I-Corps: Information Services for Biologically Inspired Design

从大自然中获取灵感来解决设计问题，有可能在几乎所有可以想象到的设计和创新领域取得重大进展。因此，对生物灵感设计(BID)的实践感兴趣的设计师在全球范围内的运动越来越多。然而，这项运动的采用和发展受到这样一个事实的限制，即大多数设计师都是生物学方面的新手。这导致了两个主要问题：(I)缓慢、乏味地寻找与设计问题相关的生物类似物，以及(Ii)对生物系统的缓慢、不准确和不精确的理解。因此，需要(A)从设计角度提供获取生物学知识的信息系统，以及(B)支持在概念设计中进行生物类比的过程的互动工具。在过去的几年中，研究人员已经开发了一套工具，以一种语义表示、索引、检索、评估和传递与设计问题相关的生物信息的方法为中心。这一方法可以构成向投标专业人员提供一系列信息服务的基础，并有助于这一运动的发展。BID不仅提供创新的解决方案，还有助于推动可持续设计的趋势。由于大自然不采用人类生产的技术经常采用的“加热、跳动和治疗”方法，模仿生物系统的创新促进了可持续设计。因此，从长远来看，研究人员认为，该项目有助于在可持续设计方面取得可衡量的进展。BID的实践正变得越来越普遍，包括生物技术、机器人、纳米技术、合成生物学等新兴学科。因此，研究人员预计，这些信息服务可能会加速所有这些学科的新兴技术的增长。

Taking inspiration from nature to solve design problems has the potential to lead to major advances in almost every conceivable sphere of design and innovation. Thus, there is a growing global movement of designers interested in the practice of biologically inspired design (BID). However, the adoption and growth of the movement is limited by the fact that most designers are novices in biology. This causes two major issues: (i) slow, tedious search for biological analogues relevant to design problems, and (ii) slow, inaccurate and imprecise understanding of biological systems. Thus, there is a need for (a) information systems that provide access to biological knowledge from a design perspective, and (b) interactive tools that support the process of making biological analogies in conceptual design. Over the last several years, researchers have developed a suite of tools centered around an approach to semantically representing, indexing, retrieving, assessing, and delivering biological information relevant to design problems. This approach can form the basis for providing a range of information services to BID professionals and contribute to the growth of the movement. BID not only offers innovative solutions, but it can also help drive trends in sustainable design. Since nature does not take the "heat, beat, and treat" approach often taken by human produced technologies, innovation that mimics biological systems fosters sustainable design. Thus, in the long term, researchers believe that this project can help lead to measurable progress in sustainable design. The practice of BID is becoming widespread, encompassing emerging disciplines like biotechnology, robotics, nanotechnology, synthetic biology, etc. Thus, researchers expect that these information services can potentially accelerate the growth of emerging technologies in all these disciplines.