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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Tissue engineering in the cardiovascular system: progress toward a tissue engineered heart.

Achieving the lofty goal of developing a tissue engineered heart will likely rely on progress in engineering the various components: blood vessels, heart valves, and cardiac muscle. Advances in tissue engineered vascular grafts have shown the most progress to date. Research in tissue-engineered vascular grafts has focused on improving scaffold design, including mechanical properties and bioactivity; genetically engineering cells to improve graft performance; and optimizing tissue formation through in vitro mechanical conditioning. Some of these same approaches have been used in developing tissue engineering heart valves and cardiac muscle as well. Continued advances in scaffold technology and a greater understanding of vascular cell biology along with collaboration among engineers, scientists, and physicians will lead to further progress in the field of cardiovascular tissue engineering and ultimately the development of a tissue-engineered heart.

Animals↗

The application of ethics to engineering and the engineer's moral responsibility: perspectives for a research agenda.

There are different possibilities for defining the areas for the application of ethics to engineering. They range from descriptive analysis of engineers' relationship to moral criteria and extend to normative issues on how engineers should design more "sustainable" technology. In this paper, a frame of reference is proposed, which makes it possible to elaborate in a transparent manner goals for analysis of the scope of ethics in engineering Its point of departure is marked by two questions. 1) which types of situation in the practice of engineering require ethical reflection? and 2) to what extent are engineers expected to assume moral responsibility in the practice of their profession? The answers to both of these questions presuppose reflection on the societal processes of setting definitions and of making ascriptions. Understanding these processes of societal "construction" of demands for ethical reflection in engineering and of engineers' moral responsibilities should be an important objective of the analysis of ethics in engineering.

Decision Making↗

Specialized medical search-engines are no better than general search-engines in sourcing consumer information about androgen deficiency.

BACKGROUND: The Internet provides consumers with access to online health information; however, identifying relevant and valid information can be problematic. Our objectives were firstly to investigate the efficiency of search-engines, and then to assess the quality of online information pertaining to androgen deficiency in the ageing male (ADAM). METHODS: Keyword searches were performed on nine search-engines (four general and five medical) to identify website information regarding ADAM. Search-engine efficiency was compared by percentage of relevant websites obtained via each search-engine. The quality of information published on each website was assessed using the DISCERN rating tool. RESULTS: Of 4927 websites searched, 47 (1.44%) and 10 (0.60%) relevant websites were identified by general and medical search-engines respectively. The overall quality of online information on ADAM was poor. The quality of websites retrieved using medical search-engines did not differ significantly from those retrieved by general search-engines. CONCLUSION: Despite the poor quality of online information relating to ADAM, it is evident that medical search-engines are no better than general search-engines in sourcing consumer information relevant to ADAM.

Androgens↗

Clinical engineering in today's hospital: perspectives of the administrator and the clinical engineer.

In 1987-88, the first of two surveys conducted questioned the administrator's viewpoint on choice of reporting authority for plant operations and clinical engineering departments as well as the job satisfaction and prestige associated with these responsibilities. The second tested the response of clinical engineers on similar issues as well as the effect of certain organizational factors on their degree of functional involvement in the equipment-management process. In the first survey, two-thirds of the administrators chose a structure that, as shown in the second survey, leads to a higher degree of involvement and satisfaction for clinical engineers. Other organizational factors that have an effect are: the type of hospital (teaching and nonteaching), the presence of qualified university-degree engineers, and ensuring that the clinical engineering role within the health care institution is recognized and supported. Teaching hospitals are found to provide a better climate than nonteaching ones for the support of the research and education activities. Clinical engineering departments, whose role has been recognized and supported by their institution, are more substantially involved in all aspects of the equipment-management process than those who are still seeking this recognition. Finally, departments where university-degree engineers have been hired again show more involvement and commitment to the quality and efficiency of their operation.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗

Reverse engineering the embryo: a graduate course in developmental biology for engineering students at the University of Manitoba, Canada.

Our desire to educate engineers to be able to understand the component processes of embryogenesis, is driven by the notion that only when principles borrowed from mathematics, fluid mechanics, materials science, etc. are applied to classical problems in developmental biology, will sufficient comprehension be achieved to permit successful understanding and therapeutic manipulation of embryos. As it now stands, biologists seldom possess either skills or interest in those areas of endeavor. Thus, we have determined that it is easier to educate engineers in the principles of developmental biology than to help biologists deal with the complexities of engineering. We describe a graduate course that has been taken, between 1999 and 2002, by 17 engineering students. Our goal is to prepare them to reverse engineer the embryo, i.e., to look at it as an object or process whose construction, albeit self-construction, might be explicable in terms of engineering principles applied at molecular, cellular and whole embryo levels.

Developmental Biology↗

Are engineers unsung heroes of medical progress?: the historic bond between physics, engineering, and medicine.

This review traces the heretofore unsung hero role of engineering in the evolution of today's healthcare and the growing bond between physics, engineering, and medicine. It recognizes the debt owed to the various specialties of healthcare engineering, especially the bioengineers who contribute not only to a better understanding of basic physiologic and pathologic processes but also to the development and application of technology and the adaptation of new engineering discoveries to medicine. In the past half-millennium, the fields of physics, engineering, and medicine have made a large number of seminal contributions to each other, resulting in ever-advancing healthcare methodologies, although only a precious few remain identified by the originators' names. In this review, 3 engineers are cited in detail for their milestone contributions to medical progress: Roentgen in radiology, Bovie in electrosurgery, and, more recently, Greatbatch in implantable cardiac pacemakers. Future horizons in medicine appear to be ever more attainable because of the synergism between the physical and biological sciences.

Biomedical Engineering↗

[Basic problems of staff training in medical engineering management at the N.E, Bauman Moscow State Engineering University].

The topicality of staff training in medical engineering management in the sphere of medicine and medical engineering is dictated by that the substantiated and flexible strategy in purchasing foreign medical equipment and drugs and supporting purely Russian biomedical technologies must be one of the first steps of health public reforms in Russia. As early as 1992, the N. E. Bauman Moscow State Engineering University was the first that organize to train staff in business and management in biomedical engineering and health public. The accumulated experiment was put in the development of new curricula by the supplementary education system. Interdisciplinary training in medical engineering marketing and management was organized, thus providing both additional education for specialists having complete and incomplete higher education who received diplomas of a management bachelor or master and through training of students who got diplomas of an engineer and diplomas of a management bachelor at the international level.

Biomedical Engineering↗

Antiandrogenic activity of extracts of diesel exhaust particles emitted from diesel-engine truck under different engine loads and speeds.

To clarify the alteration of androgenic and antiandrogenic activities by diesel engine conditions, we collected diesel exhaust particles (DEP) samples emitted from a diesel-engine truck under different conditions of engine loads and vehicle speeds, and DEP extract (DEPE) samples were prepared from each. The androgenic and antiandrogenic activities of the DEPE samples were examined using a prostate specific antigen (PSA) promoter-luciferase reporter gene assay in PC3/AR human prostate cancer cells. While all DEPE samples did not exhibit androgenic effects, the antiandrogenic effects were enhanced by higher engine load but not by higher vehicle speed. In this study, significant correlations between antiandrogenic and aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) agonistic activities were demonstrated in PC3/AR cells by 16 polycyclic aromatic compounds and beta-naphthoflavone. Yeast two-hybrid assay and cytochrome P450 (CYP) 1A1 promoter-luciferase reporter gene assay showed that the antiandrogenic constituents acting as androgen receptor (AR) antagonists and AhR agonists were increased by only the higher engine load. In conclusion, the antiandrogenic effects of DEPE samples were enhanced by a higher engine load which resulted in DEPC samples with elevated AhR agonistic and AR antagonistic activities.

Adenocarcinoma↗

Clinical engineering practicum: a new approach in clinical engineering education.

The emerging concept of a clinical engineer is that of a practitioner of engineering science as it applies to hospital medical devices and the technology of health care delivery. Therefore, in addition to the theoretical and scientific aspects of the clinical engineer's education, there must also be some form of experiential education under proper guidance. For most university-based clinical engineering programs, this takes the form of a hospital internship. The transition between the academic environment to the hospital environment is not always a smooth one, as there is a type of "culture shock" brought on by the new and extremely demanding situation encountered in the hospital. In an effort to improve the transition from university to hospital and allow the student to focus more sharply on his or her professional goals, the concept of the clinical engineering practicum was developed. Its function is to be an introductory learning experience and half-way point between the hospital and the university.

Biomedical Engineering↗

Inverse metabolic engineering: a strategy for directed genetic engineering of useful phenotypes.

The classical method of metabolic engineering, identifying a rate-determining step in a pathway and alleviating the bottleneck by enzyme overexpression, has motivated much research but has enjoyed only limited practical success. Intervention of other limiting steps, of counter-balancing regulation, and of unknown coupled pathways often confounds this direct approach. Here the concept of inverse metabolic engineering is codified and its application is illustrated with several examples. Inverse metabolic engineering means the elucidation of a metabolic engineering strategy by: first, identifying, constructing, or calculating a desired phenotype; second, determining the genetic or the particular environmental factors conferring that phenotype; and third, endowing that phenotype on another strain or organism by directed genetic or environmental manipulation. This paradigm has been successfully applied in several contexts, including elimination of growth factor requirements in mammalian cell culture and increasing the energetic efficiency of microaerobic bacterial respiration.

Animals↗

Putting engineering back into protein engineering: bioinformatic approaches to catalyst design.

Complex multivariate engineering problems are commonplace and not unique to protein engineering. Mathematical and data-mining tools developed in other fields of engineering have now been applied to analyze sequence-activity relationships of peptides and proteins and to assist in the design of proteins and peptides with specified properties. Decreasing costs of DNA sequencing in conjunction with methods to quickly synthesize statistically representative sets of proteins allow modern heuristic statistics to be applied to protein engineering. This provides an alternative approach to expensive assays or unreliable high-throughput surrogate screens.

Algorithms↗

Effects of engine speed and accessory load on idling emissions from heavy-duty diesel truck engines.

A nontrivial portion of heavy-duty vehicle emissions of NOx and particulate matter (PM) occurs during idling. Regulators and the environmental community are interested in curtailing truck idling emissions, but current emissions models do not characterize them accurately, and little quantitative data exist to evaluate the relative effectiveness of various policies. The objectives of this study were to quantify the effect of accessory loading and engine speed on idling emissions from a properly functioning, modern, heavy-duty diesel truck and to compare these results with data from earlier model year vehicles. It was found that emissions during idling varied greatly as a function of engine model year, engine speed, and accessory load conditions. For the 1999 model year Class 8 truck tested, raising the engine speed from 600 to 1050 rpm and turning on the air conditioning resulted in a 2.5-fold increase in NOx emissions in grams per hour, a 2-fold increase in CO2 emissions, and a 5-fold increase in CO emissions while idling. On a grams per gallon fuel basis, NOx emissions while idling were approximately twice as high as those at 55 mph. The CO2 emissions at the two conditions were closer. The NOx emissions from the 1999 truck while idling with air conditioning running were slightly more than those of two 1990 model year trucks under equivalent conditions, and the hydrocarbon (HC) and CO emissions were significantly lower. It was found that the NOx emissions used in the California Air Resources Board's (CARB) EMFAC2000 and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) MOBILE5b emissions inventory models were lower than those measured in all of the idling conditions tested on the 1999 truck.

Engineering↗

Expanding the scope of the IEEE Transactions on Rehabilitation Engineering to explicitly include Neural Engineering.

The original scope of this Transactions implicitly gave it wide latitude to include all aspects of biologically based Neural Engineering. The Transactions now has an additional explicit charter to target Neural Engineering and its links to rehabilitation, from the very basic science to the highly engineered design application. This Transactions will become a prime repository for the emerging field of Neural Engineering, without losing its rehabilitation roots.

Biomedical Engineering↗

Traditional engineering in the biological century: the biotraditional engineer.

The increasing importance of life science in all engineering is prompting departments in the traditional engineering disciplines to offer life science as part of their curricula. Students who take advantage of this opportunity--"biotraditional engineers"--will be well positioned for careers in their discipline and in related areas of bioengineering. The founder engineering societies, such as the Bioengineering Division of ASME, are responding to this trend by broadening their scope and working increasingly across interdisciplinary borders.

Biomedical Engineering↗