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An AC-coupled amplifier system in biomedical instrumentation suffers from baseline variations which cause problems for the accurate measurement of signal amplitude,which may even be and even out of the measuring range of the system. A DC-servo baseline restorer has been designed to restore the baseline of a DC-coupled signal to a zero DC level. This enables a DC-coupled amplifier to be used in biomedical measurement systems, such as blood cell-sizing and ECG.

The electrooculogram (EOG) signal is acquired by a bi-channel signal acquisition system and prominent artifacts and interference are suppressed. It is then processed for use in biomedical instrumentation systems such as eyeball tracking and blink detection. This paper also discusses the application of EOG signal processing to the control of a dual stage hospital alarm system. EOG based bio-control is found to be a suitable alternative to current control schemes, especially for quadriplegics and severely paralyzed patients.

An intensive, one-week seminar in biomedical instrumentation follows an outline developed with the help of participants in 50 presentations of the course. The current outline and the history of modifications to it may help planners and directors of curricula in biomedical equipment technology and clinical engineering.

During recent years the country of Saudi Arabia has witnessed a proliferation of clinics, medical centers and hospitals all equipped with up to date high technology medical instrumentation. This in turn needs qualified personnel capable of installing, operating and maintaining these medical instruments. To qualify such qualified technicians, a program of biomedical instrumentation technology is needed to be found. In this paper the new proposed program of biomedical instrumentation technology in technology colleges is presented.

Peter Tarczy-Hornoch A 1985 graduate of Stanford University, Dr. Tarczy-Hornoch majored in biology but had already developed an interest in medical informatics. He maintained his interest and involvement during his years at Stanford Medical School and, after a pediatric residency at the University of Minnesota, moved to the University of Washington (UW), where he remains to this day. His neonatology fellowship from 1992 to 1995 did not prevent him from continuing to pursue his interest in medical informatics, and by 1995, he was playing the role of Clinical Informatics Lead on the University of Washington IAIMS grant. After joining the faculty in 1995, he assumed increasing responsibility for the nascent informatics program at UW, serving as Chair of the Curriculum Committee, Director of the Genetics Informatics Group, and currently as Program Director of their NLM Training Program in Biomedical and Health Informatics. Nationally, he served as Chair of the AMIA Genomics Working Group and helped found the IMIA Informatics in Genomic Medicine Working Group that he cochairs. As an undergraduate, Dr. Tarczy-Hornoch had formed his own software company (Sigma Medical Software, which specialized in software for biomedical instrumentation and decision support) and served as a key programmer on the Pathfinder project, a collaborative project that was later commercialized as Intellipath. Subsequently, after completing his house staff training, he pressed to create MINDscape, a Web-based EMR integrating access to knowledge sources and diverse clinical systems. Emerging as a prominent scientist working at the intersection of bioinformatics and clinical informatics, Dr. Tarczy-Hornoch has received numerous grants for work at this interface including his work on the GeneTests genetic testing resource and the BioMediator (formerly GeneSeek) biomedical data integration system. Dr. Tarczy-Hornoch has led the development of the UW Division of Biomedical and Health Informatics since 2001. Under his leadership, the UW informatics …

New technologies and new methods in medical engineering was introduced in the medical world. With these technologies we can find a surgical instrumentation more and more adapted to carry out interventions. In obstetrics practice the doctor can use some instruments to delivery the baby, such as for example the obstetrical forceps. The obstetrical forceps has been in use for over 300 years with more than 700 variations of design, however, none of these allow the engineers to assess the force on the fetal skull. Cranial depressed fractures occur. We propose instrumented forceps to control the efforts of tightening on the fetus skull. The clinical and scientific consequences of such study are: the decrease of the number of accidents during a delivery with forceps, the help to the choice of the way of delivery, the improvement of the education, the increase of the knowledge of the compressives phenomenon bound to the final phase of the delivery and the participation in the prevention by the intelligent biomedical instrumentation.

We present our results of the effects of coplanar electrode's geometrical factors on the measurement of bioelectrical impedance, one of the most widely measured physical properties in biomedical applications. Coplanar electrodes of different shapes and sizes were used to measure the electrical impedance of saline at different concentration and blood reconstituted at different hematocrit in either plasma or serum. The results show that the impedance measurement by coplanar electrodes are sensitive to the geometry of the electrode as well as the sample boundary in addition to the universal determinants such as the ionic or cellular concentration of the material under test. This implies that all the geometrical parameters of a coplanar electrode ought to be taken into account collectively of its design when it is used in biomedical instrumentation. Thus the reliability of the instrument as well as the measurement may be assured.

peer-reviewed This paper reviews the development and use of laser Doppler perfusion monitors and imagers. Despite their great success and almost universal applicability in microcirculation research, they have had great difficulty in converting to widespread clinical application. The enormous interest in microvascular blood perfusion coupled with the 'ease of use' of the technique has led to 2000+ publications citing its use. However, useful results can only be achieved with an understanding of the basic principles of the instrumentation and its application in the various clinical disciplines. The basic technical background is explored and definitions of blood perfusion and laser Doppler perfusion are established. The calibration method is then described together with potential routes to standardisation. A guide to the limitations in application of the technique gives the user a clear indication of what can be achieved in new studies as well as possible inadequacy in some published investigations. Finally some clinical applications have found acceptability and these will be explored.

The question of whether science imitates art or if art imitates science has for long been a subject of debate in educational circles. In this project, we want to analyze the question of how science fiction movies influenced biomedical instrumentation and how has the development of biomedical instrumentation influenced science fiction movies. Our work is aimed towards production of a video to be used as an educational tool in biomedical engineering courses. We analyzed this question in detail, by dividing the history of the cinema into four sections and then drawing parallels between the development of ideas on film and the development of instrumentation in real life. We viewed and analyzed more than 50 science fiction movies covering all four historical cinema areas. From each movie, we extracted clips that contain biomedical instrumentation, analyzed the instrument from a presently existing level of knowledge and technology, and compared it with the instruments available nowadays. Our conclusion is that there is a definite nonlinear correlation between the bioinstrumentation shown in science fiction films and the development of biomedical instrumentation.

A description is given for course materials needed to teach health-care professionals about biomedical instrumentation. Patient needs are taken into account, as well as the educational background of the health-care professional. A textbook to be published is discussed. >

Silicon microfabrication methods have long been used to develop devices and instrumentation for medical applications. Early work at Stanford University during the seventies led to the development of silicon based microelectrode arrays for neural recording and stimulation. Efforts in the eighties led to the development of small size and low cost pressure sensors for measuring blood pressure. Sensors manufactured by various companies, namely Lucas NovaSensor and Motorola, form the core of many disposable blood pressure monitoring kits ubiquitous to all hospital emergency rooms. Recent developments in MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) have led to further advances with applications in biochemistry and medical diagnostics. Examples include demonstrations of polymerase chain reaction (PCR-the process by which DNA is amplified) on a silicon die and novel DNA detection techniques. Techniques borrowed from the integrated circuit industry have allowed the development and production of MEM devices and transducers in ever smaller size, and consequently larger volumes and lower costs. Such micromachined devices found immediate acceptance among the manufacturers of biomedical instrumentation. For example, disposable blood pressure. Silicon sensors successfully replaced older, strain gauge based transducers. The same microfabrication techniques also allowed the development of novel devices and microinstruments that otherwise would not have been possible, especially in the area of DNA sequencing and analysis. This paper reviews some recent advances in the biomedical and biochemical applications of MEMS technology.

Teaching Biomedical Instrumentation Systems has been a difficult task due to the high cost of equipment. This has been most acute for undergraduate programs. With the introduction of computers and object-oriented programming in teaching laboratories it is now possible to simulate and emulate these systems easily and economically. The authors describe an undergraduate engineering course in biomedical instrumentation where object-oriented programming is used. The course explains, develops, simulates, and emulates basic biomedical instrumentation systems such as Biopotential Amplifiers, Cardiovascular Measurement Systems, and Respiratory Measurement Systems. >

Interference voltages may be picked up during electrocardiograph (ECG) recording. The possible sources of these interference voltages in the low voltage biomedical instrumentation circuit have been discussed in the paper. A case study has been made where appreciable signal to noise ratio has resulted in deterioration in the ECG recording. The preventive methods have been reviewed to reduce the picked up interference voltages which reappear in the form of noise voltages. The case study also points out some interesting applications of the ECG records.

The authors study the biomedical engineering education available in India, Maharashtra, and Nanded. They suggest need-based BME education to fulfil requirements of industry and society. They make the following conclusions: 1) A Certificate course for B.Sc. electronics students should be started to create the manpower for repair, trading, consultancy etc. 2) A degree course in biomedical instrumentation may be started which will give more input about electronics, and students will be able to serve industry for design, development and consultancy. This type of course may be started in government engineering colleges. 3) A postgraduate course and R&D may be started to cater for problems in this field. Existing electrical, electronics, and instrumentation courses can be added with postgraduate courses in this field. 4) Regular certificate courses should be started to update knowledge of engineers and doctors. These courses should be designed for MBBS, BAMS, BE and BSc students. 5) A biomedical instrumentation centre will be useful to the nation. If biomedical instrumentation education is started in backward areas it will uplift society and the nation as well.

Views from the Field …: Labeling Methods Run the Gamut Joseph Haas; Biomedical Instrumentation & Technology

Biomedical engineering

Biomedical engineering

The marriage of biomedical instrumentation and patient care has once again proven itself successful. The electrothermally-assisted capsular shift is a new procedure with various potential applications. Despite its embryonic stage, this procedure is being used by a handful of shoulder surgeons who are cautiously pursuing new and improved ways to prevent the common and debilitating diagnosis of shoulder instability. Follow-up thus far is short, and the current literature lacks studies that compare the time-honored conventional standard of open stabilization to this new procedure. However, those surgeons who have been using this divide are optimistic about its role in the future repair of shoulder injuries.

A versatile and simple to use biomedical instrumentation for noninvasive examinations of cosmonauts at the Russian MIR space station was developed. It consists of a comfortable sensor jacket to assess signals from the body surface, a precision hand dynamometer to produce muscular and cardiovascular loads, and a small interactive microprocessor unit that controls the examination and stores measurement data. The sensor jacket includes highly sensitive piezo-resistive accelerometers, pulse sensors, an ECG system, and a skin-mountable mechanical vibrator. The functionality of this instrumentation was evaluated during long-term space flights and also proved very useful in laboratory and clinical studies.

The testing and monitoring of elite athletes in their natural training environment is a relatively new area of development that has been facilitated by advancements in microelectronics and other micro technologies. Whilst it is a logical progression to take laboratory equipment and miniaturize it for the training and competition environment, it introduces a number of considerations and complexities that need to be addressed. In this symposium examples of miniturised technology using inertial sensors are applied to a range of sporting applications yielding field based results analogous to those achieved in the laboratory but under typical training and sometimes performance conditions. The symposium features papers from a range of sporting disciplines to show what is possible, the challenges and limitations of the technology as well as helping to assist the development of the sport. Authors will be invited to form a panel for free flowing discussion on adoption of the technology into other sports of interest to attendees and to elaborate on additional sporting applications they have been engaged in where there is time.

The use of optical fibers in biomedical instrumentation goes back to the 1960s, when thousands of thin glass fibers were successfully assembled in flexible bundles, for imaging hidden areas of the human body. Some fibroscopes were further provided with an ancillary channel, so as to make possible power-laser cavitational-surgery and therapy using large-core optical fibers as a delivery system. In addition to this fiber-based instrumentation, attention has also been given to sensors for monitoring biological functions by means of optical fibers.

Spirometers are used to measure lung capacity and response of lungs and chest during physical therapy. They reveal whether the patient's dyspnoea is due to cardiac or pulmonary dysfunction and are used to detect asthma. Unfortunately their application is limited due to high instrument cost and lack of specialist doctors. This paper details the development of a low-cost, portable spirometer built around an MEMS pressure sensor for detecting airflow and pressure. The instrument has an embedded web server and ethernet connection which enables a distantly located doctor to examine the patient online during an emergency or otherwise.

Recent advances in biotechnology have created a need for compact, efficient and reliable 488-nm cyan lasers, a trend which has hastened the development of technologies to replace air-cooled argon-ion lasers in biomedical instrumentation applications.

In 1992–93 the Department of Physics decided that there was a need for physicists to participate in the industrial development in Zimbabwe. The idea of a Master of Science in Applied Physics programme was conceived. Before designing the programme, a postal survey was conducted to discover the needs of industry particularly in relation to industrial processes. There was a 20% response to our survey with many indicating the area of specialisation required in Zimbabwe. Based on their response, the programme was drawn up and was launched in 1994. The programme has optional specialisations in Industrial Physics, Medical Physics, Laser and Plasma Physics and Environmental Physics. Most of the candidates choose the Industrial Physics option. The programme includes courses in Workshop Practice, Computer Applications Software, Theory of Devices, Computer Interfacing, Instrumentation Physics, Metrology (which includes Quality Control), Digital Signal Processing and Data Communications and Networks, Industrial Applications of Laser and Plasma Physics, Biomedical Instrumentation, and many others. Nearly 30 Zimbabweans and some foreign students have thus far graduated with this degree. On graduation, they have, with relative ease, found employment in industry. In two cases, graduates were appointed as Research Officers with firms who set up research divisions specially for them. Many are now teaching at universities and technical colleges throughout the country where they continue to promote an industrial approach to the teaching of physics.