Standards Focus

Simulating the Patient Before the Doctors Begin to Operate

“With radiological data or data from x-rays, you can see only a few pieces of data,” says Dr. Young L. Moon of Chosun University Hospital in Gwangju, Korea. “We want to simulate the patient totally before surgery.”

Dr. Moon is working group chair for IEEE P3333.2, Draft Standard for Three-Dimensional Model Creation Using Unprocessed 3D Medical Data, which has the goal of establishing a new standard for medical data representation. Backed by a wide range of medical institutions and manufacturers including LG and KP Telecom, the new technology behind the standard enables doctors to interact with a fully textured model of the patient. “X-rays can’t see muscle or skin, just bone,” says Dr. Moon, “but our mission is making real texturing from human medical data, with 3D imagery of the real joints and the real motion of the human body.”

The data will be compressed and protected to safeguard patient privacy. At the same time, the goal is to make the software available on low-cost devices. “In countries like Korea this kind of imaging is on expensive devices which are only available in rich hospitals,” Dr. Moon says. “We want to make it available for poor hospitals throughout the country, or for mobile devices, so that the patient could potentially be watching his own data at home.”

Learn more about IEEE P3333.2

Beijing Workshop Shows Importance of International Cooperation to Creating the Internet of Things

Whether you’re talking the Smart Grid, home and industrial automation, transportation or robotics, the idea behind the Internet of Things (IoT) is that if we give machines more ability to track their own states and respond to them, we gain both efficiency (things work better) and freedom (they require less from us, and give us better information when they do need action). All this interactivity, however, will require a high degree of standardization to ensure interoperability and effective operations on a global scale.

That was the overarching message of an Internet of Things workshop that the IEEE-SA and the China Communications Standards Association held in June in Beijing. The workshop brought together speakers and panelists from IEEE-SA and CCSA as well as representatives from the transportation and coal-mining sectors, IT, telecom and other enterprises. The goal was to help spread a better understanding of how cooperation and collaboration are essential to an IoT that fulfills the promise of a more connected, smarter infrastructure, underlying everything that people do.

IEEE-SA is planning a second IoT workshop for November 2012 in Milan, Italy. Contact us for further information.

Learn more about the Beijing Internet of Things (IoT) workshop

Related video: Learn more about the growing importance of IoT and it’s impact on Smart Grid

Supporting Green Technology throughout IEEE

“The goal of IEEE is advancing humanity through technology. Helping to increase the use of green technology is helping leave more of a heritage for our children and grandchildren,” says Cherry Tom, Emerging Technology Initiatives Manager at IEEE-SA. “At IEEE, we have the expertise to pull together efforts to support environmental goals which can counteract the negative effects of technology for the future’s sake.”

Incorporating environmental concerns into IEEE-SA activities is important because small changes in standards can have huge effects. “Think how ubiquitous Ethernet is,” Tom says. “This new standard [IEEE 802.3az™] for increasing the energy efficiency of Ethernet will have effects all around the world. That’s just one standard with a huge impact worldwide.”

Besides global standards, IEEE-SA helps support more localized efforts to develop more energy-efficient technology. In China, for instance, “we’re working on green community control network protocols, which provide ways for a community to work together on saving energy.” In a country still dominated by coal power, energy efficiency has countless other positive effects.

IEEE’s support for green technology filters into every field, from the Smart Grid and renewable energy to environmentally friendly products to more efficient electronics. “They’re the green threads running through all of IEEE,” Tom says.

To address this, IEEE-SA tracks its “green” standards and projects in one consolidated resource, now available on the Standards Insight Blog. Refer to this resource for the latest information on IEEE-SA activities in this area.

See more information on green standards

Learn more about Green Technology at IEEE

Judy Gorman Honored by ANSI and IEEE

Congratulations to Judy Gorman, recently retired managing director of IEEE, on two awards recognizing her long leadership within the standards community and in helping IEEE establish and improve its position as a key player in developing and promoting standards. On October 10 in Washington, D.C. she will be one of 17 industry figures honored by the American National Standards Institute for their contributions to the global standardization system. Judy will receive the Astin-Polk International Standards Medal for her work promoting trade and understanding among nations through the standardization process.

Learn more information on the ANSI - Astin–Polk International Standards Medal

And the IEEE Standards Association honored her with the Eric Herz Outstanding Staff Member Award for her “leadership in development of the IEEE Standards Association as a recognized global and world-class organization.” We thank Judy, who retired in April, for her long and distinguished service and join in the congratulations on these well-deserved honors.

Learn more information on IEEE Eric Herz Outstanding Staff Member Award