Machine learning approach to needle insertion site identification for spinal anesthesia in obese patients.

Background: Ultrasonography for neuraxial anesthesia is increasingly being used to identify spinal structures and the identification of correct point of needle insertion to improve procedural success, in particular in obesity. We developed an ultrasound-guided automated spinal landmark identification program to assist anesthetists on spinal needle insertion point with a graphical user interface for spinal anesthesia.

Methods: Forty-eight obese patients requiring spinal anesthesia for Cesarean section were recruited in this prospective cohort study.

Precision Motion Control using Nonlinear Contact Force Model in a Surgical Device.

Otitis media with effusion (OME) is a common middle ear disease in children. The Ventilation Tube Applicator is an ear surgical device to treat OME by inserting a grommet into tympanic membrane (TM). This grommet insertion process requires very delicate control to minimise trauma to the TM and to ensure that the grommet is successfully inserted.

A novel approach to neuraxial anesthesia: application of an automated ultrasound spinal landmark identification.

Background: Neuraxial procedures are commonly performed for therapeutic and diagnostic indications. Currently, they are typically performed via palpation-guided surface landmark. We devised a novel intelligent image processing system that identifies spinal landmarks using ultrasound images.

Adaptive sliding mode enhanced disturbance observer-based control of surgical device.

This paper presents an enhanced adaptive robust disturbance observer-based motion tracking control methodology. This control approach is established and investigated for a semi-automated hand-held ear surgical device for the treatment of Otitis Media with Effusion. The proposed control methodology is utilised for tracking a desired motion trajectory in the presence of unknown or uncertain system parameters, nonlinearities including hysteresis, and disturbances in the motion system.

Enhanced sensitivity shaping by data-based tuning of disturbance observer with non-binomial filter.

This work presents a new method of sensitivity shaping for motion control systems with disturbance observer (DOB). Although the traditional DOB design has been proved to be an effective means of rejecting disturbances in many applications, shaping of the closed-loop sensitivity is constrained since the Q-filter in DOB is usually restricted to a standard Butterworth or binomial form, where the cutoff frequency is the only tunable parameter. To overcome this limitation and achieve better performance for more demanding motion systems, a general form of the Q-filter is employed in this work.

Gabor-based automatic spinal level identification in ultrasound.

This paper presents an automatic lumbar spine level identification system based on image processing of ultrasound images. The goal is to aid anesthetists in identifying the correct spinal level during epidural anesthesia. Spine level identification is initiated by detecting the location of the sacrum using a classifier based on a support vector machine.

Automatic identification of blood vessel cross-section for central venous catheter placement using a cascading classifier.

This paper presents a system that is able to automatically identify, segment, and track the cross-section of the internal jugular vein (IJV) and the common carotid artery (CCA) in an ultrasound image feed during a central venous catheter (CVC) placement procedure. The goal is to provide assistance to the practitioner in order to decrease the probability of complications stemming from inadvertent punctures of the CCA during the procedure. In the system, a modified Star algorithm is implemented to segment and track the blood vessel throughout an ultrasound video feed.

A novel constrained H optimization algorithm for mechatronics design in flexure-linked biaxial gantry.

The biaxial gantry is widely used in many industrial processes that require high precision Cartesian motion. The conventional rigid-link version suffers from breaking down of joints if any de-synchronization between the two carriages occurs. To prevent above potential risk, a flexure-linked biaxial gantry is designed to allow a small rotation angle of the cross-arm.

Set-point manipulation approach towards online performance improvement in existing process control loops.

The majority of current industrial process control systems are based on PID control. However, in many of these systems, once the initial setup has been carried out, it is difficult to implement subsequent continuous improvements on the control performance without shutting down the production and disarming the overall system to retrofit alternative controllers. These measures to integrate additional instruments for allowing such flexibility incur heavy costs in terms of time and resources.

Assistive technology for ultrasound-guided central venous catheter placement.

This study evaluated the existing technology used to improve the safety and ease of ultrasound-guided central venous catheterization. Electronic database searches were conducted in Scopus, IEEE, Google Patents, and relevant conference databases (SPIE, MICCAI, and IEEE conferences) for related articles on assistive technology for ultrasound-guided central venous catheterization. A total of 89 articles were examined and pointed to several fields that are currently the focus of improvements to ultrasound-guided procedures.

Re-visiting the tympanic membrane vicinity as core body temperature measurement site.

Core body temperature (CBT) is an important and commonly used indicator of human health and endurance performance. A rise in baseline CBT can be attributed to an onset of flu, infection or even thermoregulatory failure when it becomes excessive. Sites which have been used for measurement of CBT include the pulmonary artery, the esophagus, the rectum and the tympanic membrane.

Development of a real-time lumbar ultrasound image processing system for epidural needle entry site localization.

A fully-automatic ultrasound image processing system that can determine the needle entry site for epidural anesthesia (EA) in real time is presented in this paper. Neither the knowledge of anesthetists nor additional hardware is required to operate the system, which firstly directs the anesthetists to reach the desired insertion region in the longitudinal view, i.e.

Force estimation and failure detection based on disturbance observer for an ear surgical device.

The disturbance observer is one of the useful tools for estimating the contact force between the subject body and the environment in robotic and mechatronic systems. This paper introduced a novel automatic office-based ear surgical device for the treatment of Otitis Media with Effusion (OME) under the guidance of force sensing information. Since the force sensing information must be reliable so as to ensure the safety of the device, a contact force estimation method based on the disturbance observer is proposed.

Development of an intelligent surgical instrument for otitis media with effusion.

To treat a worldwide common ear disease (OME), a device allowing fast grommet tube insertion has been designed in our earlier works (Gao et al., 2015 [1] and Liang et al., 2013 [2]).

Comprehensive and Practical Vision System for Self-Driving Vehicle Lane-Level Localization.

Vehicle lane-level localization is a fundamental technology in autonomous driving. To achieve accurate and consistent performance, a common approach is to use the LIDAR technology. However, it is expensive and computational demanding, and thus not a practical solution in many situations.

Lumbar Ultrasound Image Feature Extraction and Classification with Support Vector Machine.

Needle entry site localization remains a challenge for procedures that involve lumbar puncture, for example, epidural anesthesia. To solve the problem, we have developed an image classification algorithm that can automatically identify the bone/interspinous region for ultrasound images obtained from lumbar spine of pregnant patients in the transverse plane. The proposed algorithm consists of feature extraction, feature selection and machine learning procedures.

Intelligent vision guide for automatic ventilation grommet insertion into the tympanic membrane.

Background: Otitis media with effusion is a worldwide ear disease. The current treatment is to surgically insert a ventilation grommet into the tympanic membrane. A robotic device allowing automatic grommet insertion has been designed in a previous study; however, the part of the membrane where the malleus bone is attached to the inner surface is to be avoided during the insertion process.

Feature extraction and classification for ultrasound images of lumbar spine with support vector machine.

In this paper, we proposed a feature extraction and machine learning method for the classification of ultrasound images obtained from lumbar spine of pregnant patients in the transverse plane. A group of features, including matching values and positions, appearance of black pixels within predefined windows along the midline, are extracted from the ultrasound images using template matching and midline detection. Support vector machine (SVM) with Gaussian kernel is utilized to classify the bone images and interspinous images with optimal separation hyperplane.

Extraction of spatial information for low-bandwidth telerehabilitation applications.

Telemedicine applications, based on two-dimensional (2D) video conferencing technology, have been around for the past 15 to 20 yr. They have been demonstrated to be acceptable for face-to-face consultations and useful for visual examination of wounds and abrasions. However, certain telerehabilitation assessments need the use of spatial information in order to accurately assess the patient's condition and sending three-dimensional video data over low-bandwidth networks is extremely challenging.

Automatic identification of needle insertion site in epidural anesthesia with a cascading classifier.

Ultrasound imaging was used to detect the anatomic structure of lumbar spine from the transverse view, to facilitate needle insertion in epidural anesthesia. The interspinous images that represent proper needle insertion sites were identified automatically with image processing and pattern recognition techniques. On the basis of ultrasound video streams obtained in pregnant patients, the image processing and identification procedure in a previous work was tested and improved.

Development of telerehabilitation application with designated consultation categories.

Telerehabilitation (TR) is getting ever more popular because it is effective in bringing rehabilitation services to rural populations by means of audiovisual systems and its initial implementation studies presented encouraging results. TR is proven to be helpful, with benefits in terms of reduced travel time, cost, and availability of specialists' support in local communities. However, TR systems that are usable under low-bandwidth network environments are rare.

SVD-based Preisach hysteresis identification and composite control of piezo actuators.

In this paper, the singular value decomposition (SVD) based identification and compensation of the hysteretic phenomenon in piezo actuators are addressed using a Preisach model. First, this paper presents an SVD-based least squares algorithm and a revision approach of the identification through updating the SVD. With the identified parameters and a log of the memory curve, a Preisach-based inversion compensator is constructed which is complemented with a feedback controller to address the inevitable and residual modeling errors.

Microdispensing system via the contacting method.

This paper presents the development of a microdispensing system based on a contacting method, with an aim to lowering production and maintenance cost. The liquid, to be dispensed, is brought into contact with the work piece, thus dispensing a droplet by making use of the adhesion force between the liquid and the work piece. A piezoelectric actuator is employed as the drive for the system to achieve high precision.

Decoupled tracking and thermal monitoring of non-stationary targets.

Fault diagnosis and predictive maintenance address pertinent economic issues relating to production systems as an efficient technique can continuously monitor key health parameters and trigger alerts when critical changes in these variables are detected, before they lead to system failures and production shutdowns. In this paper, we present a decoupled tracking and thermal monitoring system which can be used on non-stationary targets of closed systems such as machine tools. There are three main contributions from the paper.

Permitted and forbidden sets in discrete-time linear threshold recurrent neural networks.

The concepts of permitted and forbidden sets enable a new perspective of the memory in neural networks. Such concepts exhibit interesting dynamics in recurrent neural networks. This paper studies the basic theories of permitted and forbidden sets of the linear threshold discrete-time recurrent neural networks.