Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Orthopedics – methods'

[Truncated abstract] Articular cartilage (AC) covers the surface of synovial joints providing a nearly frictionless bearing surface and distributing mechanical load. Joint trauma can damage the articular surface causing pain, loss of mobility and deformation. Currently there is no uniform treatment protocol for managing focal cartilage defects, with most treatment options targeted towards symptomatic relief but not limiting the progression into osteoarthritis (OA). Autologous chondrocyte implantation (ACI) and more recently matrix-induced autologous chondrocyte implantation (MACI), have emerged as promising methods for producing hyaline or hyaline-like repair tissue, however there remains some controversy regarding the exact histological nature of the tissue formed. Histological characterisation of AC repairs requires destructive tissue biopsy potentially inducing further joint pathology thereby negating the treatment effect. OA is recognised as a major cause of pain, loss of function and disability in Western populations, however the exact aetiology is yet to be elucidated. The assessment of both OA and cartilage repair has been limited to macroscopic observation, radiography, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or destructive biopsy. The development of non-destructive AC assessment modalities will facilitate further development of AC repair techniques and enable early monitoring of OA changes in both experimental animal models and clinical subjects. Confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) is a type of fluorescence microscopy that generates high-resolution three-dimensional images from relatively thick sections of tissue. ... Biomechanical analysis suggested that the mechanical properties of MACI tissue remain inferior for at least three months. This study showed the potential of a multi-site sheep model of articular cartilage defect repair and validated its assessment via LSCA. Finally, the LSCA was used to arthroscopically image the cartilage of an intact fresh frozen cadaveric knee from a patient with clinically diagnosed OA. Images were correlated to ICRS (Outerbridge) Grades I-IV and histology. The LSCA gave excellent visualization of cell morphology and cell density to a depth of up to 200'm. Classical OA changes including clustering chondrocytes, surface fibrillation and fissure formation were imaged. Fair to moderate agreement was demonstrated with statistically significant correlations between all modalities. This study confirmed the viability of the LSCA for non-destructive imaging of the microstructure of the OA cartilage. In conclusion, the LSCA identified histological features of orthopaedic tissues, accurately quantified chondrocyte morphology and demonstrated classical OA changes. While the development and investigation of an ovine model of cartilage repair showed the treatment benefit of MACI, some biomechanical issues remain. Ultimately, the LSCA has been demonstrated as a reliable nondestructive imaging modality capable of providing optical histology without the need for mechanical biopsy. Medical Subject Headings (MESH): articular cartilage; autologous chondrocyte implantation; matrix-induced autologous chondrocyte implantation; biomechanics; cartilage; confocal microscopy; diagnosis; histology; image analysis; immunohistochemistry; magnetic resonance imaging; microscopy; osteoarthritis

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T13:10:26Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Diovano Paust de Oliveira.pdf: 2060848 bytes, checksum: 95c443bf73906356fa78cae247217e3e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-08-28<br>The evaluation of students and medical residents through Miniex is already well grounded in literature, with several papers demonstrating their validity and reliability. This paper aims the comparison of two groups of residents of Orthopedics in the Orthopedics Oncology area, utilizing Miniex assessments and a theoretical test examination. A total of 56 Miniex evaluations were carried out divided into two groups of residents being seven of them 2 nd year residents of Orthopedics and another seven attending the 3 rd year medical residency. There was a best performance of 3 rd year residents regarding skill competence of medical interview as well as on theoretical test examination. It has been also identified that skill in medical interview was the best marker for a good performance in the evaluation of Miniex. Analyzing some features of patients, such as gender and complexity of the case shows the possibility of these influencing the score giving to the student. We also observed that there is no association between the score giving to evidence and theoretical Miniex assessments. The findings of this study suggest there are peculiarities in the evaluation process as in the charging of individual knowledge that subjective considerations deserve, in addition to the score offered by traditionally carried out assessments. The use of Miniex is perfectly feasible as a evaluation tool in medical residency; its use can be can be spread to other medical education institutions<br>A avaliação dos estudantes e residentes de medicina através do Miniex já está bem fundamentada na literatura, com diversos trabalhos demonstrando sua validade e confiabilidade. Este trabalho objetiva a comparação de dois grupos de residentes de ortopedia na subárea de oncologia ortopédica, utilizando as avaliações do Miniex associadas a uma prova teórica. Foram realizadas um total de 56 avaliações do Miniex divididas em dois grupos de residentes, 7 residentes do 2° ano de ortopedia e 7 residentes do 3° ano. Verificou-se um melhor desempenho dos residentes do 3° ano para a competência de habilidade da entrevista médica, bem como nas notas da prova teórica. Identificou-se também ser habilidade na entrevista médica o melhor marcador para um bom desempenho na avaliação do Miniex. Analisando algumas características dos pacientes, tais quais gêneros e complexidade do caso, observouse a possibilidade dessas poderem influenciar na nota recebida pelo estudante. Observou-se também não haver associação entre as notas da prova teórica e as avaliações do Miniex. Os achados deste estudo sugeriram haver peculiaridades tanto no processo avaliativo quanto na carga do conhecimento individual que merecem considerações subjetivas além das notas oferecidas pelas avaliações tradicionalmente realizadas. A aplicação do Miniex como instrumento avaliativo é perfeitamente factível nas residências médicas, podendo seu uso ser ampliado nas instituições de formação médica

Most pediatric orthopaedic interventions are intended to improve or preserve physical function, yet their outcomes have been assessed using primarily surrogate measures (e.g., radiographic indices) that may not accurately represent patients'function. Physical function may be more appropriately measured with activity-based scales, but these have been infrequently applied in surgical studies. The purpose of this study was to identify existing activity-based physical-function scales appropriate for pediatric orthopaedics, to present criteria useful for scale selection, and to discuss the special problems of measuring physical function in children. Twenty-one scales relevant to pediatric orthopaedics are described according to their target population, purpose, method of administration, content, and quality of standardization. These scales have been further classified according to a new taxonomy. The unique aspects of measuring physical function in children are discussed and include the effect of age and development, method of reporting, and question formats. Standardized measures of physical function based on physical-activity ability exist and should be used more frequently to assess pediatric orthopaedic interventions

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007.<br>The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on April 14, 2008) Includes bibliographical references.

The clinical success of Total Hip Arthroplasty is enhanced by matching hip implant geometry to femoral geometry. Traditionally, the shapes of hip implant designs have been based on data collected from patient populations using X-ray, CT Scan, digitized sliced bone, and other physical methods. The morphology of interest and the frame of reference often vary across researchers and the resulting numeric data are difficult to use in a Computer Aided Design package to build an implant model. This goal of this thesis was to develop procedures and automated programs for the design and evaluation of femoral hip implants using CT data. The procedures bridge the gap between patient specific "custom" prosthesis design and the so-called "averaged femur" implant designs. By automating the measurement, orientation and averaging of any user selected grouping of femora, these programs allow construction of an average femur template for small subsets of a population or populations. The programs allow grouping of femora using either dimensional attributes and/or patient attributes such as pathology, ethnic background, etc. The average femur template created for each group can then be used as the design boundary for a discrete implant size. Additional functionality is also provided for comparing average femur templates to their constitutive femora and for comparison of average femur templates against each other. To illustrate that the goals of this theses were realized, an example of the use of the system for a population of 192 Japanese is included in this thesis. The criteria for evaluation of the average femur templates was the gap or interference of the template to that of each constitutive femur along the medial and lateral endosteal contours. Testing 24 template sizes, the average of the worst fitting template to femur combination for each size resulted in a gap or interference of less than 2mm in the metaphysis and less than 4mm proximally.

Osseointegration, or the direct integration of an implant into bone tissue, is necessary for implant success. Titanium is commonly used clinically in dental and orthopaedic implants because of its passivating oxide layer, which facilitates osseointegration, and its mechanical properties such as a modulus of elasticity similar to bone. Diverse studies have shown that surface microtopography, chemistry, and surface energy affect osteoblast behavior. The problem with these studies is that they access the average behavior of a culture in response to a substrate and not the behavior of individual cells. The objective of this study was to develop a method for correlating the behavior of individual cells with the characteristics of the surface underneath them. More specifically, this work developed a method to correlate integrin beta-1 (β1) expression with the surface characteristics under individual cells. Integrins are cell surface receptors that bind to specific proteins in the extracellular matrix adsorbed on the implant surface. Previous work has shown that expression of certain integrins is increased when osteoblasts on titanium substrates develop a more differentiated phenotype, and that integrin β1 is necessary for osteoblast response to roughness on titanium substrates. This study used molecular beacons specific to integrin β1 to quantify integrin β1 expression of MG63 cells cultured on titanium disks. A template was designed to coordinate the location of cells using fluorescence microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) in reference to laser etchings on the disks. After live cell imaging, cells were fixed, dried, and critical point dried for focused ion beam (FIB) milling. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) sections of cells identified with high and low integrin β1 molecular beacon intensity were milled, and cells with high and low integrin β1 molecular beacon intensity were also serial sectioned. While our TEM results were inconclusive, SEM images from serial sectioning showed contact points between the cell body and the substrate, consistent with previous results. Cells cultured on pretreatment (PT) or sandblasted acid etched (SLA) titanium surfaces were also serial sectioned, showing that cells on SLA surfaces have more regions of contact between the cells and the substrate than cells on PT surfaces. This work is significant as it is the first study to develop a method to correlate individual cell behavior with the substrate surface characteristics under the individual cells. Previous studies have reported the average cell behavior in response to their substrates, while this work allows for the study of substrate surface characteristics that positively affect integrin β1 expression in individual cells. Further optimization of the fluorescence imaging process and FIB milling process could be done, and the method developed in this study could be used in future studies to investigate surface characteristics after using other fluorescent analyses of cell behavior, such as immunocytochemistry.

Atualmente, os bons resultados na lesão do ligamento cruzado posterior por avulsão óssea na tíbia associam-se ao tratamento cirúrgico e precoce. A técnica convencional é a fixação com parafuso pela via de acesso posterior do joelho, com abordagem direta das estruturas vasculares e nervosas da região. Neste estudo experimental em 20 joelhos de cadáveres, buscamos apresentar uma alternativa com amarrilho por via artroscópica, comparando-o com a técnica convencional, através da inspeção direta e de testes biomecânicos. Houve falha na fixação de apenas um exemplar de cada método e medidas de deslocamento tibial posterior (p=0,23) e rigidez média (p=0,28) sem diferenças significativas entre as duas técnicas. Concluímos ser o amarrilho artroscópico viável e uma alternativa no tratamento desta lesão.<br>Nowadays, good results on the management of posterior cruciate ligament bony avulsion of the tibia are associated with early surgical repair. The usual method of treatment is the open posterior approach with screw fixation, wich requires popliteal neurovascular bundle direct manipulation. This study presents a new arthroscopic suture and compares it with the conventional technique, using biomechanical tests and direct inspection in cadaveric specimens (20 knees). On both methods there was a fixation fail in one knee. The analisys of tibial posterior displacement (p=0,23) and stiffness (p=0,20) were similar for the two methods. The Arthroscopic suture presented is an effective reattachment method for this fracture pattern.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T12:41:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0<br>Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T14:07:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0<br>Dissertação (Mestrado)<br>IPEN/D<br>Instituto de Pesquisas Energeticas e Nucleares - IPEN-CNEN/SP

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Medicine Johannesburg, 2019<br>Hand infection is the most common condition seen at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital Orthopaedic casualty. In 2017, 31% of orthopaedic admissions at our institution were patients with hand sepsis. Failure to adequately treat these infections results in severe loss of hand function and disability, and this leads to a significant socioeconomic impact in our population. The infected patients are usually started on empiric antibiotics (amoxicillinclavunate (Augmentin)) on admission, and prior to surgical drainage. The purpose of this study was to identify the microbiology profile of hand infections and their antibiotic sensitivity at our institution. The laboratory results of antimicrobial sensitivity were compared with the antibiotics started empirically. The impact of associated co-morbidities on the microbiology profile was also assessed. The results showed that Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is the most common cultured organism. Most organisms were sensitive to cloxacillin. The culture results in HIV infected patients did not differ to those in the uninfected population. Acquired Methicillin-Resistant S. Aureus remains low in our population setting.<br>E.K. 2019

Spinal injury and pain can often be debilitating, leading to a significant decrease in quality of life. The development of these spinal conditions may be explained by changes spinal loading patterns. Since spinal loading patterns cannot be analyzed in vivo, biomechanical musculoskeletal models have been developed to estimate them. Incorporating muscle parameters such as cross sectional area and moment arms improves the accuracy of musculoskeletal models, but no current resource provides a comprehensive set of muscle parameters for a wide variety of subjects. This study aims to develop a method for estimating trunk muscle parameters from clinically attainable variables such as age, sex, height, weight, trunk width, and trunk depth. The regression models built in this study drew from in-vivo CT-based cross sectional area and moment arms measurements of an age- and sex- stratified community-based population. The base regression model used the independent variables age, sex, height, and weight, while subsequent models examined the differences when trunk depth or trunk width was incorporated. 27% of cross sectional area regressions were improved with the addition of trunk weight or trunk width; 26.6% of medial lateral moment arm regressions were improved with the addition of trunk width; 50% of anterior posterior moment arm regressions were improved with the addition of trunk depth. Although the addition of trunk depth or width improved model fit especially in moment arm regressions, the R2 values of regressions were not increased greatly. It is suspected that muscle position as related to distribution of fat may explain the mismatched contribution of trunk measurements to moment arm estimates in different muscles. Further investigation is needed to examine the effects of fat distribution on muscle parameter estimation.

碩士<br>國立臺灣科技大學<br>機械工程系<br>99<br>Searching optimum problem is very important in engineering field. There are many methods to solve this problem but no one can assure that the optimum found is the global optimum. We can only have a conclusion that one method can find a better optimum solution than another method. One conventional approach to find optimum is Taguchi method which was applied very widely and successfully in many disciplines. Another approach is Neurogenetic method which includes artificial neural network and genetic algorithm. This method has emerged as a very effective and powerful method to search optimum solution. The purpose of this study is to compare the conventional method with the new method in finding optimum design and calculating contribution of each factor. Thus, these two methods were applied for finding optimal solution of the lag screw which plays a very important role in curing patients. Because the lag screw needs bending strength which resists breakage and pullout strength which resists loosening, the two methods were exploited to find optimal solution for each bending case and pullout case separately. From the results, the optimum found by Neurogentic method is better than the optimum found by Taguchi method, especially in the bending case which is the more complex case compared to pullout case. It means that the more complicated relationship between factors and response the better optimum solution can be found by Neurogenetic method compared to Taguchi method. Besides, using artificial neural network, the contribution of each factor could be calculated by Modified Profile method and the results were similar to the contribution calculated by analysis of variance in Taguchi method. This study is an objective suggestion for engineers in choosing method to find the optimum solution. The Taguchi method should be applied if the case is simple because the Taguchi method is systematic, simple and easy to achieve the result. The Neurogenetic method should be applied if the case is complex because using Neurogenentic method can obtain better optimum solutions. It is a notice that if the artificial neural network is well-trained, the Neurogenetic can be very powerful and can be applied in many situations, like: multi-objective optimization.

碩士<br>國立臺灣科技大學<br>機械工程系<br>101<br>Due to the importance of optimization method which’s been sprung up these decades in engineering field, Nurogenetic method was used in many disciplines. Literatures only concerned each hybrid type of ANN (artificial neural network) and GA (genetic algorism) per optimization problem. The purpose of this study is comparing the difference between each Nurogenetic type. Thus, these methods were applied to finding optimal design of the orthopedic screw which plays an important role in curing proximal femur fracture and needs to resist the failure of breakage and loosening. First, the essential data were prepared: arranging the design factor’s level by orthogonal array, building model and finding their layout by Solidworks and ANSYS Workbench, and determining the design factor’s contribution by Taguchi method. Next, ANN and GA were calculated for the optima by Matlab program. In final, data were validated by finite element analysis software. There are four Neurogenetic type were researched in this study: Singleoutput-neuro-singleobjective-genetic method, multioutput-neuro-singleobjective-genetic method, singleoutput-neuro-multiobjective-genetic method and multioutput-neuro-multiobjective-genetic method. Bending strength analysis and pullout strength analysis were taken in each method above. From the result, when dealing with singleobjective optimization problem, applying singleoutput-neuro-singleobjective-genetic method could get a better ANN model which has a testing mean percentage error lower about 27% under close optimal predict value and close calculating time. When dealing with multiobjective optimization problem, applying multioutput-neuro-multiobjective-genetic method could get a better Neurogenetic model which saves times about 26.73% under close optimal predict value and close original optima preservation.

Qi, Lin.<br>Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2013.<br>Includes bibliographical references.<br>Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web.<br>Abstract also in Chinese.

Tese de mestrado integrado, Engenharia Biomédica e Biofísica (Engenharia Clínica e Instrumentação Médica) Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2017<br>Os membros inferiores são responsáveis por fornecer suporte à totalidade do corpo humano e são essenciais nas mais variadas tarefas como estar de pé, andar e correr. Por vezes, e devido a diversos motivos, podem existir defeitos ou deformações nos membros inferiores que têm um impacto direto na qualidade de vida de uma pessoa, quer por se ver afetado o lado estético pessoal ou por condicionar significativamente a mobilidade. Uma característica da estrutura do membro inferior que é diretamente afetada por estas deformações é o seu alinhamento, isto é, a posição relativa dos ossos e articulações que compõem o membro. Graças à evolução da medicina moderna, corrigir estas deformações é agora uma prática bastante comum no campo da cirurgia ortopédica. No entanto, antes de qualquer cirurgia corretiva e até de qualquer planeamento que esta exija, a deformação tem de ser corretamente analisada, o que é feito através da chamada avaliação do alinhamento do membro inferior. Atualmente, num contexto clínico, esta avaliação é feita manualmente num espaço de trabalho bi-dimensional, normalmente utilizando apenas imagens de raios-X da perna inteira no plano anatómico frontal. Uma revisão ao estado da arte no que toca a métodos de planeamento cirúrgico dedicados ao membro inferior permite concluir que de facto existe software capaz de realizar este planeamento, mas que, no entanto, para além de terem custos elevadíssimos associados, nenhum utilizada modelos 3D como fonte de informação, o que traria imensos benefícios, especialmente ao nível da informação acerca da rotação e da inclinação dos ossos. Existem no entanto algum software a um nível mais experimental que utiliza modelos 3D para realizar a avaliação do alinhamento do membro inferior, sendo que nenhum deles passou ainda a estar disponível comercialmente. Numa perspetiva de implementar um método automático baseado em computador para realizar o planeamento pré-cirurgico da cirurgia de correção para ser utilizado em contexto clínico, foi proposto um projeto para o desenvolvimento de um novo software capaz de efetuar a avaliação do alinhamento do membro inferior em modelos 3D dos doentes. O projeto foi dividido em quatro etapas distintas que se desenrolaram ao longo de um estágio de sete meses. Na primeira etapa, o objetivo consistiu em gerar diversos modelos 3D dos membros inferiores de diferentes pacientes. Para tal, recorreu-se ao software de segmentação de imagens médicas Mimics 14.0 e utilizaram-se imagens de tomografia computorizada dos pacientes. Após o processo de segmentação, obtiveram-se os modelos 3D cuja qualidade teve de ser assegurada através de um processo de remeshing e cuja correta orientação espacial teve de ser também assegurada, já que a avaliação do alinhamento é sensível à orientação da perna. Para tal, utilizou-se o software de renderização 3D Geomagic Studio 14. Optou-se ainda por separar os modelos dos ossos nas suas porções proximal e distal, de modo a reduzir futuramente os tempos de computação. Findo todo este processo, assegurou-se que diferentes utilizadores poderiam gerar estes modelos sem grande variabilidade ou erro no resultado final através da comparação dos modelos obtidos de um mesmo paciente por três utilizadores distintos, sendo que os modelos obtidos apresentavam volumes com diferenças inferiores a 1% relativamente ao valor médio e com um baixo desvio padrão. Numa segunda etapa, os ângulos e medidas consideradas necessárias para uma avaliação adequada foram definidos, apresentando os valores esperados para estas medidas de acordo com a literatura. Assim, foi possível definir também os pontos anatómicos que são necessários para a definição destes mesmos ângulos e medidas e que portanto têm de ser encontrados pelo software. Na terceira etapa, fez-se então o desenvolvimento propriamente dito do software. Encontravam-se já disponíveis alguns métodos automáticos desenvolvidos no contexto projeto, contudo, estes métodos exigiam que o utilizador conhecesse as ferramentas do Geomagic de modo a obter algumas informações, e que depois fosse capaz de utilizar estas informações para editar os scripts de modo a que estes funcionassem para cada paciente em específico. Para além disso, apenas pontos muito específicos podiam ser encontrados. Nesse sentido, isto é, de modo a que todo o processo de encontrar os pontos anatómicos relevantes pudesse ser feito diretamente pelo utilizador, no programa, e sem exigir quaisquer conhecimentos de programação, um conjunto de técnicas foi implementado, dando ao programa uma grande componente gráfica. Para os diferentes pontos, foi necessário recorrer a diferentes metodologias, algumas desenvolvidas propositadamente para o efeito e implementadas em linguagem de programação Python "pura", e algumas adaptadas de outras já existentes e disponíveis no próprio Geomagic. Foi ainda assegurado que existiam métodos alternativos caso os métodos padrão não fossem os mais adequados devido a uma estrutura diferente da esperada dos próprios modelos 3D. De todo este processo resultou um programa que usa os modelos 3D gerados e, da maneira mais automática possível e com uma interface do utilizador fácil de usar, fornece todos os ângulos e medidas, efetuando assim a dita avaliação do alinhamento do membro inferior em 3D. Uma análise ponderada aos resultados obtidos permitiu identificar quais os pontos anatómicos que estarão a ser obtidos de maneira menos ideal e por isso a levar a alguns resultados não tão bons como o esperado. A dependência criada da seleção e limitação de certas áreas nas quais ocorre uma iteração que permite encontrar certos pontos é possivelmente a maior falha do programa desenvolvido que se torna assim demasiado sensível ao input do utilizador. Note-se, contudo, que os próprios testes apresentam algumas falhas que podem influenciar os resultados obtidos, tal como não ter sido definido um roteiro de teste que obrigasse a uma utilização uniforme por parte de todos os utilizadores, e também os diferentes níveis de experiência com o programa por parte dos utilizadores de teste. No entanto, a maioria das medidas obtidas apresenta valores constantes ao longo de diversas utilizações, igualando os valores que seriam obtidos manualmente, mas com o potencial de os obter em metade do tempo. Pode concluir-se então que, no momento, a avaliação do alinhamento 3D é possível utilizando o software desenvolvido. É possível ainda apontar algumas limitações e fazer algumas sugestões de modo a que estas sejas ultrapassadas. Algumas limitações partiram do facto da experiência a programar em Python ser bastante limitada, e outras partiram do software utilizado para fazer o desenvolvimento. Por exemplo, o método que teria sido o mais indicado para encontrar um certo número de pontos na Tibia não foi possível de implementar devido a um bug interno do software. Existe ainda muita coisa que pode ser feita no que toca ao software desenvolvido e ao objectivo final de desenvolver um método de planeamento pré-operativo: em primeiro lugar, é necessário realizar mais testes, de modo a aumentar o tamanho da amostra e o intervalo de confiança dos testes; em segundo lugar, eliminar a dependência do Geomagic para utilizar o programa seria o ideal; finalmente, de modo a completar o plano inicial, deve ser implementada a possibilidade de visualizar o resultado da cirurgia nos modelos 3D.<br>The lower limbs are responsible for supporting the body and are essential for several tasks such as standing, walking and running. Sometimes, and due to various reasons, defects or deformities can be found on the lower limbs and this has an impact on a person’s quality-of-life. One characteristic of the structure of the lower limb that is affected by these deformities is its alignment, i.e. the relative positions of the bones and joints that it includes. Thanks to the evolution of modern medicine, fixing these deformities is now a common practice in the orthopedics' surgical field. Before any corrective surgery and its respective planning, the deformity needs to be properly analyzed, which is accomplished by the assessment of the alignment of the whole lower limb. Currently, in clinical setting, this assessment is carried out manually in the two-dimensional space, normally using wholeleg X-ray images of the anatomical frontal plane, but complex deformities can not be assessed properly in a 2D image. In a desire to create an automatic computer-based method for the preoperative planning of deformity correction and knee surgery, a project consisting of developing a new software for assessing the lower limb alignment based on 3D models was proposed. The project was comprised of four stages: In the first stage, 3D models of different patients’ lower limbs were generated using both segmentation and 3D rendering software, and it was ensured that these models could be generated by any user without significant variability/error in the final outcome; In the second stage, the exact angles and measures needed for a proper assessment were defined, as well as the anatomic landmarks required to calculate them that should then be found by the software; During the third stage, the software development took place, from which resulted a program that uses the generated 3D models and, in the most automatic way possible and with an easy-to-use interface, returns all the needed angles and measures; The final stage of the project was to ensure that the program is reliable and consistent in its results in both intraobserver and interobserver domain, and that it composes an improvement when compared with the manual procedure, while also ensuring that the results obtained by using the program match those obtained manually. A lot can still be done and improved regarding the developed software and the ultimate goal of fully developing a preoperative planning method, but, so far, the 3D alignment assessment that results from the program has been considered to perform its task properly and in an improved way when compared to the traditional technique, even though some limitations can be observed.

M. Tech. Electrical Engineering.<br>The hypothesis states that a closed loop control system could be applied to a mechatronic system consisting of a mechanical device(s) to be fitted onto the user, and other relevant periphery mechanical devices, appropriately actuated to provide powered movement to assist the wheelchair-bound individual securely attain a standing position.The premise upon which the hypothesis was to be tested relates to the control system's ability to facilitate the upward movement proposed and its degree of stability when simulating the system, thus re-creating the anticipated functionality.