Bachelor of Biomedical Engineering Flashcards
7 cards from real BE/B Eng Bachelor of Engineering practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Bachelor of Biomedical Engineering flashcards as text
Which principle governs the diffusion of oxygen from alveoli into pulmonary capillaries?
Answer: Fick's law of diffusion
Fick's law states that the net diffusion rate of a gas across a membrane is proportional to the surface area, the concentration (partial pressure) gradient, and the membrane's diffusion coefficient, and inversely proportional to membrane thickness.
When designing a bioreactor for tissue engineering, which environmental parameter is NOT typically monitored and controlled?
Answer: Gravitational field strength
Bioreactor design focuses on controlling biochemical parameters (pH, O₂, CO₂) and mechanical stimuli (perfusion, compression, rotation), but gravitational field strength is a fixed environmental constant that is not actively controlled in standard lab bioreactors.
In the context of ISO 10993, biocompatibility testing of a medical device evaluates the material's potential to cause:
Answer: Adverse biological responses including cytotoxicity, sensitization, and genotoxicity
ISO 10993 is a series of standards that defines biological evaluation tests—such as cytotoxicity, sensitization, irritation, systemic toxicity, and genotoxicity—to assess if a medical device or its materials could harm patients.
In biomedical optics, the 'therapeutic window' refers to the range of wavelengths that:
Answer: Penetrate tissue most deeply due to minimal absorption by water, hemoglobin, and melanin
The near-infrared therapeutic window (~650–1350 nm) is the spectral region where tissue scattering and absorption by major chromophores (water, oxy/deoxyhemoglobin, melanin) are minimized, allowing the deepest light penetration.
A biomedical engineer is reviewing a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve for a diagnostic test. What does the area under the curve (AUC) represent?
Answer: The overall ability of the test to discriminate between diseased and non-diseased populations
The AUC of a ROC curve is a single scalar value summarizing the test's discriminative ability across all possible thresholds; an AUC of 1.0 is perfect discrimination, while 0.5 represents chance-level performance.
What is the primary function of the sodium-potassium pump (Na⁺/K⁺-ATPase) in maintaining the resting membrane potential of a cell?
Answer: Actively transporting 3 Na⁺ out and 2 K⁺ into the cell per cycle, maintaining concentration gradients
The Na⁺/K⁺-ATPase uses ATP to actively transport 3 sodium ions out and 2 potassium ions in per cycle, maintaining the steep ionic concentration gradients that underlie the resting membrane potential.
In finite element analysis (FEA) of a bone implant, what does 'mesh convergence' testing verify?
Answer: That refining the mesh (increasing element count) no longer significantly changes the stress results
Mesh convergence testing involves progressively refining the finite element mesh and comparing results; when further refinement produces negligible change in the stress or displacement solution, the mesh is considered converged and the results are reliable.