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Anže Županič, Alenka Maček Lebar
UTERINE MODEL
Abstract:
A great amount of the research works in the field of surface electromyography (EMG) has been done to understand uterine electrical activity that reflects its mechanical activity. The reported results confirm that EMG signals give reliable and useful information on uterine performance.
Modeling of the EMG signal has proved to be a valuable tool in helping to understand this highly complex signal. Numerical methods, such as boundary and finite-element methods have been successfully used to model the electrical field around active nerve and muscle fibers. The effect of skin, fat and bone tissue on simulated surface skeletal EMG was also examined using a finite-element model. To understand uterine electrical activity and EMG signal patterns, a finite element model of the surface EMG signal will be presented.
A partial-body model of a pregnant woman was constructed from a set of computed tomography (CT) images. The primary CT image data was collected from a hospital where a patient was scanned in a life-saving procedure. The patient was 31 years old and she was 30-weeks pregnant.The scans covered her lower breast to the upper thigh. The slice thickness is 7 mm, making the total height of the scanned portion 490 mm. The view size is 48 cm× 48 cmwith 512×512 pixels, consequently the resolution is 0.94 mm/pixel and voxel size is 0.94 mm× 0.94 mm× 7 mm. The segmentation of uterus, fat with skin and the rest of tissues was based on gray value thresholding. We used every fifth slice to avoid generating too complex geometry for subsequent mesh generation.
For numerical calculations the Comsol Multiphysics software package will be used. Using the model, the effect of inhomogeneous tissues on the surface EMG signal will be examined.
Contact:
Alenka Maček-Lebar
University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Electrical Engineering
Tržaška 25,
SI
1000 Ljubljana,
Slovenia
e-mail: anze.zupanic@fe.uni-lj.sii |
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