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Design Education Innovation Network Technology

Pediatric Medical Devices

The Global Medical Device Podcast Episode 115 Challenges with Pediatric Medical Devices is an honest discussion addressing medical devices for children and pediatric hospitals set inside the marketplace.
medical device podcast

This episode was refreshing to hear calls for medical devices designed specifically for children. The voices of experience shared longstanding vendors cannot simply ‘retrofit’ a device for young kids.

As mentioned there is quite a difference in treating small children with devices designed for adults. Mike Drues of Vascular Sciences and Jon Speer discuss the lack of availability for such medical devices and prescription drugs, specifically with children in mind.

Simply manufacturing a “smaller version” of adult medical devices and drugs for pediatric populations may not be the best solution. Lack of availability is simply due to a lack of market.

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3D Printing Design Education Innovation Maker OpenSource Technology

Cetus Extended 3D printer

The Cetus Extended 3D printer, a Rails-based printing technology has been occupying a great deal of my time as of late. This 3D Printer has a build volume of 180x180x280mm and supports 1.75mm PLA filament.
Cetus Extended
A very important consideration for children is a printer’s power source. Many 3D printer kits from GearBest, eBay or AliExpress contain open, live wiring that may prove extremely dangerous to children. This printer is a safe choice for children and schools. Cetus ships a kid-friendly power supply that will put to rest any parental concerns. Remember kids are curious. IMHO the Cetus minimalist design provides a better introduction to real hands-on 3D Printing for my children.

Cetus printers have an active Facebook group providing great feedback from a growing community of owners. I am also pleased to see an active Reddit community.

Popular 3D applications Simplify3DUltimaker Cura, Slic3r, and Craftware all connect to the Cetus Extended and run very well on an iMac. USB and WiFi are built in and Cetus has an iPad client. The Cetus app will also convert G-code to native machine code before sending objects to the printer.

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Blockchain Cloud Cyberinfrastructure Design Education Globalization Innovation IoT Network OpenSource Reading Technology

Latest Read: Decentralized Applications Harnessing Bitcoin’s Blockchain Technology

Decentralized Applications Harnessing Bitcoin’s Blockchain Technology by Siraj Raval is my follow up to three previous blockchain books. This kinda forks hard left after chapter two and drifts.
Decentralized Applications Harnessing Bitcoin's Blockchain TechnologyMy first book Don Tapscott’s The Blockchain Revolution was interesting in broad strokes. William Mougayar’s The Business Blockchain was better.

Melanie Swan wrote an even better overview to in her book Blockchain: A blueprint for a new economy. Melanie provides a great overview (looking back from 2015) to address decentralized apps (Dapps), decentralized autonomous organization (DAOs), decentralized autonomous corporations (DACs) and decentralized autonomous societies (DASs). There is such a deeper dive required to wrap your arms around decentralized autonomous blockchains.

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Blockchain Cloud Cyberinfrastructure Design Education Globalization Innovation IoT Network OpenSource Reading Technology

Latest Read: Blockchain – Blueprint for a New Economy

When Melanie Swan’s book Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy written under the O’Reilly series was available I was eager to start reading. This is a thoughtful overview to the Blockchain. There is much to learn about the role of cryptocurrency and the blockchain but this is not the sole focus of her work.

Blockchain - Blueprint for a New EconomyMelanie, like Tapscott paints a wide brush across the Blockchain. Too similar to Tapscott perhaps? No. If the blockchain’s focus was just security then it would command a smaller, narrow focus on IT infrastructure. Yet Melanie provides a wider arena to learn how Blockchains especially in healthcare hold enormous possibilities.

My first book Don Tapscott’s The Blockchain Revolution was interesting. William Mougayar’s The Business Blockchain was better. My thirst for knowledge continues.This is possibly the best of the three at providing a deeper dive to the possibilities of a truly changing technology.

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Blockchain Cloud Cyberinfrastructure Design Education Globalization Innovation IoT Network OpenSource Reading Technology

Latest Read: The Blockchain Revolution

Blockchain as a financial technology (FitTech) surged in late 2015. Wall Street banks and other international financial firms stress tested this technology and are investing in blockchain infrastructure. Even Janet Yellen and The Federal Reserve received a blockchain briefing within June.

Don Tapscott’s Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World is a worthy introduction to this advanced security ledger technology. This book is NOT about Bitcoin.

The Blockchain RevolutionTapscott paints with a wide brush across the underlying architecture. Looking for blockchain infrastructure, cryptocurrency or blockchain as a service than take a glance at the table of contents. O’Reilly’s Blockchain books are more targeted to tech folks anyway.

Hard to believe I have been a fan of Don’s writing for over 10 years. Just looked at my review of Wikinomics and MacroWikinomics, his previous books published way back in 2006. His follow up Macrowikinomics was released in 2008. It was interesting to me to understand Don lightly wrapped an element from Wikinomics called Ideagoras into The Blockchain Revolution. Sometimes you just cannot leave home….

Clearly FinTech sees the blockchain’s potential to disrupt their world. The focus for Tapscott is how to address Blockchain beyond Wall Street. The blockchain allows participants of public and private distributed systems to agree on a common view of a system and track changes across those systems with highly secure encryption. Security is also the core of healthcare blockchains with the focus on the crypto in cryptocurrency.