• Toxicological Research
• /
• v.23 no.4
• /
• pp.331-339
• /
• 2007

Titanium or titanium alloy is a widely used implant material according to its certified biocompatibility, sufficient strength and ready availability. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relative biocompatibility of titanium and titanium alloy specimens (Ti-29Nb-13Ta, TiNb and Ti-6Al-4V, Ti64) using in vivo and in vitro methods. For in vivo experiment, the specimens were implanted in the abdominal subcutaneous region of female mice for 2 and 4 weeks. The reaction of connective tissue to specimens was evaluated histologically. The specimens were encapsulated by fibrous connective tissue consisting of fibroblast, fibrocyte and other cells including neutrophil, macrophage, giant multinucleated cell and unidentified cells. Some newly formed blood vessels were located in the fibrous capsule surrounding the implant. Cell types and the thickness of fibrous capsules were examined quantitatively. Most of cell types located in the fibrous capsule were fibroblasts and fibrocytes. The average thickness of fibrous capsules for the TiNb specimens was much thinner than that of the titanium alloy, Ti64. The thickness of the fibrous capsule around all titanium specimens decreased at 4 weeks compared to 2 weeks post-implantation. The biocompatibility of titanium and titanium alloy specimens were also investigated in in vitro method using alkaline phosphatase from MG-63 cells. Alkaline phosphatase activity of the TiNb specimen showed higher activity than the titanium alloy, Ti64. In conclusion, the TiNb alloy with thin capsule thickness in vivo and high alkaline phosphatase activity in vitro will be of considerable use in biomedical applications.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.25 no.2
• /
• pp.137-144
• /
• 2004

ECG signals are often contaminated with high-frequency noise such as muscle artifact, power line interference, and others. In the ECG signal processing, especially during a pre-processing stage, numerous noise removal techniques have been used to reduce these high-frequency noise without much distorting the original signal. This paper proposes a new type of digital filter with a continuously variable cutoff frequency to improve the signal quality This filter consists of a cutoff frequency controller (CFC) and variable cutoff frequency lowpass filter (VCF-LPF). From the noisy input ECG signal, CFC produces a cutoff frequency control signal using the signal slew rate. We implemented VCF-LPF based on two new filter design methods called convex combination filter (CCF) and weight interpolation fille. (WIF). These two methods allow us to change the cutoff frequency of a lowpass filter In an arbitrary fine step. VCF-LPF shows an excellent noise reduction capability for the entire time segment of ECG excluding the rising and falling edge of a very sharp QRS complex. We found VCF-LPF very useful and practical for better signal visualization and probably for better ECG interpretation. We expect this new digital filter will find its applications especially in a home health management system where the measured ECG signals are easily contaminated with high-frequency noises .

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
• /
• v.25 no.2
• /
• pp.174-180
• /
• 2014

A plasma hydrophobic coating on commercial fish feed was conducted to prolong the floating time of feed, thereby enhancing the feed consumption rate and reducing the contamination of water in fish farms. The hydrophobic coating on the fish feed was prepared using an atmospheric-pressure dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma with hexamethyldisiloxane (HMDSO), toluene and n-hexane as the precursors. The effect of the parameters such as input power, precursor type and coating time on the coating performance were examined. The physicochemical properties of the coating layer were analyzed using a Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometer and a contact angle (CA) analyzer. The water CA increased after the coating preparation, indicating that the surface changed from hydrophilic to hydrophobic. The FTIR characterization revealed that the hydrophobic layer was comprised of functional groups such as $CH_3$, Si-O-Si and Si-C. As a result of the hydrophobic coating, the floating time of the fish feed increased from several seconds to 3 minutes, which suggested that the plasma coating method could be a viable means for practical applications. Compared to the water CA measured as soon as the coating layer was prepared, the 6-day aged sample exhibited a substantial CA increase, confirming the aging effect on the improvement of the hydrophobicity.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
• /
• v.48 no.4
• /
• pp.431-449
• /
• 2020

Structural property of most hydrogels is soft, resulting in low mechanical performance that limits their usage in the biomedical applications. For overcoming the drawback, cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) were adopted in this study. Effects of CNCs on characteristics and drug delivery performance of poly (vinyl alcohol) based hydrogels were explored. FT-IR results showed that the fabricated hydrogels had semi-IPN (semi-interpenetrating polymer network) by formation of acetal and aldehyde bridge. Water absorption and swelling ratio decreased with increasing CNCs content, and the hydrogels with CNCs showed better viscoelastic performance than the without CNCs. Also, CNCs mostly improved the ability of the hydrogel to absorb the drug and the sustainability of the drug release. These results demonstrated that incorporating CNCs into the hydrogel systems can be a good alternative to improve drug delivery performance and mechanical property of the hydrogels.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
• /
• v.52 no.1
• /
• pp.18-27
• /
• 2020

The correct distinction of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) and ccarbapenemase producing Enterobacteriaceae (CPE) and the rapid detection of CPE are important for instituting the correct treatment and management of clinical infections. Screening protocols are mainly based on cultures of rectal swab specimens on selective media followed by phenotypic tests to confirm a carbapenem-hydrolyzing activity, the rapid carbapenem inactivation method, lateral flow immunoassay, the matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time-of-flight test and molecular methods. The CPE is accurate for detection, and is essential for the clinical treatment and prevention of infections. A variety of phenotypic methods and gene-based methods are available for the rapid detection of carbapenemases, and these are expected to be routinely used in clinical microbiology laboratories. Therefore, to control the spread of carbapenemase, many laboratories around the world will need to use reliable, fast, high efficiency, simple and low cost methods. Optimal effects in patient applications would require rapid testing of CRE to provide reproducible support for antimicrobial management interventions or the treatment by various types of clinicians. For the optimal test method, it is necessary to combine complementary test methods to discriminate between various resistant bacterial species and to discover the genetic diversity of various types of carbapenemase for arriving at the best infection control strategy.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.25 no.5
• /
• pp.329-334
• /
• 2004

The electronic nose (E-nose) recently finds its applications in medical diagnosis, specifically on detection of diabetes, pulmonary or gastrointestinal problem, or infections by examining odors in the breath or tissues with its odor characterizing ability. The odor recognition performance of E-nose can be improved by manipulating the sensor array responses of vapors in time-profile forms. The different chemical interactions between the sensor materials and the volatile organic compounds (VOC's) leave unique marks in the signal profiles giving more information than collection of the conventional piecemal features, i.e., maximum sensitivity, signal slopes, rising time. In this study, to use them in vapor recognition task conveniently, a novel time-profile method was proposed, which is adopted from digital image pattern matching. The degrees of matching between 8 different vapors were evaluated by using the proposed method. The test vapors are measured by the silicon-based gas sensor array with 16 CB-polymer composites installed in membrane structure. The results by the proposed method showed clear discrimination of vapor species than by the conventional method.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.25 no.5
• /
• pp.383-389
• /
• 2004

A commercially pure Ti(CP-Ti) and Ti-25wt％Pd alloy for dental applications were cast into a phosphate-bonded Al$_2$ $O_3$/ $SiO_2$ investment mold and the surface of the casting specimens were investigated by means of SEM/EDS, XRD and XPS. The addition of 25wt％Pd in CP-Ti showed a moderate mold reaction owing to the considerable lowering of melting point. XRD analysis of the investment after burn-out treatment revealed that it consisted essentially of $SiO_2$, Al$_2$ $O_3$, P$_2$O$\_$5/, Mg$_3$(P $O_4$)$_2$, AlP $O_4$, Mg$_2$ $SiO_4$, MgAl$_2$ $O_4$ The mold reaction products were Ti$\_$5/Si$_3$ and Ti $O_2$ in case of CP-Ti casting and Ti $O_2$ and SiO$\_$x/ in case of Ti-25wt％ Pd casting.

• Polymer(Korea)
• /
• v.36 no.5
• /
• pp.586-592
• /
• 2012

Iron oxides ($Fe_3O_4$) are metabolically secreted after endocytosed by cells, indicating no cytotoxicity. Therefore, they are widely used as a contrast agent before photographing of magnetic resonance imaging. In this study, iron oxide nanoparticles are synthesized by the co-precipitation method and subsequently immobilized with a homing peptide (AP), which specifically interacts with interleukin-4 receptor located on the membrane of endothelial and bladder cancer cells. The size of AP-immobilized iron oxide particle is about 39 nm. Intracellular uptake of the AP-immobilized iron oxide nanoparticles was investigated using bladder cancer cells and fibroblasts as the control. As the result, the nanoparticles are specificially uptaken by bladder cancer cells. However, the nanoparticles are not specificially uptaken by fibroblast. It could be said that the AP-immobilized iron oxide nanoparticles have a potential to be used as a contrast agent for early diagnosis of cancer.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
• /
• v.16 no.1
• /
• pp.102-106
• /
• 2006

Magnetic nanoparticles can be used for a variety of biomedical applications. They can be used in the targeted delivery of therapeutic agents in vivo, in the hyperthermic treatment of cancers. in magnetic resonance (MR) imaging as contrast agents and in the biomagnetic separations of biomolecules. We have synthesized magnetite $(Fe_3O_4)$ nanoparticles using chemical coprecipitation technique with sodium oleate as surfactant. Nanoparticle size can be varied from 2 to 8nm by controlling the sodium oleate concentration. Magnetite phase nanoparticles could be observed from X-ray diffraction. Magnetic colloid suspensions containing particles with sodium oleate and chitosan have been prepared. Nanoparticles, both oleate-coated and chitosan-coated, have been characterized by several techniques. Atomic farce microscope (AFM) was used to image the coated nanoparticles. Magnetic hysteresis measurement were performed using a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) magnetometer at room temperature to investigate the magnetic properties of the magnetite nanoparticles. The SQUID measurements revealed superparamagnetism of nanoparticles.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.32 no.3
• /
• pp.245-250
• /
• 2011

Parallel imaging technique can provide several advantages for a multitude of MRI applications. Especially, in SENSE technique, sensitivity maps were always required in order to determine the reconstruction matrix, therefore, a number of difference approaches using sensitivity information from coils have been demonstrated to improve of image quality. Moreover, many filtering methods were proposed such as adaptive matched filter and nonlinear diffusion technique to optimize the suppression of background noise and to improve of image quality. In this study, we performed SENSE reconstruction using computer simulations to confirm the most suitable method for the feasibility of filtering effect and according to changing order of polynomial fit that were applied on variation of spatial resolution of sensitivity map. The image was obtained at 0.32T(Magfinder II, Genpia, Korea) MRI system using spin-echo pulse sequence(TR/TE = 500/20 ms, FOV = 300 mm, matrix = $128{\times}128$, thickness = 8 mm). For the simulation, obtained image was multiplied with four linear-array coil sensitivities which were formed of 2D-gaussian distribution and the image was complex white gaussian noise was added. Image processing was separated to apply two methods which were polynomial fitting and filtering according to spatial resolution of sensitivity map and each coil image was subsampled corresponding to reduction factor(r-factor) of 2 and 4. The results were compared to mean value of geomety factor(g-factor) and artifact power(AP) according to r-factor 2 and 4. Our results were represented while changing of spatial resolution of sensitivity map and r-factor, polynomial fit methods were represented the better results compared with general filtering methods. Although our result had limitation of computer simulation study instead of applying to experiment and coil geometric array such as linear, our method may be useful for determination of optimal sensitivity map in a linear coil array.