19 March 2010

Still dwelling on human health maintenance holism

I've been focusing on completing Air War College (Distance Learning) for several months and have about four more to go. The think piece I wrote for the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research has been in review for a few weeks. I expect a rewrite of the 2700-word ramble will be required.

My next writing target is the CSC 2010 papers program submission deadline, 17 May 2010. I'm probably going to author a 5,000-word piece entitled "A Mirror World Architecture for the Intelligence Enterprise". From imager-to-renderer, microphone-to-speaker, pressure sensor-to-haptic device, and computer-aided designer-to-computer-aided intelligence consumer, I shall describe an architectural framework to ingest, digest, and egest objects of intelligence interest designed by humans or elements of nature. The reserviors, rates, and ratios of computing machinery, data, and human actors will be illustrated and analyzed to discuss the information management implications of a Mirror World paradigm for...intelligence...

As for the ferreting out the government agency and/or business that has a holistic approach via their web presence or product offering for managing (digital) human health maintenance from embryo to corpse, no luck. My recent inquiry and response was with the Dept. of Health and Human Services' Health Resources and Services Administration, Division of Transplantation. I asked the following.

I'm researching LifeGraphs, which is a undeveloped nDimensional native XML Database (NXD) for natural and legal persons' mobile mirror world. For natural persons, their human bodies pose a duanting set of requirements to manage their health maintenance, especially when you assume a 100-yr baseline for the period of maintenance (i.e., embryonic care through post-mortem examination). I'm searching for a centralized source of transplantable, replaceable and augmentable human body constituents (i.e., hard and soft tissues and bodily fluids) preferablely with a 3D graphical user interface. Is there such a compendium for male, female, transgender(?) humans of all known ages (0...100+)? If so, what's the URL and/or key search terms to find it or the small set of sources that comprise it? It doesn't have to be a U.S. data source. Moreover, man-made parts and fluids are sought too.

I got the following response.

Your e-mail message of March 18, 2010 has been forwarded to me for reply. The only 3D graphical display of the human body that I know of is the Body Human Exhibit - http://www.bodiestheexhibition.com/ - but, I don't know that you are looking for this kind of information. The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN - http://www.optn.transplant.hrsa.gov/) deals in solid organ transplants such as heart, liver, lungs, pancreas, kidney and small intestine as well tissue which includes skin, bone, cornea, and connective tissue. All of the organs and tissue that are donated is recovered and distributed by organ procurement organizations (OPOs). OPOs have working relationships with tissue and eye banks across the country to collect and process tissue donations. Another branch within the Division of Transplantation deals with the donation and utilization of bone marrow and blood stem cells - http://bloodcell.transplant.hrsa.gov/. In addition to natural body parts that are used for transplantation, there are few types of artificial man-made devices that can act as "bridge" organs for patients who are awaiting a transplant, e.g. a left ventricular assist device (L-VAD) that is sometimes used in heart patients.

I do not know of any centralized source for these transplantable organs and tissues that may have a 3D graphical user interface.

The only other information resource that I could give is the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS - http://www.unos.org/). UNOS is the federal contractor that provides all of the administrative services for the OPTN and they may be reached toll free on - 1-888-894-6361. UNOS may have some knowledge of the training materials that may be available for the professional development of transplant surgeons. If this is the kind of information that you are looking for, you might want to contact the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS - http://www.asts.org/) or the American Society of Transplantation (AST - http://www.a-s-t.org/). I am sorry that I could not help you further.

Richard Laeng, MPH
Public Health Analyst
Division of Transplantation, HSB/HRSA
rlaeng@hrsa.gov

I finally replied to Richard's quick response with the following.

Your response helps!

Thanks for the quick reply. I went to the Bodies exhibit in northern, VA a couple years ago and that is NOT what I'm looking for although it was a great exhibit. I really don't expect to find a single data source independent of country, nation-state, government agency, business / industrical sector, etc. for the male and female human bodies spanning embryo to 100+ yo adult for natural and artifical parts and fluids with a 3D user interface to interact with it. I am not surprised a part is tightly coupled with the job title for persons who can explant, implant, and/or transplant the matter and/or material between humans or human and culture medium, meaning you have to goto the URL for such-and-such society, association, council, board, academy, etc. to find what and what types of parts are avaliable for the human anatomy they specialize in.

Ideally, the web site would have a sliding (major) scale for age of the gender ranging from embryo to 100 yo in increments of months (1,200 steps in the minor scale!). Like the http://www.visiblebody.com/ web site you would have the semantics and syntax of the FMA supplemented with anatomical common terms for the layers and parts of the human body to visualize and animate. The major enhancements of this human-centric (vice provider, manufacturer, payer, disease, pharmaceutical, ... centric) will be menus to render and animate what parts are available for the (exploded) sectioned human anatomy in natural and artifical forms. Moreover, all the centricities I just mentioned could be simultaneously rendered for the web site visitor who might be browsing the site for health decision support--...augmentation (for cosmetics), ...transplantation, ...research, ...education and/or ...awareness.

Let me know if the DHHS gets the wild idea that they should build such a web-based environment in virtual reality for public, private and professional consumption. I like starting a journey of the human body with what I can related to--just naked me--and discover all the man-made institutions, medications, instrumentation, blah blah blah second to seeing a generic instantiation of the human matter and/or energy it stores and dissipates.