DCBIOSTEC 2019 Abstracts

Short Papers
Short Papers
Paper Nr: 1
Title:

Safety-related Studies on Non-Invasive Biomedical Signals and Its Aptness Usage in Design of Fault Tolerant Multimodal Human Health Monitoring System
Authors:

L. V. R. Prasada Raju, Madhubabu Anumukonda and Shubhajit Roy Chowdhury
Abstract: Non-invasive Biomedical signals sensing and measured vital signs monitoring is critically significant for patients monitored in intensive care units(ICU) at hospital environments. Typically, nurses do periodic measures & record the primary vital signs and attentive to all types of alarms generated by the monitoring instrument. At critical times, the problem of false & insignificant alarms may deviate the health assessment of a patient, which lead to unnecessary additional medication to a patient or a patient death and this suggests improving the device design strategy for patient safety by reduction of insignificant alarms. This paper presents, the aptness usage of safety related architectures in design of fault tolerant multimodal human health monitoring systems with safe de-gradable mechanism for monitoring authentic measurements of health parameters. This design approach investigations and evaluations is to improve the safety features in a non-invasive medical diagnostic system, by addressing the current challenges like, effective removal of single point of failures (SPOF) and reducing the fault alarms. An experimental, Cardiac health monitoring system (CHMS) has been developed using configured 2oo2- (two out of two logic) safety architecture having two non-redundant diverse channels along with a fault tolerant de-gradable safe function. This approach evaluation, confirms reduction of SPOF and perform the functional safe operation by checking the minimum two working diverse channels for triggering the safe output. The CHMS uses sensors PCG & ECG, and concurrently computes vital heartrate parameter in each diverse channel. The Pearson’s coefficient of correlation method is used to correlate the measured heartrate values from these individual sensors for high degree of relationship (rAB> +0.5). The resultant output is used in the safe function and confirms near reduction of fault alarms along with near uninterrupted heart rate monitoring with respect to 5 people being studied.
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Paper Nr: 2
Title:

Design and Development of Parallel Biosensing System for Personalized Chemotherapy Treatment
Authors:

Ahmad Fairuzabadi Mohd Mansor, Anis Nordin, Kian Liang Goh, Soon Hin How, Yumi Zuhanis Has-Yun Hashim and Mardhiah Mohammad
Abstract: Cancer treatment, especially chemotherapy can cause very painful side effects such as nausea, fatigue, diarrhoea and nerve damage. Efficient treatment of cancer is when the most appropriate drug and dosage is given to patients' such that it increases their disease-free survival rates but minimizes pain. Currently, oncologists subject cancer patients to a standard chemotherapeutic regimen based on the type and grade of tumour. However, tumour behaviours are unpredictable and are often different for each individual patient. Personalized studies predicting a patient's response to chemotherapeutic treatment are rarely done since it involves tedious end-point measurements and drug preparation. Usage of personalized biosensors, where cultured cancer cells from each patient are tested with different chemotherapy agents can change this. This allows clinicians to predict the best chemotherapy agent or combination of agents that are likely to be successful against the patient’s tumours without subjecting patients to ineffective therapy, increasing clinical response and minimizing adverse effects. In this research, a biosensing system based on Electrical Cell-Substrate Impedance Sensing (ECIS) concept will be designed and developed to monitor adhesion, proliferation and death of cancer cells in vitro due to exposure to chemotherapy drugs. Chemosensitivity analysis will be performed using the developed impedance biosensing system by correlating the response of cell samples towards several chemotherapy regimens. A comparison will be made between tests conducted using biosensors and the actual chemotherapy treatment prescribed to patients.
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Paper Nr: 3
Title:

The Mindfulness Meditation Effect on Brain Electrical Activity: Stress Assessment, Concentration State and Quality of Life
Authors:

Pedro Morais and Carla Quintão
Abstract: Being healthy is much more than not being sick. It is essentially living day-to-day under a physical and mental well-being. In Europe a large part of the population suffers from depression, anxiety or stress. This public health problem needs urgent treatment for which the individual's psychic self-regulation can respond. The proposed alternative for improving quality of life is an approach to Mindfulness meditation. It is hoped that the beneficial effect of this practice in a continuous way, living the present in "mindfulness", contributes to improve the individual mental state releasing from a depressive past effect or from a future wrapped in anxiety. Based on visual stimuli, concentration test and stress-inducing challenges, 30 individuals are evaluated at regular intervals during 8 weeks of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course. Physiological signals are recorded longitudinally through EEG, ECG and EDA. At the same time, each individual completes three inquiries assessing quality of life (WHOQOL), profile mood state (POMS) and depression, anxiety and stress scale (DASS). Applying the neurophysiologic processing and classification data, with synchronous sources isolation, it is intended to verify functional changes that occur in the pre-frontal cortex. This results will inferring that it is possible to change the cerebral electrical activity with the thought. At the same time, it is expected a slowed heart/sweating rate and an increase in the ability to concentrate, as well as a significant improvement in the individual emotional control response. The current PhD study in Biomedical Engineering intends to show that the Mindfulness meditation practice, being "here and now", promotes a healthy mental health, featured by attention self-regulation and the decrease of anxiety, depression or stress. It can be used as a promising treatment for clinical disorders affecting a large part of the population.
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Paper Nr: 4
Title:

Design and Characterization of Synthetic Biodegradable Films for Soft Tissue Engineering
Authors:

Sofia Ribeiro, Emanuel M. Fernandes, Manuela E. Gomes, Rui L. Reis, Yves Bayon and Dimitrios I. Zeugolis
Abstract: To repair soft tissue, it is vital to ensure that the biomaterial is able to mimic the complex elasticity of the native tissue. Substrate stiffness has a huge influence on cell physiology and behaviour. The present study presents a set of polymeric films as initial support matrix of cells. A range of synthetic biodegradable polymers was selected according to the physico-chemical intrinsic properties of aliphatic polymers. They have similar chemistry (absorbable polyesters made from lactic acid, glycolic acid, trimethylene carbonate, dioxanone & β-caprolactone), however show different mechanical and degradation properties. The films were manufactured by thermal presser and then characterized by scanning electron microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The mechanical properties of the films were assessed by uniaxial tensile tests in wet conditions and also by atomic force microscopy. In vitro assays were performed to assess the cell cytocompatibility, proliferation and differentiation potential of the films. The mechanical properties of the materials are within the range intended for musculoskeletal tissue repair. Biological assays showed good cell adhesion, cell proliferation and cell viability. In the future, the combined effect of stiffness and topography will be assessed on cell phenotype maintenance.
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