Mitochondria play a key role in maintaining life by producing ATP and heat. Recent researches have demonstrated that degenerative diseases such as heart failure, obesity/diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and psychiatric diseases are accompanied by mitochondria dysfunction. In this sense, mitochondria medicine considers the significance of mitochondria in human pathology and tries to explain degenerative diseases as a fatal consequence of mitochondria dysfunction. Here, I introduce the fundamentals of mitochondria physiology and present examples showing the relationship between mitochondria dysfunction and chronic complex diseases. Although mitochondria medicine uses a molecular biological approach predominantly, a biomedical engineering approach might play a critical role in unveiling the complexity of mitochondria medicine and in its application to the diagnosis and treatment of chronic diseases. Thus, I also briefly review the prospects of research using biomedical engineering methods.

Some serious neck diseases are closely related to negative emotion. In order to explain the etiology deeply, we assumed that upper trapezius is innervated by emotional motor system (EMS), a special motor system. And then we developed an upper trapezius-specific surface electromyography acquisition system concerned with its special innervation to prove our assumption. Through a targeted experiment, we found that upper trapezius is indeed innervated by EMS.

In general, Independent component analysis (ICA) is a statistical blind source separation technique, used either in spatial or temporal domain. The spatial or temporal ICAs are designed to extract maximally independent sources in respective domains. The underlying sources for spatiotemporal data (sequence of images) can not always be guaranteed to be independent, therefore spatial ICA extracts the maximally independent spatial sources, deteriorating the temporal sources and vice versa. For such data types, spatiotemporal ICA tries to create a balance by simultaneous optimization in both the domains. However, the spatiotemporal ICA suffers the problem of source ambiguity. Recently, constrained ICA (c-ICA) has been proposed which incorporates a priori information to extract the desired source. In this study, we have extended the c-ICA for better analysis of spatiotemporal data. The proposed algorithm, i.e., constrained spatiotemporal ICA (constrained st-ICA), tries to find the desired independent sources in spatial and temporal domains with no source ambiguity. The performance of the proposed algorithm is tested against the conventional spatial and temporal ICAs using simulated data. Furthermore, its performance for the real spatiotemporal data, functional magnetic resonance images (fMRI), is compared with the SPM (conventional fMRI data analysis tool). The functional maps obtained with the proposed algorithm reveal more activity as compared to SPM.

Due to the aging effect, older people have relatively weaker muscular performance, less range of motion in the joint articulation, and the lower sense of equilibrium than younger people. These factors attribute to their slow and clumsy ingress/egress motion. In order to analyze ingress/egress motion strategy of the elderly, healthy thirty 65 or more years old volunteers were recruited. The health condition of the each volunteer was verified by the medical checkup and also their physical capabilities were quantified by six fitness tests. Through the video analysis, older driver's ingress/egress motion strategies were classified and statistically investigated. For a comparison purpose, another thirty young volunteers also participated in the same test protocol and their ingress/egress motion strategies were also included in the statistical analysis.

The present study developed a new technique with no physical object on the flow stream but enabling the air flow measurement and easily incorporated with the devices for cardiopulmonary resuscitation(CPR) procedure. A turbulence chamber was formed in the middle of the respiratory tube by locally enlarging the cross-sectional area where the flow related turbulence was generated inducing energy loss which was in turn converted into pressure difference. The turbulence chamber was simply an empty enlarged air space, thus no physical object existed on the flow stream, but still the flow rate could be evaluated. Computer simulation demonstrated stable turbulence formation big enough to measure. Experiment was followed on the proto-type transducer, the results of which were within ${\pm}5%$ error compared to the simulation data. Both inspiratory and expiratory flows were obtained with symmetric measurement characteristics. Quadratic curve fitting provided excellent calibration formula with a correlation coefficient>0.999(P<0.0001) and the mean relative error<1%. The present results can be usefully applied to accurately monitor the air flow rate during CPR.

In this paper, we correct pulse wave velocity(PWV) with heart-rate and derive regression equations to estimate intima-media thickness(IMT). Widely used methods for diagnosis of arteriosclerosis are IMT and PWV. Arterial wall stiffness determines the degree of energy absorbed by the elastic aorta and its recoil in diastole but there is not correlation between sclerosis and IMT in an existing study. In this study, we will correct PWV with heart-rate and get regression equation to estimate IMT using heart-rate correction index(HCI). We executed experiments for this study. Made up question of physical condition and measured electrocardiogram(ECG), photoplethysmogram (PPG) of finger-tip and toe-tip and ultrasound image of carotid artery. Calculated PWV and IMT using ECG, PPG and ultrasound image. We found that every p-value between PWV and IMT is not significant(<0.05). But p-value between IMT and HCI which is a corrected PWV using heart-rate is significant(>0.01). We use HCI and various measured parameter for estimating regression equation and apply backward estimation to select parameters for regression analysis. Result of backward estimation, found that only HCI is possible to derive proper regression equation of IMT. Relationship between PWV and IMT is the second order. Result of regression equation of E-H PWV is $R^2$=0.735, adj $R^2$=0.711. This is the best correlation value. We calculate error of its analysis for verification of earlobe PWV regression equation. Its result is RMSEP=0.0328, MAPE(%) = 4.7622. Like this regression analysis, we know that HCI is useful parameter and relationship between PWV, HCI and IMT. In addition, we are able to suggest possibility which is that we can get different parameter of prediction throughout just one measurement.

The purpose of this study was to assess the ability of this device during clinically important episodes of extravasation. The extravasation detection accessory (EDA) system was based of infrared ray with detection sensor, an amplifier, alarm device, receiver, cable and a computer based system. This study was a prospective, observational study in which the EDA system was used to monitor the automated mechanical injection of contrast media. Three hundred patients referred for contrast media enhanced body computed tomography studied in a prospective, observation study in which the EDA system was used to identify and interrupt any injection associated with clinically important extravasation. There were 8 true-positive cases, 276 true-negative cases, 15 false-positive cases and 1 false-negative cases. The EDA system had a sensitivity of 88.8% and a specificity of 94.8% for the detection of clinically important extravasation. The EDA system had good sensitivity for the detection of clinically important extravasation and the EDA system has the clinical potential for the early detection of extravasation of the contrast medium that is administered with power injectors.

As many people are westernizing their life style and food consumption habits, a number of patients who have malignant tumors which grow very rapidly and hazardously destroy the human body are increasing. Ultrasonic hyperthermia is not only one of the tumor treatment methods which employs the non-radioactive ultrasonic waves to increase the temperature at the tumor region up to $40\sim45^{\circ}C$ to destroy and suppress tumor cells but also has been proved by many studies. Due to the rapid development of High Intensity Focused Ultrasound(HIFU), the ultrasound hyperthemia extensively boosts its applications in clinical field. For those reasons, Computed simulation factor should be needed before inspection to patients. To prove efficiency of ultrasonic hyperthermia, precise acoustic field measurement considering tissue characteristics and a heating experiment with tissue mimicking material phantom were conducted for effectiveness of simulation program. Finally, in this study, the computer simulation program verified the anticipated temperature effects induced by ultrasound hyperthermia. In the near future, it is hoped that this simulation program could be utilized to improve the efficiency of ultrasound hyperthermia.

The Performance research about EEG-BCI algorithm in BCI-naive subjects is very important for evaluating the applicability to the public. We analyzed the result of the performance evaluation experiment about the EEG-BCI algorithm in BCI-naive subjects on three different aspects. The EEG-BCI algorithm used in this paper is composed of the common spatial pattern(CSP) and the least square linear classifier. CSP is used for obtaining the characteristic of event related desynchronization, and the least square linear classifier classifies the motor imagery EEG data of the left hand or right hand. The performance evaluation experiments about EEG-BCI algorithm is conducted for 40 men and women whose age are 23.87${\pm}$2.47. The performance evaluation about EEG-BCI algorithm in BCI-naive subjects is analyzed in terms of the accuracy, the relation between the information transfer rate and the accuracy, and the performance changes when the different types of cue were used in the training session and testing session. On the result of experiment, BCI-naive group has about 20% subjects whose accuracy exceed 0.7. And this results of the accuracy were not effected significantly by the types of cue. The Information transfer rate is in the inverse proportion to the accuracy. And the accuracy shows the severe deterioration when the motor imagery is less then 2 seconds.

Nebulizer is designed to atomize medicinal fluid for patient with small particles(0.5-$5{\mu}m$) and also able to deliver particles from devices to the lungs when patient inhales air. Several particle size measurements are currently used to size aerosol particles. The most commonly used test is the cascade impactor method in as a standard. But, other methods for comparative particle size distribution data such as the particle size range and reproducibility are acceptable. Therefore, in this study a new test methode is suggested for nonventilatory nebulizer evaluation equipment.

Purpose: The aim of present study is to detect longitudinal alterations of mechanical characteristic determined by bone quality (microarchitecture and degree of mineralization) on femur trabecular bone due to metastatic bone tumor Materials and Methods: Each 6 female SD rats (12 weeks old, approximate 250g) were allocated in SHAM and TUMOR Group. W256 (Walker carcinosarcoma 256 malignant breast cancer cell) was injected into the right femur (intraosseous injection) in TUMOR Group, whereas 0.9% NaCl (saline solution) was injected in SHAM Group. The right hind limbs of all rats were scanned by in-vivo micro-CT to acquire structural parameters, bone mineral density, X-ray attenuation and bone mineralization distribution at 0 week and 4 weeks after surgery. Results: BMD, BV/TV and Tb.N of trabecular bone in TUMOR group were markedly decreased (26%, 11% and 23%) while those in SHAM group were significantly increased (34%, 48% and 11%) (p<0.05). BS/BV, Tb.Sp and SMI in TUMOR group were significantly increased (-16%, 38% and 2%) compared with those in SHAM group (-33%, 12% and -16%) (p<0.05). Additionally, bone mineralization in TUMOR group significantly decreased while those in SHAM group was significantly increased (p<0.05). Conclusion: It is identified that how much bone microarchitecture and mineralization are diminished due to the metastatic bone tumor. The results may be helpful to prediction of fracture risk by metastatic bone tumor.