Monday, September 6, 2010

BIONIC BOY - Patrick Kane

Things are picking up for the bionic boy


At 13, Patrick is the youngest patient in the world to be fitted with a pioneering prosthetic arm. His father, Frank Kane, describes how it has changed his life


By Frank Kane 
Published: 7:00AM BST 06 Sep 2010

On July 22 my 13-year-old son, Patrick, tied his shoelaces. It was a moving occasion. For the first time in his life he had performed this routine but intricate task, on his own and unaided.

He went on to cut up his own steak at dinner, lift a glass of orange juice to his lips, and pick up a grape between forefinger and thumb. Each new achievement was a cause for pride and satisfaction.

We had just spent five days with Touch Bionics, a medical technology company based in Livingstone in Scotland. The company had manufactured and fitted him with an ectro-mechanical hand that responds to muscle activity in the arm, transforming it into movement in the powered fingers and thumb.

Patrick had become the youngest of the small number of people round the world – some 1,400 or so – fitted with the Touch Bionic prosthetic. He was the "bionic boy".

When he was nine months old, my son fell victim to a vicious strain of meningitis. He also developed septicaemia (blood poisoning) and was on the edge of death for many days, unconscious in intensive care for three weeks, and spent three months in St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, London.

He beat the disease, thanks to his fighting spirit and the skill of the staff at St Mary's. But it took a terrible toll. His right leg was amputated below the knee, as was most of his left hand. His shortened left arm ended as a stump of scar tissue, with the growth plates between the bones of his arm permanently damaged.

Even allowing for the fact that he's my son, it's fair to say Patrick is a remarkably resilient, independent and resourceful boy. He learned to walk with a prosthesis, and goes to a "normal" school, where his lower limb disability has not prevented him taking part in all aspects of school life, both academic and sporting. His hard-wearing carbon fibre leg won him a reputation as a fearsome tackler on the football pitch.

But that left arm was increasingly problematic. It was visibly shorter than his right and almost useless. He could use it to hold objects against his body – to open a bottle top or a crisp packet with his right hand – but without a hand he had no grip, no functionality.

He, and others, were also becoming more conscious of it. People would stare in restaurants as he struggled to cut his food; trips to the beach or swimming pool were fraught with potential confrontation. It's surprising how ready you are to snap: "So what are you looking at?" at a startled youngster after you've spotted the 20th obtrusive stare of the day.

Last spring, Patrick's stepfather, Ian, saw a news item about Touch Bionics and the innovative work the company was doing in the field of bionic prosthetics. Potentially, it was a life-changer for Patrick, as it has been for the many (mainly American) servicemen who lost arms or fingers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and victims of industrial accidents, who form the majority of their patients.
But these were all adults who had once had full and active use of their limb. Would it be suitable for a young teenager who had never properly used his arm? An initial consultation in London suggested that it could be, and a week-long session of fitting, training and therapy was arranged in Scotland.

Touch Bionics evolved from the thalidomide scandal in the Sixties, which left hundreds of young children disabled at birth after their expectant mothers were prescribed an apparently harmless "cure" for morning sickness.

Princess Margaret Rose Hospital in Edinburgh led the way in research into the effects of long-term disability, and this programme formed the core of the Touch Bionics project. In 2003, with increasing pressure on Scottish NHS finances and an eye on the commercial potential, the unit was spun off into a separate company, backed by private investors.

Despite this Scots pedigree, Touch Bionics business comes overwhelmingly from America, from where 75 per cent of patients originate. Of the 1,400 fitted since 2007, only 15 have come from Britain, and just six have been fitted on the NHS. At £20,000 a time, the equipment has been considered beyond most NHS trust budgets.

In modest premises on the outskirts of Livingstone, Patrick had his first close-up encounter with the i-Limb Pulse prosthetic. A hard-cased sleeve was fitted over his stump, with two sensors inside touching his skin to detect muscular movement in the lower part of his arm. This was then transformed into electro-mechanical power for the fingers and thumb of the "bionic" hand. By flexing and relaxing the muscles in a set of co-ordinated movements, he could open and close the fist of the limb, and move the fingers in the fashion of a real hand. The proper term for the system is "myo-electric multi-articulating prosthesis".

But for a teenage boy hooked on the Terminator movies, it was science fiction become reality. With a little practice, he could work the limb effectively in a convincing imitation of Arnold Schwarzenegger's humanoid robot, with soft clicks and whirrs providing sound-effects. And there was no question for Patrick of a cosmetic replica skin hand (though this is available and convincing) – he wanted jet black, just like Arnie.

Power for the limb is provided by batteries inside the arm covering, recharged via a mobile-phone type socket plug. This turned into quite a challenge for the technicians in Livingstone. They had to provide Patrick with enough battery power to keep it functioning all day, but without making the arm too heavy or bulky for a young boy.

Over five days, the Touch Bionics team improvised and refined the limb, and Patrick worked hard learning how to use it. The degree of muscle control necessary to work the fingers and thumb, while maintaining control of his upper arm while lifting or manipulating, was demanding.

There were a few accidents while trying to pour fluids or raise a cup to his lips, but he picked it up surprisingly quickly. The prosthetic therapists, Alison and Rebecca, said he was the fastest learner they had dealt with.

The Pulse bionic prosthesis is not a perfect replica of a hand, and it will take a lot more research before it approaches that level of sophistication. But it can already significantly enhance the quality of life of anyone who has lost a hand. It can lift up to 90 kilos, perform intricate tasks (such as shoelace tying, holding spherical objects, using a keyboard), and provide a level of digital functionality previously impossible.

At the clinic we met Donald McKillop, a former panel-beater who lost his right hand in an industrial accident 30 years ago. He has had a Touch Bionics prosthetic hand since 2006 and uses it like a normal limb in all everyday domestic activities, as well as for work and handicrafts. "I couldn't be without it now," said McKillop, as he casually scratched his nose with a prosthetic finger.

For Patrick, the benefits are two-fold: he now has a functioning limb where before there was a pretty useless stump; and when people stare now, they are simply being curious about a state-of-the-art piece of equipment that he is proud to own. He is at the cutting edge of medical technology, and cannot wait for the beginning of the school term.

SPACE SETTLEMENT DESIGN COMPETITION

Pakistani girls win NASA Competition

 

Posted: 05/08/2010 
News submitted by:
 Admin



A team from the Lahore Grammar School (LGS) 55-Main Gulberg, popularly known as LGS Kabana, won the NASA-affiliated Space Settlement Design Competition held in the US.

The LGS students were part of a bigger team and worked with members from Britain and the US. A statement released on Tuesday on behalf of the school administrations read, “This year we are happy to announce the team representing LGS 55 Main, and Pakistan, was the strongest and along with their team mates from Britain and the US were adjudged the winners… The success marks a triumph for Pakistan, and particularly for women who rarely get an opportunity to excel in spheres involving science and advanced technology. It also demonstrates the potential of Pakistani youth, and offers hope at a time when the nation faces many crises.”


This is the first time a team from Pakistan has won the competition even though students from LGS and Aitchison College have participated in the contest before. The finals were held on August 2 at the Johnson Space Centre, Texas.

The members of the team included Fatima Jamal Khan, Mahsheed Aamer Iqbal, Minahil Raza, Rabeea Rathore, Saba Farooq, Sanniah Jabeen, Sanaa Nusrat, Maliha Faisal, Maryam Ali Khan, Rawail Naeem, Sara Afzal, Tehniyat Azam and Zahra Batool.


LGS has been winning the Asian region leg of the competition, held in India, for the past three years. During the regional leg for this year’s finals, contestants had to design ‘a safe and pleasant settlement’ providing for 2,500 people and 6,300 transits between Earth and Mars. Models were exhibited at the Asian Regional Space Settlement Design Competition held at Gurgaun, India, in January 2010. Out of 15 school teams from India and Pakistan, LGS Kabana and Amity International School, Saket, New Delhi India, comprising 24 students, were adjudged the best.


The project was set in 2055. Members in each team were assigned specific tasks related to structural engineering, operations and infrastructure. The settlement simulated conditions on earth, in terms of atmospheric composition, wind velocity, and precipitation patterns. They developed safety equipment for humans in low and zero-gravity areas and proposed training of future residents of Mars.


Twelve finalist teams from around the world were selected to compete with a new scenario in a live competition at NASA Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas, with real engineers sharing their knowledge and experience in both engineering and management.


The event at Houston pitches schools from around the world against each other and puts high school students in the shoes of the aerospace industry professionals.


This year Anita Gale, a very senior engineer from the Boeing’s Space Shuttle Division working in Houston and Jim Christensen from NASA REC were among the panel who judged the designs.


Each year the competition organisers from NASA and Boeing develop a new design concept with its own special requirements. Contesting teams work together to create a 40-page report that addresses the issues and communicates their ideas and designs. Student engineers demonstrate creativity, technical competence, management skills, environmental knowledge, space teamwork, and presentation techniques to solve the problems inherent in designing a colony in space.


AISAM-UL-HAQ QURESHI

In appreciation of Aisam-ul-haq Qureshi

BY HAFSA ON 09 6TH, 2010

Spot-fixerscheatsrunners updopers – the list will go on except for one Pakistani sportsman, who continues to make the right kind sports news year after year. It seems like Aisam-ul-haq Qureshi has taken over the responsibility of lifting the nation’s sporting image. 

The fact that less people know about his feat of becoming the first Pakistani (among several other firsts) to enter the men’s and mixed doubles quarterfinals at a grand slam tennis tournament, than three Pakistani’s facing the possibility of life bans from cricket is unfortunate, to say the least. Or that the world media is not flashing images of him and Rohan Bopanna – his doubles partner from India – as they continue blasting away the big names of men’s doubles tennis as often as those of the accused cricketers on ill-fated tabloid covers, is also a shame. But then again, it always seems as if success stories here don’t sell as much as controversy does.

When I interviewed him five months back, Aisam proudly told me about his best-ever ATP doubles ranking of 51. He has come a long way since then. Not only has he leapt his way to number 34 in men’s doubles rankings, Aisam and his partner Rohan are the world’s 15th best pair. Add to that their Wimbledon quarterfinal finishtheir win over world number one pair of Bob and Mike Bryan and most recently, their comprehensive shock win over number two seeds Nenand Nimonjic and Daniel Nestor at the US Open. The fact that Pakistani masses do not follow tennis is understandable, but for the media to put this lone warrior’s march right at the end of news bulletins, is regretful. This, despite him pairing up with an ‘arch-rival’ Indian player, and making ripples, if not waves, in respected sports magazines.

Being in the top 50 has also enabled Aisam to play mixed doubles on the ATP Tour for the first time in his career. Having paired up with Kveta Peschke of the Czech Republic, Aisam has landed himself in two back-to-back grand-slam quarterfinals for the first time in his career.

We keep saying that our cricketers let us down when the nation was in need of some solace from the devastating last few weeks (months, even). Well, here’s a guy who has given us something to cheer about. How about giving him some long overdue appreciation? He may hold a racquet in his hand instead of a bat, but hey, at least he is making all the right moves. He is a man who is doing Pakistan proud so let’s just stop pelting the poor donkeys and put our hands together for the man who is already Pakistan’s most successful tennis player in history. Thank you, Aisam, for giving us a reason to read ‘real’ sports news for a change.

Hafsa Adil is a sports editor at Dawn.com.


INDIAN OCEAN

Indian Ocean Rising Faster Than Others


 

Newly detected rising sea levels in parts of the Indian Ocean have led Indian scientists to conclude that the Indian Ocean is rising faster than other oceans.

Dr Satheesh C. Shenoi, director, Indian National Centre for Ocean Infor-mation Services, speaking at a workshop on “Coasts, Coastal Populations and their Concerns” organised by the Centre for Science and Environment, warned that sea surface measurements and satellite observations confirm that an anthropogenic climate warming is amplifying regional sea rise changes in the Indian Ocean .

This would have far-reaching impacts on the climate of vulnerable nations, including the coastlines on the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, Sri Lanka and parts of Indonesia as a result of human-induced increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases.

Data collated by the National Institute of Oceanography provide city-wise statistics of sea-level rise.
In Mumbai, from 1878- 2005, sea levels have risen by 0.77 millimetres while in Diamond Harbour, West Bengal, levels had risen by 5.16 mm.

“Data from the Jason satellite, which measured ocean levels, has shown that global sea levels had been rising steadily till 2003 but then the rise became slower. In the case of the Indian Ocean, the sea level has, however, continued to rise between 2004 and 2009. While in the Indian Ocean thermal expansion is 40 per cent, the global average is 20 per cent,” Dr Shenoi pointed out.

The scientist’s concerns were shared by A.S. Unnikrishnan, a scientist with the National Institute of Oceanography. “The sea-level rise could aggravate flooding In India and Bangladesh and could have a far-reaching impact on regional and global climate,” Dr Unnikrishnan said.

Both these scientists warned that the sea-level rise would adversely impact 35 per cent of the world’s human population as they live in coastal regions.

India has 3,325 coastal villages with a population of 3.5 million engaged in fishing and rising sea levels would make fishing communities immediately vulnerable.

Tapas Paul, who heads the World Bank’s Integrated Coastal Zone Management Programme, warned that “a sea-level rise by one metre would affect 37.2 million people from East Asia and the Pacific zone. “South Asia’s current resistance to variability is low with a lot of people here dying and suffering because of floods,” said Mr Paul. Quoting from a survey conducted by the World Bank, he pointed out that “almost 5.9 million people from South Asia would be affected and Bangladesh would be the worst affected country.”

Goa’s minister of environment, Aleixo Sequeira, pointed out that coastal areas were being targeted to promote tourism in a completely unregulated manner. “The entire coastal ecosystem is vulnerable and the Centre and states must work together to prepare a proper plan to promote tourism, waste and sewage disposal and prevent unregulated tourism,” he said.

INDO-CHINA RELATIONS

Ready For Chinese Checkers?


 

Sino-Indian relations are back in public debate after the New York Times report on Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers in Gilgit-Baltistan, visa denial to Lt. Gen. B.S. Jaswal, General Officer Commanding in Chief (GOC-in-C), Northern Command, and on top of earlier Chinese transgressions like separate paper visas for Jammu and Kashmir residents. Were not the bilateral relations on the upswing since the handshake between Rajiv Gandhi and Deng Xiaoping in 1988?’

Three successive foreign secretaries have been China experts, S.S. Menon also being the curre nt national security adviser. Ad d r essing the Heads of Indian Missions, Mr Menon felt that despite the pinpricks the Chinese will not opt for confrontation as they are focused on economic gr o wth. Anticipating human or na t ional behaviour is tricky busin e ss. On December 19, 1979, the Ce ntral Intelligence Agency (CIA) adv ised the US President th at “the pace of Soviet deployments does not suggest an urgent contingency”. A week later the So viets invaded Afghanistan. Tim Weiner, in his masterly book on CIA Legacy of Ashes, comm e nts that it was not a lack of in t e l ligence; it was a lack of imagination.

China, since Mao Zedong’s demise in 1976, has been in a pragmatic and regenerative phase axiomatically prescribed by Deng Xiaoping for China to “disguise its ambition and hide its claws”. In 1978 China’s per capita was on par with India; by 1999 it was double. Therefore while the rise of China has been anticipated, its sudden prominence is due to the US and its European allies being militarily exhausted and financially challenged. The Chinese panda is now overnight a bear; Deng’s advice supplanted by Middle Kingdom syndrome.

The rise of China poses questions for Asia. The Economist ran a cover dubbing Sino-Indian relations as “the contest of the century”. They noted that recent Chinese behaviour has left the Sino-Indian relationship “bruised”. Martin Jacques in his book When China Rules the World, surmises that it is inevitable that China as it rises will revert to behaviour that its history and culture dictates, i.e. treating countries on its periphery in terms of a tributary-state. The countries bordering the South China Sea are already experiencing this. India, he feels, is a case apart as it too is rising. India could either concede China a permanent role in South Asia or assert itself as a regional hegemony. This is the challenge confronting India today, as China is well entrenched in Pakistan and an emerging player in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.

The game is not new. China was determined to reclaim its historical position and thus set out from 1949 to contain rivals in Asia. The focus on India increased 1959 onwards, when India gave refuge to the Dalai Lama. A rising Japan spurned, in November 1924, the advice of provisional Chinese President Sun Yat-Sen, imparted in a speech at Kobe, that pan-Asian relations must be governed by the “rule of Right” and not by the European “rule of Might”. In November 1962, while the two superpowers were distracted by their face-off over the Cuban missile crisis, China too decided to ignore Sun Yat-Sen’s vision and attack India. It broke Jawaharlal Nehru, demoralised India and sucked the US into the South Asian affairs. President John F. Kennedy rushed military assistance to India. The price was talks with Pakistan to settle the Kashmir issue.

However when Swaran Singh, minister for railways, landed in Rawalpindi for the inaugural round on December 29, 1962, he heard over the radio that China had settled its boundary in the Pakistan-occupied northern areas of Kashmir, with Pakistan. A shocked US berated President Ayub Khan. While the talks had five more rounds, they basically were dead on arrival, thanks to China.

Chinese skulduggery has been a constant refrain since then, whether the clandestine assistance to Pakistan for their nuclear weaponisation or their delivery systems, or to develop the Gwadar port as a long-term asset. The second phase of the port will have 10 berths, three for special cargo and two for 200,000 tonne oil tankers. Chinese have a major interest in restoring the Karakoram highway, destroyed by landslides and perhaps upgrade it to create an integrated transport and energy corridor. Chinese foreign ministry while denying the presence of PLA in Gilgit and Baltistan refer to it as Northern Pakistan. This is an endorsement of the Pakistani construct that their Northern areas were never a part of Jammu and Kashmir. These are Shia-dominated regions, ethnically and culturally akin to Ladakh. It is regrettable that India has allowed Pakistan’s myth to go uncontested, as indeed never made an issue of the human rights abuses there. The Chinese endorsement may be a good point to commence a debate on this, as they are in breach of United Nations Security Council resolutions despite being a permanent member.

The Indian response has to be firm and multi-pronged, while recognising that for the first time China has two competing power centres, one the Populist faction led by President Hu Jintao and the other an Elitist faction led by vice-president Xi Jinping, who is to be President in 2012. How much of the hardline posturing is due to this jostling is difficult to say. India needs to fortify its defences, use the trade leverage (largely in China’s favour), reach out with calibrated deliberation to Vietnam and other association of Southeast Asian Nations members who are objects of Chinese assertiveness around the South China Sea and blacklist all Chinese companies doing business in Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

The author is a former secretary in the external affairs ministry

INDO-AMERICA RELATIONS

India Must Watch Obama’s SME Plan



All eyes will be on US President Barack Obama this week as he promised to unfold a stimulus package that would give a fillip to employment after the US labour department released figures that showed that 54,000 people lost their jobs in August. The unemployment figures for August were 14.9 million jobless compared to 14.6 million in July. There was some comfort that the figures of those who lost their jobs was less than what was predicted by Wall Street (1,20,000), and that the private sector had created 67,000 jobs. The small and medium industries, it is reported, could? be the focus of Mr Obama’s new package. 

There is some scepticism about whether Mr Obama can really print more money to help the economy or the banks to support the SMEs that can create the jobs. He is also planning to do it through tax breaks and has pleaded with the Republicans not to block tax cuts for this sector. However, the bottom line is that the swathe of economic data emanating from the US and across the Western world shows that their economies are decisively weak.

The implications are not good news for India. The effect on India usually comes with a lag of a couple of months so by September-October inflows from foreign institutional investors (FIIs) could slow down and negatively impact the stock markets. This means it could be a dicey time for initial public offers waiting to come to the capital market. Many of them are public sector companies. Exporters, too, will struggle, at least till Christmas, as Indian exporters are still heavily dependent on the US and the West for their export markets. The other way of interpreting the economic data coming out of the US, which still remains the largest consumer market in the world, and the most dynamic as Mr Obama says, is that fear of double-digit recession has been overdone and that this fear is receding. So, while the road to recovery could be long and painful, the positive is that there will be no further decline.

In the context of President Obama’s move, it is a coincidence that in India the Union labour ministry has circulated a paper, according to our sister publication? Financial Chronicle, proposing that the government link bank credit to employment creation. It has proposed the creation of 58 million jobs in two years to meet the aspirations of 10 million educated youth that hit the employment market annually. Among the measures suggested are linking tax holidays, exemptions and duty rates to jobs, easy credit for job-intensive sectors with interest subvention, and facilitating finance to small and medium enterprises. This is a heartening development. But we have heard many of these suggestions routinely, particularly regarding finance for small and medium enterprises.

Seminar after seminar is held to discuss how funds can be transferred from banks to the SMEs, but till date it remains a Herculean task for SMEs to get funds from the banks. The ones who need it most are considered high risk. Bank credit to SMEs has come down to eight per cent from 12 per cent.

Interest subvention seems to be the only concrete suggestion that can be implemented. The government has tried it with the farmers and it has worked. If banks that give credit to SMEs can be given an interest subsidy, they can pass on some benefits to the sector and for the demographic dividend that everyone loves to talk about. To that extent it will be interesting to see what stimulus package President Obama provides for American SMEs because the governments of both countries are facing tremendous resistance to government subsidy for SMEs. While the US faces resistance from the Republicans, in India it is the banks that are resisting assistance to the SMEs, who are the backbone of exports and employment creation.