This book contains the selected papers of the Sixth International Workshop on Medical and Service Robots (MESROB 2018), held in Cassino, Italy, in 2018. The main topics of the workshop include: design of medical devices, kinematics and dynamics for medical robotics, exoskeletons and prostheses, anthropomorphic hands , therapeutic robots and rehabilitation, cognitive robots, humanoid and service robots, assistive robots and elderly assistance, surgical robots, human-robot interfaces, haptic devices, and medical treatments.

Methods of Mathematical Modeling: Infectious Diseases presents computational methods related to biological systems and their numerical treatment via mathematical tools and techniques. Edited by renowned experts in the field, Dr. Hari Mohan Srivastava, Dr. Dumitru Baleanu, and Dr. Harendra Singh, the book examines advanced numerical methods to provide global solutions for biological models. These results are important for medical professionals, biomedical engineers, mathematicians, scientists and researchers working on biological models with real-life applications. The authors deal with methods as well as applications, including stability analysis of biological models, bifurcation scenarios, chaotic dynamics, and non-linear differential equations arising in biology. The book focuses primarily on infectious disease modeling and computational modeling of other real-world medical issues, including COVID-19, smoking, cancer and diabetes. The book provides the solution of these models so as to provide actual remedies.

This book presents an innovative concept for the realization of sensors based on a planar metamaterial microwave array and shows their application in biomedical analysis and treatment. The sensors are able to transduce the dielectric properties of materials in their direct vicinity into an electric signal. The specific array organization permits a simultaneous analysis of several materials using a single readout signal or a relative characterization of one material where information about its spatial distribution can be extracted. Two applications of the designed sensors are described here: the first is a cytological screening using micro fluidic technology, which shows that the sensors may be integrated into lab-on-chip technologies; the second application regards the use of the sensor in both the analysis and treatment of organic tissues. The developed sensor is able not only to screen the tissues for abnormalities, but also, by changing the applied signals, to perform thermal ablation and treat the abnormalities in a highly focused way. Thus, the research described in this book represents a considerable advancement in the field of biomedical microwave sensing.

Swamy Laxminarayan was an outstanding researcher active in many diverse fields of science and technology. This liber amicorum in memory of Swamy Laxminarayan collects Medical and Biological Engineering and Informatics contributions to the Safety and Security of Individuals and Society. The authors are renowned scientists and the aim of their writing is to recall the enormous personal and scientific achievement of Swamy Laxminarayan.

The objective of this book is to provide up-to-date coverage of some of the emerging developments in the field of integrated DNA biochips. It will prove a useful source of information for researchers in the field and for those who are just entering the field of biochip research.

The book presents a new, powerful model of neuronal networks, consisting of a three-dimensional neuronal culture in which 3D neuronal networks are coupled to micro-electrode-arrays (MEAs). It discusses the main advantages of the three-dimensional system compared to its two-dimensional counterpart, and shows that the network dynamics, recorded during both spontaneous and stimulated activity, differs between the two models, with the 3D system being better able to emulate the in vivo behaviour of neural networks. The book offers an extensive analysis of the system, from the theoretical background, to its design and applications in neuro-pharmacological studies. Moreover, it includes a concise yet comprehensive introduction to both 2D and 3D neuronal networks coupled to MEAs, and discusses the advantages, limitations and challenges of their applications as cellular and tissue-like in vitro experimental model systems.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the cascade of events activated in the body following the implant of biomaterials and devices. It is one of the first books to shed light on the role of the host immune response on therapeutic efficacy, and reviews the state-of-the-art for both basic science and medical applications. The text examines advantages and disadvantages of the use of synthetic versus natural biomaterials. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of biomimicry in the development of smart strategies able to modulate infiltrating immune cells, thus reducing side effects (such as acute and chronic inflammation, fibrosis and/or implant rejection) and improving the therapeutic outcome (healing, tissue restoration). Current cutting-edge approaches in tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and nanomedicine offer the latest insights into the role immunomodulation in improving tolerance during tissue transplant in the treatment of orthopaedic, pancreatic, and hepatic diseases. "Immune Response to Implanted Materials and Devices" is intended for an audience of graduate students and professional researchers in both academia and industry interested in the development of smart strategies, which are able to exploit the self-healing properties of the body and achieve functional tissue restoration.

Human Orthopaedic Biomechanics: Fundamentals, Devices and Applications covers a wide range of biomechanical topics and fields, ranging from theoretical issues, mechanobiology, design of implants, joint biomechanics, regulatory issues and practical applications. The book teaches the fundamentals of physiological loading and constraint conditions at various parts of the musculoskeletal system. It is an ideal resource for teaching and education in courses on orthopedic biomechanics, and for engineering students engaged in these courses. In addition, all bioengineers who have an interest in orthopedic biomechanics will find this title useful as a reference, particularly early career researchers and industry professionals. Finally, any orthopedic surgeons looking to deepen their knowledge of biomechanical aspects will benefit from the accessible writing style in this title.

The computational modelling of deformations has been actively studied for the last thirty years. This is mainly due to its large range of applications that include computer animation, medical imaging, shape estimation, face deformation as well as other parts of the human body, and object tracking. In addition, these advances have been supported by the evolution of computer processing capabilities, enabling realism in a more sophisticated way. This book encompasses relevant works of expert researchers in the field of deformation models and their applications. The book is divided into two main parts. The first part presents recent object deformation techniques from the point of view of computer graphics and computer animation. The second part of this book presents six works that study deformations from a computer vision point of view with a common characteristic: deformations are applied in real world applications. The primary audience for this work are researchers from different multidisciplinary fields, such as those related with Computer Graphics, Computer Vision, Computer Imaging, Biomedicine, Bioengineering, Mathematics, Physics, Medical Imaging and Medicine.

This book is the first to summarize new technologies for engineered cell manipulation. The contents focus on control of cellular functions by nanomaterials and control of three-dimensional cell-cell interactions. Control of cellular functions is important for cell differentiation, maturation, and activation, which generally are controlled by the addition of soluble cytokines or growth factors into cell culture dishes. Target antigen molecules can be efficiently delivered to the cytosol of the dendritic cells using the nanoparticle technique described here, and cellular functions such as dendritic cell maturation can be controlled easily and with precision. This book describes basic preparation of the nanoparticles, activation control of dendritic cells, immune function control, and in vivo application for various vaccination systems. The second type of control,that of cell-cell interaction, is important for tissue engineering in order to develop three-dimensional cellular constructs. To achieve in vitro engineering of three-dimensional human tissue constructs, cell-cell interaction must be controlled in three dimensions, but typical biological cell manipulation technique cannot accomplish this task. An engineered cell manipulation technique is necessary. In this book the authors describe the fabrication of nanofilms onto cell surfaces, development of three-dimensional cellular multilayers, and various applications of the cellular multilayers as three-dimensional human models. This important work will be highly informative for researchers and students in the fields of materials science, polymer science, biomaterials, medicinal science, nanotechnology, biotechnology, and biology.

Responding to the growing demand for minimally invasive procedures, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the current technological advances in image-guided surgery. It blends the expertise of both engineers and physicians, offering the latest findings and applications. Detailed color images guide readers through the latest techniques, including cranial, orthopedic, prostrate, and endovascular interventions.

This book features a special subsection of Nanomedicine, an application of nanotech nology to achieve breakthroughs in healthcare. It exploits the improved and often novel physical, chemical and biological properties of materials only existent at the nanometer scale. As a consequence of small scale, nanosystems in most cases are efficiently uptaken by cells and appear to act at the intracellular level. Nanotechnology has the potential to improve diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of diseases, and includes targeted drug delivery and regenerative medicine; it creates new tools and methods that impact sig nificantly upon existing conservative practices. This volume is a collection of authoritative reviews. In the introductory section we define the field (intracellular delivery). Then, the fundamental routes of nanode livery devices, cellular uptake, types of delivery devices, particularly in terms of localized cellular delivery, both for small drug molecules, macromolecular drugs and genes; at the academic and applied levels, are covered. The following section is dedicated to enhancing delivery via special targeting motifs followed by the introduction of different types of intracellular nanodelivery devices (e.g. a brief description of their chemistry) and ways of producing these different devices. Finally, we put special emphasis on particular disease states and on other biomedical applications, whilst diagnostic and sensing issues are also included. Intracellular delivery / therapy is a highly topical which will stir great inter est. Intracellular delivery enables much more efficient drug delivery since the impact (on different organelles and sites) is intracellular as the drug is not supplied externally within the blood stream. There is great potential for targeted delivery with improved localized delivery and efficacy.

Proceedings of the Third International Symposium on Frontiers in Biomedical Polymers including Polymer Therapeutics: From Laboratory to Clinical Practice, held May 23-27, 1999, in Shiga, Japan. This book focuses on the progress and unique discoveries in the interdisciplinary scientific and technological area of biomedical application of polymers. The topics include polymeric materials for biomedical and pharmaceutical applications, as well as polymeric materials in therapeutics.

This book covers the principles of advanced 3D fabrication techniques, stem cells and biomaterials for neural engineering. Renowned contributors cover topics such as neural tissue regeneration, peripheral and central nervous system repair, brain-machine interfaces and in vitro nervous system modeling. Within these areas, focus remains on exciting and emerging technologies such as highly developed neuroprostheses and the communication channels between the brain and prostheses, enabling technologies that are beneficial for development of therapeutic interventions, advanced fabrication techniques such as 3D bioprinting, photolithography, microfluidics, and subtractive fabrication, and the engineering of implantable neural grafts.There is a strong focus on stem cells and 3D bioprinting technologies throughout the book, including working with embryonic, fetal, neonatal, and adult stem cells and a variety of sophisticated 3D bioprinting methods for neural engineering applications. There is also a strong focus on biomaterials, including various conductive biomaterials and biomimetic nanomaterials such as carbon-based nanomaterials and engineered 3D nanofibrous scaffolds for neural tissue regeneration. Finally, two chapters on in vitro nervous system models are also included, which cover this topic in the context of studying physiology and pathology of the human nervous system, and for use in drug discovery research. This is an essential book for biomedical engineers, neuroscientists, neurophysiologists, and industry professionals.

Genetic engineering has already produced impressive results in biological research. The gene transfer and cloning methods are changing biotechnology into an innovative activity with potentially great impact on health care, on chemical, pharmaceutical and food industries, on the agricultural and the natural environment. It has thus attracted a great deal of attention from the public and regulatory authorities. There is a need to reconcile technological progress with safety assurance and civic acceptance. Technologies are regulated according to the inherent risk evaluated, through criteria based upon existing scientific evidence, new rigorous information, and/or records of safe applications and good performances. This should also apply to biotechnology. The title Scientific-Technical Backgrounds for Biotechnology Regulation is only intended to indicate that regulatory provisions for biotechnological activities should be in agreement and not in open contradiction with scientific knowledge and established technological experience.

This book investigates the microstructural and mechanical properties of titanium-tantalum (TiTa) alloy formed using selective laser melting (SLM). TiTa has potential orthopaedic biomedical applications thanks to its high strength to modulus ratio. However, because it is difficult to obtain, it is still not widely used. The book describes how SLM is utilized to form this alloy, and provides a better understanding of the SLM process in porous lattice structure fabrication and its control through statistical modelling.

This thesis addresses computation fluid dynamics modelling of aortic dissection (AD), in order to generate in silico diagnostic information and assess 'virtual surgery' outcomes. The thesis introduces several important advances in the modelling of aortic dissection and lays essential groundwork for further development of this technology. The work thesis represents a unique and major step forward in our understanding of AD using a patient-specific, systematic and coherent simulation approach, and is currently the most advanced work available on AD.

Respiratory motion causes an important uncertainty in radiotherapy planning of the thorax and upper abdomen. The main objective of radiation therapy is to eradicate or shrink tumor cells without damaging the surrounding tissue by delivering a high radiation dose to the tumor region and a dose as low as possible to healthy organ tissues. Meeting this demand remains a challenge especially in case of lung tumors due to breathing-induced tumor and organ motion where motion amplitudes can measure up to several centimeters. Therefore, modeling of respiratory motion has become increasingly important in radiation therapy. With 4D imaging techniques spatiotemporal image sequences can be acquired to investigate dynamic processes in the patient's body. Furthermore, image registration enables the estimation of the breathing-induced motion and the description of the temporal change in position and shape of the structures of interest by establishing the correspondence between images acquired at different phases of the breathing cycle. In radiation therapy these motion estimations are used to define accurate treatment margins, e.g. to calculate dose distributions and to develop prediction models for gated or robotic radiotherapy. In this book, the increasing role of image registration and motion estimation algorithms for the interpretation of complex 4D medical image sequences is illustrated. Different 4D CT image acquisition techniques and conceptually different motion estimation algorithms are presented. The clinical relevance is demonstrated by means of example applications which are related to the radiation therapy of thoracic and abdominal tumors. The state of the art and perspectives are shown by an insight into the current field of research. The book is addressed to biomedical engineers, medical physicists, researchers and physicians working in the fields of medical image analysis, radiology and radiation therapy.

Up to 40 volumes are planned for this concise monograph series, which focuses on the implementation of various engineering principles in the conception, design, development, analysis and operation of biomedical, biotechnological and nanotechnology systems and applications. In this monograph, the authors discuss the current progress in the medical application of impedimetric biosensors, along with the key challenges in the field. First, a general overview of biosensor development, structure and function is presented, followed by a detailed discussion of impedimetric biosensors and the principles of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Next, the current state-of-the art in terms of the science and technology underpinning impedance-based biosensors is reviewed in detail. The layer-by-layer construction of impedimetric sensors is described, including the design of electrodes, their nano-modification, transducer surface functionalisation and the attachment of different bioreceptors. The current challenges of translating lab-based biosensor platforms into commercially-available devices that function with real patient samples at the POC are presented; this includes a consideration of systems integration, microfluidics and biosensor regeneration. The final section of this monograph describes case studies of successful impedance-based biosensors for the detection of a range of analytes from small molecules up to whole microorganisms. Finally, the authors put forward future perspectives for the clinical applications of impedimetric biosensors.

Reviews different machine learning and deep learning techniques with a biomedical perspective Provides the relevant case studies that demonstrate applicability of different AI techniques Explain different kinds of inputs like various image modalities, biomedical signals types, etc. Covers the latest trends of AI-based biomedical domains including IoT, drug discovery, biomechanics, robotics, electronic health records, etc. Discusses the research challenges and opportunities in AI and biomedical domain

This book reviews fundamental advances in the use of metallic biomaterials to reconstruct hard tissues and blood vessels. It also covers the latest advances in representative metallic biomaterials, such as stainless steels, Co-Cr alloys, titanium and its alloys, zirconium, tantalum and niobium based alloys. In addition, the latest findings on corrosion, cytotoxic and allergic problems caused by metallic biomaterials are introduced. The book offers a valuable reference source for researchers, graduate students and clinicians working in the fields of materials, surgery, dentistry, and mechanics. Mitsuo Niinomi, PhD, D.D.Sc., is a Professor at the Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University, Japan. Takayuki Narushima, PhD, is a Professor at the Department of Materials Processing, Tohoku University, Japan. Masaaki Nakai, PhD, is an Associate Professor at the Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University, Japan.

Nanoscale structures and materials have been explored in many biological applications because of their novel and impressive physical and chemical properties. Such properties allow remarkable opportunities to study and interact with complex biological processes. This book analyses the state of the art of piezoelectric nanomaterials and introduces their applications in the biomedical field. Despite their impressive potentials, piezoelectric materials have not yet received significant attention for bio-applications. This book shows that the exploitation of piezoelectric nanoparticles in nanomedicine is possible and realistic, and their impressive physical properties can be useful for several applications, ranging from sensors and transducers for the detection of biomolecules to sensible substrates for tissue engineering or cell stimulation. The book also focuses on the preparation, characterization and bio-applications of piezoelectric nanoparticles.

This text is an introduction to electrophysiology, following a quantitative approach. The first chapter summarizes much of the mathematics required in the following chapters. The second chapter presents a very concise overview of the general principles of electrical fields and current flow, mostly es tablished in physical science and engineering, but also applicable to biolog ical environments. The following five chapters are the core material of this text. They include descriptions of how voltages come to exist across membranes and how these are described using the Nernst and Goldman equations (Chapter 3), an examination of the time course of changes in membrane voltages that produce action potentials (Chapter 4), propagation of action potentials down fibers (Chapter 5), the response of fibers to artificial stimuli such as those used in pacemakers (Chapter 6), and the voltages and currents produced by these active processes in the surrounding extracellular space (Chapter 7). The subsequent chapters present more detailed material about the application of these principles to the study of cardiac and neural electrophysiology, and include a chapter on recent developments in mem brane biophysics. The study of electrophysiology has progressed rapidly because of the precise, delicate, and ingenious experimental studies of many investigators. The field has also made great strides by unifying the numerous experimental observations through the development of increasingly accurate theoretical concepts and mathematical descriptions. The application of these funda mental principles has in turn formed a basis for the solution of many different electrophysiological problems."

This two-volume set focuses on the interface between physiologic mechanisms and diagnostic human engineering. Today numerous biomedical sensors are commonplace in clinical practice. The registered biosignals reflect mostly vital physiologic phenomena. In order to adequately apply biomedical sensors and reasonably interpret the corresponding biosignals, a proper understanding of the involved physiologic phenomena, their influence on the registered biosignals, and the technology behind the sensors is necessary. The first volume is devoted to the interface between physiologic mechanisms and arising biosignals, whereas the second volume is focussed on the interface between biosignals and biomedical sensors. The physiologic mechanisms behind the biosignals are described from the basic cellular level up to their advanced mutual coordination level during sleep. The arising biosignals are discussed within the scope of vital physiologic phenomena to foster their understanding and comprehensive analysis.

The Most Comprehensive and Cutting-Edge Guide to Statistical Applications in Biomedical Research

With the increasing use of biotechnology in medical research and the sophisticated advances in computing, it has become essential for practitioners in the biomedical sciences to be fully educated on the role statistics plays in ensuring the accurate analysis of research findings. Statistical Advances in the Biomedical Sciences explores the growing value of statistical knowledge in the management and comprehension of medical research and, more specifically, provides an accessible introduction to the contemporary methodologies used to understand complex problems in the four major areas of modern-day biomedical science: clinical trials, epidemiology, survival analysis, and bioinformatics.

Composed of contributions from eminent researchers in the field, this volume discusses the application of statistical techniques to various aspects of modern medical research and illustrates how these methods ultimately prove to be an indispensable part of proper data collection and analysis. A structural uniformity is maintained across all chapters, each beginning with an introduction that discusses general concepts and the biomedical problem under focus and is followed by specific details on the associated methods, algorithms, and applications. In addition, each chapter provides a summary of the main ideas and offers a concluding remarks section that presents novel ideas, approaches, and challenges for future research.

Complete with detailed references and insight on the future directions of biomedical research, Statistical Advances in the Biomedical Sciences provides vital statistical guidance to practitioners in the biomedical sciences while also introducing statisticians to new, multidisciplinary frontiers of application. This text is an excellent reference for graduate- and PhD-level courses in various areas of biostatistics and the medical sciences and also serves as a valuable tool for medical researchers, statisticians, public health professionals, and biostatisticians.