SCH: EXP: Connecting surgical training software solutions on portable clients to interactive dynamics engines on the cloud

整形外科的实践建立在科学和艺术的双重基础上。在为外伤性或先天性畸形制定重建程序时，外科医生需要考虑美学、解剖功能和术后健康作为决定因素。整形外科医生可以使用的最重要的工具是使用拓扑改变作为一种医疗补救措施；事实上，大多数修复都是按照精心设计的切割、缝合、组织旋转和移位的顺序进行的。掌握这种复杂的外科操作编排往往是一个有成就的外科医生和一个经验有限的外科住院医生之间最大的区别。外科医生在接受培训后可以利用任何机会在手术室之外发展这一认知技能，这对于减少差错的发生率、最大限度地减少术后并发症和提高患者的生活质量具有重要价值。今天，现代多处理机系统的计算能力表明，计算机模拟对这一训练练习有很大的帮助。此外，代表视觉计算界对我们物理世界的虚拟组件进行功能建模和模拟的既得利益集团提供了丰富的数值和算法技术，可用于实现这一目标。然而，尤其是对于整形外科医生，在将对整形外科医生的认知培训变成像关于虚拟飞行模拟器的飞行员培训一样计算机化之前，仍然存在一些挑战：数学、计算机工程和临床科学的贡献社区需要建立一种密切合作和沟通的机制，这种合作发展的成果必须让广泛的临床医生能够获得，而不是像孤立的研究小组那样获得奇异的计算资源。这一跨学科项目旨在生成一个可扩展、易于部署的虚拟整形手术模拟试验台，旨在促进计算机科学家和临床从业者之间的密切合作，并为培训整形外科医生的精细认知技能提供基础。该项目的主要目的是：(I)定义和构建算法技术和系统组件的流水线，通过该流水线将以高分辨率模拟可变形生物组织的力学的能力作为网络服务提供给轻量级客户端平台；(Ii)细化非线性组织的分析支配规律，并在基于计算机的虚拟模拟中利用它们，以非侵入性的方式评估，通过在外科住院医师和经验丰富的专家的实际用户群上试用用于颅面修复的认知训练器，(Iii)验证建模假设并提高对实际算法需求的理解，(Iv)通过调查网络延迟和带宽限制的作用并开发算法补救措施来平衡软件解决方案的需求以促进远程交付，为连续介质力学应用提供计算动力学作为云服务的蓝图。这项活动的预计产品将为注重健康的机构的教学课程提供更多好处，为学生在学习的早期阶段提供方便和廉价的虚拟模拟器，而不要求专门的并行计算资源独家使用或在当地部署。

The practice of plastic surgery is built on a dual foundation of science and art. In planning reconstructive procedures for either trauma-induced or congenital deformities, the surgeon needs to consider aesthetics, anatomical function and post-operative health as deciding factors. The most important tool at the disposal of a plastic surgeon is the use of topology change as a medical remedy; in fact, most nontrivial repairs are designed as elaborate sequences of cutting, suturing, tissue rotation and transposition. Mastery of this intricate choreography of surgical manipulations is often the most distinguishing feature between an accomplished surgeon and a surgical resident with limited experience. Any opportunities that a surgeon in-training can leverage to develop this cognitive skill away from the operating room have great value in reducing the incidence of errors, minimizing post-operative complications and improving the quality-of-life for patients. Today, the computational capacity of modern multiprocessor systems suggests the strong possibility of computer simulation aiding in this training exercise. In addition, the vested interest on behalf of the visual computing community on functional modeling and simulation of virtual components of our physical world provides a wealth of numerical and algorithmic techniques that can be leveraged towards this goal. However, especially for plastic surgery, a number of challenges remain before cognitive training of plastic surgeons would become as computerized as pilot training on virtual flight simulators: the contributing communities of mathematics, computer engineering and clinical science need to develop a mechanism of intimate collaboration and communication, and the fruit of such collaborative development must become accessible to a broad base of clinicians as opposed to instances of segregated research groups with access to exotic computing resources. This interdisciplinary project seeks to generate an extensible, easy-to-deploy testbed of virtual plastic surgery simulation, tailored to facilitate intimate collaboration between computer scientists and clinical practitioners and provide a foundation for training plastic surgeons in delicate cognitive skills. The activities in this project combine the benefits of specialized, cost-effective parallel computing platforms with the ease of use of lightweight front-end clients, like tablets and mobile platforms, that can be deployed in private practices or training facilities of teaching hospitals.The main objectives of this project are: (i) Defining and constructing a pipeline of algorithmic techniques and system components through which the capability of simulating the mechanics of deformable biological tissues at high resolution will be delivered as a network service to lightweight client platforms, (ii) Refining the analytic governing laws of nonlinear tissue, and leveraging them in a virtual computer-based simulation to assess, in a non-invasive manner, the viability of surgical designs and provide preliminary predictions for the outcome of procedures, (iii) Validate modeling assumptions, and improve the understanding of practical algorithmic needs by performing trial deployments of cognitive trainers for craniofacial repairs on actual users groups of surgical residents and seasoned experts, (iv) Provide a blueprint for delivery of computational dynamics as a cloud service for continuum mechanics applications, by investigating the role of network latency and bandwidth limitations and developing algorithmic remedies for balancing the needs of the software solution to facilitate remote delivery. The projected products of this activity will provide additional benefits to the curriculum of teaching health-oriented institutions, by providing easy and inexpensive access to virtual simulators for students in their early phases of study, without mandating exclusive use or local deployment of specialized parallel computing resources.