The BioSpec group at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) has been preparing several original research articles based on the MIRACLE research.
One of the articles will be based on NMBU’s Master thesis by Tiril Aurora Lintvedt. The article will compare different spectral pre-processing strategies for sparse-frequency spectra, i.e. spectra recorded at seven wavelengths by the QCL lasers designed during the MIRACLE project. The article results are relevant for selecting pre-processing strategies for spectra, which will be recorded by the MIRACLE arthroscopic probe. However, the final pre-processing strategy will still need to be validated on the spectral data recorded by the probe.
Moreover, the NMBU group has been collaborating with the UOULU and UEF partners from the MIRACLE consortium on another original research article, which has been submitted recently to the Annals of Biomedical Engineering. The article, submitted by Vesa Virtanen (UOULU), presents results of using infrared spectroscopy for differentiating between healthy and five types of damaged cartilage tissues. The damaged cartilage tissues were created by highly controlled mechanical and chemical treatment of bovine samples. The article compares different machine learning methods and shows that it is easy to differentiate mechanical and chemical treatment groups.
Furthermore, the NMBU group is preparing yet another research article together with partners from UEF and UOULU. The article will describe data fusion by multi-block analysis of different data types: near infrared (NIR), mid-infrared (MIR) and Raman spectra. The goal is to detect and differentiate damaged cartilage in human samples. The paper will be submitted by Rubina Shaikh from UEF.
Lastly, two new researchers will join the NMBU group in the MIRACLE research: Maren Anna Brandsrud and Hafeez Ur Rehman. Hafeez has been working on the MIRACLE project since the 1st of May 2020, and will be highly involved in the quality testing of the spectra and data pre-processing as well as data analysis for the project. Maren Anna will join the team this summer, and will be working mostly on quality testing and data pre-processing.
