Al-Zubi, M & Sanagavarapu, A 2020, 'Implantable Biosensor Interface Platform for Monitoring of Atherosclerosis', IEEE Sensors Letters.
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The drug-eluting stents (DESs) have been considered as an effective technique to reduce the severity of atherosclerotic stenosis. Recent technological advances have opened the door for developing new and innovative smart cardiovascular stents by integrating various electronics components and sensors to improve health monitoring and diagnosis. Rupture of atherosclerotic plaque represents the major cause of cardiovascular disease (CVD) such as heart attacks due to blockages of the arterial lumen. Pentraxin-3 (PTX3) is a novel localized inflammatory biomarker associated with the development of atherosclerosis and plaque vulnerability. In this paper, we propose a biosensor interface platform for monitoring the plaque vulnerability via detection and prediction of the inflammatory biomarker (PTX3). We propose mathematical and stochastic models using molecular communication paradigm for detection of Pentraxin-3 (PTX3) molecules in the atherosclerotic arterial wall using biosensor attached to a vascular stent inside the artery. The proposed platform and models can help in the localized sensing of the atherosclerotic biomarkers for monitoring of the plaque progression and for early warning of certain disorders such as heart attack.
Bajan, S & Hutvagner, G 2020, 'RNA-Based Therapeutics: From Antisense Oligonucleotides to miRNAs', CELLS, vol. 9, no. 1.
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Bazaz, SR, Mashhadian, A, Ehsani, A, Saha, SC, Kruger, T & Warkiani, ME 2020, 'Computational inertial microfluidics: a review', LAB ON A CHIP, vol. 20, no. 6, pp. 1023-1048.
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Bishop, AN & Moral, PD 2020, 'An Explicit Floquet-Type Representation of Riccati Aperiodic Exponential Semigroups', International Journal of Control.
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The article presents a rather surprising Floquet-type representation of
time-varying transition matrices associated with a class of nonlinear matrix
differential Riccati equations. The main difference with conventional Floquet
theory comes from the fact that the underlying flow of the solution matrix is
aperiodic. The monodromy matrix associated with this Floquet representation
coincides with the exponential (fundamental) matrix associated with the
stabilizing fixed point of the Riccati equation. The second part of this
article is dedicated to the application of this representation to the stability
of matrix differential Riccati equations. We provide refined global and local
contraction inequalities for the Riccati exponential semigroup that depend
linearly on the spectral norm of the initial condition. These refinements
improve upon existing results and are a direct consequence of the Floquet-type
representation, yielding what seems to be the first results of this type for
this class of models.
Bradbury, P, Wu, H, Choi, JU, Rowan, AE, Zhang, H, Poole, K, Lauko, J & Chou, J 2020, 'Modeling the Impact of Microgravity at the Cellular Level: Implications for Human Disease', Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology, vol. 8.
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© Copyright © 2020 Bradbury, Wu, Choi, Rowan, Zhang, Poole, Lauko and Chou. A lack of gravity experienced during space flight has been shown to have profound effects on human physiology including muscle atrophy, reductions in bone density and immune function, and endocrine disorders. At present, these physiological changes present major obstacles to long-term space missions. What is not clear is which pathophysiological disruptions reflect changes at the cellular level versus changes that occur due to the impact of weightlessness on the entire body. This review focuses on current research investigating the impact of microgravity at the cellular level including cellular morphology, proliferation, and adhesion. As direct research in space is currently cost prohibitive, we describe here the use of microgravity simulators for studies at the cellular level. Such instruments provide valuable tools for cost-effective research to better discern the impact of weightlessness on cellular function. Despite recent advances in understanding the relationship between extracellular forces and cell behavior, very little is understood about cellular biology and mechanotransduction under microgravity conditions. This review will examine recent insights into the impact of simulated microgravity on cell biology and how this technology may provide new insight into advancing our understanding of mechanically driven biology and disease.
Chamoli, U, Umali, J, Kleuskens, MWA, Chepurin, D & Diwan, AD 2020, 'Morphological characteristics of the kangaroo lumbar intervertebral discs and comparison with other animal models used in spine research', European Spine Journal, vol. 29, no. 4, pp. 652-662.
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© 2019, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature. Purpose: Animal models are frequently used to elucidate pathomechanism and pathophysiology of various disorders of the human intervertebral disc (IVD) and also to develop therapeutic approaches. Here we report morphological characteristics of the kangaroo lumbar IVDs and compare them with other animal models used in spine research. Methods: Twenty-five fresh-frozen cadaveric lumbar spines (T12–S1) derived from kangaroo carcases (Macropus giganteus) of undetermined age were first scanned in a C-Arm X-ray machine. A photograph of the axial section of the disc including a calibrated metric scale was also acquired. The digital radiographs and photographs were processed in ImageJ to determine the axial and sagittal plane dimensions for the whole disc (WD) and the nucleus pulposus (NP) and the mid-sagittal disc height for all the lumbar levels. Results: Our results suggest that the L6–S1 IVD in kangaroos is distinctly large compared with the upper lumbar IVDs. Based on previously published data, human lumbar IVDs are the largest of all the animal IVDs used in spine research, with camelid cervical IVDs being the closest relative in absolute dimensions (llamas: 78% in disc height, 40% in WD volume, and 38% in NP volume). Kangaroo L6–S1 IVD was approximately 51% in height, 20% in WD volume, and 20% in NP volume of the human lumbar IVD. Conclusions: We conclude that morphological similarities exist between a kangaroo and human lumbar IVD, especially with the lima bean shape in the axial plane, wedge shape in the sagittal plane, convexity at the cephalad endplates, and percentage volume occupied by the NP in the IVD. Graphic abstract: These slides can be retrieved under Electronic Supplementary Material. [Figure not available: see fulltext.]
Frost, SA, Kelly, A, Gaudin, J, Mc Evoy, L, Wilson, C, Marov, L, El Haddad, C, Center, J, Eisman, JA, Nguyen, TV & Hassett, G 2020, 'Establishing baseline absolute risk of subsequent fracture among adults presenting to hospital with a minimal-trauma-fracture', BMC MUSCULOSKELETAL DISORDERS, vol. 21, no. 1.
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Gao, S, Lu, R, Wang, X, Chou, J, Wang, N, Huai, X, Wang, C, Zhao, Y & Chen, S 2020, 'Immune response of macrophages on super-hydrophilic TiO2 nanotube arrays', Journal of Biomaterials Applications.
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© The Author(s) 2020. Macrophages are attracting increasing attention in promoting implant-mediated osteogenesis by modulating the microenvironment of the implant site. Biomaterial surface properties including topography and wettability regulate macrophage responses to influence tissue repair. The objective of our present study was to investigate the effects of hydrogenated titanium dioxide nanotube surfaces on the immune response of macrophages in vitro. Hydrogenated titanium dioxide nanotubes (TNTs) were synthesized on Ti surfaces by anodic oxidation and hydrogenation to form super-hydrophilic nanotubular surfaces. Macrophages were seeded directly onto three substrates (hydrogenated TNTs (H2-TNTs), air-annealed TNTs, and commercially pure Ti substrates) and grown under standard or lipopolysaccharide-stimulated culture conditions. Cell proliferation and viability were evaluated by Cell Counting Kit-8 and live/dead staining at 24 and 48 h. Secretion and expression of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines were evaluated at 24 and 48 h to determine whether the surfaces elicited differential macrophage behaviors. Gene expression of the M1/M2 surface markers of macrophages was analyzed to assess the effect of the H2-TNT surface on macrophage polarization. The results showed that hydrogenation of the TNT surface resulted in a super-hydrophilic substrate, which exhibited markedly improved wettability attributable to the formation of oxygen vacancies in the nanotubes. The H2-TNT group induced a significantly lower macrophage proliferation rate and up-regulated anti-inflammatory cytokines (interleukin-10, bone morphogenetic protein-2, and transforming growth factor-β1) irrespective of lipopolysaccharide stimulation, while alleviating the secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines (tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin-6, nitric oxide, and macrophage chemotactic protein-1) induced by lipopolysaccharide. Moreover, the H2-TNT surface elicited up-regulated gene expression of M2 s...
Hagihghi, R, Razmjou, A, Orooji, Y, Warkiani, ME & Asadnia, M 2020, 'A miniaturized piezoresistive flow sensor for real-time monitoring of intravenous infusion.', Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part B: Applied Biomaterials, vol. 108, no. 2, pp. 568-576.
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Drug overdose (DO) is considered one of the current issues of intravenous (IV) infusion particularly resulting in serious injuries and deaths. Malfunction of infusion pumps is reported as the main cause of the drug overdose. Live monitoring and flow rate calculation by health professionals have been practicing to avoid DO. However, human errors and miscalculations are inevitable. A secondary measurement tool is required to avoid the risk of OD when infusion pump malfunctions cannot be detected immediately. Here, inspired by nature, we developed a real-time monitoring device through which an administrator can review, evaluate, and modify the IV infusion process. Our flow sensor possesses an erected polymer hair cell on a multi-layered silicon base forming from a patterned gold strained gauge layer on a piezoresistive liquid crystal polymer (LCP) membrane. Gold strain gauges on an LCP membrane have been used instead of a piezoresistive silicon membrane as the sensing element. The combination of gold strain gauges and LCP membrane provides better sensitivity than a piezoresistive silicon membrane of the same dimensions and thickness. We also miniaturized our biocompatible sensor such that it can be possible to install it inside the IV tube in contact with the liquid providing an in-suite online flow monitoring. The proposed LCP membrane sensor is compared with two commercially available IV sensors to validate its flow sensing ability. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed sensor provides a low threshold detection limit of 5 mL/hr, which betters the performance of other commercial sensors at low flow rates.
Hill, M, Mason, D, Monteiro Marques, T, Gama Carvalho, M & Tran, N 2020, 'Developing a virus-microRNA interactome using cytoscape', MethodsX, vol. 7.
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© 2019 It is currently difficult to determine the effect of oncogenic viruses on the global function and regulation of pathways within mammalian cells. A thorough understanding of the molecular pathways and individual genes altered by oncogenic viruses is needed for the identification of targets that can be utilised for early diagnosis, prevention, and treatment methods. We detail a logical step-by-step guide to uncover viral-protein-miRNA interactions using publically available datasets and the network building program, Cytoscape. This method may be applied to identify specific pathways that are altered in viral infection, and contribute to the oncogenic transformation of cells. To demonstrate this, we constructed a gene regulatory interactome encompassing Human Papillomavirus Type 16 (HPV16) and its control of specific miRNAs. This approach can be broadly applied to understand and map the regulatory functions of other oncogenic viruses, and determine their role in altering the cellular environment in cancer. Availability and Implementation Cytoscape (Shannon et al. (2003), Smoot et al. (2010)) is freely available at https://cytoscape.org/. • This method allows for the analysis and visualization of large datasets to generate an interactome that integrates key players of molecular biology • This approach may be applied to any oncogenic virus to map its regulatory functions, and its secondary impact on gene regulation via microRNAs.
Huang, Y, Song, R, Argha, A, Savkin, AV, Celler, BG & Su, SW 2020, 'Continuous Description of Human 3D Motion Intent Through Switching Mechanism', IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON NEURAL SYSTEMS AND REHABILITATION ENGINEERING, vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 277-286.
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Liu, T, Zhang, W, Yuwono, M, Zhang, M, Ueland, M, Forbes, SL & Su, SW 2020, 'A data-driven meat freshness monitoring and evaluation method using rapid centroid estimation and hidden Markov models', Sensors and Actuators, B: Chemical, vol. 311.
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© 2020 Elsevier B.V. The food industry needs a fast and stable method to monitor and evaluate the freshness of meat products. This paper proposes the use of a metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) sensor-based electronic nose with a data-driven approach, hidden Markov models (HMMs), to detect meat spoilage. The data-driven approach we proposed include: (i) A training algorithm using segmental rapid centroid estimation (RCE) to increase the overall stability of the HMM optimisation algorithm; (ii) A monitoring algorithm using a single HMM trained only by fresh samples to track the change of meat freshness in real-time when the storage condition is not specified; (iii) An HMM-based decoding algorithm to cluster the freshness level when the whole life-span data of meat stored in a specific storage condition is available. Then, HMM for each freshness level is trained and applied in parallel as freshness evaluation models to classify the tested meat samples. In freshness monitoring, case studies on fish, beef and chicken demonstrate the effectiveness and potential of this method. In freshness evaluation, we observed sensitivity and specificity of 96.32% ± 2.83% and 99.07% ± 0.69%, 99.09% ± 2.40% and 99.82% ± 0.48%, as well as, 99.35% ± 0.27% and 98.31% ± 0.71% respectively for fish, beef and chicken, which warrants further investigation.
Mahmoudi, T, Pirpour Tazehkand, A, Pourhassan-Moghaddam, M, Alizadeh-Ghodsi, M, Ding, L, Baradaran, B, Razavi Bazaz, S, Jin, D & Ebrahimi Warkiani, M 2020, 'PCR-free paper-based nanobiosensing platform for visual detection of telomerase activity via gold enhancement', Microchemical Journal, vol. 154.
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© 2020 Elsevier B.V. Telomerase activity has been demonstrated in a wide variety of most solid tumors and considered as a well-known cancer biomarker. The commonly utilized method for its detection is polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based telomeric repeat amplification protocol (TRAP). However, the TRAP technique suffers from false-negative results caused by the failure of PCR step. Moreover, it requires advanced equipment with a tedious and time-consuming procedure. Herein, we presented a portable nitrocellulose paper-based nanobiosensing platform for ultrafast and equipment-free detection of telomerase activity based on a simple colorimetric assay that enabled naked-eye visualization of the color change in response to enzyme activity. In this platform, hybridization was initially performed between telomere complementary oligonucleotide immobilized on gold nanoparticles (GNPs) and telomerase elongated biotinylated probe. Thereafter, the assembly was attached on activated paper strip via avidin-biotin interaction. The signal amplification was carried out by enlargement of the attached GNPs on the paper strip, forming tightly compact rod-shaped submicron structures of gold representing a visual color formation. Thanks to significant sensitivity enhancement, the color change was occurred for down to 6 cells, which can be easily observed by the naked eye. Due to the desired aspects of the developed assay including PCR-free, low cost, simple, and high sensitivity, it can be used for evaluation of telomerase activity in cell extracts for future clinical applications. Furthermore, this design has the ability to be easily integrated into lab-on-chip devices for point-of-care telomerase sensing.
Mehmood, A, Zameer, A, Chaudhary, NI, Ling, SH & Raja, MAZ 2020, 'Design of meta-heuristic computing paradigms for Hammerstein identification systems in electrically stimulated muscle models', NEURAL COMPUTING & APPLICATIONS.
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Mueller, M, Zolfaghari, R, Briggs, A, Furtado, H, Booth, J, Keall, P, Nguyen, D, O'Brien, R & Shieh, C-C 2020, 'The first prospective implementation of markerless lung target tracking in an experimental quality assurance procedure on a standard linear accelerator.', Physics in medicine and biology, vol. 65, no. 2, pp. 025008-025008.
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The ability to track tumour motion without implanted markers on a standard linear accelerator (linac) could enable wide access to real-time adaptive radiotherapy for cancer patients. We previously have retrospectively validated a method for 3D markerless target tracking using intra-fractional kilovoltage (kV) projections acquired on a standard linac. This paper presents the first prospective implementation of markerless lung target tracking on a standard linac and its quality assurance (QA) procedure. The workflow and the algorithm developed to track the 3D target position during volumetric modulated arc therapy treatment delivery were optimised. The linac was operated in clinical QA mode, while kV projections were streamed to a dedicated computer using a frame-grabber software. The markerless target tracking accuracy and precision were measured in a lung phantom experiment under the following conditions: static localisation of seven distinct positions, dynamic localisation of five patient-measured motion traces, and dynamic localisation with treatment interruption. The QA guidelines were developed following the AAPM Task Group 147 report with the requirement that the tracking margin components, the margins required to account for tracking errors, did not exceed 5 mm in any direction. The mean tracking error ranged from 0.0 to 0.9 mm (left-right), -0.6 to -0.1 mm (superior-inferior) and -0.7 to 0.1 mm (anterior-posterior) over the three tests. Larger errors were found in cases with large left-right or anterior-posterior and small superior-inferior motion. The tracking margin components did not exceed 5 mm in any direction and ranged from 0.4 to 3.2 mm (left-right), 0.7 to 1.6 mm (superior-inferior) and 0.8 to 1.5 mm (anterior-posterior). This study presents the first prospective implementation of markerless lung target tracking on a standard linac and provides a QA procedure for its safe clinical implementation, potentially enabling real-time adaptive radiother...
Raoufi, MA, Razavi Bazaz, S, Niazmand, H, Rouhi, O, Asadnia, M, Razmjou, A & Ebrahimi Warkiani, M 2020, 'Fabrication of unconventional inertial microfluidic channels using wax 3D printing.', Soft matter, vol. 16, no. 10, pp. 2448-2459.
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Inertial microfluidics has emerged over the past decade as a powerful tool to accurately control cells and microparticles for diverse biological and medical applications. Many approaches have been proposed to date in order to increase the efficiency and accuracy of inertial microfluidic systems. However, the effects of channel cross-section and solution properties (Newtonian or non-Newtonian) have not been fully explored, primarily due to limitations in current microfabrication methods. In this study, we overcome many of these limitations using wax 3D printing technology and soft lithography through a novel workflow, which eliminates the need for the use of silicon lithography and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) bonding. We have shown that by adding dummy structures to reinforce the main channels, optimizing the gap between the dummy and main structures, and dissolving the support wax on a PDMS slab to minimize the additional handling steps, one can make various non-conventional microchannels. These substantially improve upon previous wax printed microfluidic devices where the working area falls into the realm of macrofluidics rather than microfluidics. Results revealed a surface roughness of 1.75 μm for the printed channels, which does not affect the performance of inertial microfluidic devices used in this study. Channels with complex cross-sections were fabricated and then analyzed to investigate the effects of viscoelasticity and superposition on the lateral migration of the particles. Finally, as a proof of concept, microcarriers were separated from human mesenchymal stem cells using an optimized channel with maximum cell-holding capacity, demonstrating the suitability of these microchannels in the bioprocessing industry.
Razavi Bazaz, S, Rouhi, O, Raoufi, MA, Ejeian, F, Asadnia, M, Jin, D & Ebrahimi Warkiani, M 2020, '3D Printing of Inertial Microfluidic Devices.', Sci Rep, vol. 10, no. 1, p. 5929.
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Inertial microfluidics has been broadly investigated, resulting in the development of various applications, mainly for particle or cell separation. Lateral migrations of these particles within a microchannel strictly depend on the channel design and its cross-section. Nonetheless, the fabrication of these microchannels is a continuous challenging issue for the microfluidic community, where the most studied channel cross-sections are limited to only rectangular and more recently trapezoidal microchannels. As a result, a huge amount of potential remains intact for other geometries with cross-sections difficult to fabricate with standard microfabrication techniques. In this study, by leveraging on benefits of additive manufacturing, we have proposed a new method for the fabrication of inertial microfluidic devices. In our proposed workflow, parts are first printed via a high-resolution DLP/SLA 3D printer and then bonded to a transparent PMMA sheet using a double-coated pressure-sensitive adhesive tape. Using this method, we have fabricated and tested a plethora of existing inertial microfluidic devices, whether in a single or multiplexed manner, such as straight, spiral, serpentine, curvilinear, and contraction-expansion arrays. Our characterizations using both particles and cells revealed that the produced chips could withstand a pressure up to 150 psi with minimum interference of the tape to the total functionality of the device and viability of cells. As a showcase of the versatility of our method, we have proposed a new spiral microchannel with right-angled triangular cross-section which is technically impossible to fabricate using the standard lithography. We are of the opinion that the method proposed in this study will open the door for more complex geometries with the bespoke passive internal flow. Furthermore, the proposed fabrication workflow can be adopted at the production level, enabling large-scale manufacturing of inertial microfluidic devices.
Rzhevskiy, AS, Bazaz, SR, Ding, L, Kapitannikova, A, Sayyadi, N, Campbell, D, Walsh, B, Gillatt, D, Warkiani, ME & Zvyagin, AV 2020, 'Rapid and label-free isolation of tumour cells from the urine of patients with localised prostate cancer using inertial microfluidics', Cancers, vol. 12, no. 1.
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© 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. During the last decade, isolation of circulating tumour cells via blood liquid biopsy of prostate cancer (PCa) has attracted significant attention as an alternative, or substitute, to conventional diagnostic tests. However, it was previously determined that localised forms of PCa shed a small number of cancer cells into the bloodstream, and a large volume of blood is required just for a single test, which is impractical. To address this issue, urine has been used as an alternative to blood for liquid biopsy as a truly non-invasive, patient-friendly test. To this end, we developed a spiral microfluidic chip capable of isolating PCa cells from the urine of PCa patients. Potential clinical utility of the chip was demonstrated using anti-Glypican-1 (GPC-1) antibody as a model of the primary antibody in immunofluorescent assay for identification and detection of the collected tumour cells. The microchannel device was first evaluated using DU-145 cells in a diluted Dulbecco’s phosphate-buffered saline sample, where it demonstrated >85 (±6) % efficiency. The microchannel proved to be functional in at least 79% of cases for capturing GPC1+ putative tumour cells from the urine of patients with localised PCa. More importantly, a correlation was found between the amount of the captured GPC1+ cells and crucial diagnostic and prognostic parameter of localised PCa—Gleason score. Thus, the technique demonstrated promise for further assessment of its diagnostic value in PCa detection, diagnosis, and prognosis.
Shrestha, J, Bazaz, SR, Es, HA, Azari, DY, Thierry, B, Warkiani, ME & Ghadiri, M 2020, 'Lung-on-a-chip: the future of respiratory disease models and pharmacological studies', CRITICAL REVIEWS IN BIOTECHNOLOGY, vol. 40, no. 2, pp. 213-230.
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Sritharan, K, Chamoli, U, Kuan, J & Diwan, AD 2020, 'Assessment of degenerative cervical stenosis on T2-weighted MR imaging: sensitivity to change and reliability of mid-sagittal and axial plane metrics.', Spinal cord.
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STUDY DESIGN:A retrospective cross-sectional study. OBJECTIVE:To assess the sensitivity to change and reliability of various mid-sagittal and axial plane metrics in the assessment of patients with single-level degenerative cervical stenosis on T2-weighted MR imaging. SETTING:A diagnostic MR imaging facility in Sydney (Australia). METHODS:We retrospectively reviewed T2-weighted MR images of 85 consecutive patients (48 M and 37 F) with single-level degenerative cervical stenosis. Canal compromise and cord compression were evaluated using three mid-sagittal plane metrics (M1, M2, and M3) and two axial plane metrics (M4 and M5), at the level of stenosis and nonstenotic cephalad and caudal levels (controls). Sensitivity to change (SC) for each metric was evaluated as the percentage deviation of the measured value from the estimated normal value based on cephalad and caudal controls. Reliability for each metric was evaluated using intraclass correlation coefficients. RESULTS:Degenerative cervical stenosis showed a bimodal distribution peaking at C5-6 (n = 32) and C3-4 (n = 29) levels. The changes in the canal and cord geometry along the rostrocaudal axis were inconsistent. Across all individual subjects (reflecting a range of stenosis severity), M3 (-32.87% ± 10.60%) was more sensitive to change compared with M1 (16.64% ± 16.48%) and M2 (-23.95% ± 11.12%). Similarly, M4 (-24.62% ± 12.17%) was more sensitive to change compared with M5 (-6.71% ± 11.08%). The level of reliability was "moderate" to "excellent" for mid-sagittal plane measurements, and "poor" to "excellent" for axial plane measurements. CONCLUSION:Changes in canal dimensions in the mid-sagittal plane and cord shape in the axial plane are sensitive indicators of degenerative cervical stenosis on T2-weighted MR images.
Trinh, VT, Nguyen, TMP, Van, HT, Hoang, LP, Nguyen, TV, Ha, LT, Vu, XH, Pham, TT, Nguyen, TN, Quang, NV & Nguyen, XC 2020, 'Phosphate Adsorption by Silver Nanoparticles-Loaded Activated Carbon derived from Tea Residue', Scientific Reports, vol. 10, no. 1.
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© 2020, The Author(s). This study presents the removal of phosphate from aqueous solution using a new silver nanoparticles-loaded tea activated carbon (AgNPs-TAC) material. In order to reduce costs, the tea activated carbon was produced from tea residue. Batch adsorption experiments were conducted to evaluate the effects of impregnation ratio of AgNPs and TAC, pH solution, contact time, initial phosphate concentration and dose of AgNPs-AC on removing phosphate from aqueous solution. Results show that the best conditions for phosphate adsorption occurred at the impregnation ratio AgNPs/TAC of 3% w/w, pH 3, and contact time lasting 150 min. The maximum adsorption capacity of phosphate on AgNPs-TAC determined by the Langmuir model was 13.62 mg/g at an initial phosphate concentration of 30 mg/L. The adsorption isotherm of phosphate on AgNPs-TAC fits well with both the Langmuir and Sips models. The adsorption kinetics data were also described well by the pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order models with high correlation coefficients of 0.978 and 0.966, respectively. The adsorption process was controlled by chemisorption through complexes and ligand exchange mechanisms. This study suggests that AgNPs-TAC is a promising, low cost adsorbent for phosphate removal from aqueous solution.
Van, KLH, Chai, R & Nguyen, HT 2020, 'A Telepresence Wheelchair with 360-Degree Vision Using WebRTC', APPLIED SCIENCES-BASEL, vol. 10, no. 1.
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Wang, Y, Sayyadi, N, Zheng, X, Woods, TA, Leif, RC, Shi, B, Graves, SW, Piper, JA & Lu, Y 2020, 'Time-resolved microfluidic flow cytometer for decoding luminescence lifetimes in the microsecond region.', Lab on a Chip: miniaturisation for chemistry, physics, biology, materials science and bioengineering.
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Time-resolved luminescence detection using long-lived probes with lifetimes in the microsecond region have shown great potential in ultrasensitive and multiplexed bioanalysis. In flow cytometry, however, the long lifetime poses a significant challenge to measure wherein the detection window is often too short to determine the decay characteristics. Here we report a time-resolved microfluidic flow cytometer (tr-mFCM) incorporating an acoustic-focusing chip, which allows slowing down of the flow while providing the same detection conditions for every target, achieving accurate lifetime measurement free of autofluorescence interference. Through configuration of the flow velocity and detection aperture with respect to the time-gating sequence, a multi-cycle luminescence decay profile is captured for every event under maximum excitation and detection efficiency. A custom fitting algorithm is then developed to resolve europium-stained polymer microspheres as well as leukemia cells against abundant fluorescent particles, achieving counting efficiency approaching 100% and lifetime CVs (coefficient of variation) around 2-6%. We further demonstrate lifetime-multiplexed detection of prostate and bladder cancer cells stained with different europium probes. Our acoustic-focusing tr-mFCM offers a practical technique for rapid screening of biofluidic samples containing multiple cell types, especially in resource-limited environments such as regional and/or underdeveloped areas as well as for point-of-care applications.
Zheng, D, Zhang, H, Zhang, JA, Zheng, W & Su, SW 2020, 'Stability of asynchronous switched systems with sequence-based average dwell time approaches', Journal of the Franklin Institute, vol. 357, no. 4, pp. 2149-2166.
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© 2019 The Franklin Institute This paper studies the stability problem of asynchronous switched systems and proposes novel sequence-based average dwell time approaches. Both continuous-time and discrete-time systems are considered. The proposed approaches exploit the switching sequences of subsystems which were seldom utilized in the literature. More specifically, our approaches exploit the differences between different switching sequences, including the maximal asynchronous switching time, the energy changing degree at switching times, and the increasing speed of energy functions in asynchronous time intervals. As a result, the proposed approaches can reduce the threshold value of average dwell time significantly. We also propose an approach to counterbalance the increasing of energy functions in asynchronous time intervals by prolonging the preceding rather than subsequent subsystem. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed approaches can improve the performance significantly in comparison with a well-known method.
Almansor, EH, Al-Ani, A & Hussain, FK 2020, 'Transferring Informal Text in Arabic as Low Resource Languages: State-of-the-Art and Future Research Directions', Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, pp. 176-187.
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© 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG. Rapid growth in internet technology lead to increase the usage of social media platforms which make communication between users easier. Through the communication users used their daily languages which considered as non-standard language. The non-slandered text contains lots of noise, such as abbreviations, slang which used more in English languages and dialect words which are widely used in Arabic language. These texts face challenging using any natural language processing tools. Therefore, these texts need to be treated and transferred to be similar to their standard form. According to that the normalization and translation approach have been used to transfer the informal text. However, using these approach need large label or parallel datasets. While high resource languages such as English have enough parallel datasets, low resource languages such as Arabic is lack of enough parallel dataset. Therefore, in this paper we focus on the Arabic and Arabic dialects as a low resource language in the era of transferring non-stander text using normalization and translation approach.
Al-Tae, AA & Al-Jumaily, A 2020, 'Electrogastrogram Based Medical Applications an Overview and Processing Frame Work', Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, pp. 511-520.
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© 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG. Surface Electrogastrogram (sEGG) examination is a noninvasive method based on recording the electrical signals of stomach muscles that can be used for investigation of a stomach wave propagation. sEGG records by placing electrodes on the abdominal skin. The recording of gastric dysrhythmias is an important tool for the clinician when patients have symptoms that suggest gastric dysfunction such as unexplained nausea, bloating, postprandial fullness, and early satiety. On the other hand, these upper gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms are nonspecific, and diseases or disorders of other organ such as esophagus, gallbladder, small bowel, colon, and non-GI diseases also can be considered. The progress of the EGG based application is very slow as EGG still suffers from several limitations. The aim of this study is to review the Electrogastrogram detection, analyzing methods and its application to enter the clinical world with recommendations for future study.
Masood, A & Al-Jumaily, A 2020, 'Orientation Sensitive Fuzzy C Means Based Fast Level Set Evolution for Segmentation of Histopathological Images to Detect Skin Cancer', Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, pp. 501-510.
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© 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG. Malignant Melanoma in one of the most deadly skin cancer. In latest cancer diagnosis, pathologists examine biopsies for analysing cell morphology and tissue distribution for making diagnostic assessments. However, this process is quite subjective and has considerable variability. Automated computational diagnostic tools based on quantitative measures can help the diagnosis done by pathologists. The first and foremost step in automated histopathological image analysis is to properly segment the tissue structures such as nest, irregular distribution and melanocytic cells which indicate some disorder or potential cancer. This paper presents a novel technique for automatic segmentation of histopathological skin images, without user intervention. It is based on an innovative approach for utilizing the concepts of clustering and level set evolution. Firstly, the image is pre-processed to enhance the differentiating structural details. Then a novel orientation sensitive Fuzzy C mean clustering is used to generate the initial coarse segmentation and to calculate the controlling parameters for level set evolution. Later, refined fast level set based algorithm is used to finalize the segmentation process. Experimental analysis on a database of 150 histopathological images display the accuracy of the proposed method for detecting the melanocytic areas of the image, with true detection rate of 87.66% and Dice similarity coefficient of 0.88, when segmentation results are compared with images marked by expert pathologists.
Naji, M, Braytee, A, Anaissi, A, Sianaki, OA & Al-Ani, A 2020, 'Optimizing the Waiting Time for Airport Security Screening Using Multiple Queues and Servers', Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, pp. 496-507.
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© 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG. Airport security screening processes are essential to ensure the safety of passengers and the aviation industry. Security at airports has improved noticeably in recent years through the utilisation of state-of-the-art technologies and highly trained security officers. However, maintaining a high level of security can be costly to operate and implement and can cause delays for passengers and airlines. In optimising a security process it is essential to strike a balance between time delays, security and reduced operation cost. This paper uses queueing theory as a method to study the impact of queue formation and the size of the security area on the average waiting time for the case of multi-lane parallel servers. An experiment is conducted to validate the proposed approach.
Sofela, S, Sahloul, S, Kwon, T, Han, J, Warkiani, ME & Song, YA 2020, 'Synchronization of C. Elegans through high-throughput separation of eggs in a spiral microfluidic chip', 21st International Conference on Miniaturized Systems for Chemistry and Life Sciences, MicroTAS 2017, pp. 1100-1101.
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© 17CBMS-0001. In this work, we report a high-throughput sorting of C. elegans embryos from a mixed-age worm population in a spiral microfluidic chip for synchronization. Using inertial forces in the spiral chip, C. elegans eggs could efficiently be focused along the inner channel wall and separated out with high sorting efficiency and purity.
Wedyan, M, Al-Jumaily, A & Crippa, A 2020, 'Early Diagnose of Autism Spectrum Disorder Using Machine Learning Based on Simple Upper Limb Movements', Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, pp. 491-500.
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© 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The importance of early diagnosis of autism that leads to early intervention such thing shall increase the results of treating it. The Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) affects the children activities and caused difficulties in interaction, impairments in communication, delayed speech, and weak eye contact. These activities used as the base for ASD diagnosis decision. Children move their upper limb before some of the other activities. Moving upper limb can be based for ASD diagnosis decision for autistic children. Such paper examines diagnosing the ASD that depends on motioning the children’s upper-limb aged between two and four years based on executing specific procedures and machine learning. The approach that such study utilized is both (LDA) Linear Discriminant Analysis in order to elicit the features and (SVM) Support Vector Machines for classifying thirty children such study selected fifteen autistic children out of fifteen non-autistic children by testing the collected data that are collected from doing an easy task. The results of such study have accomplished an optimal sortation accuracy of 100% and the average accuracy of 93.8%. Such outcomes provide more proof of simple brachium motioning that might be utilized in sorting poor performance of autistic children precisely.
Zhang, M, Li, H & Su, S 2019, 'High dimensional Bayesian optimization via supervised dimension reduction', IJCAI International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IJCAI International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Macao, China, pp. 4292-4298.
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© 2019 International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence. All rights reserved. Bayesian optimization (BO) has been broadly applied to computational expensive problems, but it is still challenging to extend BO to high dimensions. Existing works are usually under strict assumption of an additive or a linear embedding structure for objective functions. This paper directly introduces a supervised dimension reduction method, Sliced Inverse Regression (SIR), to high dimensional Bayesian optimization, which could effectively learn the intrinsic sub-structure of objective function during the optimization. Furthermore, a kernel trick is developed to reduce computational complexity and learn nonlinear subset of the unknowing function when applying SIR to extremely high dimensional BO. We present several computational benefits and derive theoretical regret bounds of our algorithm. Extensive experiments on synthetic examples and two real applications demonstrate the superiority of our algorithms for high dimensional Bayesian optimization.