Recurring Meeting of Cleveland Clinic Core Team

Date: June 23, 2015

Time: 10:30 AM EST

Means: In person meeting

Attendees:

1. Ahmet Erdemir
2. Craig Bennetts
3. Snehal Chokhandre
4. Omar Gad
5. Connor Lough
6. Diana Suciu
7. Raghav Malik

Agenda:

1. Discuss immediate action items from the last meeting.
2. Discuss mid-term presentations to be given by research students.
3. Decide immediate action items for the next meeting.
4. Other.

Immediate Action Items:

• Ahmet
  • Disseminate oks008 MR image sets.
  • Detail image segmentation specifications.
  • Review specification on registration to evaluate Connor's contributions.
  • Review specification on patellofemoral contact pressure analysis.
  • Review specification on tibiofemoral joint kinematics/kinetics analysis.
  • Review specification on optical thickness measurements.
  • Provide a sample patellofemoral joint kinematics/kinetics file.
• Craig
  • Meet with summer students to go over convergence optimization wiki and describe workflow.
  • Provide sample MR images for oks008 in the relevant wiki page.
• Snehal
  • Complete notes section of June 9, 2015 meeting.
  • Test all tissue types at 20%/s to evaluate the capacity for a simplified testing scheme (for next two weeks).
  • Buy a camera for optical measurement system.
• Robb
  • Conduct post-experiment calibration of pressure sensor used for oks008 testing.
• Connor
  • Start segmenting registration markers
  • Develop script to accommodate transformation between probed patella registration marker points and sphere centers.
• Diana
  • Start verification of contact pressure analysis with Robb and Tara (using Tekscan original files).
  • Work with Omar to read and analyze patellofemoral kinematics/kinetics data (including line of action of quadriceps load).
• Omar
  • Work with Diana to help her read and analyze patellofemoral kinematics/kinetics data.
  • Implement normalization of RMS errors in reproducibility analysis.
• Raghav
  • Start implementing camera interface to optical measurement script.
  • Start thinking about uncertainty quantification of optical measurement system.

Ongoing Action Items:

• Ahmet
  • Dissemination of joint mechanics testing data.
  • Prepare flowcharts to describe data flow for pre-processing of joint kinematics/kinetics data.
• Craig
  • Anatomical imaging manuscript.
  • Large-scale analysis of simulation parameters for convergence.
• Snehal
  • Continue interacting up with Biomomentum, Inc. about mechanical testing system tuning features.
  • Complete the additional structured testing plan for tuning the system for different sample sizes, strain levels and strain rates.
  • Pivot shift manuscript.

  • Cruciate ligament modeling & simulation.

  • Evaluate alternative tissue testing strategy.
• Robb
  • Patellofemoral joint experimentation manuscript.
• Tara
  • Tibiofemoral joint experimentation manuscript.

Notes:

1. Discuss immediate action items from the last meeting.
   • Ahmet had some issues with SimpleITK to convert MR images from DICOM format to NIFTI format. He will follow up in the upcoming week to resolve this issue. Diana created a wiki page to draft specifications for patellofemoral joint contact analysis.
   • Craig was at SB3C last week to present the imaging work for Open Knee(s). He will follow up with his action items in following weeks.
   • Snehal has been working on Mach-1 system to resolve issues and she has been communicating with the Biomomentum, Inc. group. Currently, there has not been a resolution to effectively tune the system to accommodate testing at 100%/s strain rate. She will test all the tissues at 20%/s strain rate to ensure the fall back testing procedure works appropriately. Snehal has been providing sample data for summer students' projects on a need basis.
   • Robb has been on vacation and also at the SB3C; he will work on post-experiment calibration of oks008 pressure sensor after he comes back.
   • Tara provided laxity data for oks008. The group can discuss this when Robb and Tara comes back from vacation and business related trips.
   • Connor updated the wiki page on registration specifications for sphere fitting to find centers from data acquired during robotics testing (in configuration files) and during MR imaging (in stl files). Ahmet will review Connors updates. Connor will follow up by segmenting registration markers for oks001 from the MR images. Connor also worked on analysis of data for patella registration markers. He will likely need two transformation matrices; from Optotrak marker to divot points and from divot points to registration spheres.

   • Diana described the input for patellofemoral contact pressure analysis and her processing logic. She will correct reporting to accommodate lesser significant digits. The team also discussed on the analysis to obtain maximum contact pressure, total contact force and contact area. Diana will work with Robb to compare the results of her analysis to analysis directly conducted on Tekscan files (.fsx). The group also discussed incorporating the analysis of patellofemoral kinematics. Diana will work with Omar in this regard. Ahmet also noted the need ‎to analyze the SimVitro configuration file to extract three points probed during robotics testing using the Optotrak probe. These points approximate the line of action of the quadriceps force. Ahmet will review Diana's work, which was described in the specifications wiki page for pressure analysis.

   • Omar developed the script to analyze kinetics/kinematics for tibiofemoral joint. His script allows extraction of data points at stabilized loading states, i.e. at the end point, with the possibility to update to find mid-point of desired data window. He also developed a script to compare anterior/posterior laxity tests to evaluate the reproducibility of testing. Ahmet asked if he can add normalization of root-mean-square errors calculated by his script. Ahmet will review Omar's work, which is documented in the specifications wiki page for modeling of joint kinematics/kinetics.
   • Raghav updated the optical tissue thickness measurement script to accommodate multiple input files. The script provides the opportunity to pick multiple points along the longitudinal axis of the specimen to determine average thickness. Currently, calibration utilizes a ruler available in the images. This can be changed to accommodate the calibration object. Ahmet discussed to make an interactive user interface directly linked to a camera that can help visualize the specimen in real time and capture an image and conduct an analysis. This is decided to be an upcoming extension of the project. In response to Craig, Raghav also described that the analysis procedure requires color information to automatically identify the specimen, which is likely to work as long as adequate contrast and color difference exist between the specimen and background. Raghav also noted that measurements are taken vertically, indicating the necessity to align the specimen appropriately. Ahmet will review Raghav's work, which is documented in the specifications for tissue thickness measurement.
   • The group is focusing on immediate action items. As a result, progress on ongoing action items has been slow.
2. Discuss mid-term presentations to be given by research students.
   • Ahmet described that he expects the presentations in a format similar to what can be presented in a conference. The presentations should include adequate background and motivation, the goals of the project, methods, results, and discussions. This is an opportunity for the students to gain experience in describing their work to their peers. He also noted that the presentations will likely last about 10 minutes with a few more minutes for questions.
   • Craig told the students that he can provide them an example presentation, e.g. the one he presented in SB3C 2015. This will likely help guide them to frame their story.
3. Decide immediate action items for the next meeting.
   • See Immediate Action Items above.
4. Other.
   • None noted.