OP here, I'll take responsibility for the use of the word public. I should have specified that these hotspots will be available to Comcast subscribers rather than the general public. Thank you for clarifying. You are right; the two are not the same and I should have been more careful with my wording.
Intuitive offers a training pathway which incorporates a course through their company and subsequent proctored cases at the physician's facility. Proctoring is performed by a surgeon already certified on the system.
Actual credentialing (read permission to perform robotic surgeries) is performed by the facility/hospital where the surgeon works. Most hospitals have a requirement that a surgeon perform a certain number of proctored cases with the robotic system before being allowed to operate independently. This number is not high; at one of the large hospitals where I work, a practicing surgeon only needs to perform 3 cases with the robot before being allowed to operate independently (as best I can remember). At another hospital in the program where I train, surgeons were required to perform 25+ laparoscopic cholecystectomies before being able to perform them independently when laparoscopic surgery first became a big deal. I believe at least one of the lawsuits against Intuitive (Taylor vs Intuitive) is based in part on the fact that Intuitive reps may be pushing hospitals to lower their credentialing requirements.
As a related topic, credentialing surgeons is a difficult issue. The topic of evaluating surgical proficiency is extremely important right now in the world of academic surgical education. Currently, a board certified general surgeon has met three (main) requirements: 1) Completing an accredited general surgery residency, 2) passing a qualifying exam (written exam on surgical knowledge), 3) passing a certifying exam (oral boards, a test of a surgeons clinical reasoning and knowledge). None of these requirements, with possibly the exception of the first, provide a true criterion based measure of a surgeons proficiency at the actual task of operating. There is a push in the world of academic surgery to develop methods for assessing how well surgeons actually operate and whether or not they are competent.
In an ideal world, surgeons would not operate independently with the da Vinci or any other surgical tool without proving some level of proficiency first, which should be based on ability not number of cases performed. Becoming proficient, however, requires operating when not proficient. The best practices for training in a manner that maximizes physician education and minimizes risk to patients are still undetermined and the area is open for more research and innovation.
My infectious diseases prof lovingly refers to the anal pap smear as the crap smear. I hope that we can someday have the title officially recognized by Medicare and Medicaid...
Posting a reasonable analogy on/. certainly proves that you have not learned in your lifetime that you should not make mistakes like violating norms of nerd behavior...
I like Gataca a lot as well. I think it goes beyond shallow subject matter--it forces you to think about the ethical implications of the movements in science.
It might seem shallow at first, but think about when it came out. Dolly had just been cloned. Biotech was on the minds of people and when they saw the movie when it first came out, they had to think about whether or not we should always let science advance for the sake of science. It made us think about the 'essential human struggle with life and death.' It told us the whole point -- the human spirit is triumphant but we have to be careful that our zeal for advancement doesn't ever quash our humanity.
I'm not trying to say Gataca > Blade Runner. I like both a lot and they take us into slightly different areas, but both force us to think about what it means to be human. For me though, Gataca gets me more deeply than Blade Runner does. Maybe just because I'm a limited nerd that wants to triumph rather than a uber-cool cop (alright, I could identify better with Deckard in DADoES, but we're talking about the movie here...)
I'm all for looking at things from the tech/computer geek side of things as much as anybody on Slashdot, but isn't the summary taking things a bit far?
It was mentioned that there may have been other causes that combined with computer glitches, but wouldn't the fact that markets in China dropped a whopping 9% yesterday seem to be the real cause? I'm sure swithcing computer systems may have scared a few people, but I doubt it was the primary cause of a 400pt drop.
That said, it is interesting to think about the effect of computer systems on the financial markets. I've always maintained that it isn't the politicians or the business owners or the economists that run the world, it's the engineers. Think about what would happen if there was a complete shutdown of the systems that run the markets. See if all the Wall Street profiteers pay their geeks a pittance of their "annual bonus" then...
I saw this pickup just two days ago. It struck me as odd that it had a little "Powered by Natural Gas" sticker on it as I had never seen that on a passenger vehicle before.
I know that a lot of environmental agency vehicles have to carry around a fair bit of testing equipment, so this one may have been filled with it. It definitely didn't have any extra racks or hoses on it like you sometimes see on water quality testing vehicles, but the bed may have had some equipment in it. I couldn't really tell though as my car sits pretty close to the ground and I was looking up at the thing. It did have rather a nice, environmentally friendly looking (color-wise) paint job, however.
I think you may have a misunderstanding of which regions of the US are likely to defend what. Admittedly, the NE and NW regions generally tend to support much more liberal policies, but I think you should keep in mind that states in the midwest, west, and south are the bastions of small government thinking and states rights.
If you read the article, you will notice that the coalition being formed to fight the realID was spearheaded by a Missourian. If you don't remember your geography, especially the parts about those backwards midwestern states, then perhaps you have forgotten that Missouri and Kansas are next door neighbors and that Missouri is about as far as you can get from the northern coastal regions.
In the fight against encroachment by the federal government and the removal of citizens rights in the name of safety, I think it is dangerous to rely solely on the efforts of the NE and NW which don't have quite the same attitude towards protecting their citizens rights as some other regions of the country. I won't lie and say that Missouri, Montana, etc have always done the best job of protecting privacy, but I think midwestern and western states are just as good of defenders of privacy freedoms as other states, especially given the political sway they hold with the GOP.
How about not transplanting any cells and instead infecting existing cells with a virus that causes them express to CHOP-2? CHOP-2 (channelrhodopsin) is a light activated cation/proton channel excited by blue (~480nm if I remember right) light. Basically, if a neural cell expresses CHOP-2, shining a blue light on it will activate it. A http://www.neuron.org/content/article/abstract?uid =PIIS0896627306001760 paper in Neuron last spring explained how this technique was used to overcome blindness in mice.
I call dibs on mutating the channel to change its excitability spectrum into IR, allowing me to see in the (visible spectrum) dark after being infected with it. Or maybe I can sell it to the military...
Why is everyone calling this two different versions of the same console? In reality, there aren't two different versions, there are two different accessory packages. Think back to the days when you could buy a NES or Genesis with two different sets of accessories. One would be the "core" (budget) version and included only a controller. If you spent more, you could get an accessory package with some other goodies. It wasn't market segmentation then and it isn't market segmentation now. Even if the HDD is made a requirement for some games, it still isn't market segmentation, it is just a required accessory such as the memory expansion pack for the N64. It's a bit overzealous to claim that requiring a certain accessory will fragment the market and make the console unusable. THe memory expansion pack on the N64 is the perfect example certainly didn't have this effect, but it did increase the playability of the console. Anyway, just my two cents.
"Not only that, but because the microelectronics could eventually be made out of molecules, some computer parts could be biodegradable since molecules can be broken down into small bits."
Apparently we've all been using those computers that are made from something besides molecules...
On a serious note though, how a chip made with this tech be any more biodegradable than current tech?
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OP here, I'll take responsibility for the use of the word public. I should have specified that these hotspots will be available to Comcast subscribers rather than the general public. Thank you for clarifying. You are right; the two are not the same and I should have been more careful with my wording.
Intuitive offers a training pathway which incorporates a course through their company and subsequent proctored cases at the physician's facility. Proctoring is performed by a surgeon already certified on the system.
Actual credentialing (read permission to perform robotic surgeries) is performed by the facility/hospital where the surgeon works. Most hospitals have a requirement that a surgeon perform a certain number of proctored cases with the robotic system before being allowed to operate independently. This number is not high; at one of the large hospitals where I work, a practicing surgeon only needs to perform 3 cases with the robot before being allowed to operate independently (as best I can remember). At another hospital in the program where I train, surgeons were required to perform 25+ laparoscopic cholecystectomies before being able to perform them independently when laparoscopic surgery first became a big deal. I believe at least one of the lawsuits against Intuitive (Taylor vs Intuitive) is based in part on the fact that Intuitive reps may be pushing hospitals to lower their credentialing requirements.
As a related topic, credentialing surgeons is a difficult issue. The topic of evaluating surgical proficiency is extremely important right now in the world of academic surgical education. Currently, a board certified general surgeon has met three (main) requirements: 1) Completing an accredited general surgery residency, 2) passing a qualifying exam (written exam on surgical knowledge), 3) passing a certifying exam (oral boards, a test of a surgeons clinical reasoning and knowledge). None of these requirements, with possibly the exception of the first, provide a true criterion based measure of a surgeons proficiency at the actual task of operating. There is a push in the world of academic surgery to develop methods for assessing how well surgeons actually operate and whether or not they are competent.
In an ideal world, surgeons would not operate independently with the da Vinci or any other surgical tool without proving some level of proficiency first, which should be based on ability not number of cases performed. Becoming proficient, however, requires operating when not proficient. The best practices for training in a manner that maximizes physician education and minimizes risk to patients are still undetermined and the area is open for more research and innovation.
My infectious diseases prof lovingly refers to the anal pap smear as the crap smear. I hope that we can someday have the title officially recognized by Medicare and Medicaid...
Clearly your genes are not up to par.
/. certainly proves that you have not learned in your lifetime that you should not make mistakes like violating norms of nerd behavior...
Posting a reasonable analogy on
Do you hope that they climb back on top today yesterday?
I like Gataca a lot as well. I think it goes beyond shallow subject matter--it forces you to think about the ethical implications of the movements in science. It might seem shallow at first, but think about when it came out. Dolly had just been cloned. Biotech was on the minds of people and when they saw the movie when it first came out, they had to think about whether or not we should always let science advance for the sake of science. It made us think about the 'essential human struggle with life and death.' It told us the whole point -- the human spirit is triumphant but we have to be careful that our zeal for advancement doesn't ever quash our humanity. I'm not trying to say Gataca > Blade Runner. I like both a lot and they take us into slightly different areas, but both force us to think about what it means to be human. For me though, Gataca gets me more deeply than Blade Runner does. Maybe just because I'm a limited nerd that wants to triumph rather than a uber-cool cop (alright, I could identify better with Deckard in DADoES, but we're talking about the movie here...)
Reading your post again and thinking about it, maybe it *does* make sense, but it is so sad that it does.
I don't think that word means what you think it means...
I'm all for looking at things from the tech/computer geek side of things as much as anybody on Slashdot, but isn't the summary taking things a bit far? It was mentioned that there may have been other causes that combined with computer glitches, but wouldn't the fact that markets in China dropped a whopping 9% yesterday seem to be the real cause? I'm sure swithcing computer systems may have scared a few people, but I doubt it was the primary cause of a 400pt drop. That said, it is interesting to think about the effect of computer systems on the financial markets. I've always maintained that it isn't the politicians or the business owners or the economists that run the world, it's the engineers. Think about what would happen if there was a complete shutdown of the systems that run the markets. See if all the Wall Street profiteers pay their geeks a pittance of their "annual bonus" then...
I saw this pickup just two days ago. It struck me as odd that it had a little "Powered by Natural Gas" sticker on it as I had never seen that on a passenger vehicle before.
I know that a lot of environmental agency vehicles have to carry around a fair bit of testing equipment, so this one may have been filled with it. It definitely didn't have any extra racks or hoses on it like you sometimes see on water quality testing vehicles, but the bed may have had some equipment in it. I couldn't really tell though as my car sits pretty close to the ground and I was looking up at the thing. It did have rather a nice, environmentally friendly looking (color-wise) paint job, however.
I think you may have a misunderstanding of which regions of the US are likely to defend what. Admittedly, the NE and NW regions generally tend to support much more liberal policies, but I think you should keep in mind that states in the midwest, west, and south are the bastions of small government thinking and states rights.
If you read the article, you will notice that the coalition being formed to fight the realID was spearheaded by a Missourian. If you don't remember your geography, especially the parts about those backwards midwestern states, then perhaps you have forgotten that Missouri and Kansas are next door neighbors and that Missouri is about as far as you can get from the northern coastal regions.
In the fight against encroachment by the federal government and the removal of citizens rights in the name of safety, I think it is dangerous to rely solely on the efforts of the NE and NW which don't have quite the same attitude towards protecting their citizens rights as some other regions of the country. I won't lie and say that Missouri, Montana, etc have always done the best job of protecting privacy, but I think midwestern and western states are just as good of defenders of privacy freedoms as other states, especially given the political sway they hold with the GOP.
How about not transplanting any cells and instead infecting existing cells with a virus that causes them express to CHOP-2? CHOP-2 (channelrhodopsin) is a light activated cation/proton channel excited by blue (~480nm if I remember right) light. Basically, if a neural cell expresses CHOP-2, shining a blue light on it will activate it. A http://www.neuron.org/content/article/abstract?uid =PIIS0896627306001760 paper in Neuron last spring explained how this technique was used to overcome blindness in mice.
I call dibs on mutating the channel to change its excitability spectrum into IR, allowing me to see in the (visible spectrum) dark after being infected with it. Or maybe I can sell it to the military...
Why is everyone calling this two different versions of the same console? In reality, there aren't two different versions, there are two different accessory packages. Think back to the days when you could buy a NES or Genesis with two different sets of accessories. One would be the "core" (budget) version and included only a controller. If you spent more, you could get an accessory package with some other goodies. It wasn't market segmentation then and it isn't market segmentation now. Even if the HDD is made a requirement for some games, it still isn't market segmentation, it is just a required accessory such as the memory expansion pack for the N64. It's a bit overzealous to claim that requiring a certain accessory will fragment the market and make the console unusable. THe memory expansion pack on the N64 is the perfect example certainly didn't have this effect, but it did increase the playability of the console. Anyway, just my two cents.
"Not only that, but because the microelectronics could eventually be made out of molecules, some computer parts could be biodegradable since molecules can be broken down into small bits." Apparently we've all been using those computers that are made from something besides molecules... On a serious note though, how a chip made with this tech be any more biodegradable than current tech?