Wang Hongkai | Build a digital life background in the big data world

"Hi,‘ digital man ’, welcome to participate in our conference, can you introduce yourself first?"

In 2019, at the scene of the Baidu AI Developer Conference, Baidu founder Li Yanhong introduced a new friend -the financial "digital man" for more than 7,000 participants at the scene. The first domestic bank "virtual employee" jointly created by Baidu Smart Cloud and Pudong Development Bank quickly caused heated discussion.

What is a "digital person"?

On the Internet, a similar search has skyrocketed in a short period of time. At the Baidu AI Developer Conference, this number of people named "Xiaopu" almost re -engraved a real person -realistic expression, action form, natural and smooth tone, tone, speaking style, through multi -sensory real -time concern and attention and real -time attention and real -time attention and real -time attention and real -time attention and real time Identify the emotions, expressions, and tone of the user, and make a timely response according to the content of the dialogue. Through deep learning technology, it can also have professional knowledge in various industries ...

Today, in just three years, the number of digital people who have caused the curiosity of the entire network to appear frequently in people's life scenes: from Hua Zhibing, the first AI virtual student of Tsinghua University, to the "digital anchors" of major media, digital Human technology is evolving at an extraordinary speed and gradually entered the real world. At the moment when the concept of the Yuan universe is hot, companies in various countries have also started the development of digital technology technology.

However, despite the abnormal heat of digital people, its application value is still seriously underestimated.

In addition to the role in finance and entertainment, digital people who are highly combined with biological engineering technology can serve humans in wider fields such as medical diagnosis and treatment, simulation science, and engineering trials. On this unusual track, every new discovery is full of infinite imagination for the future.

Beginning in the field of biomedical engineering 19 years ago, Wang Hongkai's scientific research ship gradually sailed to digital map construction research. Now that he is a professor at Dalian University of Science and Technology, he finally ushered in the fruiting period of scientific research. He stood at the forefront of the field leading most people. He led reporters to glimpse the future pictures of digital people.

▲ Wang Hongkai

A problem that pits into my heart

In 2003, Wang Hongkai, who graduated from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, entered Tsinghua University. Because the instructor is engaged in the research in the field of biomedical engineering, he has entered this field, and he understands the research of using computer technology to solve health problems.

"The harvest is still very large," 10 years later, I recalled the accidental turn. Wang Hongkai felt a lot. "After contacting this industry, I found that it has a significant significance. The biggest charm of biomedical engineering is. "

During the doctoral stage, Wang Hongkai followed the instructor to start research on medical image processing. It is also a coincidence -he liked to paint since childhood, and once dreamed of being an artist, but after all, he did not embark on the road of art. Now in the field of image processing, he feels that he has some strange dream with his childhood dreams. connect. The "love" major has become his most fundamental psychological motivation to engage in scientific research. It was also during the PhD period that Wang Hongkai started a research on human modeling. And he really firmly strengthened his determination to go in this field.

At the defense meeting, Wang Hongkai introduced his work on human modeling, and everything was successfully carried out until a judge who was present asked him a question: "Human modeling has also been in China for some years. , But it always has a big problem, that is, the digital person who models is just a standard template. How can it personalize each different person? Only personalized can truly generate value in medical applications. "

A questioning question!

This question has been asking Wang Hongkai for a long time until today. "Indeed, because only a patient itself is simulated in the computer, can he be able to substantially help his diagnosis and treatment." Global, the progress of the entire scientific research field in this area was also very limited. However, such regrets left a seed and a task in Wang Hongkai's heart -solving this problem, becoming the main proposition on Wang Hongkai's road to scientific research.

With this problem, Wang Hongkai came to the United States and was inspired in the study of digital rats. This is a personalized study. Wang Hongkai needs to collect a small amount of information from the mice to rebuild the complete structure inside the mouse's body. Its modeling must match each mouse.

Speaking of simple, but in fact, to achieve personalization, you need to learn the characteristics of each individual from a large amount of data. At the same time, you need to find the rules of personalization of the population, and then put this law in the model to truly simulate different individuals.

"Take the mice I studied as an example. You only need to take a X -ray film for the mice to simulate all the three -dimensional structure of its whole body. The key to this is the modeling technology of the big data map. I will be this at that time. The mouse model is called a transformerable mouse skull. It can simulate the formal differences of different individuals according to the anatomical sample. And these technologies are also applicable to the human body. "

This research not only made Wang Hongkai publish an article with good response, but also the patent of the results was purchased by American companies and was quickly transformed. However, for Wang Hongkai, publishing articles or selling patents is not the purpose of this study. He is more willing to regard it as a thinking exercise and scientific research on the research of personalized digital research. It was also the harvest in this study that he couldn't wait to return to China, and he really started the answer to the question of personalized digital people. Unlimited possibility of a picture

Wang Hongkai, who returned to China, was more busy when he was abroad. His primary work is to collect big data. To obtain data, you need to cooperate with hospitals nationwide. As a result, when we went to all parts of the country and established a connection with doctors, it became the focus of Wang Hongkai's first few years of work.

These tasks obviously squeezed a lot of work and life time. In addition to facing the pressure of no articles, he also had to take on the heavy work of teaching and administrative administration. I had to give the burden of taking care of the family to the family.

"Indeed, after a few years of hardships, if you have the mentality of anxiety, I am afraid that this matter will not be done, because you must accumulate for a few years." The "thing" in Wang Hongkai's mouth is exactly what he has asked his personalized figures day and night. People map. Today, it already has a more specific name -the National Natural Science Foundation Youth Fund project "builds a multi -training sample -based variable Chinese digital anatomy map".

Prior to this, my country has built high -precision Chinese digital figures based on corpse frozen slices, but the corpse image contains only a small amount of samples, which cannot reflect the statistical characteristics of the Chinese population, and lack the functional information of living samples. The purpose of Wang Hongkai's research is based on a large number of living Chinese medical imaging data to build a digital Chinese map.

In the project research, Wang Hongkai led the research group collected and selected from the National Cooperation Hospital to select and screen more than 1,000 healthy Chinese adults' whole body CT images, and developed artificial intelligence algorithms from the image to extract the three -dimensional model of the whole body organs and learn the organs of different individuals from different individuals. Differential differences, finally a deformable digital human map containing hundreds of measurement parameters can be constructed, which can realize the fine parameters of the body shape, appearance, and internal organs to achieve the purpose of personalized human modeling.

Further, this study extracts bone density (from CT images), heart beating method (from dynamic heart CT), brain tissue and main organs from a large number of images (from CT images), heart tissue and main organs The functional characteristics of gender people, and integrate functional features into anatomical models to realize the combination of morphology and functions.

▲ Digital Chinese average model

"For us, we actually use the digital person as a human big data information carrier. It is a statistical digital person, and it is formed by many big data. Information in thousands of medical images. In addition to morphological statistics, it also realizes physiological statistics, because medical images will reflect the physiological parameters in the human body. We collect these images, so that this number is not only a person not only in this number, not only this number is not only a person who is not only this number of people. A model in morphology also contains these physiological parameters. If the data of thousands of people is counted, then it has a huge value. "

The huge value described by Wang Hongkai has already projected in real applications. The maps constructed by the Institute have been applied to personalized human modeling, medical imaging diagnosis, surgery plan, human engineering, product design, electromagnetic and thermodynamics simulation, doctor -patient communication, anatomy teaching, athlete training, industry standard formulation, etc. In cooperation with many domestic enterprises, hospitals and scientific research units, it has achieved a total of 1.5 million yuan in scientific and technological achievements and cooperation projects.

"Some needs are even what we can't imagine." Wang Hongkai introduced that in addition to establishing digital patients, the personalized simulation of the patient's own form, it can also achieve mechanical simulation of disease lesions and metabolism; in addition, some loads The force of the human body required for human equipment, such as the impact of the human body when the equipment impacts, the overload of the human body when the device is fast running, etc., all need to be very accurate, physical and body -shaped. Data from internal anatomy; there is also research on the distribution of human radiation doses of electromagnetic radiation, exercise damage, scientific training guidance, and so on. As long as you establish a more accurate and more conforming to the characteristics of the Chinese population, you will continue to generate application needs in various aspects. Therefore, in recent years, Wang Hongkai's research team has increasingly cooperated in the transformation of achievements.

In order to achieve a more accurate map, a major work of Wang Hongkai's research team is to minimize information about big data, and its workload exceeds the scope of language described. To this end, they released open source software independently developed. The subsequent difficulty is how to make the model modeling more accurately and quickly to simulate a personalized human body. "For example, can we take a photo of this person only with a mobile phone? "What is doing".

In addition, another goal that Wang Hongkai wants to achieve is to reconstruct patient information through data collection at different levels. "For example, take a three -dimensional scan for a patient to get a model similar to him. If you further take a X -ray film for the patient, then some internal organs and bone information will come out. In this way, he can simulate more authentic simulation of his internal organs; if you take CT, nuclear magnetic, etc., we can reflect the internal information more truthfully. "Wang Hongkai is not satisfied with the innovative results he is currently obtained. He knows the significance of continuing to continue to cultivate in this study -now it is just the first exploring Treasure Mountain, and the greater surprise is still waiting for him to discover the unknown place.

It's stress, and hope

Nowadays, busy between scientific research and industrial transformation, the life of dreaming makes Wang Hongkai feel that it is hard but happy. In addition, he also has an important job -teaching and educating people.

When he first returned to China, Wang Hongkai's job was actually more scientific. At that time, doing a good job of scientific research was his biggest goal and motivation, and it was also an important manifestation of his personal value at that time. In the process of teaching students and graduate students after years, his thoughts began to change slowly, and he became more and more that a scientist can only be regarded as one aspect of value reflection, and It can influence or cultivate more useful young people who are useful to society, and even more important than individual output scientific research results. "On the one hand, this cultivation must teach their knowledge and research methods, and on the other hand, it is to teach them to face the correct attitude of scientific research and even life."

Wang Hongkai raised a little thing that had a deep impact on him.

In order to ensure that high -intensity scientific research work is continued, Wang Hongkai has been habitual for fitness over the years. If the work of one day is too busy and has no time to fitness, he will choose to use climbing to replace. One day, he had just climbed from the first floor to the 12th floor. He was a little panting. He met two undergraduates who had taken his class. After greeted him briefly, Wang Hongkai turned into the office. Unexpectedly, when the two students graduated, Wang Hongkai was found to talk about it, saying that the incident had touched them a lot, and it was Wang Hongkai's positive mentality and high self -discipline.

"I don't remember this at all. Such a trivial matter can become a little light to illuminate students, which has also been deeply touched. Now many young people have 'hollow disease', confused, and I don’t know what I want to do. I don’t know what I want to do. I want to cultivate students' spiritual cultivation is more important. "And this little thing immediately made Wang Hongkai reflect on himself." I suddenly thought that I had nothing to notice and did not do well. Actually Does the above have also had a bad impact on the students? "Since then, Wang Hongkai has paid more attention to his words and deeds, and the responsibility of the teacher was carved in his heart.

Holding up scientific research with one shoulder, stirring teaching, and the pressure of outsiders, in Wang Hongkai's heart, he can always convert into the hope of the future. "Making the current scientific research is more deeper and bring a better life start to students." Wang Hongkai does not like to look back and be pressed by the task. He has too much idea to realize it. Busy and unpredictable adventures are the joy of rushing people.

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