Ida Laila Ahmad

Development of a concept demonstrator for QRS complex detection using combined algorithms

This paper describes a study on combined algorithms used for classification of QRS Complex in ECG signals. The proposed algorithm/detector uses Hillbert transform on a Wavelet base for the pre-processing stage. Both Hillbert transform and Wavelet base known to be superior in reducing unwanted noise resembles in ECG signal such as baseline wander and muscle noise. In addition, the Pan-Tompkins algorithm was employed as the QRS peak detection. A testing against MIT-BIH Arrhythmias Database results in a reliable detection error rate (DER) of 98.7%. It can be concluded that, the proposed method offers significant noise reduction in pre-processing stage and still produce a reliable results even with the contaminated ECG signal.

Lab-on-chip microfluidic system for single cell mass measurement

In this paper, we presented a lab-on-chip microfluidic system for single cell mass measurement. Single cell mass has been related with drag force exerted on cell and Newton law of motion. Drag force has been generated using pressure driven syringe micropump. Motions of the cells were measured using optical observation under an inverted microscope. We have calibrated the approach using known mass of polystyrene microbeads with a diameter of 5.2 μm. Our experimental results showed that, mass of single microbead is 88.9 fg, which is very close to the theoretical mass (77.3 fg) of the particle. From which it is believed, our approach is suitable for single particles mass measurement. We used Saccharomyces cerevisiae bakers yeast cell as a cell sample. Yeast cells have been cultured in our laboratory using YPD medium. For the diameter of 4 μm cell, mass of single cell was measured as 1.9 pg which is very consistent with previously reported single yeast cell mass (1-3 pg).

Small-scale monitoring system on LabVIEW platform

A simple, effective peer-to-peer networking has been developed in this paper. It serves the purpose of a two-way communication between a host and remote terminals including as an image feeder. The communication establishment is realized by means of the Laboratory Virtual Instrumentation Engineering Workbench (LabVIEW) software and internet protocol (IP) as well as the physical connection between two terminals. The system enables the user to have monitoring and control capability through the image capture and text communication. It is concluded that the system has provide an effective, low-cost way to have a monitoring and control capability in a small scale application.

Technological advancements in characterizing single cell's stiffness properties- A review

Biophysical properties of living cells certainly play important roles for intra and intercellular biological events. However, conventional population approaches obscured cells heterogeneity and assume all cells are similar. With the introduction of single cell analysis, this limitation is slowly rectified by defining crucial methods to further revealing cell-to-cell variability. Research in biomechanics leads to better elucidation of cellular and molecular changes due to disease progression i.e diseased cell exhibits different mechanical properties as compared to healthy ones. This paper highlights on various technological advancements available for single cell stiffness characterizations and analytical comparison of the reviewed methods will be thoroughly discussed. In addition, several applications intended for early disease detection were presented.

Development of undergraduate medical electronic programme in Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia

Medical electronics is one of the areas in Biomedical Engineering which apply electronic engineering principles and techniques to the medical field. The growth of the medical electronics market and the need for specialized engineer in Malaysians healthcare industry will increase the demand of medical electronics graduate. Thus, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia had proposed to offer medical electronics programme at the undergraduate level to fulfill the demand. In this paper, various aspects of curriculum design and development of medical electronic programme were presented. The outcomes of this paper would benefit faculty members in developing new and innovative engineering programme.