The mechanics of a cotton candy machine are proving useful to the quest to build life-sized artificial organs.
Capillaries are the body’s most narrow blood vessels. The thin-walled tubes are essential to organs, delivering oxygen and nutrients and carrying away waste. They also serve is a kind of scaffolding, their woven structure organizing the collection of liver or kidney cells.
Engineers at Vanderbilt University have been experimenting with cotton candy machines as a means to weave capillary-like structures using hydrogels. Unlike solid polymers, water-based gels allow vital fluids to flow through the structure more easily, mimicking the role of the tiny vessels.
It’s possible to build capillary scaffolding from the bottom up by culturing cells in a thin film of gel and allowing vessels to began forming on their own, but the process is slow and delicate.
Spinning hydrogel channels from a cotton candy machine — the top-down approach — is much faster.
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Showing posts with label process. Show all posts
Showing posts with label process. Show all posts
Thursday, 11 February 2016
Wednesday, 20 January 2016
A Day in the Life of a Datum
Each day we create and consume massive amounts of data. This slide show illustrates the journey one datum goes through from inception to reality.
Big data and the Internet of things (IoT) are disrupting entire markets and merging our virtual worlds with our physical worlds. Within the last two years, more than 90 percent of the world's data has been created. IDC predicts that the data we create and copy annually will reach 44 zettabytes, or 44 trillion gigabytes, by 2020. Salesforce projects the number of connected devices available will reach 75 billion by 2020. Data surrounds us. Whether it's on our mobile phones, wearables, or home and/or office devices, we create and consume massive amounts of it each day. Have you ever stopped to think about where and how that data started its day? Who it touched before you? Or what happens to it afterward? In the following slide show, Calvin Hsu, a Citrix vice president, illustrates the journey one datum goes through from inception to reality, highlighting the phases of data—at rest, in use and on the move—and the types of devices, applications and services that data reaches along the way.
See the slideshow
Big data and the Internet of things (IoT) are disrupting entire markets and merging our virtual worlds with our physical worlds. Within the last two years, more than 90 percent of the world's data has been created. IDC predicts that the data we create and copy annually will reach 44 zettabytes, or 44 trillion gigabytes, by 2020. Salesforce projects the number of connected devices available will reach 75 billion by 2020. Data surrounds us. Whether it's on our mobile phones, wearables, or home and/or office devices, we create and consume massive amounts of it each day. Have you ever stopped to think about where and how that data started its day? Who it touched before you? Or what happens to it afterward? In the following slide show, Calvin Hsu, a Citrix vice president, illustrates the journey one datum goes through from inception to reality, highlighting the phases of data—at rest, in use and on the move—and the types of devices, applications and services that data reaches along the way.
See the slideshow
Monday, 18 January 2016
7 Steps to Business and IT Alignment
No business will ever reach the goal of “business and IT alignment”. Should this discourage you from pursuing business and IT alignment? NO! It is a worthy goal to pursue. Indeed, it is a critical one to pursue. You might never reach alignment but you can take steps to get ever closer. This requires a process. Often, we ignore the fact that business and IT alignment is a process. This process does not have a starting point nor does it have an end. It is a series of “learn and do” cycles that incrementally get towards alignment. Let me explain.
The goal of perfect alignment is unachievable because of the dynamic nature of business. Every organization operates in an ecosystem and is affected by the forces at play in it. Economy, industry, competitors etc. are all players in this ecosystem who are continuously evolving. Similarly, knowledge and tools – such as information technology - are also continuously changing. To remain competitive i.e. maintain differentiation, every organization must adapt in response to the actions and activities of others in its ecosystem. Organizations that do not adapt lose their competitive edge over time and disappear.
Add to this the changes in an organization’s internal environment – structure, skills, finances, personnel, knowledge, core competency etc. – and now one has a potent mix of forces that demand change in response.
This continuous change is the cause of perpetual misalignment.
It takes time to understand the impact of the actions of others. It takes time to take action. While you are reacting, the world is not stationary – it is throwing more stuff your way. By the time you are done, you are out of alignment. To be precise, while you are taking action, you are out of alignment!
Till we have perfect predictive modeling and instant systems, no organization will ever be in perfect alignment. The best one can do is to move “toward” alignment i.e. moving in the right direction.
Do not let this discourage you from pursuing business and IT alignment! It is a worthy goal to pursue. Indeed, it is a critical one to pursue. You might never reach alignment but you can take steps to get ever closer.
This requires a process.
Often, we ignore the fact that business and IT alignment is a process. This process does not have a starting point nor does it have an end. It is a series of “learn and do” cycles that incrementally get towards alignment.
The goal of perfect alignment is unachievable because of the dynamic nature of business. Every organization operates in an ecosystem and is affected by the forces at play in it. Economy, industry, competitors etc. are all players in this ecosystem who are continuously evolving. Similarly, knowledge and tools – such as information technology - are also continuously changing. To remain competitive i.e. maintain differentiation, every organization must adapt in response to the actions and activities of others in its ecosystem. Organizations that do not adapt lose their competitive edge over time and disappear.
Add to this the changes in an organization’s internal environment – structure, skills, finances, personnel, knowledge, core competency etc. – and now one has a potent mix of forces that demand change in response.
This continuous change is the cause of perpetual misalignment.
It takes time to understand the impact of the actions of others. It takes time to take action. While you are reacting, the world is not stationary – it is throwing more stuff your way. By the time you are done, you are out of alignment. To be precise, while you are taking action, you are out of alignment!
Till we have perfect predictive modeling and instant systems, no organization will ever be in perfect alignment. The best one can do is to move “toward” alignment i.e. moving in the right direction.
Do not let this discourage you from pursuing business and IT alignment! It is a worthy goal to pursue. Indeed, it is a critical one to pursue. You might never reach alignment but you can take steps to get ever closer.
This requires a process.
Often, we ignore the fact that business and IT alignment is a process. This process does not have a starting point nor does it have an end. It is a series of “learn and do” cycles that incrementally get towards alignment.
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