Medical cybernetics

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Medical cybernetics is a branch of cybernetics which has been heavily affected by the development of the computer, [1] which applies the concepts of cybernetics to medical research and practice. At the intersection of systems biology, systems medicine and clinical applications it covers an emerging working program for the application of systems- and communication theory, connectionism and decision theory on biomedical research and health related questions.

Contents

Overview

Medical cybernetics searches for quantitative descriptions of biological dynamics. [2] It investigates intercausal networks in human biology, medical decision making and information processing structures in the living organism.

Approaches of medical cybernetics include:

See also

Related Research Articles

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Biocybernetics is the application of cybernetics to biological science disciplines such as neurology and multicellular systems. Biocybernetics plays a major role in systems biology, seeking to integrate different levels of information to understand how biological systems function. The field of cybernetics itself has origins in biological disciplines such as neurophysiology. Biocybernetics is an abstract science and is a fundamental part of theoretical biology, based upon the principles of systemics. Biocybernetics is a psychological study that aims to understand how the human body functions as a biological system and performs complex mental functions like thought processing, motion, and maintaining homeostasis.(PsychologyDictionary.org)Within this field, many distinct qualities allow for different distinctions within the cybernetic groups such as humans and insects such as beehives and ants. Humans work together but they also have individual thoughts that allow them to act on their own, while worker bees follow the commands of the queen bee. . Although humans often work together, they can also separate from the group and think for themselves.(Gackenbach, J. 2007) A unique example of this within the human sector of biocybernetics would be in society during the colonization period, when Great Britain established their colonies in North America and Australia. Many of the traits and qualities of the mother country were inherited by the colonies, as well as niche qualities that were unique to them based on their areas like language and personality—similar vines and grasses, where the parent plant produces offshoots, spreading from the core. Once the shoots grow their roots and get separated from the mother plant, they will survive independently and be considered their plant. Society is more closely related to plants than to animals since, like plants, there is no distinct separation between parent and offspring. The branching of society is more similar to plant reproduction than to animal reproduction. Humans are a k- selected species that typically have fewer offspring that they nurture for longer periods than r -selected species. It could be argued that when Britain created colonies in regions like North America and Australia, these colonies, once they became independent, should be seen as offspring of British society. Like all children, the colonies inherited many characteristics, such as language, customs and technologies, from their parents, but still developed their own personality. This form of reproduction is most similar to the type of vegetative reproduction used by many plants, such as vines and grasses, where the parent plant produces offshoots, spreading ever further from the core. When such a shoot, once it has produced its own roots, gets separated from the mother plant, it will survive independently and define a new plant. Thus, the growth of society is more like that of plants than like that of the higher animals that we are most familiar with, there is not a clear distinction between a parent and its offspring. Superorganisms are also capable of the so-called "distributed intelligence," a system composed of individual agents with limited intelligence and information. These can pool resources to complete goals beyond the individuals' reach on their own. Similar to the concept of "Game theory." In this concept, individuals and organisms make choices based on the behaviors of the other player to deem the most profitable outcome for them as an individual rather than a group.

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Translational bioinformatics (TBI) is a field that emerged in the 2010s to study health informatics, focused on the convergence of molecular bioinformatics, biostatistics, statistical genetics and clinical informatics. Its focus is on applying informatics methodology to the increasing amount of biomedical and genomic data to formulate knowledge and medical tools, which can be utilized by scientists, clinicians, and patients. Furthermore, it involves applying biomedical research to improve human health through the use of computer-based information system. TBI employs data mining and analyzing biomedical informatics in order to generate clinical knowledge for application. Clinical knowledge includes finding similarities in patient populations, interpreting biological information to suggest therapy treatments and predict health outcomes.

Systems medicine is an interdisciplinary field of study that looks at the systems of the human body as part of an integrated whole, incorporating biochemical, physiological, and environment interactions. Systems medicine draws on systems science and systems biology, and considers complex interactions within the human body in light of a patient's genomics, behavior and environment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marcello Barbieri</span> Italian theoretical biologist

Marcello Barbieri is an Italian theoretical biologist at the University of Ferrara whose main interest is the origin of novelties in macroevolution. He has been one of founders and first editor-in-chief of the journal Biosemiotics until 2012; currently, he is an editor of the journal BioSystems. His research field is code biology, the study of all codes of life from the genetic code to the codes of culture. His major books are The Semantic Theory of Evolution (1985), The Organic Codes (2003), and Code Biology. A New Science of Life (2015).

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Konstantina Nikita</span> Greek engineer

Konstantina "Nantia" Nikita is a Greek electrical and computer engineer and a professor at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Greece. She is director of the Mobile Radiocommunications Lab and founder and director of the Biomedical Simulations and Imaging Lab, NTUA. Since 2015, she has been an Irene McCulloch Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Medicine at Keck School of Medicine and Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biological data</span>

Biological data refers to a compound or information derived from living organisms and their products. A medicinal compound made from living organisms, such as a serum or a vaccine, could be characterized as biological data. Biological data is highly complex when compared with other forms of data. There are many forms of biological data, including text, sequence data, protein structure, genomic data and amino acids, and links among others.

References

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  2. 1 2 3 4 5 J.W. Dietrich (2004), Medical Cybernetics – A Definition, Medizinische Kybernetik, 2004. Released under creative commons 2.0 attribution licence.
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  4. Tsukamoto, Y (21 June 1979). "An information theory of the genetic code". Journal of Theoretical Biology. 78 (4): 451–98. doi:10.1016/0022-5193(79)90187-5. PMID   513794.
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  6. Battail, Gérard (2007). "Information Theory and Error-Correcting Codes In Genetics and Biological Evolution". Introduction to Biosemiotics: 299–345. doi:10.1007/1-4020-4814-9_13. ISBN   978-1-4020-4813-5.
  7. Kuruoglu, EE; Arndt, PF (21 April 2017). "The information capacity of the genetic code: Is the natural code optimal?". Journal of Theoretical Biology. 419: 227–237. doi:10.1016/j.jtbi.2017.01.046. hdl: 21.11116/0000-0000-7D7E-8 . PMID   28163008.
  8. Ramakrishnan, Nithya; Bose, R. (20 August 2012). "Dipole entropy based techniques for segmentation of introns and exons in DNA". Applied Physics Letters. 101 (8): 083701. doi:10.1063/1.4747205.

Further reading