Human factors in Medicine Engineering
Human-factors engineering is concerned with human performance, behavior as well as training in systems, which are concerned with man-machine system. This branch of medicine engineering is concerned with biological and medical research also.
Human factors approach to design in medicine engineering also includes environmental medicine, psychology, sociology, and toxicology. The study basically aims at combining the human factors with industrial design as well as operational research.
So far as medicine engineering is concerned two general characteristics are involved in the practical designing works.
The basic problem before the medicine engineering expert here is to find out the method and process of integration of human factors into medical science systems. In the past, the experts in medical engineering tend to ignore the effects of human behavior, which is rather complex and unpredictable, and as such, the problems of human factors approach to design in medicine engineering was dealt with quite subjectively.
The current challenge for these experts in medicine engineering is to objectively assess the effects of human factors and take them into consideration in designing the medicines, and to do away with the man-machine mismatch.
In essence, the study of human behavior has now become an essential part of the study of medicine engineering. As a result of conglomeration of these studies in medicine engineering, the guess works that were the haul mark of the subject previously, have now been replaced by empirical techniques.
A number of useful inventions in the field of medical science at the beginning of the World War II marked the beginning of human factor approach to medicine engineering. Such developments included innovation of internal medicines, obstetrics, gynecology, pediatrics, pathology, and such other science relating to human body.
Another very important field of medical science dealing with human body is hematology, and medicine engineering experts are now involved in the process of developing blood related medicines.
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Satellites in aerospace engineering
With the advent of mobile communication, the world has come much closer and has become accessible within reach. Across the Americas, Europe and through-out much of the world, digital phones have opened up a new generation of communication.
This has changed the way of how we keep in touch and mobile phones continue to enhance our lives. Today, we not only use mobile technology just to communicate, but it is also being used to transfer data, surf the net, download and play music and various other content applications.
On the hand, it should be noted, that there are several areas in this world, where communication facilities are totally absent. A disaster area may be one such instance where communication is an imperative necessity.
In today’s modern world, we use satellite phone to communicate.
Aerospace engineering defines a satellite is an object which revolves around another object. For example, the Moon is a satellite of the Earth, and the Earth is one of the Sun.
The phenomenon interested mankind to investigate more on this idea and experiment on man-made satellite en-circling the Earth. It was thought that if such a satellite was put in the space, communication could be set up from one part of the world to the other.
A communication satellite orbits around the earth and in effect is an artificial satellite, stationed in space for the purpose of telecommunication.
These satellites use the geosynchronous orbits, Molniya orbits or low polar Earth orbits.
Ergonomics. Human engineering in Medicine
Among the various sciences, the branches of medicine engineering are one such particular science that deals with human engineering.
The study, also known as ergonomics, is a subtle branch of medicine engineering that is mostly concerned with improvement of medicines and drugs to be applied to living being, especially in human body.
Of course a part of ergonomics is also related to designing the physical and psychological characteristics of the devices used for healing, but basically this branch of medicine engineering is concerned with improvement and modification of pharmaceutical drugs.
We all know that our diseases and their cure are mostly inherent in human characteristics, capabilities, and limitations of the body, and medicine engineering performs human engineering by manipulating these human factors.
What is basically done is that, a collection of data is used to process the inherent principles of medicine engineering. In this the components of medicine engineering are the designs of the machines and the drugs, the environments under which they give their optimum performances, methods of working, and above all, the safety of the patient concerned.
Those experts of medicine engineering who have adopted human-factors engineering as a profession, comprises of a host of scientists and engineers from multiple disciplines. A unique feature of this branch of medicine engineering is that, most of these scientists deal with a specifically identified small group of human users and operators.
This makes the task of the experts of medicine engineering easier and the result is a number of landmark innovations in the field of medical science.
Automobile Engines
The working of an automobile engine follows the same principle as an internal combustion engine. Air, from outside, enters the engine through the air cleaner and reaches the throttle plate.
The pedal in your car is the control for the amount of air that you would want to be taken in, and you control it by pressing on this gas pedal.
The air is then distributed through the intake manifold of the cylinders.
At some point fuel is injected into the air stream, and the mixture vaporizes and is drawn into the cylinders as they start their intake stroke.
This way, when the cylinder has reached its bottom, it has drawn in sufficient mixture. As it moves up, compressing the mixture, the spark plug ignites the mixture, and as the powerful gas formed expands, it pushes the cylinder to the bottom with the cylinder once again drawing in the mixture.
In designing automobile engines, you need to be a specialist in automobile engineering.
The consideration that is taken while designing such an engine is whether it should be a carburetor or a diesel one. carburetor engines are most commonly found in passenger cars and low capacity trucks, while trucks with a capacity over two tons are fitted with diesel engines, including dump trucks, trailer tractors and bus.
Increasingly the medium and low-capacity vehicles are being fitted with diesel engines, since the fuel consumption of these engines are 30% to 50% lower than the carburetor engines.
Diesel engines not only cost more, but maintenance is much more expensive than the other type of engine. Diesels require more metal parts per kilowatt.
The critical parts of diesel engines are made of alloy steel, and the fuel injection system is much more expensive than carburetor engines.
Stem Cell Research. Clinical application
An interesting branch of medicine engineering is the stem cell research. This unique branch of medicine engineering is presently undergoing a critical transition. Yet it continues to be a potential component of both medical engineering as well as medical practice.
Many people lose cells due to injury or degenerative diseases that have no cure at present. Medicine engineering experts have tried a wide range of experimental models to solve this problem. This has resulted in a gift by the medicine engineering science, the cellular grafting, which is a unique type of cell based therapy.
The method that is the most suitable stem cell research and therapy, as devised by the medicine engineering studies, is the magnetic resonance imaging methods. They produce non-evasive images of opaque tissues. If on the other hand, the cells are transplanted, medicine engineering has the answer in tracking them by MRI, after making them MR visible.
In fact the medicine engineering studies are more concentrated in this regard in modeling novel contrast agents into stem cells and developing specific tagging molecules to deliver efficient amounts of contrast agents into stem cells.
The concern of the specialists in this case is that, the methods for monitoring implanted stem cells, non-invasively in “vivo”, a type of research approach, will expedite improvement of opportunities for stem cell based therapies.
How to make a career in Automotive Engineering
To make a career in automotive engineering, there are several engineering technology programs that are offered as various academic courses helping you to specialize in designing vehicles, such as, cars, trucks, etc.
You gather the expertise in providing help to build and test the vehicles, and learn how to repair and maintain with the appropriate tools and instruments. When you watch TV, you come across commercials advertising cars and other vehicles.
If you ponder for once how much it costs the vehicle manufacturers to advertise, you would be able to realise how vast the automobile industry is. If you watch the commercials closely, you will find that features of the vehicle are advertised also, such as, side air-bags, disappearing fold down seats, gas-electric hybrids, and many more.
It is evident that someone had to design these features which are now being made available in the vehicle.
When designing a vehicle, the design break-through comes from the automobile engineers, who have the specialization to design automobiles.
The job that you have as an automobile design engineer is to design the components that go into the vehicle, test them in the laboratory, and qualify them as the components which have been correctly designed. Automobile design engineers put the concept of a vehicle into reality.
The making of an Automobile
The products manufactured by the automotive industry are the passenger cars, trucks, vans, sport concerned vehicles, busses, and recreational vehicles.
The industry is one of the largest industry in the US and employees over 2 million people.
Automotive industries are mostly concentrated in the Great Lakes area, especially in Michigan, but it can be found in most of the other parts of the country as well.
Employment opportunities in the industry offers tens and thousands of job to the higher skilled personnel, such as, highly educated scientists, engineers, managers, and other professionals. It also has large openings for thousands of skilled workers, who largely work in the production line, and unskilled laborers.
Generally, each of the automobile manufacturers bring out new line of vehicles every year, the planning and design of which start at least two to three years earlier before you find it in a dealer’s showroom. Before these new line of vehicles are brought out, the planning stage of these new models are first considered by the company’s highest officials, along with their product planning group.
Here the broad outline of the vehicles are decided, deciding on matters, such as, whether to emphasize on luxury models or to consider such matters as to keep the price low. The aspects on safety measures, fuel economy, the size, the weight, and air pollution control are also considered and decided.
Bionics in Medicine Engineering
While medical science has been progressing by leaps and bounds during the last few decades, it has been matching its progress stride by stride.
In the field of medicine engineering, one very important part is bionics that is dedicated to the study of synthetic implants in the body of human beings, animals, and even plants.
In fact, bionics in medicine engineering refers to synthetic implantation within any living organism.
Medicine engineering views human body as biological machine. Therefore, the study of this science also includes study of human body and its natural systems.
The sole aim of such study in medicine engineering is the innovation of a safe process for replacement of biology with technology.
The aspect of this science introduces to us the study of bionics or bionical creativity as it is called.
Bionics in medicine engineering is also known as biomimetics, biognosis or bionical creativity engineering. The basis of this study is the process of applying the natural systems and methods in the realm of medicine engineering and to its designs. As a result it combines the natural elements with the modern technology in the process of improvement of medicine engineering.
The term “Bionics” has originated form the Greek word “Biov” whose true pronunciation is “bion”. “Bion” means unit of life and “ic” means “like” and thus the term bionics has come into the arena of medicine engineering. Some medicine engineering experts however believe that the word “bionics” refers to a combination of biology with electronics which is also true in a certain sense.
Medicine Engineering and Human Body
For age long, the study of human body from different directions and for different purposes has been a very interesting and complicated part of medicine engineering.
While medicine aims to sustain, enhance, and replace functions of the human body, the engineering aims at providing the necessary know how for it, and thus medicine engineering can be considered to be a science of application of medicine to the human body.
Medicine engineering on human body is basically concerned with the application of various pharmaceutical drugs and their effects. Not only that, medicine engineering is also concerned with replacement of natural organs in human body by artificial ones. Some potent examples are brain implants and pacemakers, which could be considered to be the irreplaceable gift of medicine engineering to human society.
Brain implants, also known as neural implants is perhaps the most important part of medicine engineering related to human body. These are technological devices that directly contact with a human brain. Following the avid principles laid down by in depth study of medicine engineering, these devices are ordinarily placed on the surface of the brain. Medicine engineering has also discovered of late the biomedical prosthesis circumventing areas in the brain. These parts become non-functional consequent upon a stroke or injuries sustained. Medicine engineering has come up with the solution of sensory substitution caused by such head injuries or stroke.
[Italy] Crp Technology
Having been a primary active partner to the main Racecar Constructors for more than 30 years, CRP Technology offers a unique opportunity to the Motor Sport market: a support throughout the entire project, including the manufacturing process.
CRP has been instrumental in the success of many race winning F1, Moto GP, Rally Raid, ALMS and World Rally Championship teams.
What makes this company different are the partnerships we have formed with the different teams. CRP is involved at the earliest design and development stages and our innovative approach to the use of new materials and technology is widely recognised by the race car industry.
CRP Technology therefore provides race car design and construction services to competition car constructors and motoracing teams.
Constantly developing and improving itself, CRP’s business is nowadays constituted by:
- The complete creation of mechanical parts, especially for sports racing cars, including the study and engineering of the customer’s main project, to the choice of the manufacturing process
- The sale of parts made by layer manufacturing techniques using internally developed composite materials WINDFORM branded
- Production and commercialization of those WINDFORM composite materials for laser sintering all around the world.
Automotive engineering brings processors in vehicles
Automotive engineering has brought in advanced concepts in today’s auto industries. Cars are now installed with 8- to 16- to 32-bit processors, with thoughts of introducing the state-of-art processor technology in the very near future.
The proven technology of dual core processors, bring in speed and faster computing power, with a lower clock speed, hence consuming less power. This would mean less heat generation. In modern information technology systems, dual core processors have already created a mark, with thoughts going on for multi-core processors to be soon introduced in the market.
In the past, auto manufacturers have used dual-core processors in automotive engineering, but the thoughts are fast changing with applications taking a new turn. It is understood that some auto manufacturers is contemplating using triple-core processors in vehicles, and is also working with groups to implement quad-core processor systems.
There are many areas in automotive engineering that have notable application that require the performance of dual-core processors. The most important areas of application are fuel saving, and emission reductions, with diagnosis of safety management and transformation of hardware based functions to systems based on software.
With regards to the transformation from single-core units to dual-core would be simpler than, if this change was required to be made from a 16-bit system to a 32-bit processor. There would have been requirement for wide changes in the software making it suitable to run on a 32-bit system. As for the transformation from single-core to dual-core, the changes would be simpler, without having any major re-writes.
Electron Beam Lithography
Electron Beam Lithography (EBL) is a method that allows the original digital image to be transferred directly to the interested substrate without the use of mask. It was introduced soon after the development of the scanning electron microscope.
In 1954, Broers reported 50 nm lines ion milled into metal films using a contamination resist patterned with a 10 nm wide e-beam. Later in 1976, with improved electron optics, 8 nm lines in Au-Pd were reported using a 0.5 nm probe. In 1984, a functioning Aharonov-Bohm interference device was fabricated with Electron Beam Lithography.
One year later, 1 nm to 2 nm features in metal halide resists were reported. Until recently, Electron Beam Lithography is used almost exclusively for fabricating research and prototype nanoelectronic devices. Its precision and nanolithographic capabilities make it the tool of choice for making masks for other advanced lithographies.
Car suspension system in automotive engineering
Automotive engineering has brought forth the ability in today’s cars to reach a balance between the riding comfort and its road handling capability. This has been achieved through an active suspension control installed in the car, through a typical distributed control system. We discuss here a brief account of the mechanism of an active suspension system in a vehicle, where the distributed structure of the mechanism has been taken into account.
Automotive engineering has helped to conceive the theory of embedded distributed control architectures that have come to be the first and foremost innovation in modern cars, which have been applied to achieve improvements in performance in the vehicles. The system costs more than a quarter of the cost that is required to manufacture a car, which has made the car manufacturers to have a re-look at the costing and make improvement of the effective cost of the vehicle.
Introduction of such technologies have brought disadvantages. With computers deployed in the architectural design of the system in controlling the suspensions of a car, it has given rise to delays and jitters in the vehicles, giving rise to degraded performance.
Deployment of larger computer systems in the architecture has been found to solve the problem, but it has become a hard challenge for the car manufacturers to reduce prices and meet the competition.
With the advent of modern automotive engineering, the architectural concepts of distributed control have been applied in active suspension control systems in vehicles in order to provide a smoother ride.
This suspension control system comprises of a set of mechanisms at the four corners of a vehicle. These are springs, shock absorbers, and a hydraulic actuator. These four sets of mechanisms provide the car with a better road holding and improved comfort, with the suspension buffering all the forces between the vehicle and the road.
Drugs and Medicine Engineering
During the last century there have been many revolutionary changes in the fields of invention of drugs and medicine engineering. Using the skills of biotechnology, medicine engineering has been able to identify a lot about human genes.
However, the real work of medicine engineering, that of transforming this knowledge into new qualitative drugs, is of comparatively recent origin.
Today, we find millions of new drugs in the market that are products of use of medicine engineering combined with the knowledge derived from biotechnology. Medicine engineering has not stopped here.
There are a number of new drugs coming up or are in the pipeline, which is considered to be one of the greatest gifts of medicine engineering to the human society.
Evolution and development is never static and it is also in the case of medicine engineering. Technology has grown so fast that, today you can diagnose or check on a thousand drug discovery processes in almost no time using the same medicine engineering methods.
For example, take the re-growth of tissues, which is the main concern of medicine engineering over the years.
This aspect is now affectively addressed by making the natural healing process take place faster than what medicine engineering used to experience earlier.
Rapid Prototyping Practical Applications
Rapid Prototyping (RP) technologies, also known as Desktop Manufacturing (DM), Layer Manufacturing Technologies (LMT), or Solid Freeform Fabrication (SFF), has taken the industrial segment by storm with its revolutionary and remarkable production techniques, having applications in several industries, namely, aerospace, biomedical, architecture, education, automotive, appliances, jewelry, consumer electronics, packaging and printing industries.
Rapid Prototyping applications can be broadly grouped into three heads, namely, applications in design; applications in engineering, analysis and planning; and applications in manufacturing and tooling.
The applications in design concern with CAD-model verification with respect to the design specification, the ability to visualize objects, as a physical proof of the mental concept, and as a marketing and presentation model.
The applications in engineering, analysis and planning concern with form and fit models, flow analysis, analysis of stress distribution, pre-series parts, diagnostic and pre-surgical operation planning, and design and fabrication of custom prostheses and implants.
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