Recurring Meeting of Cleveland Clinic Core Team

Date: August 18, 2015

Time: 10:30 AM EST

Means: In person meeting

Attendees:

1. Ahmet Erdemir
2. Craig Bennetts
3. Snehal Chokhandre
4. Tara Bonner
5. Raghav Malik

Agenda:

1. Discuss immediate action items from the last meeting.
2. Discuss tissue testing protocol evaluation plan.
3. Decide immediate action items for the next meeting.
4. Other.

Immediate Action Items:

• Ahmet
  • Dissemination of joint mechanics testing data.
  • Prepare flowcharts to describe data flow for pre-processing of joint kinematics/kinetics data.
• Craig
  • Update on consolidation of new springs from student projects.
  • Ensure post-scripting of simulation kinematics is in source code repository.
  • Start meshing of Open Knee(s) - Generation 1 in IA-FEMesh.
• Snehal
  • Follow up with specimen suppliers for timely acquisition of additional specimens.
  • Follow up with Martin Garon of Biomomentum Inc. to purchase new force transducers.
• All
  • Evaluate Scientific Data journal for its suitability for publishing Open Knee(s) data.

Ongoing Action Items:

• Craig
  • Anatomical imaging manuscript.
  • Large-scale analysis of simulation parameters for convergence.
• Snehal
  • Pivot shift manuscript.

  • Cruciate ligament modeling & simulation.

• Robb
  • Patellofemoral joint experimentation manuscript.
• Tara
  • Tibiofemoral joint experimentation manuscript.

Notes:

1. Discuss immediate action items from the last meeting.
   • Ahmet completed the minutes for August 4, 2015 meeting.
   • Ahmet decided to follow up on Robb's recommendation and remove index files and put a blank readme file in empty folders to prevent them from being deleted while downloading from MIDAS platform.

   • Craig provided the Python script to convert quaternion representation of tibiofemoral joint movements to Grood & Suntay joint coordinate system representation. Issues related to processing of joint coordinate system transformation matrices were resolved.

   • Craig uploaded STL files for Open Knee(s) - Generation 1 geometries to the repository. Ahmet asked him to start meshing of the geometries for Open Knee(s) - Generation 1 using IA-FEMesh. This will provide the base building blocks tat can be customized for meshing of other knees. These need to be placed in the repository, either under _gen1 or as a case study in applications folder.
   • Craig combined spring definitions provided by the summer students into one file. Each spring set has an XML attribute to differentiate it from others. He is currently rerunning simulations and will provide summary of solutions.
   • Snehal e-mailed various specimen suppliers. She has been waiting for a response. She will follow up by phone calls.
   • Snehal scheduled dates for imaging - September 8, October 6, November 18, and December 1. Ahmet is away on September 8, during the first week of October and the last half of December. Snehal will reschedule based on the team members' upcoming travel plans.
   • Raghav updated the repository with the final version of his code. He demonstrated its function. Craig recommended improvements for measurement picking, i.e. selecting good ones rather than removing bad ones to enhance usability. Ahmet recommended to explore OpenCV and/or SimpleCV to integrate the USB camera. This way, Raghav can get rid of the dependency of the code on C++ and Visual Studio. The camera is a Firefly MV and there are some documentation online about using it with OpenCV.
   • Omar has completed his summer internship with the group last week. He gave a presentation on his segmentation efforts and talked with Ahmet to prepare for the NSF REU symposium.
   • The group discussed the priorities to change the model to facilitate pivot shift simulations. The agreement was that first the Open Knee(s) - Generation 1 model will be updated to include various spring definitions that stabilize the menisci. In following, in situ strains will be implemented. If necessary, remeshing of problematic ligaments, e.g. the LCL, may be considered.
   • Ongoing action items related to tissue testing were prioritized and consolidated into a study for evaluation of tissue testing protocol. See the relevant agenda item below.
   • Ahmet asked all team members to look at the Scientific Data journal. This journal is part of the Nature Publishing Group. It is aimed for publishing data articles. Therefore, it may be suitable to planned manuscripts describing Open Knee(s) experimentation and data.
2. Discuss tissue testing protocol evaluation plan.

   • Ahmet and Snehal met to discuss a structured study to evaluate tissue testing protocols and quantify uncertainties in the experimentation. Snehal started to document these in the wiki page Specifications/ExperimentationTissueMechanics/ProtocolEvaluation

   • The team went over the details of protocol evaluation. Some recommendations were noted below.
     • Ahmet noted that sampling frequency may need to be dropped from 2 kHz to 100 Hz. For a 3 hour test, the files will likely be unnecessarily big and cumbersome.

     • Substudy on repeatability will test the capacity of the system to apply the same loading conditions. Substudy on reproducibility will quantify uncertainties associated with the whole experimentation protocol, e.g. clamping, sample size measurements, etc. Each sample will be tested for twice in the first day - 2 repetitions of 2 strain rates (20%/s & 100%/s) without removing the sample from the testing system. In the second day, the sample will be tested for once - one repetition of 2 strain rates after removing the sample in the first day and reinstalling it the second day. The sample should not go through a freeze-thaw cycle between two days of testing and it should be kept in the refrigerator also preventing dehydration. All tissue types and test types will be evaluated.

     • Ahmet recommended Snehal to write down all output parameters that we will be looking at, i.e. the type of calculations to be performed to assess repeatability - for force-displacement data, for stress-strain data, RMS error between trials.
     • Ahmet asked Snehal about the new force transducers with different force measurement ranges (therefore resolutions). Appropriate transducer with the lowest range possible should be used for the specimen. This may increase the measurement accuracy for softer tissue types, e.g. meniscus, and may also affect zero force measurements needed to obtain gauge length.
     • Gauge measurement during tensile testing requires displacement measurement at two conditions, e.g. when clamps are aligned next to each other (the zero position) and when the sample is tensed with a "Find Contact" command (the gauge length displacement). The reproducibility of this measurement will be evaluated by multiple measurements. The first measurement will rely on visual inspection with the camera. The latter will require force data capture without filtering.
     • Standardizing camera positioning was discussed. One option is to standardize the camera view by ensuring specimens have the same size in field of view. The other option is to standardize the camera view by ensuring the ruler (reference gauge) has the same size in filed of view.
3. Decide immediate action items for the next meeting.
   • See Immediate Action Items above.
4. Other.
   • Ahmet informed the team about the conference call with the University of Utah group. Relevant meeting minutes will be provided in the wiki.
   • Ahmet also followed up with Joy Ku to start meetings with the Stanford University group next week.