Ravi Pandya
ravi@iecommerce.com
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ABOUT ME
Ravi Pandya
Architect
Cloud Computing Futures
Microsoft
ravip at microsoft.com
| 03- | Microsoft |
| 00-02 | Covalent |
| 97-00 | EverythingOffice |
| 96-97 | Jango |
| 93-96 | NetManage |
| 89-93 | Xanadu |
| 88-89 | Hypercube |
| 84,85 | Xerox PARC |
| 83-89 | University of Toronto, Math |
| 86-87 | George Brown College, Dance |
| 95- | Foresight Institute |
| 97- | Institute for Molecular Manufacturing |
DISCLAIMER
The opinions expressed here are purely my own, and do not reflect
the policy of my employer.
Sun 16 Aug 2009
From Systems Biology: Designing Biological Circuits, by Uri Alon:
Such understandability of circuit patterns in terms of simpler subcircuits could not have evolved to make life easier for biologists. Understandability is a central feature of engineering, because engineers build complex systems out of simple subsystems that are well understood. These subsystems are connected so that each subsystem retains its behavior and works reliably. It is an interesting question whether understandability might be a common feature of networks that evolve to function.
This is a great book. He has the constructive design-oriented approach of an engineer, rather than the descriptive approach of a biologist, and this makes all the difference. He clearly explains successively more complex models of biological systems, starting with simple feed-forward loops and working up to temporal programs and multi-layer perceptrons. He nicely ties together the biochemistry, evolutionary processes, network theory, and control theory underlying how they work and why they are the way they are. (Hat tip: Steve Jurvetson.)
Her-2: The Making of Herceptin, a Revolutionary Treatment for Breast Cancer, by Robert Bazell. Interesting stories behind the scenes. For example, not only did they have to convince the FDA to allow smaller clinical trials with admission based the Her-2/Neu diagnostic test, but they also had to rework the study to attract enough patients - no one wants to get a placebo when her life is at stake.
The Innovator's Prescription: A Disruptive Solution for Healthcare, by Clayton Christensen, Jerome Grossman, and Jason Hwang. He paints a great picture of what a more effective and efficient health-care system would look like, after disaggregating the current general hospital/GP system according to distinct business models & processes: focused solution shops for complex diagnoses (e.g. cancer), efficient value-added process clinics for specific well-established procedures (e.g. bypass surgery), and collaborative patient networks for managing chronic conditions (e.g. diabetes). The big question is how to get there from here. Given regulatory capture by incumbents, and people's emotional responses and cognitive biases about health care, change will not come easily. And more government control over health care will make it even harder.
17:58 #
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