Web-based information support for biomedical device design and education

With the easy access provided by the WWW, information about biomedical devices is made available on the Internet through the help of the schools, governments, organizations, and companies. Although all systems facilitate learning or biomedical device design, they are only accessible individually. Finding relevant information is still a difficult and time-consuming task using a general net-surfing approach. This paper describes the efforts to design and implement an integrated Web-based information system, which aims to support biomedical device design and education. We describe the system´s functions. We explain the technology used to integrate online texts, textbooks, journals, bibliographic systems, digital video, relational databases, and knowledge-based systems formerly accessible individually through the Z39.50 protocol, SQL language, HTTP protocol, and full-text search engines. We introduce the electronic notebook that is used to facilitate document saving, note keeping, and communication