Design and Preliminary Evaluation of a Novel Robotic System for Anterior Shoulder Reduction.

Shoulder dislocations are the most common dislocations and there is a demand for a novel traction device for reducing anterior shoulder dislocations, which can be handled easily without a need for sedation or prolonged observation and recovery. Hence, this research paper proposes a robotic device specifically designed to reduce anterior shoulder dislocation. The device combines abduction and traction techniques to effectively relocate the humeral head into the glenoid fossa and the treatment is primarily based on the Modified Milch Technique, a commonly used technique by clinicians in the Accident and Emergency Departments for shoulder reduction.

Towards a Percutaneous Nephrolithotomy Ultrasound-guided Robotic System for Renal Access.

Obtaining renal access in percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL) is a crucial yet challenging step, characterized by a steep learning curve. While fluoroscopy is the conventional imaging tool for obtaining renal access, ultrasonography offers distinct advantages, including reduced radiation exposure and real-time imaging capabilities. This paper underscores the unique difficulties associated with renal access in comparison to other percutaneous procedures and proposes the implementation of an ultrasound-guided robotic system to provide accurate and effective access.

Eye movement analysis for real-world settings using segmented linear regression.

Eye movement analysis is critical to studying human brain phenomena such as perception, cognition, and behavior. However, under uncontrolled real-world settings, the recorded gaze coordinates (commonly used to track eye movements) are typically noisy and make it difficult to track change in the state of each phenomenon precisely, primarily because the expected change is usually a slower transient process. This paper proposes an approach, Improved Naive Segmented linear regression (INSLR), which approximates the gaze coordinates with a piecewise linear function (PLF) referred to as a hypothesis.

Green Extraction of Orange Peel Waste Reduces TNFα-Induced Vascular Inflammation and Endothelial Dysfunction.

Orange peel waste (OPW) is known to contain an abundant amount of polyphenols compounds such as flavonoids, well-reported for their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. While OPW is generally regarded as a food waste, the opportunity to extract bioactive compounds from these "wastes" arises due to their abundance, allowing the investigation of their potential effects on endothelial cells. Hence, this study aims to use a green extraction method and pressurized hot water extraction (PHWE) to extract bioactive compounds from OPW.

Three-Dimensional Printing of Food Foams Stabilized by Hydrocolloids for Hydration in Dysphagia.

Three-dimensional food printing offers the possibility of modifying the structural design, nutrition, and texture of food, which may be used for consumers with special dietary requirements such as dysphagic patients. One of the food matrices that can be used for liquid delivery to dysphagic patients is food foams. Foams are widely used in different food products to adjust food density, rheological properties, and texture.

A Novel Exoskeleton System Based on Magnetorheological Fluid for Tremor Suppression of Wrist Joints.

Pathological tremor is caused by a variety of neurological diseases. Although it is not life-threatening, it brings great inconvenience to patients. Traditional treatments including medication, rehabilitation programs and deep brain stimulation (DBS) have shown limited effectiveness along with risks and side effects.

A Non-invasive Real-time Localization System for Enhanced Efficacy in Nasogastric Intubation.

Nasogastric (NG) intubation is one of the most commonly performed clinical procedures. Real-time localization and tracking of the NG tube passage at the larynx region into the esophagus is crucial for safety, but is lacking in current practice. In this paper, we present the design, analysis and evaluation of a non-invasive real-time localization system using passive magnetic tracking techniques to improve efficacy of the clinical NG intubation process.

Design, Development, and Evaluation of a Master-Slave Surgical System for Breast Biopsy under Continuous MRI.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) provides superior soft-tissue contrast in cancer diagnosis compared to other imaging modalities. However, the strong magnetic field inside the MRI bore along with limited scanner bore size poses significant challenges. Since current approaches in breast biopsy using MR images is primarily a blind targeting approach, it is necessary to develop a MRI-compatible robot that can avoid multiple needle insertions into the breast tissue.

A Micro Motion Sensing System for Micromanipulation Tasks.

An optical-based motion sensing system has been developed for real-time sensing of instrument motion in micromanipulation. The main components of the system consist of a pair of position sensitive detectors (PSD), lenses, an infrared (IR) diode that illuminates the workspace of the system, a non-reflective intraocular shaft, and a white reflective ball attached at the end of the shaft. The system calculates 3D displacement of the ball inside the workspace using the centroid position of the IR rays that are reflected from the ball and strike the PSDs.

Design and Control of a 1-DOF MRI Compatible Pneumatically Actuated Robot with Long Transmission Lines.

This paper presents the design and control of an MRI-compatible 1-DOF needle driver robot and its precise position control using pneumatic actuation with long transmission lines. MRI provides superior image quality compared to other imaging modalities such as CT or ultrasound, but imposes severe limitations on the material and actuator choice (to prevent image distortion) due to its strong magnetic field. We are primarily interested in developing a pneumatically actuated breast biopsy robot with a large force bandwidth and precise targeting capability during radio-frequency ablation (RFA) of breast tumor, and exploring the possibility of using long pneumatic transmission lines from outside the MRI room to the device in the magnet to prevent any image distortion whatsoever.

Tri-Axial MRI Compatible Fiber-optic Force Sensor.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been gaining popularity over standard imaging modalities like ultrasound and CT because of its ability to provide excellent soft-tissue contrast. However, due to the working principle of MRI, a number of conventional force sensors are not compatible. One popular solution is to develop a fiber-optic force sensor.

Compact Sensing Design of a Handheld Active Tremor Compensation Instrument.

Active physiological tremor compensation instruments have been under research and development recently. The sensing unit of the instruments provides information on three degrees-of-freedom (DOF) motion of the instrument tip using accelerations provided by accelerometers placed inside the instruments. A complete vector of angular acceleration of the instrument needs to be known to obtain information on three DOF motions of the tip.

Tracking Control of Hysteretic Piezoelectric Actuator using Adaptive Rate-Dependent Controller.

With the increasing popularity of actuators involving smart materials like piezoelectric, control of such materials becomes important. The existence of the inherent hysteretic behavior hinders the tracking accuracy of the actuators. To make matters worse, the hysteretic behavior changes with rate.

Feedforward Controller of Ill-Conditioned Hysteresis Using Singularity-Free Prandtl-Ishlinskii Model.

Piezoelectric, magnetostrictive, and shape memory alloy actuators are gaining importance in high-frequency precision applications constrained by space. Their intrinsic hysteretic behavior makes control difficult. The Prandtl-Ishlinskii (PI) operator can model hysteresis well, albeit a major inadequacy: the inverse operator does not exist when the hysteretic curve gradient is not positive definite, i.

Estimating Displacement of Periodic Motion With Inertial Sensors.

Inertial sensors, like accelerometers and gyroscopes, are rarely used by themselves to measure displacement. Accuracy of inertial sensors is greatly handicapped by the notorious integration drift, which arises due to numerical integration of the sensors zero bias error. A solution is proposed in this paper to provide drift free estimation of displacement from inertial sensors.