Octacalcium Phosphate Biomaterials: Past, Present and Future is a comprehensive study of octacalcium phosphate (OCP), a next generation biomaterial for bone regeneration. By focusing both on fundamental research and the use of OCP as a scaffold material, this book explores its potential to deliver improved clinical results. Early chapters in the book discuss OCP's effects on bone cell activity, cellular interactions and their role in bone formation, repair and replacement. Later chapters cover topics such as drug delivery, synthesis methodologies and future analysis techniques. This will be an invaluable and unique resource for researchers, clinicians, students and industrialists in the area of orthopedics and dentistry. OCP is known to be a pre-cursor to hydroxyapatite in the human biomineralization process that forms bone and tooth enamel. Research studies that have emerged in recent years suggest OCP's tremendous potential as a bioactive material.

Mathematical and numerical modelling of engineering problems in medicine is aimed at unveiling and understanding multidisciplinary interactions and processes and providing insights useful to clinical care and technology advances for better medical equipment and systems. When modelling medical problems, the engineer is confronted with multidisciplinary problems of electromagnetism, heat and mass transfer, and structural mechanics with, possibly, different time and space scales, which may raise concerns in formulating consistent, solvable mathematical models. Computational Medical Engineering presents a number of engineering for medicine problems that may be encountered in medical physics, procedures, diagnosis and monitoring techniques, including electrical activity of the heart, hemodynamic activity monitoring, magnetic drug targeting, bioheat models and thermography, RF and microwave hyperthermia, ablation, EMF dosimetry, and bioimpedance methods. The authors discuss the core approach methodology to pose and solve different problems of medical engineering, including essentials of mathematical modelling (e.g., criteria for well-posed problems); physics scaling (homogenization techniques); Constructal Law criteria in morphing shape and structure of systems with internal flows; computational domain construction (CAD and, or reconstruction techniques based on medical images); numerical modelling issues, and validation techniques used to ascertain numerical simulation results. In addition, new ideas and venues to investigate and understand finer scale models and merge them into continuous media medical physics are provided as case studies.

This book describes the current state of knowledge in the field of multi-scale ECM mechanics and mechanobiology with a focus on experimental and modelling studies in biomechanical characterization, advanced optical microscopy and imaging, as well as computational modeling. This book also discusses the scale dependency of ECM mechanics, translation of mechanical forces from tissue to cellular level, and advances and challenges in improving our understanding of cellular mechanotransduction in the context of living tissues and organisms.

Dendrimers are repeatedly branched and roughly spherical large molecules. They can be used in various medical applications, such as anticancer polymeric nanomedicines and nanocarriers, gene carriers and vectors in gene delivery, contrast agents for molecular imaging and vaccines against infectious diseases and cancer. The highly branched, multivalent nature and molecular architecture of dendrimers make them ideal tools for a variety of tissue engineering applications. This book describes different categories of dendrimers, their biomedical and physico-chemical applications as well as convergent and divergent syntheses, click chemistry and ligation strategies. It is a rich source of information for researchers in biochemistry and pharmacology working on drug development as well as for organic chemists who are engaged in synthesis of dendrimers.

Introduces both optical microscopy and medical imaging with an emphasis on recurring themes such as resolution and contrast to reinforce understanding. Includes many illustrations and boxed material that give more detailed explanations. Features hands-on activities and experiments. Provides end-of-chapter problems for self-study. Offers supplementary online materials including a solutions manual.

This book is the second of two volumes that offer a comprehensive, up-to-date account of current knowledge regarding high-density lipoprotein (HDL), the changes that occur in HDL under different conditions, the clinical applications of HDL, and means of enhancing HDL functionality. In this volume, the focus is on the improvement of HDL, enhancement of its functionality, and the use of HDL for therapeutic purposes. In the first section, up-to-date information is provided on such topics as the tumor regression-promoting and antidiabetic activities of reconstituted HDL containing V156K apolipoprotein A-I, the enhancement of HDL effects by high doses of vitamin C, the benefits derived from incorporation of growth hormones 1 and 2 into rHDL, and the biological functions of omega-3 linolenic acid in rHDL. The enhancement of HDL functionality by policosanol and the resultant benefits are thoroughly examined in a separate section. Readers will also find the latest information on clinical applications of HDL. Here, specific topics include the enhancement of adenoviral gene delivery and the delivery of rapamycin. In documenting the latest knowledge in this field, this volume will be of interest to both researchers and clinicians.

This book gathers selected studies on the industrial applications of glycoside hydrolases (GHs), presenting an updated classification of these enzymes, and discussing their structure, mechanisms, and various approaches to improve their catalytic efficiency. Further, it explains the various industrial applications of glycoside hydrolases in food, effluent treatment, biofuel production, and the paper and pulp industries. Lastly, the book provides a comparative analysis of glycoside hydrolases and discusses the role of metagenomics in the discovery of industrially important enzymes. As such it is a thought-provoking, instructive and informative resource for biochemists, enzymologists, molecular biologists and bioprocess technologists.

This handbook on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare consists of two volumes. The first volume is dedicated to advances and applications of AI methodologies in specific healthcare problems, while the second volume is concerned with general practicality issues and challenges and future prospects in the healthcare context. The advent of digital and computing technologies has created a surge in the development of AI methodologies and their penetration to a variety of activities in our daily lives in recent years. Indeed, researchers and practitioners have designed and developed a variety of AI-based systems to help advance health and well-being of humans. In this first volume, we present a number of latest studies in AI-based tools and techniques from two broad categories, viz., medical signal, image, and video processing as well as healthcare information and data analytics in Part 1 and Part 2, respectively. These selected studies offer readers practical knowledge and understanding pertaining to the recent advances and applications of AI in the healthcare sector.

This book introduces key fundamentals of microarray bioprinting, including the required chip platforms and associated instruments/devices, experimental protocols for cell printing and biochemical- and cell-based assays, and several example applications. Various bioprinting approaches that allow for the rapid testing of hundreds of different cell culture conditions in combinations on a single chip are discussed in detail. Also covered is high-content, 3D cell-based imaging assays of tissue functions on miniaturized tissue constructs for high-throughput, predictive screening of drug efficacy and toxicity. This is an ideal book for graduate and postgraduate students in the field of biomedical engineering as well as scientists in the pharmaceutical industry. This book also: Broadens readers' understanding of the principles of microarray bioprinting, chip platforms and associated instruments/devices, and surface chemistry for micropatterning of cells on the chip platform Covers the latest developments in printing cells in hydrogels and methods of gelation as well as printing other biological samples in aqueous solutions Illustrates the complete process for cell staining and high-content imaging of 3D cells on the chip and predicting human metabolism and toxicology on the chip

Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) Repair Strategies provides researchers the latest information on potential regenerative approaches to spinal cord injury, specifically focusing on therapeutic approaches that target regeneration, including cell therapies, controlled drug delivery systems, and biomaterials. Dr. Giuseppe Perale and Dr. Filippo Rossi lead a team of authoritative authors in academia and industry in this innovative reference on the field of regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. This book presents all the information readers need to understand the current and potential array of techniques, materials, applications and their benefits for spinal cord repair.

Computational biology drives discovery through its use of high-throughput informatics approaches. This book provides a road map of the current drug development process and how computational biology approaches play a critical role across the entire drug discovery pipeline. Through the use of previously unpublished, real-life case studies the impact of a range of computational approaches are discussed at various phases of the pipeline. Additionally, a focus section provides innovative visualisation approaches, from both the drug discovery process as well as from other fields that utilise large datasets, recognising the increasing use of such technology. Serving the needs of early career and more experienced scientists, this up-to-date reference provides an essential introduction to the process and background of drug discovery, highlighting how computational researchers can contribute to that pipeline.

This book describes the range of technologies that have been developed for diagnosing and assessing Parkinson's disease patients. Also presenting the latest studies providing insights into the changes to the neural system in Parkinson's disease, it is a valuable resource for neurologists, general practitioners and nurses. Further, the book highlights areas that require more research, and as such will appeal to researchers, biomedical engineers and clinicians.

Biomechanics of Coronary Atherosclerotic Plaque: From Model to Patient, First Edition, is the first comprehensive text to focus on important biomechanical studies conducted in the last decade that have increased our understanding of coronary atherosclerotic plaque initiation, growth, and rupture, as well as improving the design of medical devices and clinical interventions, including surgical procedures. The book provides students, researchers, engineers, clinicians, and interventional cardiologists with an overview of the main topics related to the biomechanics of atherosclerosis, in a single volume written by several experts in the field. This volume is part of the Biomechanics of Living Organs book series. The biomechanics of human soft tissues and organs has been an emerging research field since the publication of Y.C. Fung's original book series in the 1990s. The publication of such books entirely dedicated to a specific biomechanical subject is necessary to advance scientific research in the field of biomechanics and to transfer important knowledge to future generations. Therefore, this series of volumes on the biomechanics of living organs has been created. This series began in July 2017 with the publication of a first volume on the fundamentals of Hyperelastic Constitutive Laws for Finite Element Modeling of Living Organs. The current volume on the Biomechanics of Coronary Atherosclerotic Plaque, is the latest in this new series.

This book presents an overview of up-converting phosphor (UCP), including UCP preparation, development of the rapid detection strips and UCP industrialization. It also discusses the wide clinical applications of this technology, such as in food poisoning, infectious diseases, drug-abuse and disaster rescue, where rapid point-of-care testing is often critical. Conventional testing methods are mainly based on gold immunochromatography, which relies heavily on results being read with the naked eye. However, up-converting phosphor technology (UPT) employs UCP particles as labels for rapid target detection. Unlike other conventional fluorescence techniques, UCP is excited by infrared light and emitted visible light. This anti-stokes phenomenon provides this special label with significant advantages, including zero background detection, high resistance to environmental influences (e.g. pH, salts, sample contamination), high sensitivity and quantitative detection. Systematically summarizing UCP technology and its wide applications, this book is a valuable resource for researchers and technicians in the field.

The thesis focuses on the control of blood glucose devices and design of implantable devices, and offers valuable insights on diabetes mellitus and related physiology and treatments. Diabetes mellitus is a widespread chronic disease in the modern world that affects millions of people around the globe. In Singapore, one in ten of the population has diabetes, and the severity of the problem has prompted the country's prime minister to talk about the disease at the National Day Rally in 2017. Designing an artificial pancreas that can provide effective blood glucose control for individuals with diabetes is one of the most challenging engineering problems. The author reports on research into the development of an implantable artificial pancreas that can regulate blood glucose levels by delivering appropriate dosages of insulin when necessary. By sensing blood glucose and injecting insulin directly into the vein, the implantable device aims to remove delays that occur with subcutaneous blood glucose sensing and insulin delivery. Preliminary in-vitro and in-vivo experimental results suggest that the implantable device for blood glucose control could be a clinically viable alternative to pancreas transplant.

Biointegration of Medical Implant Materials, Second Edition, provides a unique and comprehensive review of recent techniques and research into material and tissue interaction and integration. New sections discuss soft tissue integration, with chapters on the biocompatibility of engineered stem cells, corneal tissue engineering, and vascular grafts. Other sections review tissue regeneration, inorganic nanoparticles for targeted drug delivery, alginate based drug delivery devices, and design considerations, with coverage of the biocompatibility of materials and their relevance to drug delivery and tissue engineering. With its distinguished editor and team of international contributors, this book is ideal for medical materials scientists and engineers in industry and academia.

This book gathers papers presented at the 2019 Movement, Health & Exercise (MoHE) Conference and International Sports Science Conference (ISSC). The theme of this year's conference was "Enhancing Health and Sports Performance by Design". The content covers (but is not limited to) the following topics: exercise science; human performance; physical activity & health; sports medicine; sports nutrition; management & sports studies; and sports engineering & technology.

Real-Time Data Analytics for Large-Scale Sensor Data covers the theory and applications of hardware platforms and architectures, the development of software methods, techniques and tools, applications, governance and adoption strategies for the use of massive sensor data in real-time data analytics. It presents the leading-edge research in the field and identifies future challenges in this fledging research area. The book captures the essence of real-time IoT based solutions that require a multidisciplinary approach for catering to on-the-fly processing, including methods for high performance stream processing, adaptively streaming adjustment, uncertainty handling, latency handling, and more.

The only book that covers in detail a broad range of cutting-edge topics within motor rehabilitation technology

Neural engineering is a discipline that uses engineering techniques to understand, repair, replace, enhance, or treat diseases of neural systems. This book describes state-of-the-art methods within this field, from brain-computer interfaces to spinal and cortical plasticity. Touching on electrode design, signal processing, the neurophysiology of movement, robotics, and much more, this innovative book presents the latest information for readers working in biomedical engineering.

Each section of "Introduction to Neural Engineering for Motor Rehabilitation "begins with an overview of techniques before moving on to provide information on the most recent findings. Topics include: INJURIES OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM--including diseases and injuries of the central nervous system leading to sensory-motor impairment; peripheral and spinal plasticity after nerve injuries; and motor control modules of human movement in health and diseaseSIGNAL DETECTION AND CONDITIONING--including progress in peripheral neural interfaces; multi-modal, multi-site neuronal recordings for brain research; methods for non-invasive electroencephalograph detection; wavelet denoising and conditioning of neural recordingsFUNCTION REPLACEMENT (Prostheses and Orthosis)--including an introduction to upper limb prosthetics; controlling prostheses using peripheral nerve stimulation invasive interfaces for amputees; and exoskeletal robotics for functional substitutionFUNCTION RESTORATION--including methods for movement restoration; advanced user interfaces for upper limb functional electrical stimulation; and selectivity of peripheral neural interfacesREHABILITATION THROUGH NEUROMODULATION--including brain-computer interface applied to motor recovery after brain injury; functional electrical therapy of upper extremities; and robotic assisted neurorehabilitation

"Introduction to Neural Engineering for Motor Rehabilitation" is an important textbook and reference for graduate students and researchers in the fields of biomedical and neural engineering.

Biopolymer-Based Formulations: Biomedical and Food Applications presents the latest advances in the synthesis and characterization of advanced biopolymeric formulations and their state-of-the-art applications across biomedicine and food science. Sections cover the fundamentals, applications, future trends, environmental, ethical and medical considerations, and biopolymeric architectures that are organized in nano, micro and macro scales. The final section of the book focuses on novel applications and recent developments. This book is an essential resource for researchers, scientists and advanced students in biopolymer science, polymer science, polymer chemistry, polymer composites, plastics engineering, biomaterials, materials science, biomedical engineering, and more. It will also be of interest to R&D professionals, scientists and engineers across the plastics, food, biomedical and pharmaceutical industries.

Medical Data Sharing, Harmonization and Analytics serves as the basis for understanding the rapidly evolving field of medical data harmonization combined with the latest cloud infrastructures for storing the harmonized (shared) data. Chapters cover the latest research and applications on data sharing and protection in the medical domain, cohort integration through the recent advancements in data harmonization, cloud computing for storing and securing the patient data, and data analytics for effectively processing the harmonized data.

This book is the first comprehensive overview of the emerging field of cuffless blood pressure monitoring. Increasing clinical evidence proves that longitudinal measurements of blood pressure allow for earlier detection and better management of multiple medical conditions and for superior prediction of cardiovascular events. Unfortunately, today's clinical and industry standards for blood pressure monitoring still require the inflation of a pneumatic cuff around a limb each time a measurement is taken. Over the last decades clinicians, scientists and device manufacturers have explored the feasibility of technologies that reduce or even completely eliminate the need of cuffs, initiating the era of cuffless blood pressure monitoring. Among the existing literature, this book is intended to be a practical guide to navigate across this emerging field. The chapters of the handbook have been elaborated by experts and key opinion leaders in the domain, and will guide the reader along the clinical, scientific, technical, and regulatory aspects of cuffless blood pressure monitoring.

The book reports on advanced topics in the areas of wearable robotics research and practice. It focuses on new technologies, including neural interfaces, soft wearable robots, sensors and actuators technologies, and discusses important regulatory challenges, as well as clinical and ethical issues. Based on the 4th International Symposium on Wearable Robotics, WeRob2018, held October 16-20, 2018, in Pisa, Italy, the book addresses a large audience of academics and professionals working in government, industry, and medical centers, and end-users alike. It provides them with specialized information and with a source of inspiration for new ideas and collaborations. It discusses exemplary case studies highlighting practical challenges related to the implementation of wearable robots in a number of fields. One of the focus is on clinical applications, which was encouraged by the colocation of WeRob2018 with the International Conference on Neurorehabilitation, INCR2018. Additional topics include space applications and assistive technologies in the industry. The book merges together the engineering, medical, ethical and political perspectives, thus offering a multidisciplinary, timely snapshot of the field of wearable technologies.

This book, written by key researchers in the field, provides a comprehensive analysis and overview of the state of the art of plasma-based cancer therapy. Recent progress in atmospheric plasmas has led to non-thermal or cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) devices with ion temperatures close to room temperature. In contrast to many existing anti-cancer approaches, CAP is a selective anti-cancer modality which has demonstrated significant potential in cancer therapy.Written by a global, cross-disciplinary group of leading researchers, this book covers basic theory, generation, diagnostics, and simulation of cold atmospheric plasma, as well as their clinical application in cancer therapy, immunotherapy, and future outlook, giving a complete picture of the field. It is meant for a broad audience, from students to engineers and scientists, who are interested in the emerging world of plasma medical applications. It presents recent advances, primary challenges, and future directions of this exciting, cutting-edge field.

High-Density Integrated Electrocortical Neural Interfaces provides a basic understanding, design strategies and implementation applications for electrocortical neural interfaces with a focus on integrated circuit design technologies. A wide variety of topics associated with the design and application of electrocortical neural implants are covered in this book. Written by leading experts in the field- Dr. Sohmyung Ha, Dr. Chul Kim, Dr. Patrick P. Mercier and Dr. Gert Cauwenberghs -the book discusses basic principles and practical design strategies of electrocorticography, electrode interfaces, signal acquisition, power delivery, data communication, and stimulation. In addition, an overview and critical review of the state-of-the-art research is included. These methodologies present a path towards the development of minimally invasive brain-computer interfaces capable of resolving microscale neural activity with wide-ranging coverage across the cortical surface.