, the sender dots the left column of Braille code on the DIP joints of three fingers of the receiver, and then the sender dots the right column of Braille code on the PIP joints of them. In this paper, we developed the Finger Braille Recognition System, which recognized deafblind people's one-handed Finger Braille and converted to speech for non-disabled people. Non-disabled people wore small piezoelectric accelerometers on the base of index finger, middle finger and ring finger. The Recognition System detected the accelerations by dotting and recognized which fingers were dotted. Next, by parsing the recognized Braille codes, the Recognition System converted to a Japanese text. Finally, the Recognition System synthesized speech of the Japanese text. Because each accelerometer detected the acceleration by dotting of the mounted finger (self dotting) and the acceleration by dotting of the other fingers (cross talk). The Recognition System was necessary to recognize the acceleration by self dotting. We analyzed the accelerations dotted by an interpreter and derived the algorithm of recognition of dotted fingers. Estimated accuracy of recognition was 93.4%. Therefore it was considered that the algorithm was effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Head attitude, velocity and acceleration are relevant variables in the estimation of the capability of the equilibrium, because they represent the actual inputs to the vestibular system, which essentially performs an inertial feedback for the dynamic postural control. In the present paper, a multi-accelerometer based device, capable to directly measure the linear and angular acceleration of the head, is described. The mentioned device consists in a cyclist helmet equipped with ten biaxial linear accelerometer and measures its own inertial components. In this study we also developed the procedure needed to determine the inertial input applied to the semicircular canals (SCC) and to the otolith system by means of a postprocessing of the accelerometer outputs. The procedure consists in a single static estimation of the inclination of the Frankfort Plane in respect to the reference horizontal plane of the helmet. As an example of the possible uses of the instrumented helmet, we tested the case of a quick step inversion during level walking. In particular a healthy subject was asked to walk for about 5 m, to quickly turn of 180 deg and to turn back to the starting position. The task was repeated three times and the entire trial was recorded by an optoelectronic system to keep also track of the full body motion data. The main outcomes deduced by the collected data are as follows. Firstly, in the turning phase the maximum value of angular acceleration was greater in the Lateral canal (≈740 deg/s2), rather than in the other organs (≈500 deg/s2) due to the specific orientation of the Lateral Canal in the head. Secondly, the maximum value of a-g was greater for the Saccule (12.6 m/s2) than for the Utricle (6.8 m/s2). During the inversion phase, the peak of a-g occurred in proximity of the footstrike event, as it happens during normal walking, but the amplitude is lower than the other phases due to the global deceleration of the subject's body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

X-ray Computed Tomography is a technique to reconstruct an image of trans-axial slab of the object from a series of x-ray radiographs taken at a prior-known angle. Sequences of x-ray radiographs are served as two-dimensional projection data for a 3D tomography. The most popular Feldkamp Algorithm which is based on Filtered Backprojection (FBP) approaches has shown to perform well for 3D reconstruction. In the case of limited view, however, Feldkamp Algorithm suffers from star artifact. In these scenarios, an algebraic reconstruction technique such as the Simultaneous Algebraic Reconstruction Technique (SART) is engaged for reconstructing tomograms. Conventional x-ray computed tomography was implemented on a c-arm x-ray apparatus where the x-ray source and detector is capable of rotating to capture radiograph at any specific angle. The implementation of cone-beam - geometry reconstruction algorithm, however, requires that the center location of the detector is accurately identified. Any slightly-missed alignment of the x-ray source or the detector could result in the error of the position of the center and hence the error in reconstructed image. Consequently, x-ray radiography tomography is normally implemented on a c-arm x-ray apparatus where the correct orientation of x-ray tube with respect to x-ray detector is achievable. The aim of this paper is to implement the x-ray tomography on a non c-arm x-ray apparatus where the x-ray source can be in any orientation with respect to x-ray detector. To determine the orientation, we take the radiograph of the reference transparent object, say the plastic box, of which the coordinate of the landmark, say the corner point, is known. The shadowgram of the box is analyzed to extract the coordinate of landmark image and to determine the orientation matrix using classical direct linear transform method (DLT). Once the orientation is known, modified conebeam tomography is performed to derived 3D reconstruction volumetric data. The experimental results demonstrated the potential of such method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three-dimensional wavelet transform (3D-WT) has been proposed as basis for volumetric data coding, because it can provide lossless coding and top-quality reconstruction. These functionalities are very important for medical imaging. There are two different ways to perform the WT: the Non Standard or Classic WT versus the Standard WT. The last one is practically rejected for state-of-the-art coders because its high computational demands. However, by slightly changing its operation, it is possible to substantially reduce its computational requirements and improve its coding efficiency. In this paper we propose two 3D Standard WT-based decomposition algorithms capable of obtaining the wavelet coefficients during the spatial and temporal decomposition processes and therefore reducing the redundancy present in the video sequence. The new algorithms perform the novel Temporal-Window methodology to carry out the temporal decomposition in 3D-WT. We have conducted a set of experimental evaluations for a representative data set of a modality of intrinsically volumetric medical imaging: angiography sequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we proposed a liver extracting procedure for computer aided liver diagnosis system. An extraction of liver region is difficult due to interferences of other organs in the abdominal CT image. For this reason, liver region is extracted in ROI. ROI is selected by using the window for measuring the distribution of liver region's Hounsfield Unit in abdominal CT image. The distribution is measured by using an existential probability of liver's value in the window. If the probability of any window exceeded 50%, it would be assigned to ROI. Actually, liver region is not clearly discerned from the adjacent organs as muscle, spleen, and pancreas in abdominal CT image. Liver region is extracted by the watershed segmentation algorithm which is effective in this situation. This segmentation algorithm is very sensitive to the slight variance of contrast. So it generally produces over-segmentation regions. For optimal segmentation these regions are required to merge into the significant regions. Finally, a liver region is selected and extracted by prior information based on anatomic information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our research goal is to construct digital anatomy for individual patients. Since the shapes of organs are different patient by patient, registration of organs of different persons is an important research issue. In this paper, we present a new approach to multi-part affine registration which enables to register multiple regions of organs of different persons. We construct a standard anatomy of human heart and lung for the registration. It is derived from the Visible Human Male data set distributed by the United States National Institutes of Health. There are two types of models in the anatomy. They are voxel model and triangular mesh model. To construct the voxel model, we extracted seven regions in the heart, and seven regions in the lung from the Visible Human Male manually. We constructed the triangular mesh model from the voxel model. In the present study, we use the standard anatomy for multi-part affine registration. The registration has two steps. They are registration of each organ, and registration of multiple regions in organs. For example, to register a heart, the heart in the standard anatomy is registered to a threedimensional medical image using an affine registration (i.e. combination of translation, scaling and rotation and scaling registration) algorithm. As a result, the regions of the seven parts in the heart are estimated. Then, the seven parts of the heart in the standard anatomy are registered. The outputs of the registration are positions, rotations, and scales of the regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the performance of MCs (microcalcifications) recognition in digital mammograms by using a modified autobinomial Markov random field (MRF) model. Fifty 85×85 sample images are selected from the MIAS (Mammographic Image Analysis Society) database for this study. Among these images, 25 samples are of MCs and the other 25 samples are of normal. We model these images by the modified autobinomial model of fourth order, and extract the 12 model parameters as the feature vector of the images by maximum bivariate pseudolikelihood parameter estimation method. The SVM (Support Vector Machine) and BPNN (backpropagation neural network) classifiers are both employed to test the performance of the proposed method. By applying the "leave one out" test approach, an impressive average recognition rate of about 82%, out of the 50 sample data, is achieved. This result demonstrates the potential power of MRF model in the recognition of MCs in digital mammograms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Segmentation of internal organs from 3D medical images is increasingly focused on by many medical engineering researchers. This paper proposes a new approach to extract the lung region from the 3D-Color Image of Frozen Human Body (Visible Human Male). One of the effective segmentation methods for the medical images is based on the watershed-algorithm. Generally this method has the following steps. First, we detect the edge of the original image. Next, we apply the watershed-algorithm to the image. Watershed-algorithm segments image into too many small regions, so usually, we merge these small regions into some groups. To merge regions, some measures of similarity is used. Finally, we select the target group. But with only these steps, the group which is selected is not good. In our case (we use Euclidean distance on RGB color space for the measure), the group includes some regions outside of the target region. It is because that the voxels of small regions have so similar color that the merging step combines the small regions unnecessarily. For example, the over-merged regions are liver, muscle, heart, bronchi, kidney and some other regions. Our goal is how we cut off these unnecessary regions from the selected group and obtain the target lung region. To avoid over-extraction, we introduce three other steps. They are "Edge-Marking", "Reconstruction (shrinking, selecting, and expanding) based on small regions", and "graph-partitioning algorithm". "Edge-Marking" is the process that separates two small regions by giving strong edge feature to boundary voxels between them. "Reconstruction based on small regions" and "Graphpartitioning" are the processes that separates the regions which are connected with narrow bridge. Adding these three processes for the region, other than liver and kidney regions are separated from the lung region. This paper describes these processes and experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we introduce the new method for computing the 2D position of an eye and its gaze direction from a single camera and one light source. The method is based on distance algorithm compound with skeleting and layering algorithm for detecting the central point of gaze. After above steps we have been used reversed distance algorithm to correct probable error. Next, the direction of gaze can be computed from comparison of this central point with calibration's points that we call them "point of space limited". At the end, we compare our method with other method like cross-line that has been used in newest eye tracking equipments and found that our method worked clearly better. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been considerable research interest in reconstructing three-dimensional structure of biological cells using microscope. Off-axis illumination system is generally used for low or middle magnification, but many numbers of projections are usually required for good image reconstruction. This paper proposes a new algorithm such that three-dimensional sample can be reconstructed using only a few projection if the cells are distributed sparsely along phantom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three-dimensional wavelet transform (3D-WT) has been proposed as basis for volumetric data coding, because it can provide lossless coding and top-quality reconstruction. These functionalities are very important for medical imaging. There are two different ways to perform the WT: the Non Standard or Classic WT versus the Standard WT. The latter is practically rejected for state-of-the-art coders because it demands more computing time. However, if it is lightly changed, it can deliver wavelet coefficients that get more coding efficiency with a little cost in time terms. In this paper we propose three 3D Standard WT-based decomposition algorithms that are able to prepare the wavelet coefficients during the spatial and temporal decomposition processes to reduce the most redundancy in data. We have conducted a set of experimental evaluations for a representative data set of a modality of intrinsically volumetric medical imaging: angiography sequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system has been examined to reduce the effort of radiologist. In the mammogram, it is helpful to improve the diagnostic accuracy of malignancy microcalcifications in early stage of detecting breast cancer. In this paper, we propose a microcalcification detection method using multi-layer support vector machine (SVM) classifiers to determine whether microcalcifications are malignant or benign tumors. The proposed microcalcification detection is divided into two steps, each of which uses a SVM classifier. First, potential ROIs (Region of interest) those are suspicious as malignant tumors are detected as a coarse detection level. And then, each ROI is classified whether it is malignant or not. The proposed algorithm is applied to the Korean digital mammogram. Experimental result showed that the proposed method would outperform conventional method using ANN (artificial neural networks). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]