A Tomografia de Impedância Elétrica é uma técnica de obtenção de imagens do interior de um corpo, mediante grandezas elétricas medidas em sua superfície. Matematicamente, a técnica determina as distribuições de condutividades e permissividades elétricas num dado modelo do corpo, as quais reproduzem as medidas de correntes e potenciais elétricos em eletrodos fixados ao corpo. Nesse caso, as distribuições de condutividades e permissividades representam a solução de um problema não-linear e mal-posto, o qual é instável e apresenta mínimos locais, requerendo técnicas de inversão específicas. Um sistema de Tomografia de Impedância Elétrica aplicado à obtenção de imagens de valores absolutos possui, atualmente, limitações. São algumas delas a obtenção de distribuições de propriedades suaves e de valores geralmente subestimados, a sensibilidade elevada ao erro de posicionamento dos eletrodos (com relação ao modelo) e ao erro nos valores de parâmetros de contato, a sensibilidade elevada aos ruídos de medição, os tempos elevados de processamento, dentre outros. Com o intuito de abordar as limitações, melhorando o desempenho do sistema de Tomografia de Impedância Elétrica de imagens absolutas, são então propostas e avaliadas ferramentas baseadas no Método de Otimização Topológica no atual trabalho. Mais especificamente, avaliam-se: 1) um método para obtenção de parâmetros de contato em conjunto com uma imagem e um método de regularização baseado no controle explícito da variação espacial da imagem, 2) uma formulação para acomodação de incertezas, 3) uma formulação para correção do posicionamento de eletrodos, 4) uma formulação para projeto de eletrodos e 5) um novo solucionador de sistemas lineares de larga escala. Os resultados mostram a efetividade da maioria das técnicas propostas, e sugerem os novos tópicos de pesquisa em Tomografia de Impedância Elétrica. / Electrical Impedance Tomography images the interior of a body based on electrical quantities measured on the surface of it. Mathematically, the technique finds the electric admittivity distribution in a given body model which reproduces the boundary measurements of electric currents and potentials on electrodes attached to that body. Therefore, the admittivity distribution is the solution of a non-linear and ill-posed problem, which is unstable and have local minima, requiring specific inversion techniques. Electrical Impedance Tomography systems which obtain images corresponding to absolute values present limitations. For instance, the results are usually smooth and underestimated, the sensitivity to errors in the positioning of electrodes and wrong values of contact parameters and the sensitivity to measurement noise are high, the data processing time is high, etc. In this work, techniques based on the Topology Optimization Method intended for improving the performance of the particular Electrical Impedance Tomography system applied to absolute images are proposed and evaluated. More specifically, the following techniques are evaluated: 1) a method intended to obtain contact parameters together with images, and a regularization method based on the explicit control of the spatial variation regarding the image, 2) a formulation applied to handle uncertainties, 3) a formulation applied to correct the position of electrodes, 4) a formulation applied to design electrodes, 5) and a new solver for large-scale linear systems. Results show the effectiveness of most of the proposed techniques, and suggest new research topics in Electrical Impedance Tomography.

INTRODUÇÃO: A monitorização da ventilação em transplante pulmonar depende de medidas estáticas e globais a partir de testes de função pulmonar e tomografia computadorizada, o que não é suficiente para detectar alterações regionais no parênquima pulmonar, que podem ser relevantes na avaliação de diferentes causas de comprometimento funcional. Tomografia de Impedância Elétrica (TIE) é uma técnica não-invasiva e livre de radiação com base na medição do potencial elétrico na superfície da parede torácica. O comportamento dinâmico e as informações quantitativas extraídas de imagens da TIE tornam possível avaliar as diferenças regionais na ventilação pulmonar. OBJETIVOS: Avaliar a ventilação regional com a TIE, em pacientes submetidos a transplante pulmonar unilateral ou bilateral e avaliar as variações ventilatórias em várias posições diferentes. MÉTODOS: A TIE foi realizada em 18 pacientes transplantados de pulmão (7 pacientes com transplante de pulmão bilateral, 6 pacientes com transplante unilateral por enfisema e 5 pacientes com transplante unilateral por fibrose), nas posições: sentada, supina, prona e decúbitos lateral direito e esquerdo. Os pacientes foram orientados a realizar 30 ciclos de ventilação espontânea e, em seguida, uma manobra de capacidade vital lenta. RESULTADOS: A comparação entre os grupos mostrou que houve diferença entre porcentagem de ventilação referente ao melhor pulmão (nos unilaterais o melhor pulmão era o transplantado e nos bilaterais o pulmão com maior ventilação na posição sentada). Na ventilação espontânea os transplantes unilaterais por enfisema e fibrose tinham 79% e 83% da ventilação gerada pelo pulmão transplantado, enquanto para os bilaterais o melhor pulmão contribuía com 57% da ventilação. Houve redução significativa na desproporção da ventilação quando comparada a ventilação espontânea com a capacidade vital (p = 0,001). Na ventilação espontânea houve variação da ventilação de acordo com a posição analisada, o que não aconteceu na capacidade vital. A medida do ângulo de fase foi próxima a zero para os bilaterais, negativa para os unilaterais por enfisema e positiva para os unilaterais por fibrose, mostrando que nos bilaterais havia sincronia entre o esvaziamento dos dois pulmões e nos grupos unilaterais havia dissincronia (diferentes constantes de tempo). CONCLUSÃO: A TIE pode ser uma ferramenta útil para o estudo pacientes transplantados de pulmão, evidenciando diferenças ocultas na dinâmica ventilatória entre os pulmões nativos e os de pulmões transplantados. Como esperado, os pacientes de transplante de pulmão unilateral exibiram uma ventilação muito mais heterogênea regionalmente. O decúbito lateral e a ventilação espontânea amplificam tais diferenças. / INTRODUCTION: Ventilation monitoring in lung transplantation is still depending on static and global measurements from lung function testing and computed tomography, what is not enough to detect regional changes in lung parenchyma, which may be relevant in evaluating different causes of functional impairment. Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) is a noninvasive and radiation-free technique based on the measurement of electric potentials at the chest wall surface. The dynamic behavior and the quantitative information extracted from EIT images make it possible to assess regional differences in lung ventilation. OBJECTIVES: To assess regional ventilation with EIT, in patients who underwent single or bilateral lung transplantation and to evaluate ventilatory variations in several different body positions. METHODS: We performed the EIT in 18 lung transplanted patients (7 bilateral lung transplantation patients, 6 single lung transplantation patients with emphysema and 5 single lung transplantation patients with fibrosis), in seated, supine, right, left and ventral positions. Patients were asked to perform 30 cycles of spontaneous ventilation and then a slow vital capacity maneuver. RESULTS: The comparison between groups showed that there was difference between the percentage of ventilation related to the best lung (the best lung in single lung patients was the transplanted lung and in the bilateral patients was the lung with best ventilation in the sitting position). The ventilation generated by the transplanted lung on spontaneous ventilation in single lung patients for emphysema and fibrosis were 79% and 83% respectively, whereas for the bilateral group better lung contributed with 57% of ventilation. Significant reduction in the disparity of ventilation occurred comparing the spontaneous ventilation and the vital capacity maneuver (p = 0.001). Ventilation changed in accordance with the position analyzed in spontaneous ventilation, what did not happen in vital capacity. The measurement of phase angle was close to zero for the bilateral, negative for single lung emphysema group and positive for single lung fibrosis group, showing that we had synchronicity between the emptying of both lungs in the bilateral group and disynchronicity in the single lung groups (different time constants). CONCLUSION: EIT can be a useful tool to study lung transplant patients, evidencing occult differences in lung dynamics between the native and the transplanted lung. As expected, single lung transplant patients exhibited a much more disturbed regional ventilation. The lateral decubitus and the spontaneous ventilation amplified such differences

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2017-02-23T19:26:50Z No. of bitstreams: 1 francianeconceicaopeters.pdf: 4730497 bytes, checksum: 201c60342a8bf9edc9b308fa50fafa54 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2017-02-24T12:08:43Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 francianeconceicaopeters.pdf: 4730497 bytes, checksum: 201c60342a8bf9edc9b308fa50fafa54 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-02-24T12:08:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 francianeconceicaopeters.pdf: 4730497 bytes, checksum: 201c60342a8bf9edc9b308fa50fafa54 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-01-27 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / A construção de imagens associadas à distribuição de condutividades no interior de um meio condutor a partir de injeção de corrente elétrica e medidas de potencial no contorno externo do corpo é uma técnica conhecida como tomografia por impedância elétrica. É um problema inverso que tem sido estudado visando aplicações biomédicas, monitoramento de processos industriais e investigação geofísica. Em alguns casos, é possível levar em consideração informações conhecidas sobre o domínio do corpo no processo de construção da imagem, recaindo no problema da detecção de inclusões que é o problema efetivamente tratado neste trabalho. Este problema pode ser resolvido por meio da minimização de uma função da diferença entre potenciais medidos no contorno e calculados para uma dada distribuição de condutividades. O presente trabalho desenvolve uma estratégia para a solução deste problema baseada na parametrização da geometria do contorno das inclusões cujas formas e dimensões se pretende determinar. O problema de minimização é resolvido por meio do Método de Levenberg-Marquardt e o problema direto via Método dos Elementos de Contorno. Para avaliar o desempenho da estratégia proposta são apresentados resultados numéricos envolvendo contornos definidos por splines, problemas com a presença de ruído nas medidas, avaliação de protocolos de injeção de corrente e medição de potencial elétrico e ainda uma aplicação voltada ao monitoramento cardíaco. / The images reconstruction of the conductivity distribution inside a conductive body based on electrical current injection and potential measurements on the outer boundary of this body is a technique known as electrical impedance tomography. This is an inverse problem that has been studied in biomedical applications, industrial process monitoring and geophysics investigation. In some cases, it is possible to take into account in the reconstruction process, informations about the body, leading to the problem of identifying inclusions, that is the problem actually treated in this work. This inverse problem can be solved by the minimization of a function, defined as the difference between the measured potentials and the computed ones for a given conductivity distribution. The present work describes a strategy to solve this problem based on the parametrization of the inclusions boundary, whose shape and size is intended to be determined. The minimization problem is solved via Levenberg-Marquardt Method and the forward one is solved via Boundary Elements Method. In order to evaluate the performance of the proposed strategy, numerical experiments with inclusions of boundaries defined by splines, problems with noisy data, current injection and potential measurement protocols and an application of the strategy to the cardiac function monitoring are presented.

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2017-05-15T14:59:59Z No. of bitstreams: 1 marcoshenriquefonsecaribeiro.pdf: 12873424 bytes, checksum: 2b2b91fd2a9726856a0486afa760fe2c (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2017-05-17T16:01:12Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 marcoshenriquefonsecaribeiro.pdf: 12873424 bytes, checksum: 2b2b91fd2a9726856a0486afa760fe2c (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-05-17T16:01:12Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 marcoshenriquefonsecaribeiro.pdf: 12873424 bytes, checksum: 2b2b91fd2a9726856a0486afa760fe2c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-10-03 / A Tomografia por Impedância Elétrica (TIE) consiste em uma técnica onde imagens são construídas a partir da injeção de uma corrente elétrica em determinado meios, seguida da leitura de valores de potencial elétrico em pontos do contorno externo de tal domínio. Desta maneira, conhecendo-se ou estimando-se a condutividade elétrica de regiões internas ao meio, pode-se inferir aspectos geométricos da composição do mesmo. Trabalhos na literatura aplicam esta técnica ao contexto de obtenção de imagens do tórax humano, com objetivo de estimar a geometria das cavidades cardíacas de um determinado paciente. O objetivo final de estudo deste trabalho, dentro do contexto de aplicação da TIE à obtenção de cavidades cardíacas, é propor uma metodologia para a estimação da Fração de Ejeção Cardíaca, ou simplesmente Fração de Ejeção (FE), que consiste em medir o percentual de volume de sangue expulso dos ventrículos ao final de um ciclo de batimento do coração. Este trabalho visa evoluir outros trabalhos já existentes que modelam o problema acima descrito como sendo um problema inverso, de otimização, onde se pretende minimizar a diferença entre valores de potencial elétrico medidos e valores simulados por modelos computacionais. A evolução se dá em níveis diferentes. No primeiro nível, é feito um avanço sobre as técnicas de otimização para a resolução do problema inverso, em sua formulaçãobidimensional. Paratal, épropostaumametaheurísticaqueauxiliamétodosde buscanaobtençãodevaloresmaisacurados. Estametaheurísticaéapresentadaemversões sequencial e paralela. São apresentados resultados computacionais de testes realizados para este primeiro nível. Em um segundo nível, é feita a modelagem em três dimensões das mesmas abordagens já encontradas na literatura, que, para a aplicação específica da determinação da FE, até então estão limitadas a modelos bidimensionais. Assim, todo o problema é revisto para uma nova proposta de modelagem, que inclui a criação de modelos geométricos tridimensionais para as regiões de interesse do problema. Como principal contribuição do trabalho neste segundo nível, encontra-se um esquema de parametrização das malhas de polígonos que modelam ventrículos do coração, de forma que se tenha uma maneira compacta de representar as mesmas e, ao mesmo tempo, diminuindo o custo computacional do método de otimização por meio de drástica redução do número de variáveis do problema. Por fim, também é realizado um estudo preliminar da sensibilidade da técnica à presença de ruídos nos dados de entrada. / The Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) consists in a technique where images are constructed from the measurements of the electrical potential in some points on the external boundary of some specific domain, caused by the injection of an electrical current in such domain. This way, knowing or estimating the electrical conductivity of some regions inside the domain, geometric aspects of the composition of that domain can be inferred. Works in literature apply this technique to the context of obtaining images from the human thorax, with the objective of estimating the geometry of some cardiac cavities of a specific patient. The final goal of this work, inside the context of the obtention of cardiac cavities, is to propose a methodology for estimating the Cardiac Ejection Fraction, orsimplyEjectionFraction(EF),whichconsistsinmeasuringthepercentualofthevolume of blood expelled from the ventricles at the end of a heart beat cicle. This work intends to evolute previous works, that models the above mentioned problem as an inverse problem, an optimization problem, where the intention is to minimize the difference between the values of measured electrical potentials and the values obtained through simulation using computational models. This evolution occurs in different levels. In the first level, is performedanimprovementoverthepre-existentoptimizationtechniquesforthesolutionof theinverseproblem,inatwodimensionalversion. Forthis,isproposedametaheuristicthat assistssearchmethodstowardstheobtentionofmoreaccuratedvalues. Suchmetaheuristic is presented in sequential and parallel versions. Computational results for performed tests for this level are presented. In a second level, a three dimensional modeling of the same approaches found in literature is done. Those approaches, for the specific application of determining the EF, are so far limited to two dimensional models. Therefore, the whole problem is reviewed in order to propose a new model, which includes the creation of three dimensional geometric models for the regions of interest of the problem. As the main contribution of this work in that second level, there is a parameterization schema of the polygon meshes that model heart ventricles, so that it provides a compact way of representing such meshes, and, at the same time, a way of reducing the computational cost of the optimization method by means of a drastic reduction of the number of variables of the problem. Finally, a preliminary study of the sensibility of the technique to the presence of noise in the input data is also performed.

Cette thèse porte sur le développement de méthodes de Monte-Carlo pour calculer des représentations Feynman-Kac impliquant des opérateurs sous forme divergence avec un coefficient de diffusion constant par morceaux. Les méthodes proposées sont des variantes de la marche sur les sphères à l'intérieur des zones avec un coefficient de diffusion constant et des techniques de différences finies stochastiques pour traiter les conditions aux interfaces aussi bien que les conditions aux limites de différents types. En combinant ces deux techniques, on obtient des marches aléatoires dont le score calculé le long du chemin fourni un estimateur biaisé de la solution de l'équation aux dérivées partielles considérée. On montre que le biais global de notre algorithme est en général d'ordre deux par rapport au pas de différences finies. Ces méthodes sont ensuite appliquées au problème direct lié à la tomographie par impédance électrique pour la détection de tumeurs. Une technique de réduction de variance est également proposée dans ce cadre. On traite finalement du problème inverse de la détection de tumeurs à partir de mesures de surfaces à l'aide de deux algorithmes stochastiques basés sur une représentation paramétrique de la tumeur ou des tumeurs sous forme d'une ou plusieurs sphères. De nombreux essais numériques sont proposés et montrent des résultats probants dans la localisation des tumeurs. / This thesis deals with the development of Monte-Carlo methods to compute Feynman-Kac representations involving divergence form operators with a piecewise constant diffusion coefficient. The proposed methods are variations around the walk on spheres method inside the regions with a constant diffusion coefficient and stochastic finite differences techniques to treat the interface conditions as well as the different kinds of boundary conditions. By combining these two techniques, we build random walks which score computed along the walk gives us a biased estimator of the solution of the partial differential equation we consider. We prove that the global bias is in general of order two with respect to the finite difference step. These methods are then applied for tumour detection to the forward problem in electrical impedance tomography. A variance reduction technique is also proposed in this case. Finally, we treat the inverse problem of tumours detection from surface measurements using two stochastics algorithms based on a spherical parametric representation of the tumours. Many numerical tests are proposed and show convincing results in the localization of the tumours.

This thesis deals with a design of a power supply for a measuring equipment for a geophysical mapping intended to do a reconstruction of an electrical impedance of a ground environment of water reservoirs. The power source is going to be used for laboratory measurements and for outdoor experiments. The thesis describes the selection of suitable components, equipment design and testing. The theoretical part explains the functions of used components and the principle of an electrical impedance tomography. The conclusion summarizes the properties of the proposed solution and evaluates the final product.

This doctoral thesis with the title „Monitoring of filtration processes in earth dams“ represents possibilities of using electrical impedance spectrometry method (EIS) and devices Z- meter II and Z- meter 2A based on it for using a monitoring earth-fill dikes of small water reservoirs. The devices are developed in the Laboratory of Water Management Research Institute of Water Structures Faculty of Civil Engineering Brno University of Technology through international projects E!3838 and E!4981 in EUREKA program. As part of submitted doctoral thesis the monitoring has been conducted at two locations – earth-fill dike of small water reservoir Bezedník III in the cadastral area Kobeřice and earth-fill dike of fish pond Rybník u kostelíka near the village Jevíčko. The general guidance has been compiled based on the knowledge and experience of measurements to monitor earth-fill dike using method EIS. This guide covers the use of method and device Z-meter II from the choice of location and monitored the profile, selection and installation of probes into the dam body, the preparation of measurement location, configuration of the measuring apparatus including a user program Z-scan, through the process of measurement and recommended method of processing data.

Disertační práce, jež má teoretický charakter, je zaměřena na vylepšení a výzkum algoritmů pro zobrazování vnitřní struktury vodivých objektů, hlavně biologických tkání a orgánů pomocí elektrické impedanční tomografie (EIT). V práci je formulován teoretický rámec EIT. Dále jsou prezentovány a porovnány algoritmy pro řešení inverzní úlohy, které zajišťují efektivní rekonstrukci prostorového rozložení elektrických vlastností ve zkoumaném objektu a jejích zobrazení. Hlavní myšlenka vylepšeného algoritmu, který je založen na deterministickém přístupu, spočívá v zavedení dodatečných technik: level set a nebo fuzzy filtru. Kromě toho, je ukázána metoda 2-D rekonstrukce rozložení konduktivity z jediného komponentu magnetického pole a to konkrétně z-tové složky magnetického toku. Byly vytvořeny numerické modely biologické tkáně s určitým rozložení admitivity (nebo konduktivity) pro otestování těchto algoritmů. Výsledky získané z rekonstrukcí pomocí vylepšených algoritmů jsou ukázány a porovnány.

This diploma thesis deals with determination of geotechnical properties of soils with using method of electrical impedance spectrometry (EIS). For measurement was used device Z-meter of 3rd generation, which was developed with projects of international program of applied research EUREKA. Experiment was realized in Laboratory of soil mechanics in GEOtest a.s. in Brno.

<div>Laser-to-composite interactions are becoming increasingly common in diverse applications such as diagnostics, fabrication and machining, and weapons systems. Lasers are capable of not only performing non-contact diagnostics, but also inducing seemingly imperceptible structural damage to materials. In safety-critical venues like aerospace, automotive, and civil infrastructure where composites are playing an increasingly prominent role, it is desirable to have means of sensing laser exposure on a composite material. Self-sensing materials may be a powerful method of addressing this need. Herein, we present an exploratory study on the potential of using changes in electrical measurements as a way of detecting laser exposure to a carbon nanofiber (CNF)-modified glass fiber/epoxy laminate. CNFs were dispersed in liquid epoxy resin prior to laminate fabrication via hand layup. The dispersed CNFs form a three-dimensional conductive network which allows for electrical measurements to be taken from the traditionally insulating glass fiber/epoxy material system. It is expected that damage to the network will disrupt the electrical pathways, thereby causing the material to exhibit slightly higher resistance. To test laser sensing capabilities, a resistance baseline of the CNF-modified glass fiber/epoxy specimens was first established before laser exposure. These specimens were then exposed to an infra-red laser operating at 1064 nm, 35 kHz, and pulse duration of 8 ns. The specimens were irradiated for a total of 20 seconds (4 exposures each at 5 seconds). The resistances of the specimens were then measured again post-ablation. In this study, it was found that for 1.0 wt.% CNF by weight the average resistance increased by about 18 percent. However, this values varied for specimens with different weight fractions. This established that the laser was indeed causing damage to the specimen sufficient to evoke a change in electrical properties. In order to expand on this result, electrical impedance tomography (EIT) was employed for localization of laser exposures of 1, 3, and 5 seconds on a larger specimen, a 3.25” square plate. EIT was used to measure the changes in conductivity after each exposure. EIT was not only successful in detecting damage that was virtually imperceptible to the human-eye, but it also accurately localized the exposure sites. The post-ablation conductivity of the exposure sites decreased in a manner that was comparable to the resistance increase obtained during prior testing. Based on this preliminary study, this research could lead to the development of a real-time exposure detection and tracking system for the measurement, fabrication, and defense industries.</div>