Nice try. Let me translate that into French for you: :)
[Nota bene : la discussion entre la Commission Européenne et le Parlement est pour l'instant gelée concernant les
" brevets logiciels ". La stratégie est sous-marine dans chaque pays, si je comprends bien...]
Thanks, Andy for 30 messages per day of ~30 ko, not to mention all the "transaction failed" pseudo-return messages and what not.
Waste of time, energy and bandwidth.
I read your interesting experience with ECG. You were worried about your negative "S" wave and thought it might be due to some construction problem. It probably isn't. I'm no electrical engineer, but I am a medical doctor, and I was tought how the thing works.
In a basic ECG reading, there are 12 leads. Each corresponds to a different way of considering which electrode is picking up the signal, and which ones are used as a reference. 3 leads are so-called "bi-polar" and are often tagged "I, II, III". 3 leads are the so-called "augmented unipolar limb leads" and are tagged "aVR, aVL, aVF". The 6 other are the so-called "chest" leads and are often tagged "V1" to "V6". There are additional lines that go all the way to "V12", but we'll forget them for now.
The general idea is to pick up the heart's electrical vector in a vertical plane (for the bi-polar and augmented unipolar leads) in 6 evenly spaced directions. The chest leads do the same in a horizontal plane.
In a regular ECG, electrodes are placed on each wrist and on each ankles (although one ankle would be enough). If you consider a person with his arms spread out and approximately at 30 degrees elevation, and both legs together and extended, you have the image of a triangle, more or less centered around the heart.
Bipolar leads take the input from two of the leads, using the other one as a reference (I think). Thus, "I" is a horizontal vector going from left arm to right arm. "II" goes from the right arm to the legs. "III" goes from the left arm to the legs. Each lead in pink in the following diagram is parallel to one of the green lines of the triangle.
The augmented unipolar limb leads work by considering only one of the limbs, and the others as reference (? still not sur about the reference thing, though).
When you consider this, you have 12 evenly spaced recordings of the electrical activity of the heart, in a vertical pane (I, -aVR, II, aVF, III, -aVL, -I, aVR, -II, -aVF, -III, aVL).
The chest leads are simple unipolar leads that start just to the right of the sternum (V1) and are regularly spaced from just to the left of the sternum to under the left armpit (V2 to V6). They obviously give a "picture" of the heart's electrical activity in a horizontal pane.
The aspect of the different waves depends on what perspective you are using to "see" the heart. The most prominent wave is the so-called "QRS" complex. This is actually the electrical signal that represents the loss of polarity of the heart-cells' surface in response to the stimulus. If the wave is going "towards" the electrode, the signal is positive. If it is going away from the electrode, it is negative. The signal first descends towards the tip of the heart, then heads back up a little, hence the tall R and deep S waves that are often seen, mostly on the chest leads, which are "closer" to the heart and are looking "at" the tip of the heart. Thick hearts (because of disease) cause abnormaly tall or deep R or S waves.
On the photo you provide, it you seem to have placed your electrodes in an uncommon "bipolar V1-V6". This is not a standard vector, so don't expect to see anything that resembles a real ECG. Therefore, I think there is nothing wrong with your apparatus. Try placing the red and black electrodes one on each arm and the other (green) one on the thigh. You'll probably get something much closer to the usual aspect of an ECG.
That's the whole point. It may make you feel better to have this thing running in the background, and IMHO it's a Good Thing to be doing, but you don't want to expect things to go quickly from there.
Moreover, interesting things may arise from the research that is done finding binding sites. That's why I still think it's a good idea to keep these things going.
Agreed. You have to start somewhere. And who knows, maybe serendipity can lend a helping hand and have us find out something useful while doing something that isn't really leading anywhere.
There won't be any Nobel prize to win in this case. There nothing innovative about trying to find a binding target for a potential drug on the nucleic acid or one of the preoteins of a virus.
It would be like rewarding "brute force" as an intelligent way of breaking code.
But frankly, I don't care if we get rid of this thing intelligently or not!
If this kind of thing gets used on a regular basis, it might prove beneficial :
We all know that seeing is hardly believing (seen any "war" news lately?), but we naturally tend to believe in images anyway, particularly if they are moving and in color.
If the images get tweaked all the time, our level of confidence might drop to a more reasonable level...
Knowing about something does not make it easier to "engineer" it. You can know all you ever want to know about a cryptography system, you still won't be able to break the code without the right key.
Slashdot Mirror
"Toughting"? And what does my EKG explanation have to do with this thread?
Nice try. Let me translate that into French for you:
:)
That's vive la différence. Difference is a girl in French. :)
No real French speaker would make this kind of mistake...
Thanks, Andy for 30 messages per day of ~30 ko, not to mention all the "transaction failed" pseudo-return messages and what not. Waste of time, energy and bandwidth.
Jason,
I read your interesting experience with ECG. You were worried about your negative "S" wave and thought it might be due to some construction problem. It probably isn't. I'm no electrical engineer, but I am a medical doctor, and I was tought how the thing works.
In a basic ECG reading, there are 12 leads. Each corresponds to a different way of considering which electrode is picking up the signal, and which ones are used as a reference. 3 leads are so-called "bi-polar" and are often tagged "I, II, III". 3 leads are the so-called "augmented unipolar limb leads" and are tagged "aVR, aVL, aVF". The 6 other are the so-called "chest" leads and are often tagged "V1" to "V6". There are additional lines that go all the way to "V12", but we'll forget them for now.
The general idea is to pick up the heart's electrical vector in a vertical plane (for the bi-polar and augmented unipolar leads) in 6 evenly spaced directions. The chest leads do the same in a horizontal plane.
In a regular ECG, electrodes are placed on each wrist and on each ankles (although one ankle would be enough). If you consider a person with his arms spread out and approximately at 30 degrees elevation, and both legs together and extended, you have the image of a triangle, more or less centered around the heart.
Bipolar leads take the input from two of the leads, using the other one as a reference (I think). Thus, "I" is a horizontal vector going from left arm to right arm. "II" goes from the right arm to the legs. "III" goes from the left arm to the legs. Each lead in pink in the following diagram is parallel to one of the green lines of the triangle.
The augmented unipolar limb leads work by considering only one of the limbs, and the others as reference (? still not sur about the reference thing, though).
When you consider this, you have 12 evenly spaced recordings of the electrical activity of the heart, in a vertical pane (I, -aVR, II, aVF, III, -aVL, -I, aVR, -II, -aVF, -III, aVL).
The chest leads are simple unipolar leads that start just to the right of the sternum (V1) and are regularly spaced from just to the left of the sternum to under the left armpit (V2 to V6). They obviously give a "picture" of the heart's electrical activity in a horizontal pane.
The aspect of a lead is always roughly the same.
The aspect of the different waves depends on what perspective you are using to "see" the heart. The most prominent wave is the so-called "QRS" complex. This is actually the electrical signal that represents the loss of polarity of the heart-cells' surface in response to the stimulus. If the wave is going "towards" the electrode, the signal is positive. If it is going away from the electrode, it is negative. The signal first descends towards the tip of the heart, then heads back up a little, hence the tall R and deep S waves that are often seen, mostly on the chest leads, which are "closer" to the heart and are looking "at" the tip of the heart. Thick hearts (because of disease) cause abnormaly tall or deep R or S waves.
On the photo you provide, it you seem to have placed your electrodes in an uncommon "bipolar V1-V6". This is not a standard vector, so don't expect to see anything that resembles a real ECG. Therefore, I think there is nothing wrong with your apparatus. Try placing the red and black electrodes one on each arm and the other (green) one on the thigh. You'll probably get something much closer to the usual aspect of an ECG.
Just my 0.02 euros...
Hope this helps.
That's the whole point. It may make you feel better to have this thing running in the background, and IMHO it's a Good Thing to be doing, but you don't want to expect things to go quickly from there.
Moreover, interesting things may arise from the research that is done finding binding sites. That's why I still think it's a good idea to keep these things going.
Plus, they actually do make you feel better! B^)
Agreed. You have to start somewhere. And who knows, maybe serendipity can lend a helping hand and have us find out something useful while doing something that isn't really leading anywhere.
There won't be any Nobel prize to win in this case. There nothing innovative about trying to find a binding target for a potential drug on the nucleic acid or one of the preoteins of a virus. It would be like rewarding "brute force" as an intelligent way of breaking code. But frankly, I don't care if we get rid of this thing intelligently or not!
Unfortunately, finding a target binding site for a potential drug is years away from actually having a useful cure...
Just to stay in the subject, and for those who might be interested, check out this detector.
It's sort of like the water version of the ice-cube detector.
Much nicer site for a vacation, too. 8^)
The home page is here.
We all know that seeing is hardly believing (seen any "war" news lately?), but we naturally tend to believe in images anyway, particularly if they are moving and in color.
If the images get tweaked all the time, our level of confidence might drop to a more reasonable level...
Knowing about something does not make it easier to "engineer" it. You can know all you ever want to know about a cryptography system, you still won't be able to break the code without the right key.