Blog 1
Video
The Origins
L'imagination au pouvoir (1968)
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The standard approach to the disease
the primary aim is to identify the disease
The solution
and to supply to proper medicine
An alternative approach
Why I have this symptom?
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An objective definition of disease
The disease as inadequacy of the living organism to afford the environmental stresses (inhability to adapt)
- Exogenous causes:
- nutritional
- pregnancy
- infections
- working
- atmospheric changes
- drugs
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The disease is the tool of the natural selection: only the fittest survives the others die.
And we intend to treat them
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If environment doesnt change the organisms fitness increases from generation to generation
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but environment is continuously changing……..
and we are able to treat a lot of diseases......
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Diseases affect only living organism, therefore we have to define living organisms before we discuss diseases.
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The living organism
DISSIPATIVE (life takes place only in environments with excess energy: in our case in the sunlight)
EVOLUTIONARY (formation of evolutionary trees for any molecule, organism mediated by irreversible bifurcations followed by selection. The driving forces of bifurcation and selection depend on the environment and can be considered “local”)
CYCLIC (at any level from the molecules to the species specific feedback mechanisms can be identified that regulate the relative number of the objects involved in the equilibria)
OSCILLATING (in any self-regulatory cyclic system the number of any item is changing with time with a periodicity which depends on the size of the system – from seconds for chemical reactions to years for prey/predator
relationship – and the time the feedback signals need to diffuse across the system)
COMPETITIVE (as biological system tend to expand exponentially in a finite environment they – earlier or later – became limited in their growth by scarcity of some essential factor (“nutrient”) and the competition for the limiting nutrient will locally drive the selection).
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It is a Web application based on the Web 2.0 logic, which implies also a different attitude towards scholarly communication. It is structured in
- Reports
- The reality is represented by Reports, descriptions of clinical cases whose fate can be changed by a correct interpretation of symptoms, allowing a validation of the method. Each user edits with a simplified Wiki writing language its own Report and links it with the fitting involved Item or Pathway, and then can tag it or associate it to a MeSH term. That creates a tag cloud which allows unprecedented links and a critical reuse of the content. Comments are always possible.
- Rules
- Items
- The Items and the Pathways mark out the framework of this innovative channel of communication, and the user generated content – dealing with diseases, drugs, proteins, metabolic paths and so on – consists of texts, images, links to scientific literature, links to biomedical websites, in a creative and critical approach as learned during classes. The use of tags and/or controlled PubMed MeSH terms to categorize allows and fosters a free and personal use of information to create original knowledge. Tag clouds also apply to the most linked and handled Web sites, generating a sort of shared validation.
- Pathways
- Tools
- The information, or better, an interpreted gateway to the information is collected in Tools, Items and Pathways, where the link to the contents is categorized with an indexing visually very similar to classical textbooks, but structurally based on a relational database and easily modifiable if needed. The Database is also searchable with the Google search engine allowing a search by argument independently from the type of indexing. Indexing itself carries a lot of information as different branches of learning usually aggregate differently the same set of contents.
Example of multiple sources of information
Hair Loss
Example of conflicting data
Hyperthyroidism?
From the definition to the causes
Mandibular Osteonecrosis
Looking for the drug effect
Fluoxetine
In the quest of new tools
Users can follow and open innovative paths each time answering a different question, re-combining the existing information. This is the richness added by the users: exploring a tag and its related material can lead to an unexpected point of view on the same symptom, or can change one’s perspective on a disease, or a clinical case. Change of view also means new targets, expectations or wishes: who is performing in my area that specific genetic or blood test? Where are hidden the local epidemiological data I cannot easily access to in my region while I can get everything about North Carolina so easily? The feeling of patients and physicians for the local Health Service is dramatically changed by these kinds of comparisons. «Think Globally, Act Locally» is more and more true.
The easiness and readiness both in submitting and in searching and retrieving the content creates such a participative environment that the user experience really results enriched.
The question
The answer
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A multi faceted object
A multi faceted classification allows more flexible taxonomies
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To change the rules means to change the connections between items and therefore the taxonomy.
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KILLZONE vs HEALZONE
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GAME OVER
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