Lebenswissenschaften und Ethik
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Static pelvic tilt impacts functional cup position in total hip arthroplasty (THA). In the current study we investigated the effect of kinematic pelvic changes on cup position. In the course of a prospective controlled trial postoperative 3D-computed tomography (CT) and gait analysis before and 6 and 12 months after THA were obtained in 60 patients. Kinematic pelvic motion during gait was measured using Anybody Modeling System. By fusion with 3D-CT, the impact of kinematic pelvic tilt alterations on cup anteversion and inclination was calculated. Furthermore, risk factors correlating with high pelvic mobility were evaluated. During gait a high pelvic range of motion up to 15.6° exceeding 5° in 61.7% (37/60) of patients before THA was found. After surgery, the pelvis tilted posteriorly by a mean of 4.0 ± 6.6° (p < .001). The pelvic anteflexion led to a mean decrease of −1.9 ± 2.2° (p < .001) for cup inclination and −15.1 ± 6.1° (p < .001) for anteversion in relation to the anterior pelvic plane (APP). Kinematic pelvic changes resulted in a further change up to 2.3° for inclination and up to 12.3° for anteversion. In relation to the preoperative situation differences in postoperative cup position ranged from −4.4 to 4.6° for inclination and from −7.8 to 17.9° for anteversion, respectively. Female sex (p < .001) and normal body weight (p < .001) correlated with high alterations in pelvic tilt. Kinematic pelvic changes highly impact cup anteversion in THA. Surgeons using the APP as reference should aim for a higher anteversion of about 15° due to the functional anteflexion of the pelvis during gait.
Embodiment theories have proposed a reciprocal relationship between emotional state and bodily reactions. Besides large body postures, recent studies have found emotions to affect rather subtle bodily expressions, such as slumped or upright sitting posture. This study investigated back muscle activity as an indication of an effect of positive and negative emotions on the sitting position. The electromyography (EMG) activity of six back muscles was recorded in 31 healthy subjects during exposure to positive and negative affective pictures. A resting period was used as a control condition. Increased muscle activity patterns in the back were found during the exposure to negative emotional stimuli, which was mainly measured in the lumbar and thorax regions. The positive emotion condition caused no elevated activity. The findings show that negative emotions lead to increased differential muscle activity in the back and thus corroborate those of previous research that emotion affects subtle bodily expressions.
In this paper we describe a proposed framework for Cooperative Adaptive Personalized Education for Life-long Learning and Activation (CAPELLA). CAPELLA comprises four models: A Knowledge Organization Model, a Learning Process Model, a Community Collaboration Model and a Gaming Model. The underlying pedagogical approach is based on the four pillars of learning: Learning to know, learning to do, learning to collaborate and learning to be. Based on these models and principles, CAPELLA provides a theoretical framework that may assist IT developers to develop state-of-the-art educational platforms and advanced learning applications. Using an example of a UML Diagramming Workshop we demonstrate how CAPELLA incorporates the principles of Adaptive Learning.
Writing, with no doubt, is besides reading a core competency which allows us to "exploit" knowledge in general. It also makes possible the exploration of software engineering's core issues. Especially within this context it is necessary to master the reading of complex texts as well as to be able to write in an appropriate academic expression. With regard to studies in software engineering this seems to be obvious, but in fact the opposite is the reality. Therefore measures to improve these skills seemed to be necessarily applied. At the Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule (OTH, University of Applied Sciences, Regensburg) a new format, the so called c*lab, was installed during the winter semester 2017. This was a course which followed the principle of "Writing Across the Curriculum" (WAC). Organized parallel to a lecture of learning how to program the language C, and addressing students of the first semester, the course was a complete voluntary offer in addition to the general standard courses and lectures of the faculty. Students who participated not only reflected on C and its principles, nor only on writing as a self purpose, but they also learned to express technical thoughts and ideas by the use of didactic methods. The idea to transfer also basic LTeX concepts to write a paper based on the IEEE bare_conf.tex-template were also planned. The course followed the idea of student's-centred learning. This paper presents the main structure, goals, and means of the c*lab, and the theory behind. It also embeds the course within the horizon of experiences of teaching writing skills at the Laboratory for Safe and Secure Systems (LaS 3 ) at the faculty of electronic and information engineering at the OTH Regensburg. First experiences have shown that participants increase writing skills and their idea of the importance of writing.
This paper deals with the validation and modification of the German questionnaire "F-Komp". In its original version, it was intended to measure university students' research competences. In the beginning of this study, there were only a few tools available which were reliable. For the purposes of this study, they were not suitable. At the same time, there was no validated version of the F-Komp available, which made the whole validation process for further usage necessary. This questionnaire is based on a structure, which consist of different skills and knowledge and is focused on measuring research competence in general. The validation and modification of the F-Komp is therefore the aim of our contribution as well as a revised version of the questionnaire. We proceeded an explorative factor and a reliability analysis to do a general evaluation of the tool. Some modifications were done in the questionnaire to make it more suitable to the requirements of technical oriented universities of applied sciences [5]. Our revised version is slightly longer and contains several items to gather data about the participants demographics. The modified questionnaire is based on a more appropriate factor structure. This structure is more practically oriented and pays attention to ethical issues. In future cases, this questionnaire will be used in research oriented courses to measure students' progress in acquiring the knowledge and methods which are necessary to perform as a scientist in different research areas.
Barrett's esophagus denotes a disorder in the digestive system that affects the esophagus' mucosal cells, causing reflux, and showing potential convergence to esophageal adenocarcinoma if not treated in initial stages. Thus, fast and reliable computer-aided diagnosis becomes considerably welcome. Nevertheless, such approaches usually suffer from imbalanced datasets, which can be addressed through Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). Such techniques generate realistic images based on observed samples, even though at the cost of a proper selection of its hyperparameters. Many works employed a class of nature-inspired algorithms called metaheuristics to tackle the problem considering distinct deep learning approaches. Therefore, this paper's main contribution is to introduce metaheuristic techniques to fine-tune GANs in the context of Barrett's esophagus identification, as well as to investigate the feasibility of generating high-quality synthetic images for early-cancer assisted identification.
The evaluation and assessment of Barrett’s esophagus is challenging for both expert and nonexpert endoscopists. However, the early diagnosis of cancer in Barrett’s esophagus is crucial for its prognosis, and could save costs. Pre-clinical and clinical studies on the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Barrett’s esophagus have shown promising results. In this review, we focus on the current challenges and future perspectives of implementing AI systems in the management of patients with Barrett’s esophagus.
Mental stress reduces performance and changes musculoskeletal loading in football-related movements
(2020)
Purpose:
Football players have a high risk of leg muscle injuries, especially when exposed to mental stress. Hence, this study investigated the musculoskeletal response of elite youth football players during highly dynamic movements under stress. The hypothesis is that mental stress reduces performance and changes the muscular forces exerted.
Materials & methods:
Twelve elite youth football players were subjected to mental stress while performing sports-specific change-of-direction movements. A modified version of the d2 attention test was used as stressor. The kinetics are computed using inverse dynamics. Running times and exerted forces of injury-prone muscles were analysed.
Results:
The stressor runs were rated more mentally demanding by the players (p = 0.006, rs = 0.37) with unchanged physical demand (p = 0.777, rs = 0.45). This resulted in 10% longer running times under stress (p < 0.001, d = −1.62). The musculoskeletal analysis revealed higher peak muscle forces under mental stress for some players but not for others.
Discussion:
The study shows that motion capture combined with musculoskeletal computation is suitable to analyse the effects of stress on athletes in highly dynamic movements. For the first time in football medicine, our data quantifies an association between mental stress with reduced football players’ performance and changes in muscle force.
Software process models are important in software projects in order to give the work of a project guidelines or a framework. However, teaching process models in higher education seems to be quite challenging. This has to do with the fact that undergraduates have no experience with projects in which process models are used. The theoretical mediation of process models is initially on a very abstract level. For this reason, we chose to combine two didactic approaches, namely problem-based learning and project work.
Various traditional plan-driven process models have been expanded in courses in Software Engineering with agile process models. The Scrum Framework is the focus of consideration of this paper.
Three Universities of Applied Sciences which cooperate in the EVELIN project focused on Scrum as a process model and integrated it into their teaching. Since the respective concepts of implementation differ, they should be presented and compared in this article to presents some practice approaches.
The goal of this presentation of is a uniform evaluation in order to obtain insights from different perspectives. This comparison can draw conclusions for possible necessary improvements of the respective concepts.
Experts predict that more IT-Security specialists will be needed in the coming years, but in current higher education in engineering disciplines, this topic is hardly addressed. Newer learning methods such as game-based learning (GBL) are enjoying an increasing popularity as their improvement in the education of subject specific topics can be proven by a variety of studies. We chose Educational Escape Rooms (EduER) as a GBL-tool to impart IT-Security in higher education of engineers. In our Escape Room (ER), the students try to solve puzzles and riddles with learned knowledge on the emphasis of cryptography. This paper first deals with a brief introduction to GBL and EduERs, followed by the design of our ER concept, containing different tasks with focus on the topic of cryptography. The tasks cover different cryptographic methods and hash algorithms, e.g. AES, RSA, SHA3. Afterwards the experimental study is presented. The study of the EduER was carried out with students from the bachelor's program in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at the OTH Regensburg. The participants were divided into three groups of 5 to 8 persons each. They received a briefing with important information, followed by the ER execution, a debriefing afterwards and an exam-like evaluation sheet to test their learned knowledge. Finally, first basic results are presented.
In the age of the Internet of Things, it is becoming increasingly important to integrate knowledge about the development of secure systems (Secure Software Engineering) into academic teaching. However, teaching IT Security and Secure Software Engineering to non-computer scientists is rare. Therefore, we focus our research on the integration of IT Security into software engineering education of non-computer scientists, particularly electrical engineers, by means of inductive teaching- and learning-arrangements. After collecting students' preconceptions of IT Security and Secure Software Engineering in prior work, this paper now contributes with a first mapping of these preconceptions with corresponding learning content as well as suitable inductive teaching methods to be able to create new lecture and exercise units and improve academic learning and teaching in both areas.
Background and Objectives
Older adults in long-term residential aged care experience loneliness and reduced quality of life (QoL). Biographical approaches use the recall of the past events to increase self-efficacy, promote acceptance, and improve QoL. The aim of the systematic review was to examine the effectiveness of biographical approaches in improving the QoL of older adults in long-term residential aged care.
Research Design and Methods
This systematic review was conducted in accordance with PRISMA guidelines, using databases Medline, CINAHL, and the Cochrane Library. A 2-phase search strategy was used to identify research literature relating to the use of biographical interventions. Narrative analysis was used to synthesize results.
Results
Twenty-one studies met inclusion criteria for this review, comprising both group and individual interventions. The findings were inconsistent. Subjective elements of QoL of older adults improved in a narrow majority of the studies. Of a total of 21 outcomes investigated in group interventions, 11 resulted in significant improvements in QoL. The 16 outcomes of the individual interventions resulted in 10 significant improvements. The most significant influence was observed in life satisfaction. Group reminiscence also had a particularly strong influence on self-esteem.
Discussion and Implications
Although benefits were observed, it remains unclear why some interventions led to improvements in subjective elements of QoL and others did not. Exploration of the participant perspective through qualitative data collection and more detailed description of interventions in future studies could lead to a better understanding of the treatment components that are related to improved outcomes for older adults.
Background
Older adults in care facilities face a high risk of experiencing depression. The impact that early interventions like biographical work have on the quality of life for older adults in such facilities is unknown.
Aim
To develop and evaluate a tablet-supported intervention for biographical work in long-term residential aged care to increase the quality of life for older adults.
Design
The study will be conducted in a randomized pretest–posttest control group design with follow-up testing in group and single settings. Participants will be randomized to the experimental intervention (tablet-supported biographic work) or the control intervention (planned tablet-supported game playing), each guided by senior volunteers. A total of 80 residents and 16 volunteers will be recruited. The primary outcome for the residents and volunteers will be quality of life as measured with the World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment-for older adults. Secondary measures will be self-esteem and life satisfaction. In addition, we will examine residents’ ability to communicate and their functional independence.
Method
The first stage of the project involves developing an app. The app is developed in a user-centered, agile development process. It will use multimedia to prepare life history topics and links them to key questions. Next, a workshop is developed for the volunteers who accompany the use of the app in the institutions. During the second phase, biographic work stimulated by the app will be conducted in groups or individually with residents.
Discussion
This is the first known program tailored to older adults in care facilities and senior volunteers that aims to prevent depression by providing digitally supported biographic work.
Offset restoration in total hip arthroplasty (THA) is associated with postoperative range of motion (ROM) and gait kinematics. We aimed to research into the impact of high offset (HO) and standard stems on postoperative ROM. 121 patients received cementless THA through a minimally-invasive anterolateral approach. A 360° hip ROM analysis software calculated impingement-free hip movement based on postoperative 3D-CTs compared to ROM values necessary for activities of daily living (ADL). The same model was then run a second time after changing the stem geometry between standard and HO configuration with the implants in the same position. HO stems showed higher ROM for all directions between 4.6 and 8.9° (p < 0.001) compared with standard stems but with high interindividual variability. In the subgroup with HO stems for intraoperative offset restoration, the increase in ROM was even higher for all ROM directions with values between 6.1 and 14.4° (p < 0.001) compared to offset underrestoration with standard stems. Avoiding offset underrestoration resulted in a higher amount of patients of over 20% for each ROM direction that fulfilled the criteria for ADL (p < 0.001). In contrast, in patients with standard stems for offset restoration ROM did increase but not clinically relevant by offset overcorrection for all directions between 3.1 and 6.1° (p < 0.001). Offset overcorrection by replacing standard with HO stems improved ROM for ADL in a low number of patients below 10% (p > 0.03). Patient-individual restoration of offset is crucial for free ROM in THA. Both over and underrestoration of offset should be avoided.
Musculoskeletal models of the shoulder complex are valuable research aids to investigate tears of the supraspinatus and the resulting mechanical impact during abduction of the humerus. One of the major contributors to this motion is the deltoid muscle group and for this, an accurate modeling of the lines of action is indispensable. The aim of this work was to utilize a torus obstacle wrapping approach for the deltoids of an existing shoulder model and assess the feasibility of the approach during humeral abduction. The shoulder model from the AnyBody™ modeling system was used as a platform. The size of the tori is based on a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) approach and several kinematic couplings are implemented to determine the trajectories of the tori during abduction. To assess the model behavior, the moment arms of the virtual muscle elements and the resultant glenohumeral joint reaction force (GHJF) were compared with reference data from the literature during abduction of the humerus in the range 20°–120°. The root mean square error for the anterior, lateral and posterior part between the simulated muscle elements and reference data from the literature was 3.9, 1.7 and 5.8 mm, respectively. The largest deviation occurred on the outer elements of the muscle groups, with 12.6, 10.4 and 20.5 mm, respectively. During abduction, there is no overlapping of the muscle elements and these are in continuous contact with the torus obstacles, thus enabling a continuous force transmission. This results in a rising trend of the resultant GHJF.
The torus obstacle approach as a wrapping method for the deltoid muscles provides a guided muscle pathing by simultaneously approximating the curvature of the deltoid muscle. The results from the comparison of the simulated moment arms and the resultant GHJF are in accordance with those in the literature in the range 20°–120° of abduction.
Although this study shows the strength of the torus obstacle as a wrapping approach, the method of fitting the tori according to MRI data was not suitable. A cadaver study is recommended to better validate and mathematically describe the torus approach.
Soccer is one of the most popular sports all around the world. It is an injurious type of sport with a focus on lower extremities and high psychological pressure during matches. The stressor is linked with injuries and an increased musculoskeletal loading. This study investigates the influence of cognitive stress on the load profile of the knee joint. Twelve professional youth soccer players performed highly dynamic runs with and without additional cognitive stress. The runs were analysed with a musculoskeletal simulation software. The data analysis shows no difference in knee joint reaction loading under additional mental stress compared to the baseline. Yet running times are significantly lower in the baseline. While there is no increase in the joint loads, the running times indicate an altered movement behaviour when the subjects are exposed to additional mental demand.
Background and aims: The accurate differentiation between T1a and T1b Barrett’s cancer has both therapeutic and prognostic implications but is challenging even for experienced physicians. We trained an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system on the basis of deep artificial neural networks (deep learning) to differentiate between T1a and T1b Barrett’s cancer white-light images.
Methods: Endoscopic images from three tertiary care centres in Germany were collected retrospectively. A deep learning system was trained and tested using the principles of cross-validation. A total of 230 white-light endoscopic images (108 T1a and 122 T1b) was evaluated with the AI-system. For comparison, the images were also classified by experts specialized in endoscopic diagnosis and treatment of Barrett’s cancer.
Results: The sensitivity, specificity, F1 and accuracy of the AI-system in the differentiation between T1a and T1b cancer lesions was 0.77, 0.64, 0.73 and 0.71, respectively. There was no statistically significant difference between the performance of the AI-system and that of human experts with sensitivity, specificity, F1 and accuracy of 0.63, 0.78, 0.67 and 0.70 respectively.
Conclusion: This pilot study demonstrates the first multicenter application of an AI-based system in the prediction of submucosal invasion in endoscopic images of Barrett’s cancer. AI scored equal to international experts in the field, but more work is necessary to improve the system and apply it to video sequences and in a real-life setting. Nevertheless, the correct prediction of submucosal invasion in Barret´s cancer remains challenging for both experts and AI.
Purpose: In this trial, we used a previously developed prototype software to assess aesthetic results after reconstructive surgery for congenital breast asymmetry using automated anthropometry. To prove the consensus between the manual and automatic digital measurements, we evaluated the software by comparing the manual and automatic measurements of 46 breasts.
Methods: Twenty-three patients who underwent reconstructive surgery for congenital breast asymmetry at our institution were examined and underwent 3D surface imaging. Per patient, 14 manual and 14 computer-based anthropometric measurements were obtained according to a standardized protocol. Manual and automatic measurements, as well as the previously proposed Symmetry Index (SI), were compared.
Results: The Wilcoxon signed-rank test revealed no significant differences in six of the seven measurements between the automatic and manual assessments. The SI showed robust agreement between the automatic and manual methods.
Conclusion: The present trial validates our method for digital anthropometry. Despite the discrepancy in one measurement, all remaining measurements, including the SI, showed high agreement between the manual and automatic methods. The proposed data bring us one step closer to the long-term goal of establishing robust instruments to evaluate the results of breast surgery.
Objective: Artificial intelligence (AI) may reduce underdiagnosed or overlooked upper GI (UGI) neoplastic and preneoplastic conditions, due to subtle appearance and low disease prevalence. Only disease-specific AI performances have been reported, generating uncertainty on its clinical value.
Design: We searched PubMed, Embase and Scopus until July 2020, for studies on the diagnostic performance of AI in detection and characterisation of UGI lesions. Primary outcomes were pooled diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of AI. Secondary outcomes were pooled positive (PPV) and negative (NPV) predictive values. We calculated pooled proportion rates (%), designed summary receiving operating characteristic curves with respective area under the curves (AUCs) and performed metaregression and sensitivity analysis.
Results: Overall, 19 studies on detection of oesophageal squamous cell neoplasia (ESCN) or Barrett's esophagus-related neoplasia (BERN) or gastric adenocarcinoma (GCA) were included with 218, 445, 453 patients and 7976, 2340, 13 562 images, respectively. AI-sensitivity/specificity/PPV/NPV/positive likelihood ratio/negative likelihood ratio for UGI neoplasia detection were 90% (CI 85% to 94%)/89% (CI 85% to 92%)/87% (CI 83% to 91%)/91% (CI 87% to 94%)/8.2 (CI 5.7 to 11.7)/0.111 (CI 0.071 to 0.175), respectively, with an overall AUC of 0.95 (CI 0.93 to 0.97). No difference in AI performance across ESCN, BERN and GCA was found, AUC being 0.94 (CI 0.52 to 0.99), 0.96 (CI 0.95 to 0.98), 0.93 (CI 0.83 to 0.99), respectively. Overall, study quality was low, with high risk of selection bias. No significant publication bias was found.
Conclusion: We found a high overall AI accuracy for the diagnosis of any neoplastic lesion of the UGI tract that was independent of the underlying condition. This may be expected to substantially reduce the miss rate of precancerous lesions and early cancer when implemented in clinical practice.
GinJinn: An object-detection pipeline for automated feature extraction from herbarium specimens
(2020)
PREMISE:
The generation of morphological data in evolutionary, taxonomic, and ecological studies of plants using herbarium material has traditionally been a labor-intensive task. Recent progress in machine learning using deep artificial neural networks (deep learning) for image classification and object detection has facilitated the establishment of a pipeline for the automatic recognition and extraction of relevant structures in images of herbarium specimens.
METHODS AND RESULTS:
We implemented an extendable pipeline based on state-of-the-art deep-learning object-detection methods to collect leaf images from herbarium specimens of two species of the genus Leucanthemum. Using 183 specimens as the training data set, our pipeline extracted one or more intact leaves in 95% of the 61 test images.
CONCLUSIONS:
We establish GinJinn as a deep-learning object-detection tool for the automatic recognition and extraction of individual leaves or other structures from herbarium specimens. Our pipeline offers greater flexibility and a lower entrance barrier than previous image-processing approaches based on hand-crafted features.
This article highlights methodological and ethical challenges in research with adults of older and oldest age, by presenting field experiences of the current research project “Motion Monitoring of Geriatric Trauma Patients - Explorative Study on the Rehabilitation Process after Hip Fracture Using Sensor-based Data”. Depiction of the survey situation, with regard to the subjects in particular, can serve as practical examples for designing future research projects.
The group of older adults is a rather large and growing group for which research is required, especially concerning their heterogeneity, their individual autonomy and quality of life. It is assumed, that research designs of studies on the target group must be specifically adjusted, in particular when considering the attribution of vulnerability of the group members. At the same time, it is not clear yet what exact specifics of the subjects and target group must be considered in research designs, as surprisingly little is known about the target group as subjects and corresponding theories have been insufficiently tested.
The exploratory long-term design of the research project presented in the second section of this chapter has a positive evaluation of an ethics committee. Still ethical challenges occurred in the field situation, that are illustrated in the third section of this chapter, by providing information on the patients, their role as research subjects, how they were recruited, how an informed consensus was reached, and in some cases how participation was rejected or abandoned. After a summary, the end of the paper is marked by recommendations on how to design future research projects.
Cumulatively it must always be expected that interaction between researchers and research subjects of this target group can become very intensive, what requires to follow clearly defined procedures and at the same time to be prepared to act flexibly.
The bond between methacrylic polymer adhesives and dental restoratives is not perfect and may fail either in the short or in the long term. This study aims to evaluate the effects of particle incorporation in a self-etch model adhesive on mechanical and physical properties that are relevant during application and service. Filled adhesives containing 5, 10, 15 or 25 wt% glass fillers were compared to their unfilled counterpart in terms of water sorption and solubility; viscosity and dynamic viscosity during polymerization were recorded using rheological measurements and compared to FTIR analysis of the real-time degree of cure. Elastic modulus and ultimate tensile strength measurements were performed in uniaxial tension; the energy to fracture was used to calculate the fracture toughness of the adhesives. Finally, the experimental adhesives were applied on dentin substrate to test the bond strength using the microtensile test. Results showed that the incorporation of 5–10 wt% nanofiller to self-etching dental adhesives is efficient in accelerating the polymerization reaction and increasing the degree of cure without compromising the film viscosity for good wettability or water sorption and solubility. Fillers increased the elastic modulus, tensile strength and fracture toughness to a plateau between 5 and 15 wt% filler concentration, and despite the tendency to form agglomerations, active crack pinning/deflection toughening mechanisms have been observed. The bond strength between resin composite and dentin was also improved when adhesives with up to 10 wt% fillers were used, with no additional improvements with further packing. The use of fillers to reinforce dental adhesives may therefore be of great practical benefit by improving curing and mechanical properties.
Bioresorbable materials are under investigation due to their promising properties for applications as implant material. This study is about the degradation and bioactivity behaviour of magnesium foils, which allegorize dental membranes. The degradation behaviour including pitting corrosion during immersion tests can be precisely observed using micro-computed tomography. Using the bioactivity test according to Kokubo, it is shown that magnesium has strong Ca-phosphate layer formation correlated with high degradation. Therefore, magnesium foils appear to hold a great potential for bone implant application.
Background
Breast reconstruction is an important coping tool for patients undergoing a mastectomy. There are numerous surgical techniques in breast reconstruction surgery (BRS). Regardless of the technique used, creating a symmetric outcome is crucial for patients and plastic surgeons. Three-dimensional surface imaging enables surgeons and patients to assess the outcome’s symmetry in BRS. To discriminate between autologous and alloplastic techniques, we analyzed both techniques using objective optical computerized symmetry analysis. Software was developed that enables clinicians to assess optical breast symmetry using three-dimensional surface imaging.
Methods
Twenty-seven patients who had undergone autologous (n = 12) or alloplastic (n = 15) BRS received three-dimensional surface imaging. Anthropomorphic data were collected digitally using semiautomatic measurements and automatic measurements. Automatic measurements were taken using the newly developed software. To quantify symmetry, a Symmetry Index is proposed.
Results
Statistical analysis revealed that there is no dif- ference in the outcome symmetry between the two groups (t test for independent samples; p = 0.48, two-tailed).
Conclusion
This study’s findings provide a foundation for qualitative symmetry assessment in BRS using automatized digital anthropometry. In the present trial, no difference in the outcomes’ optical symmetry was detected between autologous and alloplastic approaches.
Several kinds of cellular adhesion molecules, like different splicing variants of CD 44, have gained important as prognostic or markers for metastatic disease. Fresh frozen samples from 64 cervical carcinoma (CX) were stored in liquid nitrogen and examined using ELISA-technique, testing the prognostic impact. Normal cervical tissue served as control. CD 44-v6 concentration, was significant elevated in tumor tissue, when compared to the controls (P=0.04). There was no correlation to tumor stage (P=0.61), lymphovascular space involvement (P=0.075) or pelvic lymph node involvement (P=0.81). The CD 44-v6 concentration was not informative regarding recurrence-free and overall survival. Contrary to immunohistochemistry, the quantification of CD 44-v6 using ELISA-technique does not provide any further information.
Contact force path in total hip arthroplasty: effect of cup medialisation in a whole-body simulation
(2020)
Background:
Cup medialisation down to the true acetabular floor in total hip arthroplasty with a compensatory femoral offset increase seems to be mechanically advantageous for the abductor muscles due to the relocation of the lever arms (body weight lever arm decreased, abductor lever arm increased). However, limited information is currently available about the effects of this reconstruction type at the head cup interface, compared to an anatomical reconstruction that maintains the natural lever arms. Through a whole-body simulation analysis, we compared medialised versus anatomical reconstruction in THA to analyse the effects on: (1) contact force magnitude at the head cup interface; (2) contact force path in the cup; and (3) abductor activity.
Methods:
Musculoskeletal simulations were performed to calculate the above-mentioned parameters using inverse dynamics analysis. The differences between the virtually implanted THAs were calculated to compare the medialised versus anatomical reconstruction.
Results:
Cup medialisation with compensatory femoral offset increase led to: (1) a reduction in contact force magnitude at the head cup interface up to 6.6%; (2) a similar contact force path in the cup in terms of sliding distance and aspect ratio; and (3) a reduction in abductor activity up to 17.2% (gluteus medius).
Conclusions:
In our opinion, these potential biomechanical gains do not generally justify a fully medialised reconstruction, especially in younger patients that are more likely to undergo revision surgery in their lifetime. Cup medialisation should be performed until sufficient press fit and bony coverage of a properly sized and oriented cup can be achieved.
Based on electromyographic data and force measurements within the shoulder joint, there is an indication that muscle and resulting joint reaction forces keep increasing over an abduction angle of 90°. In inverse dynamics models, no single parameter could be attributed to simulate this force behaviour accordingly. The aim of this work is to implement kinematic, kinetic and muscle model modifications to an existing model of the shoulder (AnyBody™) and assess their single and combined effects during abduction up to 140° humeral elevation. The kinematics and the EMG activity of 10 test subjects were measured during humeral abduction. Six modifications were implemented in the model: alternative wrapping of the virtual deltoid muscle elements, utilization of a three element Hill model, strength scaling, motion capture driven clavicle elevation/protraction, translation of the GH joint in dependency of the acting forces and an alteration of the scapula/clavicle rhythm. From the six modifications, 16 different combinations were considered. Parameter combinations with the Hill model changed the resultant GH joint reaction force and led to an increase in force during abduction of the humerus above 90°. Under the premise of muscle activities and forces within the GH joint rising after 90° of humeral abduction, we propose that the Hill type muscle model is a crucial parameter for accurately modelling the shoulder. Furthermore, the outcome of this study indicates that the Hill model induces the co-contraction of the muscles of the shoulder without the need of an additional stability criterion for an inverse dynamics approach.
Thoracolumbar spine model with articulated ribcage for the prediction of dynamic spinal loading
(2016)
Musculoskeletal modeling offers an invaluable insight into the spine biomechanics. A better understanding of thoracic spine kinetics is essential for understanding disease processes and developing new prevention and treatment methods. Current models of the thoracic region are not designed for segmental load estimation, or do not include the complex construct of the ribcage, despite its potentially important role in load transmission. In this paper, we describe a numerical musculoskeletal model of the thoracolumbar spine with articulated ribcage, modeled as a system of individual vertebral segments, elastic elements and thoracic muscles, based on a previously established lumbar spine model and data from the literature. The inverse dynamics simulations of the model allow the prediction of spinal loading as well as costal joints kinetics and kinematics. The intradiscal pressure predicted by the model correlated well (R2=0.89) with reported intradiscal pressure measurements, providing a first validation of the model. The inclusion of the ribcage did not affect segmental force predictions when the thoracic spine did not perform motion. During thoracic motion tasks, the ribcage had an important influence on the predicted compressive forces and muscle activation patterns. The compressive forces were reduced by up to 32%, or distributed more evenly between thoracic vertebrae, when compared to the predictions of the model without ribcage, for mild thoracic flexion and hyperextension tasks, respectively. The presented musculoskeletal model provides a tool for investigating thoracic spine loading and load sharing between vertebral column and ribcage during dynamic activities. Further validation for specific applications is still necessary.
We have developed a novel, computer-assisted operation method for minimal-invasive total hip replacement (THR) following the concept of “femur first/combined anteversion,” which incorporates various aspects of performing a functional optimization of the prosthetic stem and cup position (CAS FF). The purpose of this study is to assess whether the hip joint reaction forces and patient’s gait parameters are being improved by CAS FF in relation to conventional THR (CON). We enrolled 60 patients (28 CAS FF/32 CON) and invited them for gait analysis at three time points (preoperatively, postop six months, and postop 12 months). Data retrieved from gait analysis was processed using patient-specific musculoskeletal models. The target parameters were hip reaction force magnitude (hrf), symmetries, and orientation with respect to the cup. Hrf in the CAS FF group were closer to a young healthy normal. Phase-shift symmetry showed an increase in the CAS FF group. Hrf orientation in the CAS FF group was closer to optimum, though no edge or rim-loading occurred in the CON group as well. The CAS FF group showed an improved hrf orientation in an early stage and a trend to an improved long-term outcome.
Influence of minimally invasive total hip replacement on hip reaction forces and their orientations
(2014)
Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) is becoming increasingly popular. Supporters claim that the main advantages of MIS total hip replacement (THR) are less pain and a faster rehabilitation and recovery. Critics claim that safety and efficacy of MIS are yet to be determined. We focused on a biomechanical comparison between surgical standard and MIS approaches for THR during the early recovery of patients. A validated, parameterized musculoskeletal model was set to perform a squat of a 50th percentile healthy European male. A bilateral motion was chosen to investigate effects on the contralateral side. Surgical approaches were simulated by excluding the incised muscles from the computations. Resulting hip reaction forces and their symmetry and orientation were analyzed. MIS THR seemed less influential on the symmetry index of hip reaction forces between the operated and nonoperated leg when compared to the standard lateral approach. Hip reaction forces at peak loads of the standard transgluteal approach were 24% higher on the contralateral side when compared to MIS approaches. Our results suggest that MIS THR contributes to a greater symmetry of hip reaction forces in absolute value as well as force-orientation following THR.
Meniscal tears in the avascular zone have a poor self-healing potential, however partial meniscectomy predisposes the knee for early osteoarthritis. Tissue engineering with mesenchymal stem cells and a hyaluronan collagen based scaffold is a promising approach to repair meniscal tears in the avascular zone. 4 mm longitudinal meniscal tears in the avascular zone of lateral menisci of New Zealand White Rabbits were performed. The defect was left empty, sutured with a 5-0 suture or filled with a hyaluronan/collagen composite matrix without cells, with platelet rich plasma or with autologous mesenchymal stem cells. Matrices with stem cells were in part precultured in chondrogenic medium for 14 days prior to the implantation. Menisci were harvested at 6 and 12 weeks. The developed repair tissue was analyzed macroscopically, histologically and biomechanically. Untreated defects, defects treated with suture alone, with cell-free or with platelet rich plasma seeded implants showed a muted fibrous healing response. The implantation of stem cell-matrix constructs initiated fibrocartilage-like repair tissue, with better integration and biomechanical properties in the precultured stem cell-matrix group. A hyaluronan-collagen based composite scaffold seeded with mesenchymal stem cells is more effective in the repair avascular meniscal tear with stable meniscus-like tissue and to restore the native meniscus.
In-stent restenosis remains a major problem of arteriosclerosis treatment by stenting. Expansion-optimized stents could reduce this problem. With numerical simulations, stent designs/ expansion behaviours can be effectively analyzed. For reasons of efficiency, simplified models of balloon-expandable stents are often used, but their accuracy must be challenged due to insufficient experimental validation. In this work, a realistic stent life-cycle simulation has been performed including balloon folding, stent crimping and free expansion of the balloon-stent-system. The successful simulation and validation of two stent designs with homogenous and heterogeneous stent stiffness and an asymmetrically positioned stent on the balloon catheter confirm the universal applicability of the simulation approach. Dogboning ratio, as well as the final dimensions of the folded balloon, the crimped and expanded stent, correspond well to the experimental dimensions with only slight deviations. In contrast to the detailed stent life-cycle simulation, a displacement-controlled simulation can not predict the transient stent expansion, but is suitable to reproduce the final expanded stent shape and the associated stress states. The detailed stent life-cycle simulation is thus essential for stent expansion analysis/optimization, whereas for reasons of computational efficiency, the displacement-controlled approach can be considered in the context of pure stress analysis.
The fatigue behaviour of materials is of particular interest for the failure prediction of materials and structures exposed to cyclic loading. For trabecular bone structures only a few sets of lifetime data have been reported in the literature and structural measures are commonly not considered. The influence of load contributions which are not aligned with the main physiological axis remains unclear. Furthermore site and species dependent relationships are not well described. In this study five different groups of trabecular bone, defined in terms of orientation, species and site were exposed to cyclic compression. In total, 108 fatigue tests were analysed. The lifetimes were found to decrease drastically when off-axis loads were applied. Additionally, species and site strongly affect fatigue lifetimes. Strains at failure were also found to be a function of orientation.
Repeated loadings may cause fatigue fractures in bony structures. Even if these failure types are known, data for trabecular bone exposed to cyclic loading are still insufficient as the majority of fatigue analyses on bone concentrate on cortical structures. Despite its highly anisotropic and inhomogeneous structure, trabecular bone is treated with continuum approaches in fatigue analyses. The underlying deformation and damage mechanism within trabecular specimens are not yet sufficiently investigated. In the present study different types of trabecular bone were loaded in monotonic and cyclic compression. In addition to the measurement of integral specimen deformations, optical deformation analysis was employed in order to obtain strain distributions at different scale levels, from the specimens' surface to the trabeculae level. These measurements allowed for the possibility of linking the macroscopic and microscopic mechanical behaviour of cancellous bone. Deformations were found to be highly inhomogeneous across the specimen. Furthermore strains were found to already localise at very low load levels and after few load cycles. Microcracks in individual trabeculae were induced in the very early stage of cyclic testing. The results provide evidence of the capability of the method to supply essential data on the failure behaviour of individual trabeculae in future studies.
Finite element (FE)–based studies of preoperative processes such as folding,pleating, and stent crimping with a comparison with experimental inflation tests are not yet available. Therefore, a novel workflow is presented in which residual stresses of balloon folding and pleating, as well as stent crimping, and the geometries of all contact partners were ultimately implemented in an FE code to simulate stent expansion by using an implicit solver. The numerical results demonstrate that the incorporation of residual stresses and strains experienced during the production step significantly increased the accuracy of the subsequent simulations, especially of the stent expansion model. During the preoperative processes, stresses inside the membrane and the stent material also reached a rather high level. Hence, there can be no presumption that balloon catheters or stents are undamaged before the actual surgery. The implementation of the realistic geometry, in particular the balloon tapers, and the blades of the process devices improved the simulation of the expansion mech-anisms, such as dogboning, concave bending, or overexpansion of stent cells. This study shows that implicit solvers are able to precisely simulate the mentioned preoperative processes and the stent expansion procedure without a preceding manipulation of the simulation time or physical mass.
The development of biomimetic robots has gained research interest in the last years as it may both help under-standing processes of motion execution in biological systems as well as developping a novel generation of intelligent and energy efficient robots. However, exact model generation that builds up on observations and robot design is very time intensive. In this paper we present a novel pipeline for co-development of biomimetic hardware and simulation models based on biological Computer Tomography (CT) data. For this purpose we exploit State of the Art rapid prototyping technologies such as 3D Printing and the Neurorobotics Platform for musculoskeletal simulations in virtual environments. The co-development integrates both advantages of virtual and physical experimental models and is expected to increase development speed of controllers that can be tested on the simulated counterpart before application to a printed robot model. We demonstrate the pipeline by generating a one year old infant model as a musculoskeletal simulation model and a print-in-place 3D printed skeleton as a single movable part. Even though we hereonly introduce the initial body generation and only a first testsetup for a modular sensory and control framework, we can clearly spot advantages in terms of rapid model generation and highly biological related models. Engineering costs are reducedand models can be provided to a wide research community for controller testing in an early development phase.
The success of artificial intelligence in medicine is based on the need for large amounts of high quality training data. Sharing of medical image data, however, is often restricted by laws such as doctor-patient confidentiality. Although there are publicly available medical datasets, their quality and quantity are often low. Moreover, datasets are often imbalanced and only represent a fraction of the images generated in hospitals or clinics and can thus usually only be used as training data for specific problems. The introduction of generative adversarial networks (GANs) provides a mean to generate artificial images by training two convolutional networks. This paper proposes a method which uses GANs trained on medical images in order to generate a large number of artificial images that could be used to train other artificial intelligence algorithms. This work is a first step towards alleviating data privacy concerns and being able to publicly share data that still contains a substantial amount of the information in the original private data. The method has been evaluated on several public datasets and quantitative and qualitative tests showing promising results.
In this paper, we address the problem of retrospective color shading correction. An extension of the established gray-level shading correction algorithm based on signal envelope (SE) estimation to color images is developed using principal color components. Compared to the probably most general shading correction algorithm based on entropy minimization, SE estimation does not need any computationally expensive optimization and thus can be implemented more effciently. We tested our new shading correction scheme on artificial as well as real endoscopic images and observed promising results. Additionally, an indepth analysis of the stop criterion used in the SE estimation algorithm is provided leading to the conclusion that a fixed, user-defined threshold is generally not feasible. Thus, we present new ideas how to develop a non-parametric version of the SE estimation algorithm using entropy.
Chest X-Ray (CXR) images as part of a non-invasive diagnosis method are commonly used in today’s medical workflow. In traditional methods, physicians usually use their experience to interpret CXR images, however, there is a large interobserver variance. Computer vision may be used as a standard for assisted diagnosis. In this study, we applied an encoder-decoder neural network architecture for automatic lung region detection. We compared a three-class approach (left lung, right lung, background) and a two-class approach (lung, background). The differentiation of left and right lungs as direct result of a semantic segmentation on basis of neural nets rather than post-processing a lung-background segmentation is done here for the first time. Our evaluation was done on the NIH Chest X-ray dataset, from which 1736 images were extracted and manually annotated. We achieved 94:9% mIoU and 92% mIoU as segmentation quality measures for the two-class-model and the three-class-model, respectively. This result is very promising for the segmentation of lung regions having the simultaneous classification of left and right lung in mind.