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The University of Chicago has launched the first secure cloud-based computing system that enables researchers to access and analyze human genomic cancer information without the costly and cumbersome infrastructure normally needed to download and store massive amounts of data. The Bionimbus Protected Data Cloud enables researchers authorized by the National Institutes of Health to access and analyze data in The Cancer Genome Atlas without having to set up secure, compliant computing environments capable of managing and analyzing terabytes of data, download the data, and install the right tools needed to perform analyses. Using technology that was developed in part by the Open Science Data Cloud, a National Science Foundation-supported project that is developing cloud infrastructure for large scientific datasets, the Bionimbus Protected Data Cloud provides researchers with a more cost- and time-effective mechanism to extract knowledge from massive amounts of data. By embracing cloud computing as a global issue, this project brings together the expertise of many researchers, not only in the United States, but worldwide.Source

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Steven Conrad, MD, PhD, an emergency and critical care physician at Louisiana State University Health Science Center, New Orleans, is not your typical physician. When he’s not conducting rounds on patients or teaching residents in internal medicine, emergency medicine, or pediatrics, this biomedical engineer is using multiphysics simulation to optimize the design of artificial kidneys. Using COMSOL Multiphysics, Dr. Conrad simulates the hollow fibers that make up a dialyzer, using computer aided engineering (CAE) tools to advance the design of artificial kidneys. The simulations that he creates don’t just optimize current dialyzer designs—his simulations improve upon them by taking into account physical properties that weren’t considered in previous designs, and even allow for dialyzer improvements and optimizations on a patient by patient basis. By improving the functionality of artificial kidneys, he hopes to create artificial kidneys that will revolutionize the dialysis process.
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Surgical robots could make some types of surgery safer and more effective, but proving that the software controlling these machines works as intended is problematic. So say researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Baltimore, MD, who have demonstrated that methods for reliably detecting software bugs and ultimately verifying software safety can successfully be applied to these robots.
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Smiths Medical, St. Paul, MN, received 510(k) clearance from the FDA to launch its CADD®-Solis VIP ambulatory infusion system with CADD™-Solis medication safety software. It is a multi-therapy infusion platform that includes a Smart infusion pump, medication safety software, and dedicated medication cassette reservoirs that attach to the pump. The pump’s user interface displays therapy information in an easyto- understand format, and the safety software allows clinicians to download information directly from their PC into the pump and view reports on infusion data and delivery history.
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PITTMAN Motors, Harleysville, PA, a unit of AMETEK Precision Motion Control, has introduced configurable 3D CAD model downloads for its entire offering of brushless DC motors. The 3D model system is an online system through the PITTMAN website that allows an engineer to fully configure a motor with a wide variety of optional components, such as planetary and spur gearboxes, brakes, and encoders.
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Following the recent release of its fastest 3D scanhead to date, ShapeGrabber, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, announced the release of its ShapeGrabber Software v.7, which encompasses a wide range of features, APIs, and tools that power the company’s automated 3D scanners and enables users to rapidly set up, scan, and measure complex-shaped parts in minutes. The new software is compatible with Windows 7 64-bit operating systems, and fully supports all features of the new SG156 scanhead, including variable field of view.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that, in 2005, 133 million Americans suffered from at least one chronic disease. The magnitude of the effect of chronic diseases on society, both in terms of cost and quality of life, is often more than a statistic, affecting nearly all of us personally. The challenge to the healthcare industry is to find cost-effective ways to manage and treat chronic diseases and to deliver these solutions to all members of society by leveraging secure connected medical devices.
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Real-time integration of 2D schematics and 3D models allows mechanical and electrical teams to better collaborate and deliver more accurate designs.

Product development teams are under increasing pressure to engineer more complex products that combine numerous electrical systems within a single design, including visual interfaces, power systems, logic controllers, complex wiring and harnesses. Simplifying the design of these electro-mechanical systems using intelligent design tools, and a shared, comprehensive parts database, medical device designers are able to achieve significant cost savings. These savings are multiplied when this electrical design work is done in perfect synchronization with the mechanical and industrial design teams using a shared data model.
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Tekscan, Inc., Boston, MA, has released a Wireless ELF 2 System, which eliminates wires and enables a laptop or PC to quickly capture and store force data for product research, quality assurance, and testing. Wireless ELF 2 combines ultra-thin (0.008”) piezoresistive FlexiForce single-element load sensors with a battery-operated Wi-Fi transmitter and simple software. The software displays real-time force data in pounds, grams, or Newtons.
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On Monday, Aug. 6, University of Southern California Computer Science Professor Jernej Barbič released the world's most comprehensive library of 3D deformable modeling software for free open source download. The package, called Vega, allows users to simulate and move complex objects, bending, stretching and twisting them in real time. A potentially powerful tool for engineers, Vega is optimized for speed and can animate the motion of any 3D solid object, under any user-specified forces. No other free library offers such a comprehensive range of materials and deformable simulation methods.
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This technology helps technical application developers incorporate mathematical and statistical functionality in their applications, while providing the documentation needed for software validation.
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A collaborative software solution offers medical OEMs a range of benefits, including more efficient product development, improved profitability, and higher product quality.

The medical industry stands to benefit immensely from cloud-based product lifecycle management (PLM). The mountains of information that medical companies must manage when bringing a new product to market are truly massive. Every aspect of the product — and every change made to the product — must be carefully documented to ensure compliance with regulatory bodies such as the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) or the ISO (International Standards Organization).

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Every medical device company faces the challenge of navigating through the FDA’s mandatory regulations, and companies have different needs that change as they mature. Early-stage medical device companies provide the innovation and intellectual property that feed the medical device industry with great ideas and life-saving devices, but understanding FDA regulations and reaching commercial markets can be extremely daunting for new companies.
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When you think of a beating heart, you might assume it beats at regular intervals, but in actuality, velocity, and pressure change with every beat, and the time interval between each beat is different. Now a NASA-developed technology is helping researchers understand blood flow and pressure in ways that may improve treatment for victims of brain injury and stroke.
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The Simotion Scout, the engineering system used for configuring Simotion motion controllers from Siemens Industry (Atlanta, GA), has been updated with a range of usability improvements. Simotion is the scalable motion control system that enables central machine functions to be implemented with just one controller. It is available in three variants: drive-based, PC-based, and controller-based. Simotion Scout facilitates configuration, programming, testing, and commissioning of applications. New features include automatic drive integration and detailed comparisons for graphics-based programming languages. The system features a simplified interface to the Siemens Sinamics drive system. Object-to-object assignment takes place via a new interconnection screen. In this screen, all compatible partners are listed hierarchically and the symbolic connection of the components to be interconnected takes place by simple selection.
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Chronic conditions and long term illnesses account for a large percentage of patient visits to emergency rooms, hospital visits, rehospitalizations, and subsequent death in hospitals. In the United States alone, 28.1 percent of Medicare beneficiaries classified as chronically ill died in hospitals in 2007.* Several chronic conditions such as congestive heart failure, diabetes mellitus, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, and pain, among others, can be controlled and prevented with practical technology innovation using biomedical sensing instrumentation and mobile technology that can assist in many ways.† Coupled with patient participation, avoidable patient hospital visits and patient outcomes can be improved.
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Most medical electronic systems now depend on combinations of hardware and software, forming elaborate mechatronic systems that both monitor and regulate patient health metrics. To manage mechatronic challenges, product designs must seamlessly integrate embedded and application software, analog and digital hardware, and mechanical components. Unfortunately, successfully integrating and verifying complex systems is often costly in terms of time, money, and engineering resources.
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Mobile health apps are taking off in a big way. Juniper Research recently estimated that 44 million mobile health apps were downloaded in 2011. Smartphones already offer two top-notch qualities that designers often seek to achieve in any medical device: affordability and portability. One of the biggest advantages of targeting smartphones is that many people already own them — about 44 percent of all U.S. mobile subscribers, according to Nielsen. With this tool already in so many people's hands, what remains to be determined are the capabilities of software to transform this tool into a full-fledged medical device with legitimate benefits.
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This audio/video system provides real-time help to inexperienced ultrasound operators in remote environments.

Medical ultrasound or echocardiographic studies are highly operatordependent and generally require lengthy training and internship to perfect. To obtain quality echocardiographic images in remote environments, such as on-orbit, remote guidance of studies has been employed. This technique involves minimal training for the user, coupled with remote guidance from an expert. When realtime communication or expert guidance is not available, a more autonomous system of guiding an inexperienced operator through an ultrasound study is needed. One example would be missions beyond low Earth orbit, in which the time delay inherent with communication will make remote guidance impractical.
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On Sept. 21, 1960, Dr. Albert Starr successfully implanted the world’s first “ball-in-cage” prosthetic heart valve into a patient’s mitral valve, a mechanical device that he co-invented with M. Lowell Edwards, a prominent engineer in the biomedical field. The artificial valve was a great success in the medical device industry that paved the way for numerous developments in cardiology. More than 50 years later, millions of patients’ lives have been saved or improved by the technological advancements based on the work of pioneers like Dr. Starr, Edwards, and others. Every year, more than 250,000 patients worldwide receive prosthetic heart valves and that number continues to grow.¹
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HKAUTOMATION (Peachtree City, GA), a Hoffman + Krippner company, has introduced industrial panel PCs called flex-IPC®. The line provides a robust enclosure made of zinc-coated stainless steel and a customizable aluminum front panel, sealed according to IP 65. It is based on an open software architecture with operating systems Windows Compact 7 and Windows 7 Standard Embedded Edition. The series allows for customization of function key labels, touch screens designed for industrial applications and complete input systems, combining hardware and software.
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The new EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory) devices from ON Semiconductor (Phoenix, AZ) include the high density 512 kilobit CAT24C512 and 1 megabit CAT24M01, which have a 1.8 to 5.5 V supply voltage range. They employ 256 byte and 128 byte page write buffers, respectively. Both devices support Standard 100 kilohertz, Fast 400 kHz, and Fast-Plus 1 megahertz serial I2C protocols. They are manufactured on a 0.18 micrometer low power CMOS process.
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From delivering care to the developing world, to remote echocardiography, to hearing assessment, telemedicine has opened doors to new and potentially improved forms of diagnosis and treatment. Dermatology is one area in particular that stands to benefit greatly from this technology.
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As medical devices increase in functionality, they need more robust and complex embedded software. Handling that complexity usually requires the software to utilize an operating system (OS). Choosing a commercial OS, however, typically involves making compromises among attributes such as development cost, user interface, and realtime operation. An OS that offers separate software partitions to run different applications in both eliminates compromise and simplifies development.
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A new software tool aims to make computer-aided tissue analysis faster, more accurate, and more consistent.

Researchers at the University of Michigan Health System and their colleagues have developed a software tool that aims to make the detection of abnormalities in cell and tissue samples faster, more accurate, and more consistent. The technique, known as Spatially-Invariant Vector Quantization (SIVQ), can pinpoint cancer cells and other critical features from digital images made from tissue slides.

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