A Human in Modern Medicine: From the Restoration of Health to Improve

The article analyzes the dynamics of the development of medical models of treatment of deviations from the health norm, discusses the issue of changing ideas about the human health in medicine. It is shown that as a result of changes in the conceptual understanding of health and the process of its restoration, the principle of achieving a commercially profitable, fast and controlled result is introduced into modern medicine, as a result of that the process of medical treatment is standardized and regulated. But the preservation of object optics of views in the medical industry, as shown in the article, becomes ineffective, moreover, risky in a situation of moving boundaries of the human health norm. To overcome the existing risks, new institutes and practices of ethical examination of health standards are being introduced into medicine. It is shown that the accepted deliberative practices of ethical expertise only introduce a procedure for taking into account the patient’s position regarding the boundaries of their health standards and the limits of medical intervention. At the same time, the patient’s position is considered as something ready, initially given, in other words, the classic “human project” continues to be defended in medicine.

Beneath the Skin: Emulating human physiology using a novel bitmap-based “voxel” 3D-printing workflow.

<p>Novel technologies that produce medical models which are synthetic equivalents to human tissue may forever change the way human anatomy and medicine are explored. Medical modelling using a bitmap-based additive manufacturing workflow offers exciting opportunities for medical education, informed consent practices, skills acquisition, pre-operative planning and surgical simulation. Moving medical data from the 2D-world to tactile, highly detailed 3D-printed anatomical models may significantly change how we comprehend the body; revamping everything – from medical education to clinical practice. Research Problem The existing workflow for producing patient-specific anatomical models from biomedical imaging data involves image thresholding and iso-surface extraction techniques that result in surface meshes (also known as objects or parts). This process restricts shape specification to one colour and density, limiting material blending and resulting in anatomically inequivalent medical models. So, how can the use of 3D-printing go beyond static anatomical replication? Imagine pulling back the layers of tissue to reveal the complexity of a procedure, allowing a family to understand and discuss their diagnosis. Overcoming the disadvantages of static medical models could be a breakthrough in the areas of medical communication and simulation. Currently, patient specific models are either rigid or mesh-based and, therefore, are not equivalents of physiology. Research Aim The aim of this research is to create tangible and visually compelling patient-specific prototypes of human anatomy, offering an insight into the capabilities of new bitmap-based 3D-printing technology. It proposes that full colour, multi-property, voxel-based 3D-printing can emulate physiology, creating a new format of visual and physical medical communication. Data Collection and Procedure For this study, biomedical imaging data was converted into multi-property 3D-printed synthetic anatomy by bypassing the conversion steps of traditional segmentation. Bitmap-based 3D-printing allows for the precise control over every 14-micron material droplet or “voxel”. Control over each voxel involves a process of sending bitmap images to a high-resolution and multi-property 3D-printer. Bitmap-based 3D-printed synthetic medical models – which mimicked the colour and density of human anatomy – were successfully produced. Findings This research presented a novel and streamlined bitmap-based medical modelling workflow with the potential to save manufacturing time and labour cost. Moreover, this workflow produced highly accurate models with graduated densities, translucency, colour and flexion – overcoming complexities that arise due to our body’s opaqueness. The presented workflow may serve as an incentive for others to investigate bitmap-based 3D-printing workflows for different manufacturing applications.</p>

Beneath the Skin: Emulating human physiology using a novel bitmap-based “voxel” 3D-printing workflow.

<p>Novel technologies that produce medical models which are synthetic equivalents to human tissue may forever change the way human anatomy and medicine are explored. Medical modelling using a bitmap-based additive manufacturing workflow offers exciting opportunities for medical education, informed consent practices, skills acquisition, pre-operative planning and surgical simulation. Moving medical data from the 2D-world to tactile, highly detailed 3D-printed anatomical models may significantly change how we comprehend the body; revamping everything – from medical education to clinical practice. Research Problem The existing workflow for producing patient-specific anatomical models from biomedical imaging data involves image thresholding and iso-surface extraction techniques that result in surface meshes (also known as objects or parts). This process restricts shape specification to one colour and density, limiting material blending and resulting in anatomically inequivalent medical models. So, how can the use of 3D-printing go beyond static anatomical replication? Imagine pulling back the layers of tissue to reveal the complexity of a procedure, allowing a family to understand and discuss their diagnosis. Overcoming the disadvantages of static medical models could be a breakthrough in the areas of medical communication and simulation. Currently, patient specific models are either rigid or mesh-based and, therefore, are not equivalents of physiology. Research Aim The aim of this research is to create tangible and visually compelling patient-specific prototypes of human anatomy, offering an insight into the capabilities of new bitmap-based 3D-printing technology. It proposes that full colour, multi-property, voxel-based 3D-printing can emulate physiology, creating a new format of visual and physical medical communication. Data Collection and Procedure For this study, biomedical imaging data was converted into multi-property 3D-printed synthetic anatomy by bypassing the conversion steps of traditional segmentation. Bitmap-based 3D-printing allows for the precise control over every 14-micron material droplet or “voxel”. Control over each voxel involves a process of sending bitmap images to a high-resolution and multi-property 3D-printer. Bitmap-based 3D-printed synthetic medical models – which mimicked the colour and density of human anatomy – were successfully produced. Findings This research presented a novel and streamlined bitmap-based medical modelling workflow with the potential to save manufacturing time and labour cost. Moreover, this workflow produced highly accurate models with graduated densities, translucency, colour and flexion – overcoming complexities that arise due to our body’s opaqueness. The presented workflow may serve as an incentive for others to investigate bitmap-based 3D-printing workflows for different manufacturing applications.</p>

The Process of Pregnancy: Paradoxical Temporalities of Prenatal Entities

In this article, we reflect on the particular temporal structure of pregnancies and prenatal entities with the aim to contribute to the field of the sociology of pregnancy. Medical models and technology shape today’s notion of pregnancy as a linear, nine-month developmental process that leads to the birth of a child. Through ultrasound technology and prenatal examinations, prenatal entities have thus historically gained a present ‘being’ as a developing, unborn child. While these ideas undoubtedly greatly influence the participants’ interpretations, a culturalistic perspective on time alone does not do justice to the phenomenon’s lived tensions and the temporal complexity of the phenomenon. From a Schutzian perspective of time, we have worked out how practices of pregnancy and the production of meaning are shaped by an interwoven back and forth between orientations to the past, present and future. Drawing on relevant works from the sociology of pregnancy, we work out five modes of temporal references that mold the phenomenon of pregnancy: joint imagination of the couple, in which the (un)born is anticipated as fantasies of the future (1), passivities of pregnancy, in which the desired future is experienced as unable to influence (2), the presentification of the unborn in and through visual and bodily-somatic contact moments (3), its futurization through the cultivation of a ‘not-yet’ (4) and prenatal losses, as a critical rupture with the anticipated and desired future (5). Our analysis underlines the potential of a time sociological perspective on pregnancy and the constitution of relationships and persons.

Mechanical and Dimensional Investigation of Additive Manufactured Multimaterial Parts

Additive manufacturing machines, based on the multimaterial jetting technology, are widely used for three-dimensional (3D) printing of sophisticated medical models, which are aimed to be used for preoperative planning and surgical training. Gaining knowledge of process-related influences on mechanical and dimensional properties of 3D-printed parts makes up an essential basis for the design and manufacture of medical models. There are few studies on characterization of multimaterial parts, and those are limited to tests that are not based on standardized methods. Within the scope of this work, mechanical and dimensional investigations were performed on multimaterial parts that were printed using an Objet500–Connex3 3D printer (Stratasys Ltd., Minnesota, Eden Prairie, MN, USA). Among test methods listed in DIN EN ISO 17296-3, tensile tests were chosen for mechanical characterization. In the tensile tests, combinations of four different materials (Tango+, VeroClear, VeroPureWhite, MED610) were tested in three build orientations (XY, YX, ZX). To investigate the orientation-dependent printing accuracy, the tensile specimens were further checked for their dimensional accuracy. Statistically significant variations in the mechanical properties were found between different orientation levels. In general, specimens printed in XY orientation show higher tensile strength than YX- and ZX-oriented specimens. The tensile moduli determined are in the range from 0.2 to 2,500 MPa and compare well with the tensile moduli found in soft biological tissues. Dimensional deviations were found highest for the length of ZX-oriented tensile specimens. For this orientation level, it could be observed that multimaterial specimens, which contain higher percentage of the soft material Tango+, are characterized by higher shrinkage. For tensile specimens printed from the pure photopolymer Tango+, a shrinkage of 4.6% in length was determined. In summary, it was found that with multimaterial jetting technology, the increased shrinkage and lower mechanical strength in the ZX direction must be considered in the design process.

A New Materialisms Poetics of Touch: David Eastham’s Understand: 50 Memowriter Poems

Although often mentioned in summarial histories of “first” authors with autism, the work of the Canadian David Eastham has not been analyzed at the level of form to date. Using Melanie Yergeau’s scholarship challenging the ruling episteme of biomedicine when it comes to neurodivergence, this paper considers biographical elements of Eastham’s life to confirm biomedical primacy in the accounts made by others. Then Eastham’s own work undergoes formal analysis to show how Eastham’s own words resisted the episteme while, even today, those means of those same words, provided by the contested practise of Facilitated Communication, are challenged by biomedicine. The method of close reading is used to interpret Eastham’s work, as guided by the theory inherent to new materialisms. The result is exposing an uncomfortable match between medical models and the alternative embodiment concept when it comes to interpreting the poetry of disabled people.

Romantic Consumption: The Paradox of Fashionable Breath

The tragic disease of consumption/tuberculosis is, perhaps notoriously, a central disease of literary and artistic international Romanticism, as well as having a profound influence in wider society. Lawlor’s essay analyses the role that breath played in this phenomenon: how could breath and breathlessness possibly contribute to the valorisation of such a horrible illness? Using literary and medical works, this analysis demonstrates that the ‘reality’ (albeit variable) of consumptive breath was often overridden, overwritten, or reframed, by cultural discourses which included religious and classical concepts of breath, new and old medical models, gender and social rank.

Selection of a workpiece clamping system for computer-aided subtractive manufacturing of geometrically complex medical models

Physical models of anatomical structures can be made using Additive Manufacturing (AM) or Subtractive Manufacturing (SM). The advantage of subtractive techniques over additive ones is the possibility of maintaining the homogeneity and consistency of the processed material, which is extremely important in the case of medical devices. Currently, a geometrically complex medical model can be made even on a simple, 3-axis CNC machine tool. However, often the semi-finished product must be machined in at least two clamping configurations. The aim of the work is to present the method of fixing a workpiece in the process of subtractive production of geometrically complex medical objects on the example of skull bone prostheses. The paper discusses the use of two clamping systems for machining such models. It presents the process of subtractive production of bone prostheses models fitted to the defect of the skull bone with the use of the proposed methods of fixing the workpiece. The result of the work are two models of the skull bone prosthesis. A more complex model was analysed in terms of the accuracy of geometry reproduction. The research confirmed the usefulness of the proposed clamping systems for the preparation of medical models of geometrically complex anatomical structures.