5th International Conference on Biomedical Engineering in Vietnam

Accurate detection of panels of protein biomarkers in serum, saliva, or tissue plays an important role in early detection of diseases. Recently, our lab has developed the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR)-based immunosensors with highly promising analytical approach for qualification and quantification of biochemical substances in various applications. The LSPR of noble nanoparticles shifts upon refractive index changes of the dielectric environment surrounding the nanoparticles, subsequently causing a peak shift of the LSPR; it is also very sensitive to the binding events near the nanoparticle surface. Therefore, individual nanoparticles are sufficiently sensitive to detect the molecular interactions on the nanoparticle surface induced by biological molecules at ultralow concentrations. Furthermore, LSPR

λ

max shifts induced by adsorbates on the nanoparticle surface are completely linear with the number of bound molecules. Owing to this reason, each nanoparticle can be used as an independent sensor. By functionalizing the nanoparticle surface with the appropriate receptors, individual nanoparticle sensors can be used as diagnostic tools for a variety of diseases. Herein, we introduce the resonant Rayleigh scattering properties of single Au nanoparticles and the use of single Au nanoparticles as the plasmonic transducers to detect the binding of protein biomarkers to specific receptors conjugated gold nanoparticles. The principle of detection based on the resonant Rayleigh scattering response of single Au nanoparticles and the LSPR

λ

max shift of resonant Rayleigh scattering spectrum. This approach holds great promise as a simple, label-free, ultrasensitive method for detection of protein biomarkers in clinical diagnostics.

A high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics software is described. This software is designed to perform numerical simulations of blood flows and flows of red blood cells. After discussing the need for advanced flow in the context of biomedical devices, the numerical method is briefly described and examples are given to show the versatility of the flow solver.

A passive planar micromixer with rapid mixing has been successfully demonstrated by simulations and experiments. The structure of this micromixer contains ellipse-like micropillars in the main channel. Adding micropillars to micromixer will reduce the diffusion distance of the fluids. So, this type of design can improve mixing efficiency.

The development of sensitive and selective techniques for multiplex detection of DNA biomarkers is paramount for clinical diagnosis. Various multiplex DNA detection techniques have been reported. However, most of these techniques require multiple incubation and/or washing steps or target sequence labeling. In this work, we demonstrated a unique multiplex DNA biosensor for viral infection diagnosis using the surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) “Molecular Sentinel-on-Chip” (MSC) technique. The sensing mechanism is based upon the change of SERS intensity when Raman labels tagged at 3′-ends of molecular sentinel nanoprobes are physically displaced from the Nanowave chip’s surface upon target DNA hybridization. SERS measurements were performed immediately following a single hybridization reaction between the target single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) sequences and the complementary molecular sentinel nanoprobes immobilized on the Nanowave chip without requiring target labeling (i.e., label-free assay), secondary hybridization, or post-hybridization washing, thus reducing the assay time and lowering cost. Two nucleic acid transcripts, interferon alpha-inducible protein 27 (IFI27) and interferon-induced protein 44-like (IFI44L), are used as model systems for the multiplex detection concept demonstration. These two genes are well known for their critical role in host immune response to viral infections and can be used as molecular signature for viral infection diagnosis. The results indicate the effectiveness and potential of the MSC technology for multiplex DNA detection for point-of-care diagnostics and global health applications.

We demonstrate the potential of using ZnO microspheres (MS) for biosensing applications. ZnO MS with smooth surface exhibiting novel whispering gallery mode (WGM) in photoluminescence and spectroscopic imaging ellipsometry behavior were synthesized by hydrothermal techniques. Sharp resonance peaks covering the entire visible range could be excited not only by UV but also visible light. Moreover, the theoretical modeling was carried out. Essential information about the position, TE and TM modes of each resonance are precisely predicted. Such information is very important for the investigation of resonance shift caused by the attachment of foreign molecules. Both experimental and theoretical results support that ZnO spherical micro cavity can be a good candidate for biosensing applications.

The objectives of this study were to evaluate the capability of a novel ultrasound device to clinically estimate bone mineral density (BMD) at the 1/3 radius. The device rests on a desktop and is portable, and permits real-time evaluation of the radial BMD. The device measures the time delays associated with three distinct propagation pathways through the forearm, and from these time delays an ultrasound-based estimate, BMD

US

, of the BMD is computed. A clinical IRB-approved study measured ultrasonically seventy-eight adults at the 1/3 radius. BMD was also measured (“BMD

DXA

”) at the same anatomical site and time using DXA. A linear regression of BMD

DXA

vs BMD

US

produced a linear correlation coefficient of 0.93 (P<0.001). In conclusion, although x-ray methods are effective in bone mass assessment, osteoporosis remains one of the largest under-diagnosed diseases in the world today. The research described here should enable significant expansion of diagnosis and monitoring of osteoporosis through a desktop device that ultrasonically assesses bone mass at the 1/3 radius.

Ultrasound is an indispensable imaging modality to monitor soft tissues in diagnostic radiology. Research into ultrasound has resulted in technology developments and extension of its use beyond soft tissue imaging. The use of ultrasound to probe hard tissues is not yet a common practice but in recent years modest interest has been generated to use quantitative ultrasound in bone evaluation. This is due to several advantages of ultrasound over ionizing techniques: lack of ionizing radiation, sensitivity to the mechanical elasticity of bone tissues, portability, and low cost. Recent studies using axial-transmission technique have shown that ultrasonic guided waves, which propagate within cortical bone, have great potential to characterize mechanical and structural properties of the cortical waveguide. Multi-channel dispersion analysis of ultrasonic guided waves requires a reliable mean to map the data from the time-distance domain to the frequency-phase velocity domain. In this work, linear Radon transform using various regularization strategies is considered to enhance the transform focusing power to image dispersive guide-wave energies. Four forms of linear Radon solution: adjoint, damped least-squares, Cauchy-regularized, and l

1

-regularized Radon transform were applied to the simulated and in-vivo experimental data and the results were compared. Among the regularization strategies, the l

1

-regularization renders a highly-sparse solution and images dispersion energies with the best focusing resolution. The high-resolution dispersion maps allow better wave-mode discrimination and separation. The results of this study suggest the l

1

-regularized Radon transform as a valuable tool to image dispersive ultrasonic guided-wave energies propagating in long bones.

Ultrasonic waves, acquired by an array probe, are likely interfered by the crosstalk signals due to inter-communication among the elements. The crosstalk signals are not desirable and mixed with the main signals, degrading the data quality. In this work, we choose a filtering strategy to separate crosstalk and the desired signals. We design a traditional adaptive crosstalk canceller (ACC) in the Radon (intercept time, ( and slowness, p) domain. A Normalized-Least-Mean-Square strategy is used to determine the filter coefficients. Formulating the filter in the (-p space has the merits to efficiently remove random noise and significantly enhance signal-to-noise ratio. The filtered Radon panels are then transformed back to the t-x space using the inverse Radon transform. The robustness and accuracy of the filter are studied using simulated noiseless and noisy data sets. The filtered signals tracks well with the simulated noiseless signals with an average mean-square-error (MSE) of 11%. Finally the ACC is applied to an experimental data set of a 2.4-cm thick Plexiglas plate. The result has demonstrated the ACC effectively recovered the main arrivals with reasonable coherency and continuity.

Axial transmission quantitative ultrasound is a potential technique for assessing bone properties. In this work, to describe the link between the bone microstructure (bone matrix properties as well as porosity), Biot’s anisotropic poroelastic theory model was employed for modeling the cortical/cancellous bone. A semi-analytical finite element method (SAFE) has been developed for analyzing the wave propagation problem in long bone modeled as aporoelastic medium. The developed method allows us to calculate the reflection/transmission coefficient and dispersion relation of the bone plate with a depth-varying porosity coupled with fluids. Furthermore, simulation of transient waves propagating in the coupled soft tissue/bone/marrow system can efficiently be performed by using this approach.

Recent studies have shown that ultrasound transit time spectroscopy (UTTS) is an alternative method to describe ultrasound wave propagation through complex samples as an array of parallel sonic rays. This technique has the potential to characterize bone properties including volume fraction and may be implemented in clinical systems to predict osteoporotic fracture risk. In contrast to broadband ultrasound attenuation, which is highly frequency dependent, we hypothesise that UTTS is frequency independent. This study measured 1 MHz and 5 MHz broadband ultrasound signals through a set of acrylic step-wedge samples. Digital deconvolution of the signals through water and each sample was applied to derive a transit time spectrum. The resulting spectra at both 1 MHz and 5 MHz were compared to the predicted transit time values. Linear regression analysis yields agreement (R2) of 99.23% and 99.74% at 1 Mhz and 5 MHz respectively indicating frequency independence of transit time spectra.

Dental implants are widely used clinically and have allowed considerable progresses in oral and maxillofacial surgery. However, implant failures, which may have dramatic consequences, still occur and remain difficult to anticipate. Accurate measurements of implants biomechanical stability are of interest since they could be used to improve the surgical strategy by adapting the choice of the healing period to each patient. Empirical methods based on palpation are still used by dental surgeons to determine when the implant should be loaded because it remains difficult to monitor bone healing in vivo. The objective of this study is to investigate the potentiality of a quantitative ultrasound method to assess the biomechanical stability of a dental implant in vitro. A 10 MHz contact transducer is located at the implant extremity. For each ultrasound measurement, a quantitative indicator I is derived based on the time variation of the amplitude of the rf signal. Ten implants are initially completely inserted in the proximal part of a bovine humeral bone sample. The 10 MHz ultrasonic response of the implants is then measured and an indicator I is derived based on the amplitude of the rf signal obtained. Then, the implants are unscrewed by 2

π

radians and the measurement is realized again. The procedure is repeated and the indicator I is derived after each rotation of the implants. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) (p<10

− 5

) tests revealed a significant effect of the amount of bone in contact with the implant on the distribution of the values of I. The results show the feasibility of QUS techniques to assess implant primary stability in vitro. This study paves the way for the development of a new biomechanical approach in oral implantology.

Methods to fabricate biodegradable polymer microparticles with well-defined structures could offer significant impact in the field of drug delivery. To create a controlled drug-release system, drugs are usually encapsulated by a biodegradable polymer whose physical properties can be tailored to obtain desired release kinetics. Most of the current approaches to create such drug delivery systems are via emulsion methods, but they have limitations in completely entrapping the drugs inside the particle core and controlling geometry of the polymeric microstructures. Here, we present a new scheme to create microparticles of biodegradable polylactic-co-glycolic acid polymer with a precise control over the particle’s structure. We use microfabrication techniques to create a Silicon micromold and use a heat-pressing process to transfer the mold’s features to the polymer. Our method relies solely on common materials for fabricating electronic chips (e.g. Silicon) and doesn’t require any other special synthetic materials. This method is versatile as it is applicable to many types of polymers, thereby offering a platform technology to create microcapsules with well-defined structures for controlled drug-release systems.

Gemcitabine is utilized as the first-line treatment for adenocarcinoma of the pancreas that has been considered as one of the most challenging diseases. The major drawback of the gemcitabine formulations is its high hydrophilicity and short half-life. To compensate for those shortcomings, a large dose of infused gemcitabine is usually used to achieve the desire therapeutic effects. However, using this dose, could lead to a high toxicity and severe adverse effects. Hence, there has been a great of interest in the development of gemcitabine to increase the hydrophobicity, half-life, and stability of the drug. In this review, we summarize the latest approaches in drug delivery of gemcitabine to clarify the unsolved problems of drug resistance and discuss the effectiveness of the advanced delivery systems on different types of cancer.

The main task of nanomedicine is to fabricate, normally by chemical engineering, nanoscale systems that can play various functions of both diagnosis and treatment. This report aims to present some researches, carried out by the Laboratory of Biomedical Nanomaterials (IMS/VAST in Hanoi), on fabrication and characterization of nanovectors for the disease of cancer. The first part deals with magnetite (Fe

3

O

4

) nanoparticles (MNPs) based nanoconjugates, functionalized by coating with several polymers as well as loaded with a drug of curcumin. The used MNPs were obtained by co-precipitation, exhibited spherical shape of diameter of 15-20 nm, saturation magnetization of M

s

~ 65-70 emu/g. The coating polymers were acrylic acid (PAA), chitosan (CS) and Alginate (Alg) which were confirmed using the infrared (FTIR) spectra. Magnetic Inductive Heating (MIH) measurements demonstrated that the fabricated MNPs-based conjugates exhibited quite high heating performance, perspective for hyperthermia application. The application of Fe

3

O

4

@PAA for in-vivo hyperthermia treatment of cancer incubated on mice will be shown. As for imaging application, the Fe

3

O

4

@CS@Cur was used to demonstrate a dual possibilities, fluorescence and magnetic resonance, of monitoring cell penetration by macrophage. In the second part, we show a recent study on targeted delivery systems of paclitaxel/doxorubicin/curcumin-loaded copolymer/polymer nanoparticles, which were prepared by a modified solvent extraction/evaporation technique and decorated by folic acid. The obtained spherical nanoparticles were negatively charged with a zeta potential of about − 30 mV with the size around 50 nm and a narrow size distribution. The targeting effect of anticancer-drugs nanoparticles with folate decoration was investigated in vitro by the uptake in cancer cell lines and in nude mouse. The results indicate that the targeted paclitaxel/doxorubicin/curcumin-loaded copolymer/polymer nanoparticles are successful anticancer-targeted drug delivery system for effective cancer chemotherapy.

In this paper, we demonstrate the in situ fabrication of chitosan-poly (acrylic acid)-silver nanocomposite films in view of their increasing applications as antimicrobial packaging, wound dressing and antibacterial materials. The reduction of silver ions into silver nanoparticles is achieved in acidic solution of chitosan and poly (acrylic acid) (PAA) using their functional groups (-OH, -COOH, -NH2 groups). The structure of nanocomposite film was examined by Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopic (SEM). The anti-microbial activities of the chitosan- PAA silver nanoparticle films have demonstrated significant effects against Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus. To improve further their therapeutic efficacy as anti-microbial agents, curcumin encapsulated chitosan-PAA silver nanocomposite films are developed which improve the growth inhibition of E. coli and Staphylococcus compared to curcumin and chitosan-PAA silver nanoparticles film alone. Therefore, the present study clearly provides novel antimicrobial films which are potentially useful in preventing/treating infections.

Alginate gels are widely used for drug delivery and implanted devices. The rate at which these gels break down is important for controlling drug release. However, it is challenging to monitor the gel through tissue due to optical scattering and tissue autofluorescence. Herein we describe a method to detect through tissue the gelation and de-gelation processes of alginate gel using magnetically modulated optical nanoprobes (MagMOONs). The MagMOONs are fluorescent magnetic microspheres coated with a thin layer of opaque metal on one hemisphere. The metal layer prevents excitation and emission light from passing through one side of the MagMOONs, which creates an orientation-dependent fluorescence intensity. These magnetic particles also align in an external magnetic field and give blinking signals when they rotate to follow the magnetic field modulation. The blinking signals from these MagMOONs are distinguished from background autofluorescence and can be tracked on a single particle level in the absence of tissue, or by averaging an ensemble of particles through tissue. When these MagMOONs are dispersed in alginate gel, they become sensors for the detection of either the gelation with the addition of a multivalent cation (Ca

2 + 

, Cu

2 + 

) or the de-gelation as de-gelling agents like ammonium chloride, sodium citrate, or alginate lyase are added. Herein the release of copper ion as an antimicrobial from the gel can be tracked. Our method also can potentially be applied to detect bacterial biofilm formation and other biosensors and drug delivery systems based on enzyme-catalyzed breakdown of gel components.

Atherosclerosis is a serious condition where arteries become clogged up by fatty substances, such as cholesterol. This results in the formation of plaques or atheromas, a condition where the arteries become narrowed and hardened due to an excessive build up of plaque around the artery wall. This disease disrupts the flow of blood around the body, posing serious cardiovascular complications leading to lifethreatening situations. Nanoparticles have the potential to be used in many different biological and medical applications as diagnostic or therapeutic tools. Super paramagnetic iron-oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) are widely used in various biomedical applications, such as targeted drug delivery system and magnetic resonance imaging. Utilization of biocompatible magnetic nanoparticles such as SPIONs in the removal of atherosclerotic plaque through their unique magnetic properties directing them to the site is novel. Here we hypothesize that SPIONs, can be effective in the treatment of atherosclerosis because they can be targeted in the site allowing the particles to spin backwards and forward at high speed generating heat using an external a.c magnetic field, which will reduce the hardness of the plaque, due to temporary thermal expansion. By magnetically manipulating the SPION, the plaque can be abraded.

Nano drug delivery system is a highlight among advanced drug delivery systems. They offer many advantages such as improved efficacy, reduced toxicity and improved patient compliance over conventional drug delivery systems. Purpose of this study was to develop new magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles containing fucoidan, a recently promising material discovered from the ocean, for diagnosis and cancer therapy. The nanoparticles were prepared using ultrasonication method. Fucoidan concentration was determined by conductometric titration. Fucoidan was investigated to be attached to iron oxide nanoparticles in the buffers of pH 6, pH 7 and pH 8. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to characterize surface morphology and particle shape. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) was also used to investigate the structure of the fucoidan-coated iron oxide nanoparticles. Percentage of fucoidan, which was coated on iron oxide nanoparticles, was 87.7412%, 74.4936% and 63.0362% at pH 7, pH 6 and pH 8, respectively. The SEM image showed the spherical shape and size of fucoidan modified iron oxide nanoparticles less than 100 nm. Moreover, the FTIR spectra indicated the presence of fucoidan on iron oxide nanoparticles. The fucoidan concentration on the surface of iron oxide nanoparticles was depended on the change of pH media. The current nanoparticles can be introduced into further experiments for biomedical applications including therapeutics and diagnostics.

This paper lays the groundwork for the non-invasive acquisition of jugular venous pulse (JVP) waveforms, using accelerometer sensors to measure the vibrations of the jugular vein and the carotid artery. In the cardiac system, the vibrational signals quantify the pressure buildup in the blood vessels due to various hemodynamic events in the cardiac cycle. Accordingly, the accelerometer outputs are suitably amplified, filtered and digitized, so that an appropriate post-processing scheme can be applied to derive the corresponding JVP waveforms. The experimental results show that, even in a preliminary implementation, the JVP waveforms obtained using our proposed system exhibit promising consistency and accuracy, suitable for basic timing analyses of various cardiac parameters. It is anticipated that, with further development and optimization, our proposed system should offer a compelling alternative for clinical diagnoses and applications based on the JVP waveforms, potentially supplanting more complicated methods traditionally used to measure the JVP.

Cardiac rhythm management (CRM) manufacturers of pacemakers, implantable defibrillators, offer remote monitoring of their high end products. In the West, the responsibility for monitoring devices is given to a device nurse at the cardiac center. The nurse performs daily checks of any reported issue by the manufacturer and act upon any alert reported by the device. With the patient group numbering hundreds of patients, a device nurse can be supported by reimbursement for remote monitoring.

The situation is different in Vietnam. The number of implant patients at a typical implant center is barely in the low hundreds. Patients are typically not actively followed and irregularly come back for follow-ups. Currently there is no reimbursement program for automated follow-ups.

In developing the first Remote Monitoring program for Vietnam, we had to factor in these differences and have developed an alternative approach. A biomedical engineer at the distributor assumes the duty of the device nurse and works with the patients’ cardiologists. The engineer will review the daily reports and study alerts reported by the devices or the automatic analysis programs of the manufacturer. When appropriate, the cardiologist will be alerted. The cardiologist will contact the patient to come in for a follow-up. The engineer will not deal directly with the patient, except on technical matters, such as malfunctioning remote monitor.

This has enabled us to create a new model for the care of CRM patients in Vietnam. With daily report by the device, the patient does not need to visit the cardiologist, except for a yearly visit, unless contacted. Since the Home Monitoring reports had been analyzed prior to the visit, recommendations about therapy or device parameter changes will be discussed with the cardiologist before the patient arrives.

Introduction: Inspired Sinewave is a novel technique to measure dead space, alveolar volume, pulmonary blood flow, and lung inhomogeneity noninvasively. It does not require patient effort and therefore can be applied to young children, elderly, and ventilated patients with ease.

Method: In this paper, we describe a brief introduction to the principle of the technique, which involves forcing inspired concentrations to oscillate sinusoidally and measuring responding expired concentrations. Then, we give some updates to the recent developments of the device. These include comparison studies with body plethysmography for functional residual capacity measurement, and with echocardiography for cardiac output measurement.

Result and discussion: The results show that the inspired sinewave technique achieves comparable accuracy and repeatability with the “gold standard” body plethysmography method with echocardiography for cardiac output measurement.

Conclusion: The success of these studies is a big step forward to make this novel device a useful clinical tool. The technology is patented and future work includes forming collaboration with an industry partner to bring the technology to commercialisation.

Nowadays, Wireless sensor network (WSN) technologies are considered as potential solution healthcare monitoring applications. Different researches focus on network designing network for health care monitoring wireless sensor network (HCWSN), especially in the physical design of the HCWSN. However, work to evaluate the performance these network designs is largely lacking. This paper presents a HCWSN network design and simulation study to evaluate the performance in different scenarios such as network topologies, routing and media access control protocols. A practical WSN for HCWSN and a prototype SPO2 device integrated with WSN node have been designed. The testing results are also described in this paper.

Reconstruction of the 3D position of the guidewire is an important step toward automated navigation systems supporting minimally invasive endovascular interven-tions. We present a method to estimate the projected guidewire thickness for the monoplane X-ray configuration and we pro-pose a novel method to recover the local angle between the guidewire and the X-ray path and to recover the inclination angle of the guidewire to the imaging plane, up to an orienta-tion. We experimentally show the feasibility of the proposed approach by recovering both the local and the inclination an-gle of the guidewire; the average error for the recovered incli-nation angle is 8.6±8.2

circ

.

In this research an expert system for automated detection of abnormality of heart rate variability. For this purpose, a data acquisition system from Holter ECG records, is developed by using QRS detection techniques for the future development of an standard ECG database. New and innovative medical applications based on developments in the wireless networks field are being developed in the research as well as commercial sectors. This trend has just started and we predict wireless networks are going to become an integral part of medical solutions due to its benefits in cutting down healthcare costs and increasing accessibility for patients as well as healthcare professionals. In this research we give some background on applications of wireless networks in the heart rate variability processing and discuss the issues and challenges. We have also tried to identify some of the standards in use. Another contribution due to this paper is the identification of innovative medical applications of wireless networks developed or currently being developed in the research and business sectors in Vietnam.

Analyzing the microscopic structure of sleep is an approach which provides more useful information to evaluate the quality of the patient’s sleep. Determination of arousals and events of decrease in the concentration of oxygen saturation (SpO2) which help us monitor abnormal disorders related to apnea syndrome and sleep apnea. The research focuses on developing a software with main function such as analysis of macro- and microstructure of sleep, determining the number of arousals and the number of decreased oxygen saturation of a patient. The results of mentioned software were compared with the results of the manufacturer software of polysomnography machine and analytical results of the sleep specialist, the similarity is over 85% compared with the conventional manual method of reading.

Parkinson’s disease does not cause immediate danger but it should be monitored continuously because not at any time symptoms can easily observed. Aimed at saving time and costs for patients, as well as the patients cannot always go to the hospital for checking health, in this paper, we present architecture of a system to remotely monitor patients with Parkinson’s disease. The system could help tracking the status of Parkinson patients at home. Movement information of patient’s tremor hand is acquired then sent to central unit via GPRS. At the central unit, the data is collected, stored in 24-hour format and displayed in a tabular or continuous graph. By that mean, doctors can monitor and diagnose the status of the patients.

In recent years, mobile-based systems have become popular in variety of applications and attracted the interest of many researchers and manufacturers, especially in healthcare field. These systems help doctors assist their patients who are not at the hospitals or live in the remote areas. Although many advances in cardiovascular disease diagnose have been proposed, ECG still plays an important role. In this paper, a prototype for telemedicine application based on ECG signals is described with emphasis on the ECG measurement board design and building of Android application for mobile phone with Bluetooth wireless transmission.

The demand of health care of citizens has been increasing with the development of economy nowadays. In health care, the measurements of body temperature, heart rate are the most interested. The medical specialists normally concern about these parameters when running a healthy check or evaluation of the effectiveness of a therapeutic method in general. Besides, surveillance of the parameters is important to detect bad signals of patients for timely treatment. Recently, the overcrowding in hospitals that have long become the concern of the health sectors in particular and whole society in general. With the application of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) to design and build a sensor which is capable of monitoring the heartbeat and body temperature parameters will be the solution to help take care of health for patients effectively, and will actively support for physicians in the treatment process. In this paper we introduce the design of a system that can monitor heart rate and body temperature of the patient in an effective and accurate manner through wireless sensor network.

The paper examines a method for development of a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGAs)-based implementation of hardware model for the electrical excitation-conduction in cardiac tissue based on FitzHugh-Nagumo (FHN) mathematical model towards real-time simulation. The FHN model is described by a set of nonlinear Ordinary Differential Equations (ODEs) that includes two dynamic state variables for describing the excitation and the recovery states of a cardiac cell and the model is able to reproduce many characteristics of electrical excitation in cardiac tissues. In this paper, one dimensional (1D) FHN cable model is designed using MATLAB Simulink in order to simulate the conduction of cardiac excitation in coupled nonlinear systems of the heart dynamics. The designed MATLAB Simulink model is then being used for Very High Speed Integrated Circuit (VHSIC) Hardware Description Language (VHDL) code generation by using HDL Coder that will be implemented on a hardware design FPGA platform of Xilinx Virtex-6 FPGA board. In order to verify and analyze the designed algorithm on the platform, HDL Verifier is used through co-simulation with FPGA-in-the-loop (FIL) simulation and it has shown a significant result which has increased confidence that the algorithm will work in the real FPGA stand-alone application. Therefore, these approaches provide an effective FPGA design flow towards a stand-alone implementation to perform real-time simulations of the cellular excitation-conduction in a large scale cell models.

Major failures in ankle replacements include loosening, constraint, malalignment, fatigue, and impingement that are due to engineering design and implantation problems. The objective of this study is to propose a new process of implantation that includes customizing and determining specific size of ankle prosthesis using patient’s specific geometric in order to maintain its natural biomechanics. The process started from a set of two dimensional (2D) Computerized Tomography (CT) data of the ankle joint, which was converted to three dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) model using Mimics 8.1. The 3D FE model was used in finite element analysis (FEA) to determine the optimal solution (the minimal stress acting on the ankle complex) using ANSYS 8.1. The new ankle design was implanted into the 3D FE model of the ankle for further analysis of the optimal solution an ankle joint to determine the specific size for this ankle joint. In this study, the 3D model was created from 180 slices of 2D CT scans of an arthritic ankle. Finite element analysis of pre and post implanted ankles are conducted to determine the solution. The result is optimized with a minimal stress of 24.365 MPa acting on the ankle in the neutral position. The 3D FE data are then translated into CNC language to generate a physiologically accurate model of the ankle from a wax block. A new ankle prosthesis designed by one of the authors is used in this study for optimization of the stress in the joint. Based on the optimized result, the proper size of the implant was determined and manufactured. A sample of the prosthesis was then pre-implanted into the cut-out wax model of the patient’s ankle for pre-implantation prior to the actual operation. This process helped not only determine the proper size of the implant, but also allowed surgeons to plan the surgical process before entering the operation room.

Melt electrospinning can be used to produce fibres within the micro to nano scale with a deposition in a manner in-line with conventional 3D printing technology’s [1]. Technical issues such as charge build up in subsequent layers lead to limitations in the precision of fibre deposition as the number of layers increases.

Polycaprolactone (PCL) is a polyester with a well established history as a scaffold material for bone tissue engineering [2]. It is biocompatible, easy to shape and mechanically suitable for bone defects. Bioactive glasses are ceramic materials which are known to stimulate osteogenic differentiation [3]. The combination of PCL and bioactive glasses present the possibility to develop osteogenic scaffolds with a high degree of control of laydown using melt electrospinning [4].

This work develops the potential of melt electrospinning as a scaffold fabrication technique for tissue engineering non-load bearing bone defects by both developing techniques for improcing fibre laydown introducing osteogenic factors.

The aim of this study is to perform a comprehensive evaluation of clinical procedures used in dental implant treatment in posterior maxilla using flapless technique; to assess osseo-integration of surface-treated implants in the posterior maxilla of osteoporotic (OP) rats, and the conservative regeneration of poor quality bone in (OP) rats with simvastatin. Materials and methods: This comprehensive consists of a systematic review of the literature on dental implant flapless technique, a retrospective study of 1241 dental implants using flapless technique, and an osseo-integration study on osteoporotic (OP) rats. The osseo-integration study used a cohort of sixty-four female Sprague-Dawley rats, aged 3 months old, split into three groups: Sham-operated (SHAM; n=20), ovariectomized (OVX; n=20) and ovariectomized treated with simvastatin (OVX+SIM; n=20). Eighty-four days following ovariectomy, screw-shaped titanium implants were immediately placed into the posterior maxilla. Simvastatin was fed orally at 5 mg/kg each day after the implant placement in the OVX+SIM group. The animals were sacrificed at either 28 or 56 days for histological analysis. The osseo-integration indices used were: bone formation rate (BFR), bone to implant contact (BIC), and bone density (BD). Results and Discussion: The systematic review showed flapless surgery had comparable, similar & high survival rate compare with flap surgery, and its cumulative 5 and 10 years implant survival rate of 97.9% and 96.5% respectively and complication rate of 6.0%. The osseo-integration indices (BFR, BIC and BD) in the three groups showed significant variations among the SHAM > OVX+SIM > OVX group, which suggested that simvastatin could encourage bone regeneration and mineralization in OVX rats. Conclusion: This study shows that implant flapless surgery has been proven to be a successful procedure, osteoporosis reduced osseo-integration, and simvastatin can positively influence on bone regeneration through the osseo-integration indices, and successfully promoted osseo-integration in the posterior maxilla in OP rats.

The aim of this study is to examine the clinical outcomes of implants inserted using split mouth study and to measure patients’ satisfaction using visual analogue scale in flapless and conventional flap techniques in post menopause women age 50 years or over. Materials and methods: This study is a retrospective split mouth study of flapless vs flap technique involving the study of dental records of 16 post-menopause of patients undergoing bilateral implant surgery in the posterior maxilla. A total of 45 implants with no augmentative procedures were selected from 16 patients for the study. The patients were divided into two groups: the control group had 21 implants placed by full flap technique, and the test group consisted of 24 implants inserted using flapless procedure. Only those patients with comprehensive clinical record were included in this study. The treatment outcomes were measured using key words: implant survival, Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), Periotest, x-ray assessment. Results and Discussion: The results showed that flapless surgery had comparable, similar results as compare to flap surgery: survival rate (95.8% and 95.2%), Using visual analogue scale (VAS=0 to 10), flapless surgery revealed to have less: pain, swelling, bleeding and speech impairment and had better overall satisfaction at one day and one week than flap technique than the flap counterpart (*P<0.05). No significant difference in bone resorption at 3 months. After one year, bone change in the flap group vs the flapless group was statistically significant [-0.53 (±0.57) vs +0.08 (±0.49), **P<0.005]. No significant difference in Periotest value (PTV). Conclusion: This study showed that implant flapless surgery is a minimal invasive, effective, and novel technique that can render a significantly better early stage satisfaction outcome as compare to the traditional flap method. Flapless implantation resulted in minimal bone loss, less pain, less complications, and comparable good PTV.

In recent years, many studies have provided evidence that exosomes secreted by cells contain various components, including microRNAs [1]. It is thought that exosomes have important roles in many biological processes. However, the role of exosomes and their components, especially miRNAs, in wound healing is poorly understood. In order to understand whether or not primary human epidermal keratinocytes and dermal fibroblasts, two important cell types contributing to wound healing process, release exosomes and what species of wound healing-associated miRNAs accumulate in these vesicles, this project will use a combination of methods to isolate and characterize exosomes, to profile exosomal cargo’s, especially miRNAs in exosomes. The results showed that keratinocytes and fibroblasts released exosomes into conditioned media and these exosomes contain some target miRNAs.

Introduction:

The burden of oral disease is an excessive issue of Vietnamese population while the accessibility of oral health services are restricted. This study were to identify the prevalence of dental caries and the oral health seeking behavior in response to oral health symptoms among adults presenting at commune health centers.

Materials and Methods:

A cross-sectional study was used at three commune health centres in Thua Thien Hue province, Vietnam. During the four-week study period, all patients older than 18 year old who presented to the commune health centres for either general or oral health concerns were asked to complete a social survey, and received dental examinations.

Results and Discussion:

There was a high proportion (92.2%) of adults had caries experience with a mean DMFT of 6.40±5.57 per person (2.98±3.04 decay teeth, 3.09±4.33 missing teeth, 0.33±0.88 filled teeth). 82.5% of adults had at least one oral health symptom in the previous year with several social and psychological impacts on quality of life. 42.5% used health facilities, 27.3% used self-medication, while 15.5% sought no treatment at all. Education level, usual source of dental care, and perceived importance of oral health were significantly associated with the use of oral health care services.

Conclusions:

Despite of the high use of health facilities, the high prevalence and severity of oral problems has occurred. This draws attention to large disease burden and very negligible oral health care received at such primary care settings.

Introduction:

There remains debate over the optimal initial treatment of periapical lesions that are the hallmark of chronic apical periodontitis. Calcium hydroxide may be a cost-effective initial non-surgical treatment for these lesions. The aim of this study was to evaluate the short-term treatment outcome of periapical lesions treated with calcium hydroxide both clinically and radiographically.

Methods:

Patients with periapical lesions having Periapical Index (PAI) ≥ 3 and horizontal diameter ≤ 5mm were invited to participate in this study. A standardized treatment incorporating calcium hydroxide paste was applied followed subsequently by obturation with gutta-percha and endomethasone cement. Clinical response was determined by the presence or absence of symptoms before and at 3 and 6 months after therapy. Radiological evidence of healing was determined at both 3 and 6 months according to three predefined categories (‘healed’‘healing’ and ‘not healed’) based on changes in the PAI determined by a blinded assessor.

Results:

Twenty-seven patients with thirty-six permanent incisors with periapical lesions were included in the study. Nine patients with ten treated lesions were lost to follow up. Clinical symptoms improved significantly after treatment with calcium hydroxide. With radiological assessments, there was a large decline in the percentage graded as ‘not healed’ at 6 months post therapy (from 100% at baseline to 19.2% at 6 months). The proportion of lesions rated as ‘healed’ and ‘healing’ at 6 months was 46.2% and 34.6%, respectively.

Conclusion:

Calcium hydroxide treatment appears to be effective at facilitating the healing of periapical lesions associated with chronic periodontitis.

Second degree burn may reach the epidermis and partial dermis layers. Several methods and techniques have been applied to manage such burn injuries, such as different kinds of dressings, pharmacotherapies and plasma treatment. The latter has been increasingly studied. In this work, non-thermal N2/Ar micro-plasma was applied to enhance healing on the second degree burn wound mice through the wound area reduction. Four wounds were created in the dorsal of each mouse by solid aluminum bar with 5 mm in diameter (46g) and an average temperature of 69 ± 2°C. The parameters for micro-plasma exposure for burn wound on mice were chosen: excitation at 13 W (< 40 °C) and addition of 0.5% N

2

in Ar, corresponding with relatively high NO peak intensity.

N

2

/Ar micro-plasma was utilized to expose upon the burn wound achieved mice in these groups: continuous exposure until 2 day wound (dw) (denoted as P3), with plasma exposure and then covered by an occlusive dressing on 0, 1, 2 dw (denoted as P3+D3), continuous exposure until 4 dw (denoted as P5), with plasma exposure and then covered by an occlusive dressing on 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 dw (denoted as P5+D5). Dressing (denoted as D3 or D5) and gas flow exposure (denoted GF3 or GF5) were also conducted as well for the references. The burn wounds were assessed every day to examine the wound size.

Until 14 dw, the mice were sacrificed for H&E staining. The wound area reduction rate was higher for the cases of N

2

/Ar micro-plasma exposed wounds than those of gas flow exposed and dressing ones, while the control group exhibited the lowest wound area reduction rate. From this study, non-thermal N

2

/Ar micro-plasma is presumably effective for the stimulation of newly-born cells growth and proliferation [1] and burn wound healing in mice.

Neurodegenerative diseases (NDs) are a large class of pathologies that include Alzheimer disease (AD), Parkinson disease (PD) and many other forms of senile dementias. The unique transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), known as prion diseases, are among the rarest of these disorders.

NDs belong to age-related disorders, thus their incidence and prevalence are estimated to increase dramatically as the population ages. So far, no early diagnostic tool has been developed. NDs are usually diagnosed at very advanced stages, when neurological symptoms are evident. Conventional therapies are directed at treating the neurological symptoms, but have no effect on disease progression. Thus, the development of novel early diagnostic tools and effective therapies for NDs today is one of the major scientific challenges.

Recent evidence points at a common mechanism of pathogenesis in all NDs, which involves abnormal aggregation and deposition of misfolded proteins in the central nervous system (CNS). Furthermore, recent studies suggest that these aggregates may spread among cells in a prion-like manner, leading to cytotoxicity and cell death. These facts suggest that novel diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to different neurodegenerative disorders may share similar characteristics.

Here, we provide an overview of the most advanced and modern techniques in use to diagnose NDs, and of the various attempts at finding an effective cure for these ever increasing disorders.

Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) is a three-dimensional (3D) spinal deformity. Radiography is the standard method to diagnose AIS, but the 2D image cannot reveal the true nature of scoliosis. It also exposes patients to harmful ionizing radiation. Ultrasound (US) imaging has been reported as a non-radiation method to acquire 3D information of the spine. Vertebral rotation (VR) that can be assessed from US image is an important parameter to predict curve progression and to evaluate treatment outcomes. To improve the image quality and reduce human errors, a semi-automatic program was developed to measure the VR. The purpose of this study was to determine the intra-observer reliability and the accuracy of the measurements using the developed program. Three cadaver vertebrae, T7, L1, and L3, were scanned with 39 rotation configurations from -30° to 30° with 5° increment. The US images were randomly arranged to reduce memory bias. One observer performed the semi-automatic VR measurements twice with one-week interval. The semi-automatic VR measurements showed high intra-observer reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC): 0.999, mean absolute difference with standard deviation (MAD±SD): 0.2°±0.3°) and agreed well with the experimental setup (ICC: 0.956, MAD±SD: 2.5°±1.5°). The results demonstrated the developed program was an accurate and reliable measurement tool to assess the VR for in-vitro study.

Scoliosis is a three-dimensional (3D) spinal deformity. 3D ultrasound has been used to image scoliotic spines. This in-vitro study was to investigate the optimal 3D ultrasound parameters by comparing the reconstructed images and the phantom.

A medical ultrasound system, a convex and a linear ultrasound probes, both with built-in positioning sensors, were used to scan cadaveric vertebra T7 immersed in a water tank. The operating frequencies were set at 2.5 MHz, 3.3MHz, 4.0 MHz, 6.6 MHz, and 10.0 MHz. The voxel-based method was deployed for the 3D reconstruction. The minimum distances (0.1, 0.2, and 0.3 mm) between two adjacent B-scan images and the reconstruction resolutions (0.2, 0.6, and 1.0 mm) were the inputs for the reconstruction algorithm. A total of 45 configurations were investigated. Four distance parameters were measured three times on both the images and the cadaveric vertebra by one rater in one week apart to minimize memory bias. The mean absolute difference was the distance measurement difference between the images and phantom. The paired Student’s t-test was used to determine the probability between the two populations. The determination of the optimal configuration was based on both accuracy and intuitive image quality.

The results showed that the convex probe with the configuration (0.2-mm minimum distance, 0.6-mm reconstruction resolution, and 4.0 MHz) provided the best reconstructed image.

Scoliosis is a three-dimensional deformity of spine and surgical treatment is recommended when the spinal curvature is severe. Supine bending radiographs are usually taken prior to scoliosis surgery to measure the curve flexibility. However the ionizing radiation is a big concern to the patients and their families. The objective of this study was to determine the accuracy of the curve flexibility measurements on the ultrasound images. In this study, two surgical cases on children who have adolescent idiopathic scoliosis were reported. Both radiographs and ultrasound scans were acquired in standing and laying down bending positions. A total of 4 measurements were compared between the ultrasonic and radiographic methods. The average difference and standard deviation of the curve flexibility measurements (correction angles) between the two methods was 3.3±0.8°. This result demonstrated that the curve flexibility estimated by the US method was comparable to the results from radiography. However, since the number of participants is small, more trials are required before making a definite conclusion.

The use of a red light observed through closed eyes is a new CBT Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to fight insomnia. Its principles are based on the high transmission of the colour red through eyelids, the great sensitivity to light of the retina when it is adjusted to darkness and the mental distraction obtained by the perception and attentive observation of variations of intensity. The prefrontal and occipital fNIRS recordings document this method which is correlated to the sleep EEG state II.

Surgical treatment options of paediatric femur fracture include flexible or rigid intramedullary nails and submuscular plate fixation. Current computational technology has enabled virtual testing of fracture fixation implants using finite element analysis (FEA) models. Unlike FEA models based on adult femur, limited literature is available for paediatric femur. The aim of the study was to develop and validate a FEA model based on simplified geometry of composite paediatric femur using digital radiographs as a template. The model consisted of two cylinders which intersected at 130 degrees. The first hollow cylinder represented the shaft whilst the second solid cylinder represented head, neck and trochanteric region. Material properties of a composite femur (compressive strength = 157 MPa, compressive modulus = 16.7 GPa, yield strength = 93 MPa, Poisson’s ratio = 0.26) were used. Simulation testing was performed in SolidWorks to estimate axial, four-point bending and torsional stiffness (k

FEA

). An experimental study was undertaken on 4 femur specimens (k

Exp

). FEA model predicted axial stiffness (k

FEA Axial

= 704.83 N/mm). In comparison mean axial stiffness of the femur specimens measured k

Exp Axial

= 667.39 N/mm (+/- 73.49). Four-point bending stiffness of FEA model measured (k

FEA Bending

= 369.1 N/mm) whereas the mean four-point bending stiffness of femur specimens was k

Exp Bending

= 353.49 N/mm (+/- 16.05). Torsional stiffness in external and internal rotation of FEA model was noted at k

FEA Torsion ER

= 3.49 N m/deg and k

FEA Torsion IR

= 3.49 N m/deg respectively. Mean torsional stiffness of femur specimens measured k

Exp Torsion ER

= 3.58(+/- 0.05) N m/deg and k

Exp Torsion IR

= 3.48 (+/- 0.14) N m/deg. Orthogonal digital radiographs can be used as a template to develop a simplified finite element model of paediatric femur. FEA model based on simplified geometry may be used for evaluation of routine stiffness parameters of paediatric femur.

Electroencephalogram (EEG) is a non-invasive method to collect brain signals from human’s scalp. EEG signals are located in low frequency range and relatively small. The amplitude of these signals are approximately 50

μ

V with the maximum amplitude is about 100

μ

V. Therefore, there are number of sources such as power line, EOG or ECG can extremely interfere EEG signals. Detection and elimination of artifacts plays an important role to acquire clean EEG signals to analyze and detect brain activities. Besides, the extraction of important components in recorded EEG required fast and reliable algorithm to process mix of data set. In this paper, we will demonstrate EEG acquisition from EEG Exea Ultra system of Bitmed, analyze and compare signals from volunteers in relaxation mode and contaminated EEG signals with eye blinks. We then design filters to remove powerlines and baseline noise from acquired signals. With the aim to assess the feasibility of Wavelet transform technique to identify feature in recorded EEG signals, we carried out Wavelet transform and applied threshold method to detect and remove artifacts in EEG signals with eye blinks. We achieved PSNR of original signals and wavelet filtered signal that approximately 17,7810 dB. Our preliminary results show that wavelet can be utilized as automatically detection tools for artifacts and event-related potentials and in applications require real-time processing of EEG signals.

This paper studied the detection of falls and activities of daily living (ADLs) with the objective: to automatically monitor health situation and prevent the elder out of injury from fallings. In this study, a wireless sensor system (WSS), based on accelerometer and gyroscope, is placed at the centre of the chest to collect real-time ADLs and fall data. The WSS contains a set of ADXL345 (3-axis digital accelerometer sensor), ITG3200 (3-axis digital gyroscope sensor), MCU LPC17680 (ARM 32-bit cortex M3), and Wi-Fi module RN131. Experiment protocols consisting of four types of falls such as forward fall, backward fall, and side way fall (left and right), and ADLs such as standing, walking, sitting down/ standing up, stepping, running along with normal gait involved 324 tests on 18 human subjects.

The results from the experiment shows the system and algorithm could distinguish falling and ADLs with high accuracy.

Near-infrared (NIR) imaging technique has wide applications in biomedical field, in which the NIR vein image has considerably major benefits. NIR imaging allows visualizing the veins underneath the skin of patients having problem with vein visibility, mapping the normal and abnormal veins for diagnosis and treating. In addition, finger or palm vein recognition, as a highly secure and convenient technique of personal identification, has received increasing attention recently. In this study, NIR vein images of various parts of hand, including the finger, palm, wrist and arm were described using NIR imaging techniques in various modes such as transmission mode, reflection mode, and the combination of two mentioned modes. Wavelengths in the range of 750 to 940 nm, with low absorption window, provide higher contrast of vein imaging, which can be enhanced by use of crossed polarizers and neutral density filters to remove the glare from the skin surface. Finally, analysis and evaluation of advantages and disadvantages of these methods were presented.

In many developing countries such as Vietnam, Chest X-Ray (CXR) images are still one of the common tools to diagnose the lung cancer at the early phase. Early detection of lung nodules increases the chance of survival for a patient. In this study, we apply the Independent Components Analysis (ICA) to separate the ribs and other parts in lung images. First 20 files in Japanese Society of Radiological Technology (JSRT) database are used to perform the ICA algorithm, resulting in 90% of cases that the ribs are completely and partly suppressed, 85% of cases increases the nodule visibility. Two image enhancement methods are histogram equalization and Frangi filter are used as two artificially created inputs for ICA. This research also proposes the value of free parameters of Frangi filter.

Transvaginal UltraSound (TVUS) imaging is preferred imaging modality in detection of ovarian abnormalities. The ovarian parameters are measured manually by the expert and the shape of the Ovary is analyzed subjectively. There is a need for computer-assisted diagnostic support system to aid the experts in faster diagnosis as Manual measurement is time consuming. In this paper, we have extracted geometrical and shape features of the Ovary and have used K

σ

-classifier to classify the Ovary as normal or abnormal. The proposed method is tested on Transvaginal ultrasound images of ovaries. The obtained experimental results are validated with the manual measurements and inferences by the medical expert and demonstrate the efficacy of the method. The algorithm could achieve a classification rate of 76.67% for Bilinear filtering-Contrast Stretched-Adaptive Thresholding (BCAT) method and 85.8% for Anisotropic filtering-CLAHE-Adaptive Thresholding (ACAT) method.

Cardiac excitation is a fundamental mechanism within the heart’s function. One way to understand this mechanism is by using numerical modeling techniques. However, an immense amount of computational time has been required in the simulation that generally involves a large number of parameters. In this paper a simulation study of Luo Rudy Phase I (LR-I) mathematical model by using MATLAB Simulink to solve ordinary differential equations (ODEs) using field programmable gate array (FPGA) towards a real-time simulation of cardiac excitation has been presented. The FPGA could be the best solutions because it is able to provide high performance in solving higher order ODEs for real-time hardware implementation. In fact, the FPGA hardware design can be accelerated by using MATLAB Simulink HDL Coder that automates the hardware description language (HDL) code generation from designed MATLAB Simulink blocks. Furthermore, HDL designed implementation can be verified by using HDL Verifier such as co-simulation and FPGA-in-the-Loop (FIL) approaches to simulate the generated HDL code and verify the results. In this paper, results show that the LR-I cardiac excitation modeling is successfully simulated by the MATLAB Simulink and by using the HDL Coder the designed MATLAB Simulink model is successfully converted into VHDL code and verified through the FIL. These have given a positive outlook towards the FPGA hardware implementation for real-time simulation.

G-quadruplexes (G-4s) are G-rich non-canonical four-stranded conformations of nucleic acids that act as structural switches of cellular processes. Very little is known on the role of G-4s in viruses yet. The human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) and the human herpes simplex virus-1 (HSV-1) are important human pathogens: HIV-1 is the etiological agent for the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), while HSV-1 causes vesicular lesions on the mucous membranes, but it can also cause serious diseases, such as encephalitis, in immunocompromised patients and it increases sexual transmission of HIV-1. Both viruses permanently install into the human host and no cure to eradicate them has yet been developed.

We have shown that DNA G-4s arise in the integrated DNA genome, in the long terminal repeat (LTR) promoter, and inhibit viral transcription. We now show that the LTR sequence is present also in the HIV-1 RNA genome where it can fold into very stable parallel-like G-4 structures. Both DNA and RNA G-4s were stabilized by a G-4 ligand, BRACO-19, which exerted antiviral activity against a broad range of virus strains, host cells and types of infections. BRACO-19 was active both at the reverse transcription step and during post-integration events, which are compatible with BRACO-19 activity on G-4 structures.

Also HSV-1, which is characterized by a genome remarkably rich in guanines, presents clusters of repeated sequences forming very stable G-4s in key regions of the HSV-1 genome. Treatment of HSV-1 infected cells with BRACO-19 induced significant inhibition of virus production, general reduction of viral transcripts and of intracellular viral DNA. BRACO-19 was able to inhibit Taq polymerase processing at G-4 sites.

This work, besides presenting the first evidence of extended G-4 sites in key regions of the HIV-1 and HSV-1 genomes, opens up new potential antiviral therapeutic interventions based on the use of G-4 ligands.

Bioimaging probes are reporter molecules for visualizing the cellular event. The conventional bioprobe design has been carried out by so-called hypothesis-driven approach. The basic assumption of hypothesis-driven approach is that the scientist “knows the target” in advance, and then design the recognition motif for it. An alternative approach is diversity-driven approach, in which a broad range of fluorescence molecules in a library format are constructed by combinatorial chemistry, as a tool box for unbiased screening. We have developed libraries of fluorescence small molecules by combinatorial synthesis. This Diversity Oriented Fluorescence Library Approach (DOFLA) has great advantage in terms of optical screening and target identification. The specific binding of fluorescent small molecule is readily detectable and the target protein can be tracked visibly during all the target identification processes by adding an affinity tag to the molecule. Altogether, more than 10,000 fluorescent compounds were synthesized and tested in various cell types. Using DOFLA, a broad range of colorful bioimaing probes including stem cells, microglia and pancreatic islet cells were successfully demonstrated.

HER2 (Epidermal Human Growth Factor Receptor), is one of receptors in the epidermal growth factor receptor family. The overexpression of HER2 was determined in 25% to 35% of patients which were positive with breast cancer and in some of different cancers such as ovary cancer, uterus cancer... Due to this characteristic, HER2 has become an effective molecular marker for pre-diagnosis as well as a strike target for immune therapeutically treatment. Currently, there are different types of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) specific to HER2 which produced based on recombinant DNA technology. These recombinant mAbs are bringing many benefits for diagnosis and making more effective in the treatment of breast cancer. In this research, the pair of primers (BacHER2F/BacHER2R) was designed to amplify antiHER2 antibody (antiHER2 Ab) fragment (Single-chain variable fragment, scFv) which had been moved into a cloning vector and confirmed by sequencing. An expression vector containing this fragment (vector Bacmid/AntiHER2) has been constructed and transfected into a cultured Sf9 insect cells to produce recombinant baculovirus (r-BV). The virus then infected to silkworm Bombyx mori and the recombinant antiHER2 Ab (r-antiHER2 Ab) was expressed successfully. The expressed protein was confirmed by Western blot analysis. We obtained r-antiHER2 Ab using Ni-NTA affinity chromatography. Our result verified that we received purified r-antiHER2 Ab with 95% purity, which can be used for next experiments.

Breast cancer is the common cause of death among women in most countries worldwide, with rapidly increases in the developing countries, including Vietnam. To establish the potential biomarker is an attempt of researchers in the world, one of the biomarkers is the disruptions of the genetic material such as the epigenetics including DNA methylation. In present study, with the aim towards using the hypermethylation at CpG islands of promoter of candidate genes as the biomarker for breast cancer in Vietnamese population, sensitive methyl specific PCR (MSP) was carried out to analyze the hypermethylation status of the panel of candidate genes including BRCA1, p16

INK4

α

, GSTP1, RASSF1A and Cyclin D2 gene in 115 samples including 95 breast cancer specimens and 20 normal breast tissues from another disease (not breast cancer) which were obtained from Ho Chi Minh City Medical Hospital, Vietnam. The results indicated that the hypermethylation of one or more genes occurred in all total of 95 tumor specimens (100% diagnostic coverage) with the frequencies for methylation of each genes reach to 82.1% (p<0.001), 62.1% (p<0.01), 49.5% (p<0.05), 43.2% (p<0.01) and 42.1% (p<0.05) for BRCA1, Cyclin D2, p16

INK4

α

, GSTP1, and RASSF1A gene, respectively. In addition, the DNA hypermethylation of the panel of candidate genes increase the possibility to be breast cancer with high incidence via calculated of odd ratio (p<0.05). In conclusion, the hypermethylation of candidate genes could be used as the promising biomarkers applying in Vietnamese breast cancer patients.

This study is to investigate the formation of phase diagram of HPC/H

2

O/H

3

PO

4

tertiary system with adding a tiny XG to HPC by using optical methods such as polarized optical microscopy (POM) and light transmission detection. The experimental results showed that the liquid crystalline (LC) behavior of the blended system significantly enhanced in H

2

O-rich but H

3

PO

4

-poor region whilst the presence of H

3

PO

4

strongly suppressed the synergy between XG and HPC molecules. Accordingly, the lower critical solution temperature (LCST) of these blends was also reduced with only 3.5 % of XG in HPC. It reveals that the interaction mechanism or the anisotropic behavior of blended polysaccharide solution increased at room temperature but decreased at higher temperature to form a cloudy suspension manner and a less miscible solution. This is caused by the characteristic of the lower critical solution temperature (UCST) of XG aqueous solution.

This paper aimed at time based study of cell morphology for human keratinocytes (HaCaTs) cultured on the cholesteryl ester liquid crystals (CELC). High resolution imaging of HaCaTs adhered on CELC substrate using Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) will be investigated. In the AFM micrographs, the appearance of cells cultured on CELC captured in different time domain showed variation in the cell morphology including the surface roughness and thickness of cells. The AFM results revealed that soft liquid crystals substrate has triggered the remodeling of cell surface structure over time.

The technique first developed by our research group to culture three dimensions microtissues using liquid crystal substrate has potential to be used for cytochemical study. In order to demonstrate the differences in cell response to the cytochemical treatments, this paper applied an enzyme as a model drug to compare the enzymatic dissociation of cells grown in monolayer on a culture dish and microtissues cultured on the liquid crystal substrate. The results showed that the cells were fully dissociated layer by layer at a time course of 90 minutes. The monolayer of cells was dissociated directly by trypsinization within 6 minutes. Obviously, cells embedded deep in the microtissues were encapsulated or well protected from the treatment of EDTA-trypsin and this led to longer period of enzymatic dissociation.

Microscale frictional response by atomic force microscopy (AFM) can provide an opportunity to measure the final equilibrium of the cartilage frictional coefficient in the absence of interstitial fluid pressurization. In this study, we examined the effect of hyaluronic acid (HA) concentrations on the boundary lubrication of human osteoarthritis (OA) cartilage. Articular cartilage samples were obtained from human femoral heads with normal and advanced–stage OA cartilage. The tests samples were submerged in the lubricants of PBS and HA 1.0, 3.0, and 5 mg/ml. The microscale frictional coefficient and surface roughness of the OA cartilage was measured by AFM using triangular silicon(nitride cantilevers attached a polystyrene spherical tip. The results demonstrated HA concentrations to have ineffective boundary(lubricating ability in the normal cartilage. On the other hand, for the advanced–stage OA cartilage, HA played an important role in enhancing the boundary(lubricating ability due to the adsorption of HA molecules on the damaged cartilage surface. The microscale frictional response of the advanced–stage OA cartilage was independent on the on the HA concentrations. This suggests that some factors of the articular cartilage change during the progression of OA, which can trigger the boundary(lubricating ability of HA.

A software was developed for the representation of cell traction forces at different levels of intensity. A cell traction force map records the distributions of forces exerted by a cell on a liquid crystal substrate which was manifested as deformation lines. The algorithm was specially developed by applying an established force-deformation coefficient. The force data points were obtained by user defined length of deformation using mouse control over the loaded image. By interpolating the discrete data points of forces in a Euclidean coordinate system, a surface in different pseudo colors representing the intensity of forces was generated. The algorithm is able to distinguish localized forces down to 5

μ

m of resolution. This method benefits from the fact that physical expressions of cells on the liquid crystal were integrated into a geometric surface visualization explicitly.

Photo-catalysis process needs electron transfer to make reaction happen. In this study we want to propose a material that can make the HeLa cells lysis which is titanium dioxide (TiO

2

). This paper focus on the growth of rutile phased TiO

2

nanoflowers on FTO substrate for HeLa cells treatment. The surface morphology will be characterized under FESEM and XRD while UV-vis for its optical property. The TiO

2

is fabricated by using hydrothermal method. FESEM analysis shows the size of TiO

2

nanoflowers are in range between 30 nm to 400 nm. The surface topography can be able to give data about its grain size and roughness. The TiO

2

nanoflowers sample are confirm in rutile phase mostly at lattice plane (110). By do studying on the TiO

2

characteristic, we can say that as it is important factor to do HeLa cell treatment.

Background: High grade proteinuria in allograft glomerular diseases is concerned with the reduced function and shortened survival of kidney allograft. Monitoring changes in glomerular filtration rate (GFR) by serum creatinine and cystatin C are the recommended methods for assessing the progression of kidney allograft function with proteinuria.

Materials and Methods: Sixty renal transplanted patients with allograft survival of at least 1 year, with proteinuria were included in the study. All patients had routine clinical care and underwent baseline including age, sex, weight, body mass index, serum creatinine (Scr), serum cystatin C (ScysC), urine creatinine, proteinuria at the same day. We established the correlation between creatinine clearance (mGFR) and serum creatinine and cystatin C, and the correlation between mGFR and four estimated GFR formulas (Cockcroft Gault, MDRD, CKD-EPI and Le Bricon formulas).

Results: The mean ScysC, Scr and mGFR were 1.49±0.51 mg/L, 1.26±0.25 mg/dL and 56.03±20.74 ml/min/1.73m

2

respectively. There were significant correlations between mGFR and 1/ScysC (r1=0.775 (p<0.000)) and mGFR and 1/Scr (r2 =0.754 (p<0.000)). There were significant correlations between the four methods of eGFR and mGFR (r = 0.801 to 0.875, p=0.000). Among them, CKD-EPI creatinin-cystatin C 2012 formula had the strongest correlation with mGFR in both groups with mGFR≥60ml/min/1.73m

2

and mGFR<60ml/min/1.73m

2

.

Conclusion:Serum cystatin C prove more useful in monitoring the function of kidney allograft with proteinuria compared to serum creatinine. The combination of serum creatinine and serum cystatin C (CKD-EPI creatinine cystatin C 2012) is more accurate than either marker alone for estimating GFR.

Contributing to find out the distribution of mutations causing beta-Thalassemia in Vietnam, particularly in ethnic minority subjects, we applied the technique ARMS-PCR and sequencing in genetic molecule lab of the Ho Chi Minh University of Medicine and Pharmacy. 25 DNA samples from 25 Khmer patients with beta-Thalassemia living in Bac Lieu Province were analyzed. Beside of HbE and Fs41/42 mutations detected by ARMS-PCR technique, we found 4 other point mutations by sequencing techniques. This result contributes to the prenatal diagnosis program in the future.

We used Realtime RT-PCR assay to count the viral load on 94 patients who having positive anti-HCV, to find the types of HCV on 85 patients with positive HCV RNA. Then, we chose 6 samples to sequence to figure out the subtypes of HCV. The first result showed that: most of patients had the viral load ≤ 2x10

6

copies/ml (92.5%). The types of HCV have been found: type 1 (47.1%), type 6 (25.9%), and type 2 (21.6%). Moreover, there was 5.8% the co-infection between type 1 and type 6 on the patients. There was the similar result between Realtime RT-PCR assay and sequencing technique on typing HCV. We have been known the subtypes of HCV by sequencing technique, they are 1b, 2c, 6a, 6e and co-infection 1b/6e.

Prion diseases are fatal neurodegenerative disorders linked to the deposition of the abnormal prion protein isoform called PrPSc or prion. The key molecular events triggering the diseases are the conformational changes from the normal cellular

α

-helical prion protein PrPC to the pathological

β

-sheet enriched PrPSc. Therefore, understanding the mechanism and factors underlying the conversion process is essential to find possible diagnostic tools and treatments. Copper has long been known to correlate with neurodegenerative dysfunctions; PrPC is a copper binding protein via histidine residues in the highly conserved octapeptide repeats (OR) and the non-OR region located in the disordered N-terminal tail of the protein. The role of copper in facilitating protein aggregation and disease progression remains elusive. This study describes the impact of histidine residues on prion replication. By analyzing mouse PrP constructs that carry artificial mutations at histidines in the OR and non-OR, we provide cell evidence for the critical role of the non-OR copper binding site at histidine 95 in prion conversion. We also contribute to better understanding of the mechanisms and primary sites for prion conversion and replication. Our findings establish a platform for further studies aimed at elucidating the role of the H95 mutant in de novo prion diseases when expressed in transgenic mice.

Introduction: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the fourth leading cause of death worldwide. Cardiovascular disease is the most common comorbidities in COPD patients. ECG is the most popular and cheapest cardiovascular disease screening tool. Some research showed the high prevalence of abnomal ECG in exerbation COPD patients, but there still have no research in outpatients. The purpose of this study was to detect the characteristics of ECG in this group of patients.

Materials and Methods: The descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in University Medical Center. A sample of 112 COPD patients attending outpatient respiratory disease center was selected randomly from June 2012 to June 2013. Patients were also evaluated electrocardiogram along with other investigations.

Results: The prevelence of abnormal ECG is 58% including rightward shiff of the QRS axis (33.9%), rightward shiff of the P wave axis (53.6%), right atrial enlargement (20.5%), right ventricular enlargement (10.7%), right atrial enlargement and right ventricular enlargement (9.8%), clockwise rotation of the heart (41.1%), low voltage QRS complexes (15.2%), arrhythmia (35.7%), right bundle branch block (7.1%), ischemic (17%). Abnormal. ECG increases with each stage, including GOLD I (33.3%), GOLD II (43.2%), GOLD III (65.1%), GOLD IV (78.3%) (p <0,05). The prevelence of abnormal ECG also increase in each group, including group A (27.3%), group B (45.7%), group C (60.0%), group D (71.4%).

Conclusions: ECG changes in COPD patients are common and correlate with the severity of disease. This suggests that COPD patients should be screened routine ECG in addition to to other clinical investigations.

Diabetic kidney disease (DKD) is the most common cause of end-stage renal disease (ESRD). The incidence of diabetes worldwide is increasing, hence the incidence ofDKDis also increasing.Several previous studies suggested that there may be a relationship between appearance of diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) and impairment of kidney function.

The primary aim of this study was to evaluate the correlation between peripheral nerve conduction study parameters and urinary albumin excretion (UAE) level in diabetic patients. This is a cross-sectional studyperformed in 37 patients with diabetes. After the study, we identified asignificantnegative correlation between level of UAE and action potential (AP), and between level of UAE and nerve conduction velocity (NCV) of motor nerves (R = - 0.33 to R = - 0.65, p < 0.05). We also found asignificantnegative correlation between level of UAE and NCV ((R = - 0.36 to R = - 0.48, p < 0.05), and a significantpositive correlation between level of UAE and DSL (R = 0.37 to R = 0.74, p < 0.05) of sensory nerves.

Our results suggested that the presence of microvascular diabetic complications aresimultaneous, and the earliest presence is the DPN, especially abnormal NCSparameters. This could be a recommendation for the endocrinologist and nephrologist in early detection and treatment of DKD. We suggest that the peripheral NCS should be routinelyscreened for microvascular complications in diabetic patients.

In nephrology, renal function is the most important indication to decide the specific treatment for patients. Accurateestimation of glomerular filtration rate (GFR) is a important test to measure the level of kidney function, to determine the stage and to manage the chronic kidney disease (CKD).GFR describes the flow rate of filtered fluid through the glomerulus in kidney. Normally GFR of a person depends on his age, sex, race, and body size. There are many different methods to estimate GFR nowadays. Some techniques are simple and not reliable. Contrastingly, some techniques are very exact but it is too difficult to perform in clinical.Therefore, we must have general sight about all of formulas for calculating GFR and choose one suitably for each patient.

Nowsaday, the quality of life has been an important focus for health care activities. It consists of many areas such as diet, mental support ... Sexual life also takes a main role in quality of male life and it is related to testosterone, a vital hormone of men. If we recognize the problems of the mechanism related to testosterone, we can fix them appropriately in time. The living quality, therefore, will become better.

Androgen deficiency has recently come to the forefront of the medical literature after being ignored for decades. The prevalence of hypogonadism is greater than previously thought. Important associations are being developed and confirmed in the literature between androgen deficiency and metabolic disorders, specially in type 2 diabetes [1]. The prevalence of type 2 diabetes is increasing on over the world and directly effects the quality of sexual life of men [2]. However, in men with type 2 diabetes, besides the effect of erectile improvement, testosterone replacement therapy also reduces insulin resistance and improves glycaemic control in hypogonadal men with type 2 diabetes. Improvements in glycaemic control, insulin resistance, cholesterol and visceral adiposity together represent an overall reduction in cardiovascular risk. The objective of this paper is reviewing the roles of testosterone in men with type 2 diabetes.

Crucial measurement of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) relies extensively on the use of spirometry, “gold standard” for diagnosis of COPD. Impulse oscillometry system (IOS) is a non-volitional way to access the mechanical structure of the respiratory system. The goals of our study were to find out the sensitivity and specificity of the IOS in diagnosis of COPD patients, and investigate which IOS parameters are related to severity and airflow obstruction in Vietnamese COPD patients. The study contain twenty-two COPD patients (stage 3 and 4) and Thirty-four healthy people, whole of them are greater than 40 years, were recruited in Community Health Care Center, Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam. IOS measurements (R5, R20, X5, X20, AX, Fres and Delta R5-R20), and Spirometry (FEV1, FEV1/FVC) were performed. Pearson or Spearman correlation determined the relationships between IOS and Spirometry. Firstly, R5, X5, X20, AX, Fres & Delta R5-R20 were all significantly associated (p < 0.05) with FEV1. However, R20 were not related to FEV1. The strongest associations were observed between FEV1 and X5 (r = 0.7737), AX (r = -0.7825) and Delta R5-R20 (r = -0.7823). Secondly, X5, AX & Delta R5-R20 were significantly associated with FEV1/FVC. The strongest correlation was observed between Delta R5-R20 and FEV1/FVC with r = -0.6903. Reactance airway measurements (X5, X20, AX, Fres), peripheral airway resistance (Delta R5-R20) and total respiratory resistance (R5) are closely related to Vietnamese COPD diagnosis than central respiratory resistance (R20). The IOS measurements can be a significant value for COPD diagnosis in Vietnamese patients.

In this study, using an elastic finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method with numerical cancellous bone models reconstructed from microcomputed tomographic (

μ

CT) images of bovine bone, numerical simulations of the backscattered waves in cancellous bone was performed for clarifying the backscatter characteristics. In the simulation model, an ultrasound pulse wave was transmitted toward the front surface of cancellous bone from a circular concave transmitter/receiver in water. Then, two cancellous bone models with different thicknesses, in which an artificial absorbing boundary was set at the back surface opposite to the ultrasound transmission. By calculating the difference between the simulated results of the received signals in the cases of these cancellous bone models, the reflected wave from the front surface could be canceled, and only the backscattered waves inside the bone could be extracted. Using the cancellous bone models with porosities between 0.53 and 0.86 (53% and 86%), which had main trabecular orientation parallel to the thickness direction (or the transmitted ultrasound direction), the peak-to-peak amplitude of the backscattered waves were derived as a function of the porosity. The determination coefficient between the backscattered wave amplitude and the porosity was R

2

= 0.49 (P < 0.001). The correlation was moderate, which was considered to be because the backscattered waves could be affected by not only the porosity but also the trabecular microstructure.

Around current 40% of potential active agents are poorly water-soluble drugs. Solid dispersion (SD) technique is one of the most common techniques used to increase the dissolution rate of a poorly water-soluble drug. The aim of this research was to investigate a capability of SD in improving dissolution rate of curcumin, a poorly water-soluble drug in acidic and neutral media. SDs were prepared by melting and solvent methods. Hydroxypropyl methylcellulose 6, polyethylene glycol 6000, poloxamer 407 were used as carriers in the SDs. The dissolution rate of SDs was tested in simulated gastric fluid (buffer pH 1.2) and simulated intestinal fluid (buffer pH 6.8). The structural behaviors of drug were characterized by power X-ray diffraction (PXRD) and Fourier transform spectroscopy (FTIR). The presence of poloxamer 407 in SDs of curcumin improved dissolution rate of the drug. The crystalline structure of the drug was changed to amorphous form. The study indicated that the melting method with poloxamer 407 was the promising approach to enhance dissolution rate of curcumin and hence, suggesting further solutions to achieve the best product containing curcumin which could improve bioavailability of the drug.

Curcumin, a polyphenolic compound derived from Curcuma longa, possesses diverse pharmacologic effects such as anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antiproliferative and antiangiogenic activities. However, curcumin has poor bioavailability and low dissolution rate due to poor absorption, rapid metabolism, and rapid systemic elimination. The aim of the study was to improve the solubility and dissolution rate of curcumin by solid dispersions. Polyethylene glycol (PEG 6000) and swellable polymers such as hydroxylpropyl methylcelluloses (HPMCs) and polyethylene oxide (PEO), were applied to improve dissolution and oral absorption of curcumin. The solid dispersions (SDs) in different ratios were prepared by hot melting method. The dissolution rate of SDs was tested in simulated gastric fluid (buffer pH 1.2) and simulated intestinal fluid (buffer pH 6.8). Samples were collected at 10, 20, 30, 60, 90, 120 minutes and replaced with an equivalent amount of fresh medium to maintain a constant dissolution volume. High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method was used to determine concentration of curcumin after dissolution test. The dissolution rate of curcumin was enhanced by the incorporation into hydrophilic carrier (e.g. PEG 6000, HPMC 4000, HPMC 6, and PEO). The best percentage of drug release was observed with curcumin: PEG 6000: HPMC 4000 in ratio 1:8:4. Through the selection of polymers with optimal ratio, the SDs could increase the dissolution rate of curcumin.

Gliclazide (GLZ) is a second-generation sulphonylurea, widely used for the treatment of non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus. However, due to its low solubility in water (55 mg/L) and gastric fluids, its bioavailability varied inter-individual. This research aims to enhance the dissolution rate of gliclazide using in situ micronization technique. The in situ micronization process was carried out using solvent change method by using hydroxypropyl methylcellulose E15 (HPMC E15) or tween 80 as stabilizing agents. The solution of 0.5 g or 1 g of gliclazide in 30 ml of dimethyl sulfoxide was mixed with the solution containing 0,05 g or 0,1 g of HPMC E15 or tween 80 in 100 ml of water under stirring at 1200 rpm in ice bath (about 5°C) for 30 minutes. Obtained suspensions were filtered through 0,45

μ

m cellulose acetate membrane. The dissolution test, scanning electron microscopy, particle size analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and thermal analysis (DSC) were carried out to investigate the properties of the micronized gliclazide obtained. The in situ micronization technique used in this research enhanced the water-solubility and dissolution rate of gliclazide. The crystalline shape of GLZ changed from rod-shape or cube-shape to spherical shape with smaller size.

Itraconazole (ITZ) is an oral antifungal drug belongs to triazole group. However, ITZ has low and pH denpendant water solubility of about 1.1

μ

g/ml at pH 6.8 and 6

μ

g/ml at pH 1. Increasing solubility of ITZ is thus an urgent step for enhancement its bioavailability. Solid dispersions of ITZ and HP

β

CD were prepared by various methods: dry grindind, wet grinding and co-evaporation solvent with different molar rations of ITZ: HP

β

CD (1:1, 1:2, 1:3). Solid dispersion ITZ- HP

β

CD were evaluated by water solubility, dissolution profile in gastric medium. Physical characteristics of ITZ-HP

β

CD were assessed by DSC and FTIR spectrum. Dissolution test of solid dispersioncontaining hard capsule was also experimented. Solid dispersions formulated based on dry grinding and wet grinding method showed high solubility but low dissolution profile (<20%). Solid dispersion formulation based on co-evaporation solvent showed high dissolution profile. Dissolution profile of solid dispersion-containing hard capsule showed high ITZ release after 10 mins and reach over 80% after 15 mins.

The aim of this study was to modify the rice starch to prolong the release of drug in gastric fluid. Various types of Vietnamese rice were introduced in the study as the matrix of sustained release dosage form. Rice was thermally modified in water for a determined time at different temperatures. The rice starch was first ground and sieved. Then the powder was physically modified by heat and finally dried in an oven. The modified rice starch appeared as an odorless fine white powder. The tablet containing modified rice starch and Paracetamol were prepared by the wet granulation method. The dissolution rate of tablets was evaluated in simulated gastric fluid without pepsin (buffer pH 1.2). HPLC method was used to determine the amount of drug release. The matrix tablet containing thermally modified starch showed sustained release as compared to the control. The thermally modified starch could be a novel pharmaceutical excipient for sustained release dosage form design.

The study aimed to investigate a new method of thermal modification which was microwave method for controlling drug release of rice starch. The Vibigaba sprouted rice starch (Vietnam) was selected as the model rice. The rice was thermally modified in water for a determined time at different power. The rice starch was first ground and sieved. Then, the powder was physically modified by heat via the microwave and finally dried in an oven. Tablets containing the modified sprouted rice starch of Paracetamol were prepared by the wet granulation method. The dissolution rate of tablets was evaluated in simulated gastric fluid without pepsin (buffer pH 1.2). The matrix tablet containing thermally modified sprouted rice starch showed a sustained release, indicating that the sprouted rice under microwave method could be a promising material for a sustained release dosage form.

The use of natural polymer as scaffold material in hydrogels has been applied for skin regeneration due to their high biocompatibility, low toxicity, and biodegradability. Hydrogel was synthesized by in situ crosslinking of polyvinyl phosphoric acid (PVPA) and chitosan (Cs) in this study. Fourier transform infrared spectrum (FT-IR) analysis and scanning electron microscope (SEM) were used to confirm characteristics of hydrogel. The results showed that the crosslinking was formed successfully, and the inner morphology of hydrogels was appropriate for wound application.

In the present time, functional and cost effective of artificial skin is an interested in study. For this aim, herein, we developed a new injectable polyvinyl alcohol-silver nanoparticles/chitosan (PVA-AgNPs/CS) hydrogel for wound dressing skin applications. Thus, silver (Ag) is an antibiotic agent, was loaded inside of hydrogel and its mechanical property, biodegradable, swelling property have been investigated. Results were showed the good flexible ability, good antibiotic, suitable the biogradable rate and swelling rate, and high mechanical property. The PVA - Ag NPs/ CS hydrogels could be used for the wound dressing skin treatment in the near future.

Bombyx mori (B. mori) silkworms content two main protein kinds: the structural core protein, silk fibers, and the glue-like sericin coating. In contrast with silk fibers which are biocompatible, sericin is the main cause of inflammation. Hence, immunogenic sericin coating must be completely removed from silk fibers by degumming method before applying for medical uses. Several degumming processes have been applied with different chemical treatments, pH of degumming solution, time and temperature of degumming process. The purpose of this study was to investigate a new two-step degumming process that was simple, economic and suitable for B. mori silk. This process used solution with different temperatures and times of degumming. Observations under scanning electron microscope showed that there was no sign of either impurities or destruction or damage on the surface of silk fibers. It proved that the new degumming process is appropriate.

In this study, Hyaluronan – Chitosan – Polyvinyl phosphonic acid (HA/Cs/PVPA) gel was fabricated by hydrogel method. The surface and the inner structure of the scaffold were tested by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). Cell proliferation on the hydrogel film was observed using light microscope. The hydrogels were expected to meet the requirement of bioglue for future application.

In this study, nano hydroxyapatite (HAp) was synthesized using microwave and ultrasonic methods. Besides, the pH and temperature of the reaction were also the conditions of this investigation. The properties and characterizations of HA powders were analyzed by X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopyand (FT-IR). Morphology of nanohydroxyapatite was observed by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM). Results showed that HAp powders were synthesized successfully by using both microwave and ultrasonic methods through FT-IR and XRD analysis. However, the SEM observation showed that the particles sizes are different.

In this work, hydroxyapatite HA was produced from bovine bone by the calcination at 800°C in 3 hours. Three sources of femur were used to collect the bovine bone: waste, from cows aged 10 -12 months and 2-3 years. The purity, shape and crystal structure of HA were characterized by Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Transmission electron microscopy (TEM).

Aspergillus flavus

and

Aspergillus parasiticus

are two aflatoxigenic species having greatly impacts on human health and economy. About 25% of world food crops are affected and countries located in tropical and subtropical area suffer from the most risk (the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization). To prevent the loss caused by aflatoxin contamination, they need to be detected by the most feasible way. Currently, PCR based test has been a potential door with some advantages in comparison with the morphology method. In this study, a modified protocol based on the standard DNA extraction was applied to shorten the whole procedure. For this purpose, DNA was simultaneously extracted from

A. flavus

and

A. parasiticus

artificial infected corn samples by two protocols. Standard protocol was SDS method modified from Plaza’s method while the modified protocol was that standard with some modifications. After evaluation by spectrophotometry and gel electrophoresis, the extracted DNA was used for multiplex PCR to determine the fungal presence. Following, the effectiveness of both methods was evaluated via the DNA quality and PCR result. Though the DNA quality from the modified method was not good, they could still be used in multiplex PCR for the fungal detection in corn sample. 3ul of proteinase K 2mg/ml and 1 hour incubation were recommended for modified process. In conclusion, this study proved a possible method to shorten the fungal detection process. Once this method has succeeded for corn sample, the presence of

A. flavus

and

A. parasiticus

in corn could be predicted by a more effective procedure.

The protonation states of ionizable amino acid residues often have a direct influence on the functioning of a protein. The acid dissociation constant (in logarithmic scale, pKa) of these residues is hence an important determinant of protein function. To predict pKa, we integrated two complementary state of the art pKa prediction methods, DEPTH and microenvironment modulated screened Coulomb potential approximation (MM-SCP). The performance of the integrated predictor, DEMM, was benchmarked on a dataset of 47 residues with experimentally measured pKa values. DEMM has an average prediction error of < ~0.5 pH units and was statistically significantly superior to the DEPTH and MM-SCP methods. The method’s utility is enhanced by its speed, accuracy and its applicability to proteins of varying sizes.

Falls more likely happen with elderly people due to weak body. These falls may possibly cause serious injuries. Therefore, recognition of early falling for diagnosis and treatment is very important. In this paper, a fall alert system using an accelerometer sensor for elderly people based on a threshold algorithm is applied. A triaxial accelerometer sensor worn on the waist of people is employed to collect acceleration data. A threshold is determined by analyzing the difference between the normal daily activity and the fall. Data is collected from four daily activities and two falls: sit, stand, lie, walk, fall (walk) and fall (chair). This research potentially supports an enhanced understanding on the design and implementation of high–performance fall detections.

α

-glucosidase is an enzyme in human encoded by GAA gene [1]. Normally, this enzyme is essential for the degradation of glycogen to glucose in lysosomes. However, with patients of diabetes mellitus type 2,

α

-glucosidase causes the unwanted elevation of blood glucose level. Therefore,

α

-glucosidase is now the target of anti-diabetic drugs. In this study, structure of human

α

-glucosidase was investigated using the approaches of bioinformatics tools. The results from phylogenetic tree also suggest the Mus musculus for animal testing. Finally, some approved

α

-glucosidase inhibitor drugs from Drugbank database are tested for binding affinity energy and pharmacophore features.

Cervical cancer remains one of the common leading cause of cancer death for women worldwide, including Vietnam. Besides the infection of human papilloma virus (HPV) which is the main cause of cervical cancer, increasing evidence demonstrated that inactivation of tumor suppressor genes (TSGs) by aberrant promoter methylation is an early event during carcinogenesis. In current study, aiming to establish biomarker applied in prognosis or early diagnosis for cervical cancer, we developed a powerful assay based on Methylation Specific PCR to detect the aberrant DNA methylation of the panel of cervical cancer related genes in liquid-based Papanicolaou (Pap) tests. Total of 83 liquid-based Pap test samples which were identified whether HPV-infection or non-HPV infection, high-risk HPV oncogenetic type 16 and 18 infection or low-risk HPV infection, were carried by MSP method to evaluate the DNA aberrant methylation occurred in DAPK, RAR

β

and p16INK4

α

. According to the results, the hypermethylation reach to 78.8% for RAR

β

, 63.6% for DAPK and 54.5% for p16INK4

α

. This hypermethylation characteristic was also associated with HPV high risk genotype infection. Furthermore, the MI values with 97.0% diagnosis coverage, which meant at least one of three genes were methylated. In conclusion, these outcome suggested that the MSP assay carried out on the non-invasive samples (liqid-based pap) will lead to the potential method to prognosis and early diagnosis of cervical carcinoma, as well as allow us to have a vision for these hypermethylation of candidate genes could be a promising biomarker for cervical cancer detection in Vietnamese population.

Conyza canadensis (C. canadensis)

((L.) Cronquist) has been used as medicinal herb in many countries. The antifungal activity of

C. canadensis

which was extracted by different solvents including ethanol, ethyl acetate and n-hexane was examined by using agar well diffusion method and minimum inhibitory concentration method. Two fungal pathogens used to determine the bioactive activity of these extracts were

Candida albicans (C. albicans)

and

Trichosporon insectorum (T. insectorum)

. Among these three extracts using different polarity solvents, the antifungal activity of C. canadensis extracted with ethyl acetate showed the highest antifungal activity against both tested fungal pathogens. Conversely, the extracts with ethanol and n-hexane didn’t show any activity towards the tested fungi in the agar well diffusion experiment. C. canadensis extracted with ethyl acetate showed its high effect against T. insectorum with 45.33 mm of inhibition zone, antifungal activity was lower to C. albicans which was about 25.33 mm of inhibition zone. Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of ethanol, ethyl acetate and n-hexane extract against C. albicans were 250, 15, and 500 mg/ml, respectively. MIC values with extracts in ethanol and ethyl acetate solvents in case of

T. insectorum

were lower than which of

C. albicans

. The particular MIC values of extracts in ethanol, ethyl acetate and n-hexane against

C. albicans

were 63, 8 and 1000 mg/ml, respectively.

This study aimed to evaluate the antimicrobial activity of

Senna alata (L.), Rhinacanthus nasutus

and

Chromolaena odorata

against antibiotic resistant

Staphylococcus aureus

,

Pseudomonas aeruginosa

clinical strains; vitro - induced antibiotic resistant S.

aureus

strains; S. aureus ATCC 25213 and

P. aeruginosa

ATCC 9027. Plant samples were extracted with different solvents including ethanol, ethyl acetate and n-hexane. Disc diffusion method was used to evaluate the antimicrobial activity of extracts. In general, most of extracts showed good antimicrobial activity against both antibiotic resistant and sensitive S. aureus but no activity against P. aeruginosa. To clinical S. aureus strains, C. odorata and R. nasutus extracts using ethyl acetate showed better inhibitory zones (17.17 ± 0.29 mm ; 16.67 ± 0.58 mm) than the ones extracted using ethanol (14.17 ± 0.58mm, 11.67 ± 1.53 mm) and n- hexane (12.17 ± 0.58 mm; 13.67 ± 0.58 mm, respectively). To other S. aureus strains, S. alata (L.) extract using ethanol showed the greatest inhibition zone (22.33 ± 0.58 mm). This result suggested that these traditional herbs should be further investigated to serve as alternative treatment for multidrug- resistant S. aureus infections and probably also for other gram positive pathogenic bacteria.

Aspergillus flavus

and

Aspergillus parasiticus

are the common aflatoxin producing species that usually infect on foodstuff in their production line from the field to the storage place such as peanut, corn, cereal, etc., especially in tropical country like Vietnam. Aflatoxins which are considered as derived secondary metabolites assigned as a group of mycotoxins produced by several species of the

Aspergillus spp

are potent hepatotoxins, immunosuppression, carcinogen that lead to mortality or reducing the productivity of farm animals. There has been a demand for effective method to detect these two species on dried food. In previous study, a multiplex PCR method were designed to improve the detection process of

A. flavus

and

A. parasiticus

and that method showed high sensitivity and specificity by being applied on artificially infected dried peanut. In this study, that multiplex PCR method would be evaluated by testing the presence of

A. flavus

and

A. parasiticus

on natural dried peanut kernels. On this purpose, the presence of

A. flavus

and

A. parasiticus

on the collected peanut from the market was determined using two method, the conventional culturing method in Institute of Hygiene and Public Health (IHPH) and the mentioned multiplex PCR. The efficiency of multiplex PCR method would be evaluated by comparing fungi detection result of two methods using appropriate statistical tests. Next, fungal enrichment with distilled water overnight was applied to increase the detection percentage if the first analysis do not get the expected result. The result showed that 54% results from PCR method was the same with culturing method, and after fungal enrichment, this percentage increased to 76% which suggested that these two method was not significantly different with each other. Therefore, this multiplex PCR method could have more advanced points than the culturing method in detection of

A. flavus

and

A. parasiticus

on foodstuff.

Corns, which are one of major agricultural crop in Vietnam, have high risk of being infected with A.

flavus

and A.

parasiticus

due to the high humidity of tropical climate in Vietnam which is the ideal condition for fungal development. The traditional methods for detection and identification of these mycotoxigenic fungi are very time-consuming, laborious, and facility requiring. Thus, there is a need to develop a new PCR-based method that target DNA which is considered as a good alternative for rapid diagnosis of these fungi. In this study, a multiplex PCR method which had already been optimized in previous studied was evaluated by performing the detection of A.

flavus

and A.

parasiticus

on corn kernels collected from markets. These samples were detected by both culture method and multiplex PCR method. After first time of analysis, fungal enrichment overnight was applied to increase the detection percentage. The results were then analyzed and compared with that of traditional method. The statistical outcome showed that 66% results from PCR method was the same with culture method. However, after fungal enrichment by incubating samples in moist condition overnight, this proportion increased to 82% which was suggested to be statistically the same with culture method. Therefore, The PCR method with more advantages compared to culture method in time consuming, labor demand as well as the cost, it could be considered to be the replacement for the traditional method of rapid detection of A.

flavus

and A.

parasiticus

on dried corn.

The brain is the most important part in human body. In order to determine and evaluate the activities of the body, brain signals measured using non-invasive technique - functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) will be investigated. In this paper, Oxy- Hb signals in the cerebral cortex that was collected from 24 channels put into preprocessing to smooth using a Savitzky - Golay filter. Data removed noise will be transformed discrete wavelets into different frequency components. Threshold algorithms are applied to identify the channels (the mobile areas) that have Oxy - Hb changes while biting spacer and lifting object. This research is conducted experiments on five subjects with changes of biting or lifting for collection of the Oxy - Hb changes on the mobile areas. This method will help researchers save a lot of effort and archive the proper assessment of human activities through brain signals.

Determination of the size of tumors plays an important role in diagnosis and treatments of cancer disease. Two proposed methods for the calculation of total area of tumor are based on pixels of image and the division of tumor into many parts with the same distance in this paper. In comparison, simulation results are shown to determine the accurate area of each method.

Dynamic shear-wave estimation of complex shear modulus (CSM) has demonstrated the ability to detect tumors. Ultrasound shear wave imaging is one of the methods for quantitatively estimating relevant elasticity parameters of tissues via the wave number and propagation attenuation of ultrasound waves. Maximum Likelihood Ensemble Filter (MLEF) has been efficiently applied for estimating the CSM parameters, but limited to one-dimensional (1D) scenario. This paper extends this method to detecting two-dimensional (2D) objects affected by Gaussian noise during the Doppler acquisition. A ray scanning method is used for modeling the propagation directions (lines) along each of which the MLEF is used for estimating the CSM parameters. The object 2D image is then reconstructed by transforming these estimated CSM parameters from the polar coordinates to Cartesian coordinates. it is not necessary to increase the ensemble size (which means an increase in the algorithm complexity) when the noise level is low.

This paper investigated the hemodynamic responses over the frontal and visual cortices in order to find out the contributions of these two brain areas to workload memory activities during a graded load-related memorizing task that involves visual perception. Factorial ANOVA was performed on the mean values of oxyHemoglobin (oxy-Hb) and deoxyHemoglobin (deoxy-Hb) concentration changes from three subjects over visual and prefrontal cortices to observe the interaction of factors like channels, subjects and workload levels. Besides, the t-maps of these two brain areas pointed out the regions of interest (channels 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 13 and 14) are shown to reflect the significance in workloads differentiation. The results of statistical analysis and t-map investigations successfully explored the capability of multichannel functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to detect two neurophysiological workloads under investigation and distinguish their activation patterns over multiple cortical areas.

Currently searchers are getting more interests in evaluating the brain functions on writing and typing activities. In order to discover the different effects of writing and typing on the brain, we establish experiments to test the oxygen consumption level in three areas of brain. We chose the Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) to monitor hemoglobin changes. Subjects are required to type and write in the same environments while NIRS is used to record the hemoglobin dynamics. We used SPSS program as a statistical method. Image fusion was also applied to illustrate data from NIRS. The results turn out that when subjects are writing, oxygen concentration inside the brain increase more than when that inside the brain when they are typing. The experimental results show the brain has to work harder to control writing activity. By another word, writing excites brain more than typing. This fundamental information extends our knowledge of understanding on the brain behavior.

In this research, the relationship between a three-day sitting meditation fasting called Zazen Fasting and a participant’s psychophysiological conditions was examined. The subject was in a group of 50 adults in Matsumoto, Japan between 12

th

and 14

th

of January 2014. The fingertip pulse wave of the subject was measured for use as biological data before, during and after the therapy. The measured values were subjected to chaos analysis and the Lyapunov exponents calculated. The results showed that Lyapunov exponents became higher after the subject took the Zazen Fasting.

In this paper, the construction of phantom mimic vessel is presented to diagnose the Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT). The diagnosis of DVT is commonly used by monitoring the blood velocity and present of thrombus in vessel from B-mode ultrasound image associated with the application of Doppler ultrasound. Since it is difficult to recognize the vessel condition at the early stage of DVT, this study is to assess the vessel behavior at the early stage of DVT using phantom experiment. The phantom size and elasticity is considered to be the important parameters in constructing the phantom mimic vessel. Rapid prototyping technology and solid works are used in constructing the phantom.

Active contours are used extensively in image processing applications, including edge detection, shape modeling, medical image-analysis and detection of object boundaries. Medical images are of poor contrast, therefore boundaries of object of interest are poorly represented. This paper describes a method to represent context awareness in case of object of interest in medical images. Our proposed method uses contourlet filter bank to represent contour of object of interest present in medical images. For demonstrating the superiority of the proposed method, we have compared the results with the other recent methods such as using the simple Discrete Wavelet Transform.

In this paper, we present a novel approach of recovering a 3-D human pose from a single human body depth silhouette using nonrigid point set registration. In our methodology, a human body depth silhouette is presented as a 3-D points set that is matched to the next 3-D points set through point correspondences between them. To recognize and maintain the body part labels, we first initialize the initial points set and their corresponding body parts, then transform them to the next points set according the point correspondences via nonrigid point set registration. Upon the point registration, we use the information of the transformed body labels of the registered pose to create a human skeleton model. Finally, a 3-D human pose is recovered by mapping the skeleton’s position and orientation information to a 3-D synthetic human model. Our quantitative and qualitative evaluation on synthetic and real data show that complex poses could be tracked and recovered reliably.

In today’s society, many women wear high-heeled shoes. However, the effect that different experienced high-heel wearers worn same heel heights running have on the biomechanics has not been fully investigated. In the present study, the lower extremity mechanics in different experienced high-heel wearing who in same heel heights (1.5cm, 4.5cm) running were examined in 6 female subjects, three of whom could be considered experienced high-heel wearers. Kinematic data from a three-dimensional motion analysis system was collected to describe lower extremity mechanics while subjects run over ground at a natural speed. The results that in throughout the gait cycle, hip abduction was significantly decreased when experienced high-heel wearers worn low-heel shoes than in flat shoes condition, and knee flexion was significantly decreased. In addition, ankle dorsiflexion and abduction were significantly decreased when experienced high-heel wearers compared with inexperience high-heel in low-heel shoes condition. These results maybe more helpful when inexperienced high-heel wearers choose high-heel shoes.

This paper processed a Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) for speech recognition in an intelligent electric wheelchair. Voice is recorded for extracting features using Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCCs), for identifier to find the best command. Thus, the recognized signals are used control electric wheelchair. DTW identification method for produces better results and more accurate. Results of this study possibly support disabled people using the wheelchair to move easily and more convenient in everyday life.

Eighteen professional female Latin dancers were participated in this research. The joint angle dates were measured and analyzed using Vicon Motion System. The results showed that: With the heel increased, joint angle also increases; Latin dance shoes exist a little illogical design. We need to improve it in the future.

This paper proposes the scheme of ICRICLI (Ideal Cross-point Regions for lossless Image Compression on multiple bit planes with Low complexity lossless compression for Images) that uses cross-point regions with LOCO-I algorithm for optimizing the processing of coding. The scheme ICRICLI is developed from the combination of the improved CRICM (Cross-point Regions for lossless Image Compression on Multiple bit planes) and LOCO-I, it is an algorithm for losslessly encoding and decoding images by optimizing the probability of data bits of the matrix of prediction error in cross-point regions on different bit planes. This scheme can be seen as a proposition of improvement of the standard predictive template of JPEG-LS for losslessly compressing images.

In this paper, we introduce MIPAV (Medical Image Processing, Analysis, and Visualization software) and its plugin architecture to build the plugin for lossless image compression by the theory of cross-point regions with ideal cross-point regions on multiple bit planes. MIPAV is an open-source software, a good tool for researching and studying operations over medical images, but it does not have the tool for image compression. To build a plugin integrated into MIPAV software we use the scheme of ICRICM (Ideal Cross-point Regions for Image Compression on Multiple bit planes). This plugin can create a new output file from the original image, and the size of this output file is smaller than before. And inversely, the output file will be used in the decompression process to get the original image without any differences.

Understanding ventilator principles and its operations is very essential for clinical engineers, especially in rural and remote areas in Vietnam. The purpose of paper is to present a software designed to provide theoretical and practical knowledge of ventilators, which are widely used in many departments of hospitals. This software can be used for training as well as supporting knowledge of many usual types of ventilator for physicians and clinical engineers.

The purpose of the paper is to introduce a prototype of electrotherapy equipment which can connect with the computer via wireless communication and broadcasts 12 types of pulsed waveforms such as symmetric TENS, asymmetric TENS, Galvanic, F20, F1, Trabert, Diadynamic CP, Diady-namic LP, sawtooth wave (E100, E200, E500). Patient and operational data can be registered in a database and easily managed by RFID reading system.

Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Brno University of Technology, Brno, Czech Republic Abstract- This article deals with determining the size of linear wear acetabulum total hip arthroplasty experimental modeling. Described in detail the creation of an experimental sample and the equipment to simulate human walking. The greatest attention is paid to the method for determining the topography of polyethylene cup and measuring the loss of polyethylene during gait simulation. In determining the loss of polyethylene cup was based on extensive analysis of selected holographic interferometry. Other parts of the article focus on first experiences with the application of this method, results and more.

This article shows the results of applying control system approach in biomedical engineering (BME) research. Based on the advantages of the structural predetermination in comparing with traditional system approach, this methodology allows studying BME systems with more effectiveness, convenience and reality.

In this paper, the clinical experiment study is presented to diagnose Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT). The diagnosis of DVT is commonly conducted by monitoring the blood velocity and present of thrombus in vessel from B-mode ultrasound image associated with the Doppler ultrasound. Since it is difficult to recognize the vessel condition at the early stage of DVT, this study is proposed to evaluate the vein mechanism based on different BMI categories at the early stage of DVT. The wall displacement and blood flow velocity is considered to be the important parameters to construct a clinical model of DVT risk factor, thereby constitutes an important contribution for predicting probability of Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT).

In vivo fracture of ceramic heads of total hip joint endoprostheses has been stated in a not negligible number of patients in the Czech Republic hospitals, some time ago. The reliability of the ceramic head is based on the Weibull weakest link theory. The probability of the failure depends on the tensile stress values in the head, on the volume in which stress acts and on the material parameters of the used bioceramics. The stress analyses of the ceramic heads were realized using computational modelling - FEM system ANSYS under ISO 7206-5 loading. The maximum values of the tensile stress in the ceramic head are significantly influenced on the shape deviations of conical surfaces of the head and the stem cones. There are two types of the shape deviations – the first is macro deviations (different angle of the taper of the stem cone and the head cone), the second is micro shape deviations (the stochastic distribution of unevenness of cone contact surfaces in order micrometers). The macro and micro shape deviations of the real cones were carried out using the IMS-UMPIRE measuring equipment. By computational modelling it has been proved that the character and the size of shape deviations on a conical contact area between the stem and the head of hip joint endoprosthesis have a pronounced influence on the character and the value of stress in the head and, hence, on the probability of the head’s failure. Ignorance of this influence can lead to unforeseen failures of ceramic heads and thus to cast doubt on the trust-worthiness of a certain type of total hip joint endoprosthesis and of surgical treatment.

The application of FES as a therapeutic and rehabilitation functionality is globally used especially for paralyzed person induced by SCI. The potential of this research is FES induced movement control on a significantly challenging area due to complexity and non-linearity of tetraplegic musculoskeletal system. The challenge mainly arises within FES application based on a crucial issue, in the control of musculoskeletal upper limb motor function by the artificial activation of paralyzed muscles, due to the various characteristics and parameters of the underlying physiological/biomechanical system. This research pilot study attempts to propose model theoretical framework/control strategies with computer validation simulations studies.

Health care is necessary for the sustenance of human life and well-being. But the waste generated from medical activities can be hazardous, toxic and even lethal because of their high potential for diseases transmission. The wastes generated from the healthcare units are hazardous and can cause delirious biological effects. In India there are an estimate of 2.7 lacs small scale healthcare units (which includes nursing homes, pathological laboratories, etc.).The waste generated collectively nears 63% of the total biomedical waste generated in India (On an annual basis). Most of the small scale units, do not have many departments/divisions and the generation of waste is small and normally they do not have treatment facility for the bio-medical waste due to financial incapability. Thus most of the units dump the waste along the municipal wastes. This can cause adverse effects such as providing waste dumping sites as breeding grounds for the microorganisms contained in the wastes (Biological test sample wastes). This issue calls for a Common Integrated facility for treatment of these wastes.

Multiplex RT-PCR was used to detect

Hop stunt viroid

(HSVd) and

Grapevine yellow speckle viroid-1

(GYSVd-1). Twenty five samples were collected from grapevine farms located at Changhua county of Taiwan. Specific primer pairs used for the detection of HSVd and GYSVd-1 were designed according to the conserved sequences of the viroid genomes. Multiplex one-step RT-PCR followed gel

electrophoresis analysis

showed that two DNA fragments with the sizes of 367 bp and 300 bp indicated the infection of GYSVd-1 and HSVd, respectively. The preliminary data suggests that the frequency of GYSVd-1 and HSVd infection is 80% and 90%, respectively.

Theoretical calculations have been performed to predict antioxidant property for phenolic compounds extracted from Artocarpus Altilis. The chosen ONIOM model contains only two atoms of the breaking bond as the core zone and is able to provide reliable evaluation for BDE(O–H) for phenolic compunds. Important characteristics of antioxidants such as the homolytic O-H bond dissociation enthalpy (BDE) and the adiabatic ionization energy (IE) were determined both in gas phase and in solvents. The BDE(O–H) values of compounds 1, 2, 3 and 4 are predicted to be 80.8, 80.3, 79.3, and 77.3 kcal/mol, respectively.

This paper proposes a threshold algorithm to extract features and then create standard thresholds of EEG online signals using eye movements. Based on the standard thresholds, an electrical wheelchair can be controlled to reach the desired target. In this project, a Hamming band-pass filter is applied to detect noise of EEG signal. Moreover, calculation of blink-times and detection of confusion between left glance and right glance signals program are built and added to increase the accuracy of the wheelchair control. Additionally, a quality testing program is also built in Labview environment to improve effort of data collection. Finally, experimental results of controlling the electrical wheelchair in indoor environments demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method.

This study introduces applying a simple optical system using UVA light for stimulating and obtaining in vivo facial fluorescence images. The red fluorescence was observed in all volunteers and it’s intensity was higher at the T-zone than at the U-zone in all cases regardless of their skin type. It’s known that the sebum amount of the T-zone is higher than of the U-zone. This result leads to the correlation between facial red fluorescence with sebum level, not with Propionibacterium acnes so far as is known [1, 2]. In addition, the blue fluorescence was found in inflammatory acne area. To the best of our knowledge, the nature of blue fluorescence has not been reported so far. Analysis of the skin fluorescence imaging can give information about the disease state of skin and be used for designing non-invasive optical devices for skin diagnosis.

Rapid prototyping (RP) technology used in digital design of dental industry has been rapidly developed. Most users in dental industry have concerned accuracy of the dental model printed by an RP device in comparison to that of a conventional intraoral impression. Thus, the purpose of the study was to compare digital morphology of a subject’s teeth between a dental impression and a printed dental RP model of the same subject whose digital dental morphology was created. In this study, one subject’s entire oral teeth was impressed and casted; a plastic RP model was also produced after the subject’s teeth were scanned using an intraoral scanner (3Shape TRIOS) to produce a whole dental images in digits. In order to digitally compare morphological dimensions between the impression and RP models, each model’s shape and dimension were scanned using a reverse engineering based optical scanner in producing digital dental images in 3D, a STL based format; meanwhile, a quality control industrial software (ATOS GOM Inspect V7.5 SR1) was used to compare the STL format based digital images of each model. The preliminary findings of the study show that an increased diverse visual coloring based error distribution of the scanned images between the RP plastic and dental impression casting models was found as well as a maximum average morphological error (0.1409mm) over eleven selected spots. The maximum relative errors could be due to a precision of the devices used in general during scanning and printing of an intraoral scanner and RP device, respectively, in addition to the errors from hardware and software operated during image reconstruction. In the future, an increased sample size of comparisons among impaired morphology in teeth, various usages of intraoral scanners or optical based scanners, specifically, will gain a better statistical meaningful finding of the study.

The sedentary lifestyle is becoming popular especially for intellectual work. Although physical inactivity lifestyle may cause many unexpected illnesses, it is complicated to build up a positive lifestyle due to the lacks of reminder systems to manage and monitor physical activities of people. This research represents an effective way for daily activity monitoring using accelerator and gyroscope sensors embedded in a smartphone. Signals were recorded from accelerator and gyroscope sensors while a user wearing the smartphone performs different activities (going downstairs, going upstairs, sitting with the phone in a pocket, driving and putting the phone on the table). The classification algorithms with k-nearestneighbor (kNN) and artificial neural network (ANN) were applied to recognize user’s activities. The overall accuracy of recognizing five activities is 74% for kNN and 75.3% for ANN respectively. Based on the activities recognized during the day, users are able to manage their daily activities for a better life.

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is becoming widely applied in many practical researches, especially in vivo researches on human. This study focuses on the hemodynamic responses of visual cortex when the human eye is excited by different conditions of flickering light stimulus. In our experiment, visual cortex is activated by flickering light at various spatial frequencies and modulation depths while the hemodynamic responses of the visual cortex are simultaneously monitored by fNIRS. Our experimental results suggest that flickering light can activate hemodynamic responses of the visual cortex but those changes are not significantly distinct among different stimulus conditions.

Orthopedic surgery still hosts a number of known problems. Screw loosening and implant failure are common and pose a major issue for successful bone fracture fixation. Research shows that optimal screw fixation depends on the number and placement of screws or using bone cement as an adjunct. There is a lack of focus and attention to the biomechanical effects of screw angle placement into the bone. The purpose of this study is to investigate the biomechanical effects of placing screws at different angles with respect to the fracture plane on the stability of the fixation of oblique fractures of long bone. The 45° angle oblique fracture was investigated. Twenty one porcine femurs were harvested, cleaned, measured for dimensions, and randomly divided into three groups of seven (N=7 per group). The fracture model was 1 mm oblique osteonomy at midshaft. The method was screw fixation only using 2 cortical screws at different angles. The three different screw angle fixations of interest were perpendicular (45° group), 45° angle (T group) and 70° angle (70° group) with respect to the fracture plane. Compression testing to failure was performed at a constant rate of 3 mm/min using a servo-hydraulic MTS 858 Bionix testing machine. The load and displacement were collected through LabVIEW then being processed to obtain average maximum load and stresses. One-way unstacked ANOVA comparison test was conducted to determine the significant difference between the group data. The T group demonstrated superiority in both maximum compressive load and maximum normal stress as compared to the other groups. Statistical analysis shows a significant different between the T group and 45° group (p < 0.05) but no significant different between the 90° group and 70° group for the maximum normal stress.

Mercer on Mission Vietnam is an annual service learning course which students spend time fitting prosthetic limbs on amputees. The prosthetic utilized in these trips includes a universal socket designed at Mercer University. The design is a low cost prosthesis that accommodates as many impoverished amputees as possible. During the summer of 2013, 18 students and 3 professors fitted 272 amputees. Fifty-three sets of Tekscan F-Scan Plantar Pressure data were collected. Students analyzed the plantar pressure data and tested for statistical trends between age, weight, height, amputation date, and gender to seek trends that could lead to improvements for the next trip. None of the five factors tested correlated with the quality of prosthetic fit. It was determined that a more systematic method of F-Scan data collection was needed in order to increase consistency and sample size for more in depth trend analysis.

Internal bone plate fixation is currently considered the optimal bone fixation method for open fractures of long bone. This study aims to investigate the effects of non-locking bicortical and unicortical orthopedic bone screws and bone plate configuration on an open fracture of a long bone, the humerus. Eight cadaver humerus bones (n=8) were collected and an open gap, 1.5 cm mid-shaft transverse fracture, was modeled in each one. They were fixated by a 4.5mm non-locking (D.C) plate with two different configurations of 4.5mm non-locking bone screws: Group 1 and Group 2. The orthopedic non-locking bone plate had a total of 7 holes with 3 holes on either side of the fracture site. Therefore, 2 bicortical screws (30 mm long) and 4 unicortical screws (14mm long) were implemented into the fixation in both groups. Group 1 was defined as the bicortical screws being placed close to the fracture gap while Group 2 had the bicortical screws placed further away from fracture gap. Unicortical screws were placed in the other four holes in each setup. In order to complete mechanical evaluation, fatigue and strength of the bone plate construct was assessed by using the Material Testing System (858 Mini Bionix) to simulate cyclic loading and axial failure tests. The cyclic failure test was conducted on the two group bone specimens for 4000 cycles with the cyclic loading being approximately 240N. All bone plate and bone screw setups passed cyclic loading without any problem or failures. The axial failure test was completed by conducting an axial compression force with MTS’s run rate of 0.1mm/sec and was performed on the two bone groups. The average maximum axial failure force was observed at 1064±188 (N) for Group 1 and 1446 ±467 (N) for Group 2. A two-tail t-test revealed that the strength of Group 2 was statistically significant. Thus, it was shown that Group 2’s configuration was the better option for long bone fixation.

Mercer on Mission was the spark for construction of a prosthetic that provides added force during ambulation for amputee’s utilizing a prosthetic. This study attempts to design a novel prosthetic foot that has a spring mechanism in the ankle region of the device that allows for added force that is provided back to the patient as he or she ambulates. The design hopes to provide the patient operating on it a reasonable amount of range of motion with respect to the movements at the ankle including dorsiflexion, plantarflexion, inversion, and eversion. Proper testing of the prosthetic was done through Tekscan F-scan®, which is a plantar pressure analysis software. The analysis of the data showed that when the patient ambulated with the Spring Ankle Prosthetic (SAP), the force vs. percentage graph showed a reduced stance time, indicating that the springs within the ankle region of the prosthetic are functioning properly and helping aid the patient in ambulation.

Interconnected set porous-calcium phosphate cement (set porous-CPC), which has fully interconnected pores could be an ideal bone substitute. In this study, set porous-CPC consisting of (

α

-tricalcium phosphate (

α

-TCP) beads and acidic calcium phosphate solution was developed and its basic setting reaction was studied. When (

α

-TCP beads were exposed to the acidic calcium phosphate solution, brushite (CaHPO4∙2H2O) was formed on the surface of the (

α

-TCP beads. The formed brushite crystals interlocked with each other, resulting in a setting reaction of (

α

-TCP microspheres within 10 min at 37°C. As a result of this setting reaction, a fully-interconnected calcium phosphate macroporous structure was obtained. The set porous-CPC were immersed into simulated body fluid (SBF) at 37oC for different immersion time, The result clearly showed that brushite surface layer transformed to apatite layer after 3 days immersion into SBF solution by dissolution-precipitation reaction. Since apatite layer show excellent tissue response, the set porous-CPC would be a promising biomaterial used as artificial bone substitutes, and as the scaffold for tissue engineering.