Types Of Medical Applications Research Articles

Priority-Based Dedicated Slot Allocation With Dynamic Superframe Structure in IEEE 802.15.6-Based Wireless Body Area Networks

Wireless body area networks (WBANs) support various types of medical applications with heterogeneous requirements. Therefore, we need to use an efficient medium access control (MAC) protocol to ensure reliable data transmission. In this article, we propose a dynamic superframe structure-based MAC protocol extending the principles of the IEEE 802.15.6 standard. In this work, to allocate dedicated slots for each sensor device, a prioritized dedicated slot allocation mechanism using the criteria importance through intercriteria correlation (CRITIC) is proposed. With the help of this method, the priority value of sensor devices is calculated based on different sensors’ parameters. We compared the performance of our proposed work with standard IEEE 802.15.6 MAC and a few other MAC protocols. The simulation result shows that our proposed MAC protocol performed better in terms of energy efficiency and reliability, as well as reducing the packet drop probability. Results show that the reliability of data transmission increases over the IEEE 802.15.6 MAC protocol by more than 50%.

An NS-3 Implementation and Experimental Performance Analysis of IEEE 802.15.6 Standard under Different Deployment Scenarios.

Various simulation studies for wireless body area networks (WBANs) based on the IEEE 802.15.6 standard have recently been carried out. However, most of these studies have applied a simplified model without using any major components specific to IEEE 802.15.6, such as connection-oriented link allocations, inter-WBAN interference mitigation, or a two-hop star topology extension. Thus, such deficiencies can lead to an inaccurate performance analysis. To solve these problems, in this study, we conducted a comprehensive review of the major components of the IEEE 802.15.6 standard and herein present modeling strategies for implementing IEEE 802.15.6 MAC on an NS-3 simulator. In addition, we configured realistic network scenarios for a performance evaluation in terms of throughput, average delay, and power consumption. The simulation results prove that our simulation system provides acceptable levels of performance for various types of medical applications, and can support the latest research topics regarding the dynamic resource allocation, inter-WBAN interference mitigation, and intra-WBAN routing.

ANALYSIS OF THE HIGH COURT DECISIONS ON INFORMED CONSENT CASES IN TURKEY FROM A FORENSIC POINT OF VIEW

Informed consent is linked to the principle of patient autonomy and has an important place in universal medical ethics rules and legal regulations. The aim of this study is to identify the decisions and criticisms of the high court (Yargıtay) in Turkey related to informed consent and to discuss them from a medicolegal aspect. In the search engine of the website publishing high court decisions, the keywords “informed consent”, “information”, “consent” and “assent” were used without any date limitation. In this study, N=32 high court verdicts were investigated. The data obtained were discussed in light of the literature. In 23 of the cases (71.9%) surgical interventions requiring general anesthesia; in 9 cases (28.1%) surgical interventions not requiring general anesthesia and diagnostic/treatment medical applications were performed. There was a statistically significant difference identified in terms of “surgical interventions not requiring general anesthesia and diagnostic/treatment medical application” between the groups with informed consent and without informed consent. The high court identified that in 17 of the cases (53.1%) informed consent was not present while in 15 (46.9%) informed consent was obtained. The court could not prove that informed consent was obtained in 15/17 cases in the group without consent, while in 7/15 cases in the consent group inadequate informed consent was obtained. The high court questioned the scope and adequacy of informed consent for surgical interventions both requiring and not requiring general anesthesia and for all types of medical intervention with diagnostic/treatment purposes. The types of medical applications that require written informed consent and the aims of informed consent should be re-evaluated.

Kinematic and Manipulability Analysis of Hybrid Robot Used in Tele-Echography Application

Robots are increasingly resorted to in medical application due to their high accuracy and precision. Among many types of medical applications, tele-echography system is widely used for its convenience and safety. This paper describes a new architecture of a medical manipulator system for tele-echography application. The kinematic structure of the proposed robot is composed of two main parts: The first one is about the translation module, which is a five-bar linkage and the second one is the orientation module, whose main task is to produce spherical motion around the contact point with the skin. Thus three architectures are proposed. To verify that our models generate the required movement by the application, a simulation of workspace is presented. Furthermore, the evaluation of the kinematic manipulability of the linkage mechanism is given in order to determine the best postures and the singularities of the translation module in its workspace.

Bulk Metallic Glasses for Implantable Medical Devices and Surgical Tools

With increasing knowledge of the materials science of bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) and improvements in their properties and processing, they have started to become candidate materials for biomedical devices. A dichotomy in the types of medical applications has also emerged, in which some families of BMGs are being developed for permanent devices whilst another family - of Mg-based alloys - is showing promise in bioabsorbable implants. The current status of these metallurgical and technological developments is summarized.

3DLC: A Comprehensive Model for Personal Health Records Supporting New Types of Medical Applications

Motivated by the demographic change, many new medical applications are installed in the user′s home environment. These applications make use of ambient sensors, enabling new forms of medical care. Personal Health Records (PHRs) are an instrument for the storage, presentation and communication of health related data provided by these applications. But there are still open issues regarding the cooperation between PHRs and the new applications. On the basis of two medical application scenarios, we developed a new model which defines the appropriate level of abstraction of data generated by medical applications to be stored inside the PHR. The model also determines which part of these data is relevant for the clinical decision making process, and how these data should be communicated to physicians. This paper describes the 3DLC model, which uses three dimensions (clinical decision, frequency and context dependence) to determine the type of the data. We further introduce a prototype PHR system that is able to fulfil the requirements of our scenarios.

Efficient hybrid EM for linear and nonlinear mixed effects models with censored response

Medical laboratory data are often censored, due to limitations of the measuring technology. For pharmacokinetics measurements and dilution-based assays, for example, there is a lower quantification limit, which depends on the type of assay used. The concentration of HIV particles in the plasma is subject to both lower and upper quantification limit. Linear and nonlinear mixed effects models, which are often used in these types of medical applications, need to be able to deal with such data issues. In this paper we discuss a hybrid Monte Carlo and numerical integration EM algorithm for computing the maximum likelihood estimates for linear and non-linear mixed models with censored data. Our implementation uses an efficient block-sampling scheme, automated monitoring of convergence, and dimension reduction based on the QR decomposition. For clusters with up to two censored observations numerical integration is used instead of Monte Carlo simulation. These improvements lead to a several-fold reduction in computation time. We illustrate the algorithm using data from an HIV/AIDS trial. The Monte Carlo EM is evaluated and compared with existing methods via a simulation study.

48] Application of immobilized enzymes for biomaterials used in surgery

This chapter discusses the application of immobilized enzymes for biomaterials used in surgery. The chapter investigates the replacement of various organs with this new material experimentally and clinically, including reconstruction of the trachea, chest wall, and diaphragm in the field of thoracic surgery. With the development of techniques for binding enzymes to insoluble supports, immobilized enzymes are recently utilized in various types of medical applications, especially in clinical analysis and also in therapeutic medicine. This collagen-synthetic polymer composite material is applied as a support for the immobilization of enzymes to establish its biological functions on the surface of the material, and enzymes are successfully bound to the collagen membrane layer by activation of carboxyl groups. Trypsin and urokinase are chosen with the intention of adding proteolytic (antiinflammatory) and fibrinolytic (thromboresistant) activities, respectively, to the surface properties of the composite material. Lysozyme and a peptide antibiotic, polymyxin B, are bound onto the material for the purpose of producing bacteriolytic and antibacterial biomaterials to prevent serious problems caused by bacterial infection from occurring when artificial organs and biomaterials are implanted into the body. The chapter describes the novel method of producing this enzyme-bound collagen-synthetic polymer composite material, and discusses the enzymatic characterization and several in vivo experiments made with the material carrying immobilized enzymes.