Bio-Medical Materials and Engineering - Volume 24, issue 1

Authors: Zhou, Bin | Chang, Jun | Wang, Ping | Li, Jie | Cheng, Dan | Zheng, Peng-Wu

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: The quality of Morindaofficinalis, which has been used as a Yang-tonic agent for a long time in China, can be evaluated. A double-development high performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC) method has been established to simultaneously analyze quality and quantity of seven inulin-type oligosaccharides (DP=3-9) in Morindaofficinalis. The chromatography was performed on a silica gel 60 plate with the 7:5:2:1 proportion (v/v) of n-butanol-isopropanol-water-acetic acid for the first and second developments, respectively. The bands were visualized by the reaction with aniline-diphenylamine-phosphoric acid solution and analyzed by densitometric TLC at 540 nm. Quantification of seven oligosaccharides was achieved by densitometry at 540 …nm. The investigated standard sugar had good linearity (R2>0.99) within test ranges. The amounts of seven oligosaccharides were calculated by the relative correction factor (RCF). Therefore, the developed TLC method could be used for quality control of Morindaofficinalis. Show more

Keywords: TLC, Quantitative determination, Morindaofficinalis, oligosaccharide

DOI: 10.3233/BME-130890

Citation: Bio-Medical Materials and Engineering, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 953-960, 2014

Authors: Yu, Chang Ho | Ohta, Makoto | Kwon, Tae Kyu

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: In this paper, we investigated several parameters with effect on the compressive force to assess the mechanical properties of interventional device. We find several parameters are highly influential and others are not. In our evaluation system, we prepared a box-shaped PVA-H and silicone with realistic geometry and carried out the measurement and evaluation of the pushability by using load cell machine. The parameters of velocity, position of device in the system do not affect the compressive force, whereas the length of catheter from the tip to fixed point is one of the most influential parameters for the force. Several behaviors …such as passing through the curve or slip and stop can be observed and defined using this system. The balance of the bending force and the pushing force may make the tip with behavior of slip and stop or passing thorough the curve. The investigation of the evaluation system confirmed that high reproducibility with short error bar is indicated. The observation with movie record is also an advantage of our system because the high transparency of materials with silicone and PVA-H can check the inside of artery. Show more

Keywords: Blood vessel biomodel, PVA-H, pushability, interventional device

DOI: 10.3233/BME-130891

Citation: Bio-Medical Materials and Engineering, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 961-968, 2014

Authors: Li, Bin | Meng, Xianjun | Zhu, Lijie | Jiao, Xinyao | Zhang, Jiachen

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Triterpenes have shown many beneficial activities in researches, but their separation and preparation usually require multiple methods. Following an initial cleaning-up step on the AB-8 macroporous resin, a preparative high-speed counter-current chromatography (HSCCC) with a two-phase solvent system comprising chloroform-n-butyl alcohol-methanol-water (10:1:7:4, v/v/v/v) was used to isolate and separate triterpenes from caculis of Schisandra Chinensis (Turcz.) baill. A total of 89 mg corosolic acid with purities of 98.5% were obtained from 400 mg crude extract in one-step elution and less than 4 h, and the structure identification was performed by UV, IR, MS, 1H NMR and 13C NMR. The inhibition …on liver fibrosis activities of the triterpenes against HSC-T6 in vitro were studied by cell culture methods. The results showed that the corosolic acid have better inhibitory effects on HSC-T6 cells with the IC50 value of 5~25 μg/mL and the study also indicated that corosolic acid might be a potential Chinese medical component to inhibit liver fibrosis. Show more

Keywords: Schisandra Chinensis (Turcz.) baill, triterpenes, liver fibrosis

DOI: 10.3233/BME-130892

Citation: Bio-Medical Materials and Engineering, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 969-977, 2014

Authors: Yang, Yueh-Lung | Chang, Ching-Hsien | Huang, Ching-Cheng | Kao, Wenny Mei-Wen | Liu, Wei-Chung | Liu, Hsia-Wei

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Numerous materials have been proposed for bone tissue engineering. In this study, a newly designed hybrid composite scaffold composed of poly (D,L-lactide-co-glycolide) and a naturally bioceramic hybrid material, nanonized pearl powder, were prepared and the biological activities and physical properties of the scaffold for bone tissue engineering were evaluated. It is a composite consisting calcium carbonate crystal in an aragonite structure, embedded in an organic matrix. Peral contains one or more signal molecules capable of stimulating bone formation. The nanonized pearl powder is considered as a promising osteoinductive biomaterial. This biomaterial is biocompatible and shows osteogenic activity. In this study, …the designed biohybrid of nanonized pearl powder/poly (lactide-co-glycolide) (NPP/PLGA) biocomposite scaffolds would employ biodegradable material as MC3T3-E1 cells seeded scaffolds. Therefore, the biocomposite scaffolds would be used to culture with MC3T3-E1 cells under spinner bioreactor in vitro. Furthermore, it also detailed how these tissues were characterized, qualitatively and quantitatively, with scanning electron microscopy and biochemical testing. The identity and the mode of action of these molecules on the osteoblast differentiation were analyzed. This study indicates that the efficiency of nanonized pearl powders in bone cell differentiation are certainly different from that of proteins. Further sudy will look forward to manufacturing the promising new generation bone substitute, three dimensional biocomposite scaffolds to replace the implant and autogeneous bone graft, which combines basic research and clinical application. Show more

Keywords: nanonized pearl powder, poly (D, L-lactide-co-glycolide), osteoblast, bio-mineralization, bone tissue engineering

DOI: 10.3233/BME-130893

Citation: Bio-Medical Materials and Engineering, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 979-985, 2014

Authors: Kim, Hyun-Joo | Kim, Hyung-Sik | Choi, Mi-Hyun | Lee, In-Hwa | Hong, Sang-Pyo | You, Na-Rae | Chung, Soon-Cheol | Lim, Dae-Woon | Yi, Jeong-Han

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to investigate the relation between response time of visual matching task and heart rate (HR) in children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Thirty boys who were diagnosed with ADHD and are under treatment participated in the study. The experiment consisted of three phases, a total of 5 min with rest phase, control phase, and visual matching task phase. HR was measured during each phase. The HR in visual matching task phase increased, compared to that in rest phase. There was a negative correlation between response time of visual matching task and magnitude of …the HR in the visual matching task phase. In other words, as HR increased, response time of the visual matching task decreased. This means that increasing in HR increased the supply of oxygen by fast circulation of blood for cognitive processing and this induced the improvement of cognitive ability in the ADHD children. This means that increasing HR increased the supply of oxygen by fast circulation of blood for cognitive processing and this induced the improvement of cognitive ability in the ADHD children. The result of this study supports previous studies that the administration of high oxygen concentration can positively affect the cognitive performance of the ADHD children. The results of the present and previous studies also may provide scientific evidence that can be used for treating patients with cognitive problems such as ADHD. Show more

Keywords: response time, heart rate, visual matching task, ADHD children

DOI: 10.3233/BME-130895

Citation: Bio-Medical Materials and Engineering, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 987-991, 2014

Authors: Qiao, Dengyu | He, Tan | Hu, Boping | Li, Ye

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: The aim of this work is to show non-contact physiological signal monitoring system based on continuous-wave (CW) Doppler radar, which is becoming highly attractive in the field of health care monitoring of elderly people. Two radar signal processing methods were introduced in this paper: one to extract respiration and heart rates of a single person and the other to separate mixed respiration signals. To verify the validity of the methods, physiological signal is obtained from stationary human subjects using a CW Doppler radar unit. The sensor operating at 24 GHz is located 0.5 meter away from the subject. The simulation …results show that the respiration and heart rates are clearly extracted, and the mixed respiration signals are successfully separated. Finally, reference respiration and heart rate signals are measured by an ECG monitor and compared with the results tracked by the CW Doppler radar monitoring system. Show more

Keywords: Physiological signal detection, continuous wave Doppler radar, non-contact

DOI: 10.3233/BME-130896

Citation: Bio-Medical Materials and Engineering, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 993-1000, 2014

Authors: Xu, Jiucheng | Sun, Lin | Gao, Yunpeng | Xu, Tianhe

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Correlation-based feature selection (CFS) using neighborhood mutual information (NMI) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) are combined into an ensemble technique in this paper. Based on this observation, an efficient gene selection algorithm, denoted by NMICFS-PSO, is proposed. Several cancer recognition tasks are gathered for testing the proposed technique. Moreover, support vector machine (SVM), integrated with leave-one-out cross-validation and served as a classifier, is employed for six classification profiles to calculate the classification accuracy. Experimental results show that the proposed method can reduce the redundant features effectively and achieve superior performance. The classification accuracy obtained by our method is higher in …five out of the six gene expression problems as compared with that of other classifi cation methods. Show more

Keywords: Feature selection, neighborhood mutual information, particle swarm optimization, support vector machine

DOI: 10.3233/BME-130897

Citation: Bio-Medical Materials and Engineering, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 1001-1008, 2014

Authors: Kim, DongWook | Seong, KiWoong | Kim, MyoungNam | Cho, JinHo | Lee, JyungHyun

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: In this paper, a digital audio processing chip which uses a wide dynamic range compression (WDRC) algorithm is designed and implemented for implantable hearing aids system. The designed chip operates at a single voltage of 3.3V and drives a 16 bit parallel input and output at 32 kHz sample. The designed chip has 1-channel 3-band WDRC composed of a FIR filter bank, a level detector, and a compression part. To verify the performance of the designed chip, we measured the frequency separations of bands and compression gain control to reflect the hearing threshold level.

Keywords: wide dynamic range compression, implantable hearing aids, vibration transducer, fitting formula, application specific integrated circuit

DOI: 10.3233/BME-130898

Citation: Bio-Medical Materials and Engineering, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 1009-1017, 2014

Authors: Jiang, Jiangtao | Yuan, Xuan | Zhao, Hong | Yan, Xinyan | Sun, Xiling | Zheng, Qiusheng

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between proliferation inhibition and the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) induced by Licochalcone A (LCA). Cell viability was evaluated using sulforhodamine B (SRB) assay. Intracellular ROS level was assessed using the 2, 7-dichlorofluorescein diacetate (H2DCFDA) probe and dihydroethidium (DHE) probe assay. The results indicate that LCA inhibits human bladder cancer T24 proliferation in a concentration-dependent manner, with an IC50 value of approximately 55 μM. The LCA-induced ROS production is inhibited by the co-treatment of LCA and free radical scavenger N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC), on the contrary, the proliferation rate and ROS …production increase when treated by the combination of LCA and L-buthionine-(S,R)-sulfoximine (BSO). The ratio of reduced glutathione (GSH) to oxidized glutathione (GSSG) decreases in a concentration-dependent manner. The results suggest that LCA inhibits proliferation by increasing intracellular ROS levels resulted in an oxidative stress status in T24 cells. Show more

Keywords: Licochalcone A, T24 cells, ROS, Cell proliferation, GSH, GSSG

DOI: 10.3233/BME-130899

Citation: Bio-Medical Materials and Engineering, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 1019-1025, 2014

Authors: Li, Jian | Zhou, Haiying | Zuo, Decheng | Hou, Kun-Mean | De Vaulx, Christophe

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: As the symptoms and signs of heart diseases that cause sudden cardiac death, cardiac arrhythmia has attracted great attention. Due to limitations in time and space, traditional approaches to cardiac arrhythmias detection fail to provide a real-time continuous monitoring and testing service applicable in different environmental conditions. Integrated with the latest technologies in ECG (electrocardiograph) analysis and medical care, the pervasive computing technology makes possible the ubiquitous cardiac care services, and thus brings about new technical challenges, especially in the formation of cardiac care architecture and realization of the real-time automatic ECG detection algorithm dedicated to care devices. In this …paper, a ubiquitous cardiac care prototype system is presented with its architecture framework well elaborated. This prototype system has been tested and evaluated in all the clinical-/home-/outdoor-care modes with a satisfactory performance in providing real-time continuous cardiac arrhythmias monitoring service unlimitedly adaptable in time and space. Show more

Keywords: Ubiquitous health monitoring, smart healthcare, cardiac arrhythmias, ambulatory ECG detection

DOI: 10.3233/BME-130900

Citation: Bio-Medical Materials and Engineering, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 1027-1033, 2014