zope catches up with python

The Zope 2.9 series uses Python 2.4. Until this time Zope 2 was using 2.3. This was not very pleasing as the many advances made to python upgrading from 2.3 were not been made use of. Since Zope is pythons’ killer application, it was sad for python too. I found that some python software could not be used in zope due to this.
There would have to be upgrades of most zope Products now, to work in this new envioroment. How is python 2.4 better than 2.3? It is faster! Read the highlights here:
Highlights

Zope 3.2 the latest stable version of the Zope 3 also runs on python 2.4. One important change here is the change of the server from ZServer to Twisted server.The Twisted server supports all that the ZServer supporting as well as HTTP over SSL natively and SFTP (disabled for now because of error handling problems). Also in the future it brings a better chance of other non-HTTP related protocols from being implemented for Zope3, like SMTP-in and IMAP.

The 2.9 and 3.2 versions of Zope both use the new ZODB 3.6. The ZODB is a persistence system for Python objects. Persistent programming languages provide facilities that automatically write objects to disk and read them in again when they’re required by a running program. By installing the ZODB, you add such facilities to Python.

Though there will be some hiccoughs as the migration occurs this is a positive step!

Robotic Surgery

The use of Robots will rise in the future, and despite the evil reputation given to them by the film and game industry, the robots we see and use are quite the opposite. Robots used in surgery are completely controlled by surgeons, so do not worry . It is not a seven year old kid at the other end…….

Robots are used in surgery because they have certain advantages over humans.

• More arms and hands and fingers and types of fingers
• Hands and minds that do not tire even after hours of work
• Ability to hold positions indefinitely
• Precision
• 3-D vision
• Get closer to the area of surgery than the human vision will allow

They do have disadvantages like the lack of tactile sensation and inability to tell the surgeon if he is doing something wrong! They are liable to technical failures and depends on on a power supply. If doing remote surgery the communication system has to work well too. Since the patient is still operated by a surgeon sitting behind a console, the surgeon tiring will still be a limitation. However some of these these will be attended to in the future. The present day robots will be laughably simple in 10 years time.

The da Vinci Robotic Surgical System is the most widely used and known. It is used to perform Laparoscopic surgery as well as Cardiac and Neurosurgery. The whole system is controlled by a surgeon. The surgeon can be in the operating theatre, outside it or even in another hospital in another country. He sits at a control and handles the equipment stuck into the patient by moving his hands which are put into the controls which are something like gloves. He also uses his feet to press pedals like that of a car to handle the gears that move the instruments, like a clutch.

This is the da Vinci robotic surgical system. Teh surgeon is seated at the far left of the picture behind the console.
Other than the da Vinci, there are the ZEUS and AESOP (Automated Endoscopic System for Optimal Positioning ) robotic systems as well.

While these big systems are actually in use, there is another set of robots that are growing. These are tiny robots that will grow with the development of nano technology. These robots can get into the human body and work from within. They too will be controlled by surgeons but will elevate treatment of many conditions to a totally new level. They wil also play an important part in diagnosis.

Nanomedicine is a whole new field of medical science that is developing. Nanobots will be really tiny robots maybe the size of a human cell! They could get to sites in the body that we cannot imagine and deliver medicines, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, induce the immune system to be attracted to a site, repair genes and perform minutely precise surgery.

Imagine what these little robots can get ina and do under remote control? You could be on earth and “operate” on people in space! Far fetched? Read this:

http://www.medgadget.com/archives/2005/10/tiny_robots_for.html

KIT!

Grafpup

Grafpup is a live CD based on Puppy Linux created by Nathan Fisher. It has all the stuff for graphics artists wanting to use/try the software available on GNU/Linux systems. It is a 75MB download. It looks great and works quite beautifully.

You can write your changes back to the CD or DVD too!

Look at some of the stuff on it!

Gimp
Cinepaint
Inkscape
gtKam
XnView
LCMS
DcRAW
mtPaint

“There are utilities for importing photos from your digital camera for instance, and every application that has support for it is color managed without having to install any other software.
It’s package manager, Pupget, has an extensive list of extra applications that are available to extend Grafpup, with more being added on a regular basis. There are also other methods of extending it’s capabilities and easy installation of such major packages as OpenOffice2.0 and the KDE desktop environment.”

http://www.grafpup.com/

Surgical Audit

Auditing one’s work is very important for an individual surgeon. It gives him a record of ones achievements, success as well as failures. The process of undertaking audit improves one’s attitude to work and brings to the whole team a sense of understanding and purpose in their duties. It brings science to what is in reality a practice of an art.

The audit of

• Structure
• Process
• Outcome

are all necessary, but the most valuable to the surgeon is that of Outcome. To be valuable it must be continuous, fairly comprehensive and most importantly, honest.

The conduction of audit is personal and private. It must not compromise the individual freedom and right to privacy of the patients as well as the surgeon. But there are some things that need to be made public as well.

The individual audit of a surgeon must be discussed with colleagues in audit meetings at fairly regular intervals. The outcomes must be compared with those of colleagues in the same institution as well as those of the country. They have then to be compared with the rest of the world.

How best to do this is to be discussed. The use of digital media is generally accepted as the best way to collect and distribute data. What devices, software are we to use and how?

Free and Libre

GNU/Linux and open source software is being promoted quite actively in our country as well as around the world. There have been many instances where the word free has become confusing to those getting to know FOSS. Free software is something you do not pay for, it does not ensure that the source code is also made available. You cannot change it either. Such software exists. Open source software is when the source code -the way the program has been written – is made available. This does not mean the software has to be free of charge or that you can share it with your neighbour or friend.

Free and Libre are used to signify freedom to the user, the community, the country and perhaps the world. The problem is that advocacy may fail to stress this very important area, and miss the whole point of the concept to newcomers. The term OST (Open Source Technologies) is now widely used and is of concern as the F is out of it. It should be FOST (Free Open Source Technologies).

People like Richard Stallman did not create FOSS just to allow cheaper software or free of charge software. They did not just want source code made available. They wanted to produce something which would belong to everyone; to build, share, improve, join, distribute, copy, criticise and yet safeguard, with the freedom that all deserve to have. This will not only ensure equality, reduce the digital divide but will allow for people to work together and share together, without worry about legal issues, like patents and copyrights. Making money out of it is part of the freedom!

If people do not undertand this freedom, then the whole purpose of advocating FLOSS fails. If it is a trade off between prorietary and cheap or free of cost software or just open source software, it is just a matter of money and how curious and IT literate you are. You will realise the restrictions of these only when you want to share, improvise and work together, and find it restricted. This is not your software. It belongs to others. They make the rules.

As always, preserving freedom is a life-long battle. The way not to lose, as always, is by education, knowledge and wisdom within the growing community of software users.

In a world growing with ICT, as the levels of ICT literacy rise, the freedom of FLOSS will make its own statement.

VistA

VistA (Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture) is the most comprehensive Medical Software System in the world. It is quite massive, and this itself is the problem. It is quite a task to deploy and it is not user friendly at all. It uses M or MUMPS programming language, not something that is heard of in modern times. To find a programmer for this language will be quite a task, and as a result that person will be very expensive to work with!

However if the government is trying to deploy a country-wide system, this is the best bet. In that case, they could hire programmers for the inital setting up. On the other hand, it is so comprehensive that it could be just used as it is without the need of a programmer.

The development of a FOSS derivative through WorldVista, using GT.M a modernized version of M that is used widely in many organizations particularly in the US, combined with OpenVistA has promoted an interest in it around the world. The GUI front-end to it is windows based, and to run it in linux, Wine was used with some success. But some functions do not work and others do not work very well. To solve this problem, CodeWeavers have come forward to port the CPRS (Computerized Patient Record System) component of VistA, a free electronic health records software application developed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, for use on Linux.

“CodeWeavers’ version of the VistA CPRS (Computerized Patient Record System) graphical user interface will be promoted by WorldVistA to non-profits as well as healthcare providers in developing nations around the world. The goal of the two organizations is to increase the viability of implementing VistA, thereby giving providers the same capabilities in records management enjoyed by their better-funded counterparts in the industrialized West.”
http://www.linuxelectrons.com/article.php/2006022013533346

However there is far to go, as some of the applications working on VistA are not free. However once Open Sourced, things can grow pretty fast as we all know!

Learning VistA maybe worthwhile. The governnments of most developing countries will benefit greatly by going with this and more than that, M via GT.M, will ride again!

Anyone for M Programming?

Tiddlywiki

In a previous post I was thinking about a way of keeping a jotter to write down ideas. While this is not as spontaneous as a dictaphone or notebook, this tool is one of the best bits of software that I have seen. Jeremy Ruston, thank you!

I have two folders, each with a wiki, and some pictures. Keeping notes was never as fun as this way. One is all about HIT stuff and the other on my other job.

The variety of the offshoots (adaptations) of TwiddlyWIkis is another revelation (one runs in Zope called Ziddlywiki!). Whatever your job, you have a customised Twiddlywiki to write your twiddlers and read them! The nicer way to do this is to use plugins after starting from the basic tiddlywiki – a file called called empty.html about 145K. There are hundreds of Macros that can be added to automate many differernt tasks. These are easy to add too. You can make your own

RSS feeds can be added easily.

Did I mention it is free to download and use? It is open source!

For the latest news about TiddlyWiki, see:

* Osmosoft, Jeremy’s blog TiddlyWiki
* TiddlyForge, an independent news site from DevonJones
* TiddlyWiki discussion forum and developer discussion forum

Everyone needs one……..