Future of Engineering

Industrial Designers Develop Harness to Provide Spine Support During Water Rescues

From small beginnings come great things. That's exactly what has happened at the University of Virginia Tech. A simple assignment has led to the creation of a life saving product.

Everyday the swift water rescue team is up against a mission that looks as difficult as Mission Impossible. Rough waters and an unconcious vitim means just one thing - disaster is just around the corner. Putting their life on the line they struggle to save lives.

Rescue doesn't stop with pulling out a victim. It's important to pull out the person without causing further physical injuries. That isn't a easy task. To minimise injury during rescue, the Hydrospine has been designed.

The Hydrospine is a rigid frame designed for use in water rescue situations, especially in fast-moving rivers. It is made from structural foam, a neoprene liner, nylon strops, buoyant buckles, and buoyant foam. It is intended to replace the metal framed harnesses currently used by rescue workers to stabilize accident victims with possible spinal injuries. The metal-free frame allows doctors to perform MRI and other scans at the hospital without removing the patient from the protection of the brace. The brace is designed to right itself if tipped upside down in the water, protecting the victim from drowning.

"The biggest thing we did was provide flotation, so if the unconscious person should become face down in the water, it will flip them over and keep them in the correct position in the water," said Varnerin.

Source - Virginia Tech

Labels: Engineering-Education, Safety

War and bloodshed has been here since the days of Cain and Abel. Till the 19th century warriors met on the field to prove their might. But the creation of bombs has redefined war. No place on earth is safe anymore. Explosives can be here, there or anywhere. And if you can't spot it, you can't control it.

To tackle terrorism, scientists have created a sensor chip that detects hydrogen peroxide vapor, which is often used in homemade explosives. It does this by monitoring the electrical conductivity of a thin metal film. The chip is made of two different thin films - one made of a cobalt compound and another made of a copper compound. When the chip was exposed to various fumes had responded in a similar manner. But when it was exposed to hydrogen peroxide vapor the films showed a difference in electrical conductivity.

When the sensor reveals this difference, you can easily spot the masked bomb. This is sure to fulfill the requirements of the bomb squad. Usually they have resorted to X-ray examination of luggages which wouldn't detect plastic or non-metallic devices. Sniffer dogs have helped out in various places, but come with a high price tag.

Source - DBIS

Labels: Metallurgical-Engineering, Safety

Undetected damage, like tiny cracks, flaws or weak points, is a big problem on airplanes. Now, chemists are testing a new paint that changes color to instantly reveal damage on planes.

Everyday an airplane is carefully inspected for flaws before it sets out on its daily mission. Yet visual inspection isn't hundred per cent fool proof. It's easy to miss out hidden damages on them. A cheap and simple solution has been found to keep an aircraft safe and sound.

"Microcapsules containing a colored dye are mixed together with aircraft paint. If the paint is scratched, dented, or struck the capsules break, releasing the dye. The change in color pinpoints damage. Visual inspections are easier and more accurate."

Initially this technology will be used in military aircrafts. Later on it will be used in commercial and private planes. The invention doesn't stop here. This color changing paint will soon find its way to the packaging industry to create tamper resistant packaging.

Source - DBIS

Labels: Aerospace-Engineering, Safety

'The pores are 15nm and the smallest virus is 25nm. There's nothing smaller than a virus — it pretty much stops everything,'

"Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink", lamented the ancient mariner who was stuck in the middle of the sea. People stuck in disaster prone areas or warzones echo the words of the mariner even today. The arrival of the lifesaver is sure to break this universal chant.

The 2004 Tsunami inspired UK entrepreneur Michael Pritchard to create the Lifesaver bottle that uses the innovative nanoscale filtration membrane to remove bacteria, viruses, and all other water-borne pathogens from water instantly.

The operation is quite simple. One just has to fill the bottle with water, unlock the pump handle at the base and build up pressure inside the filter with a few quick pumps. Contaminated water flows through a membrane to become sterile.

The ultrafiltration technology isn't entirely new. It has been used by the water processing industry already. The genius of Pritchard's invention lies in incorporating this technology in a 12in plastic bottle.

Pritchard has also invented a FAILSAFE technology that shuts off the bottle’s cartridge upon expiry, preventing contaminated water from being drunk. Proper handling and maintenance makes it last for five years.

Though it would be extremely useful in warzones and disaster prone areas, it would also be a innovative accessory for hikers and campers.

Source - Lifesaver systems

Labels: innovation, Instrumentation-Engineering, Safety

"The keyboards incorporate a flashing light to remind users to regularly clean the surface and sensors to measure the effectiveness of cleaning them."

99,000 people die each year because of infections acquired in the hospital. That's a scary scenario. One steps into a hospital to get cured not acquire new diseases. In recent times we have come across startling reports about a Superbug infection that shows hospitals in poor light.

Toilet seats vs Keyboards

Charles Gerba, a microbiologist at the University of Arizona has found that office toilet seats had an average of 49 germs per square inch. Germ counts on computer keyboards were more than 60 times higher, averaging 3,295 bacteria per square inch. Even worse were the tops of desks (21,000) and telephones (25,000).

Makes sense to invest in a Medigenic medical keyboard isn't it?

Features of Medigenic Medical Keyboard

1) Uniquely helps monitor its own cleaning status to safeguard both patient and staff; 2) Features a flat design to enable quick wipe downs with hospital-grade disinfectants; 3) Provides standard conventional keyboard tactile feedback for high-speed data entry capability. It comes in two models - Essential and Compliance.

Testing Results

Testing of the product has revealed a significant log reduction in bacterial contamination in the range of 0.5 log - 1.4 log (71% - 96%) at cleaning alert settings ranging from 1.5 to 12 hours. Hospitals hope to bring down the levels of MRSA and hospital acquired infections with this product.

P.S - A Reminder

While cleaning one just hopes that hospitals stick to ‘one wipe – one application – per surface’. For A recent study has revealed that current protocols utilised by hospital staff have the potential to spread pathogens after only the first use of a wipe, particularly due to the ineffectiveness of wipes to actually kill bacteria.

Source - Esterline Advanced Input Systems

Related Links
In Hospitals, Simple Reminders Reduce Deadly Infections
Don't let a hospital kill you CNN (May 1, 2008)
Gut superbug causing more illnesses, deaths
Hospital mortality rates continue to drop across New York, but infections are increasing

Labels: Bio-engineering, Safety

After having spent a fortune on acquiring addictive gadgets such as a mobile phone, laptop or camera you can't let it slip away so easily. But there are thieves out there waiting for an opportunity to outwit you and escape with your precious gadget.

Not anymore. Even if it gets lost on a jungle it will find its way back home. Thanks to anti-theft software installed inside. This post looks at the latest options available to protect your gadgets.

Eye-Fi Card Catches Camera Thief

Eye-Fi user Alison DeLauzon lost $1,000 worth of photo gear while on holiday in Florida. An ordinary camera would be lost forever. The camera and the memories stored inside.

The Eye-Fi SD card, a virtual private eye sprang a surprise on her.Equipped with a special memory card with wireless Internet capability it automatically sent her holiday pictures to her computer and also uploaded photos of the miscreants who had stolen it.

Eye-Fi is a 2-gigabyte SD memory card that is priced at $100. Get one and find the culprits yourself.

Source - Reuters

Locate Stolen PC

LocatePC is a free theft recovery software for your PC. Don't lose sleep over a stolen PC. Locate its existence without even seeking help from the men in blue.

LocatePC is free software, and runs unobtrusively on your computer, with no icons, popups or saved emails. If your computer is stolen then the thief will not even know that LocatePC is running, and as soon as they connect to the internet a secret email is sent to you containing the details that you need to track your hardware.

LocatePC runs on Windows Vista/XP/Me/98. You just need a POP email account for LocatePC to send you email.

Anti-Theft for Mobile Phones

A group called GadgetTrak, of Beaverton, Oregon, has developed PhoneBak, a software that allows phone owners to have their phones "call them" in the event they are lost or stolen. It gathers all the info for you. As soon as another SIM is inserted into your phone, you would know the new number, the GSM Area Code and the Cell ID that gives you the exact location of the phone.

The starting price of this software is $24.95

Source - GadgetTrak

Labels: Electronics-Communications-Engineering, Safety

What if you could just sneak $1 out of the wallet of 50,000 different people? They probably won’t notice. If they discover the $1 missing, they probably won’t care, or may even assume they just lost it or mis-counted.

Now, what if you could sneak $1 from 50,000 different people while sitting at your laptop in the local coffee shop? What if you never have to physically confront a single person, nor risk physical harm in any way? What if you could perpetrate a virtual crime, cyberpickpocketing? How about if your cyberpickpocketing could net $50,000 today? That definitely sounds like a more solid business plan than the “Pickpocketing Across America” approach cited above. That is the allure of cybercrime, says this interesting post

Got me thinking about cybercrime in general, not just micro-commerce cyber crime. How is cybercrime going to evolve in future? What will be its various dimensions? And what are we doing about it? I have provided the various interesting resources I found during my research for answers to the above questions.

This interesting post @ ThinkQuest ( http://library.thinkquest.org/04oct/00460/future.html ) was certainly thought-provoking. It discusses how the rate of malware penetration in wireless and PCs is increasing. It also notes how malware are becoming more intelligent by the day. It concludes that "Trends suggest that criminals will become more insidious. Large-scale and damaging acts such as Dos attacks will become less popular as they are easy to detect and thwart with better security systems. Instead, newer and more indirect methods of crime like phishing and Trojans will become much more popular".

In this report Predicting the future of cybercrime and security, Alan Paller of SANS Institute provides details on predictions by twenty respected leaders in cyber focusing on the top 10 security developments for 2007. They narrowed 40 probable computer security developments down to 10 that have the highest probability of happening and will, if they happen, have substantial impact on large numbers of people. The developments predicted are in the following domains: 1. Laptop encryption, 2. PDA smart phones, 3.Targeted cyber attacks, 4. Cell phone worms, 5. Voice over IP (VoIP) systems, 6. Spyware, 7. Security vulnerabilities, 8. Rootkits, 9. Legislation governing the protection of customer information and 10. Network access control (NAC). In summary, the report says that attacker sophistication seems to be ahead of defensive tools. But by making the attackers' job harder and harder and by increasing the length of gaol sentences for cybercrime and improving international police co-operation and skill levels, we can continue to keep up with the attackers and, over time, begin to turn the tide.

In this brief interview titled Protecting the future from cyber crime, Platypus Magazine spoke with Federal Agent Nigel Phair about his new book and the impact of high-tech crime as he sees it, and the challenges which lay ahead in controlling cyber crime. Some of the questions posed in the interview are: "What are the challenges which lie ahead in policing high tech crime?", "Can policing keep up with the evolution of cyber crime – or is this an unwinnable war?", "Does a cyber criminal fit a typical profile?", & "Who do you see as being the most vulnerable to high tech crime?". Interesting perspectives in the answers.

According to Dan Hubard, a cybercime expert, cybercrime is all about costs and benefits, and criminals are no different from legitimate businesses in this respect. "The old criminals are learning from the new ones how to launder stolen credit cards, and they are learning how little risk they face of being caught," he said. The old criminal gangs have a lot of money that they can plough into cybercrime, which is potentially much more profitable that traditional forms of crime and is less risky.

The U.S. military has hinted that it will expand its cyber crime to cyber warfare in the near future, according to this article. Lt. Gen. Robert J. Elder Jr., who heads the Air Force's cyber operations command told the press that the military was currently developing ways to launch virtual attacks on enemies. The general even reckoned that if cyber squaddies could use the Net to scramble an enemy's communications system, they might even be able to do away with heavy handed conventional weapons like bombs.

First it was SAAS and now it it is CAAS - Crimeware as a Service. Criminals invest in crimeware-as-a-service, says this interesting article from Computerworld UK. 'Crimeware as a service', where criminals use online cybercrime services instead of running their own servers and software, is the latest development in internet crime. Hmmm

The Internet Crime Complaint Center posted their latest statistics on cybercrime recently, based on nearly 207,000 complaints people filed in 2007. Since 2006 losses to cybercrime had jumped over 20%, although complaints fell slightly. Over a third of the complaints were about auction fraud, the center said, and a quarter were about non-delivery of goods. Credit/debit card fraud, check fraud, identity theft and Nigerian letter fraud were also represented.

"Years ago, we saw cybercrime as a speciality," says a Dutch expert. "Now we have added cybercrime in every form of police training, so we are raising the level of the entire Dutch police force. There's no crime anymore where there are no digital components built in."

I guess the last statement kind of sums it up. Cybercrime is not a specialty crime any longer. It is a part of most crimes happening today. Not the most pleasant of news!

Labels: Computer-Science, Safety, Society

ICU Medical in San Clemente has a new mission – to put an end to miscarriages that affect many nurses who become pregnant while working in cancer wards. The cause of those heart-wrenching events is the harsh chemicals used to treat cancer patients. Nurses come into contact with that chemotherapy medication if it splashes out of a storage vial or leaks while a nurse is setting up an intravenous line

Spiros lets nurses remove a drug from a vial without sucking it through a needle into a syringe and then lets them inject the liquid into a properly equipped IV tube. The Spiros connector shuts off the flow of liquid whenever it is disconnected, so drips and spills are a thing of the past, ICU says. It is the latest in a series of Lopez inventions that include the Click Lock, a secure connection he devised after a patient died when an IV was accidentally detached, and the Clave, a needle-free connection between syringes and IV lines.Design engineer Tom Fangrow came up with the idea for Genie, a specialized attachment that eliminates the need for nurses to puncture a vial lid with a needle, which risks a spill or a splash of chemicals

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Labels: Bio-engineering, Safety

A team of chemists and physicists at the University of California, San Diego has developed a tiny, inexpensive sensor chip capable of detecting trace amounts of hydrogen peroxide, a chemical used in the most common form of homemade explosives.

The invention and operation of this penny-sized electronic sensor, capable of sniffing out hydrogen peroxide vapor in the parts-per-billion range from peroxide-based explosives, such as those used in the 2005 bombing of the London transit system, is detailed in a new article

In addition to detecting explosives, UC San Diego scientists say the sensor could have widespread applications in improving the health of industrial workers by providing a new tool to inexpensively monitor the toxic hydrogen peroxide vapors from bleached pulp and other products to which factory workers are exposed

The sensor works by monitoring the variability of electrical conductivity through thin films of “metal phthalocyanines".

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Labels: Electronics-Communications-Engineering, Safety

When U.S. Army special forces infiltrate a factory, they need to know quickly whether they've found chemical weapons so they can call in an airstrike. Similar speedy information is important to soldiers who believe they have been exposed to a chemical attack or to police and firefighters who respond to a terrorist attack or a spill that could include hazardous materials

Now, Brigham Young University scientist Milt Lee and the American Fork company he co-founded has created a miniaturized, lightweight device that recalls the fictional Tricorder of the TV and movie franchise "Star Trek." The Guardion-7 chemical detector is a 28-pound portable device that can detect, without false positives and with exact specificity, a wide range of chemicals in fewer than five minutes, even in harsh environments like the Iraqi desert.

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Keywords: Brigham Young University(BYU), Milt Lee, American Fork company, infiltrate, airstrike, firefighters, hazardous materials, Star Trek, Mike Alder, Torion Technologies, Guardion-7 chemical detector, 28-pound portable device, Wintergreen-flavored Lifesaver, miniaturized gas chromatograph, miniaturized mass spectrometer

Labels: Chemical-Engineering, Safety

This idea has definitely been around the block a time or two, but Eureka Aerospace is doing a whole lot more than just envisioning yet another concept. Its 200-pound, 5-foot long prototype has recently undergone testing, and reportedly, it's been able to completely and utterly incapacitate any vehicle that dared roll in its path. The device has been used to shut down four whips thus far, each from a distance of 10 to 50-feet, and all it took was a microwave pulse lasting some 50-nanoseconds to do it. According to James Tatoian, the outfit's CEO, a version that weighs just 50-pounds and can disable rebel rides from 600-feet away is only a couple of years from reality, but it's highly doubtful that these will be available to the general public.

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Keywords: Microwave beam car, eureka aerospace

Labels: Physics, Safety

“Security experts warn that as supply chains become more global and more opaque, no one can be sure what parts are going into the computers that run, well, everything from air traffic control towers to banks to weapon systems,” Popular Mechanics says. In an article, “The Manchurian Chip,” Glenn Derene and Joe Pappalardo outline in detail the possible dangers.

“Individuals, companies and federal agencies could all be at risk from foreign governments or criminal enterprises,” they write. “A computer chip built with a subtle error might allow an identity-theft ring to hack past the encryption used to connect customers with their banks.”
In addition, they say, flash memory hidden in a corporation’s printers could capture an image of every document produced and send it on to people who should not have it.

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Labels: Computer-Science, Safety, Society

It's the worst nightmare of the remote-control age - German scientists claim to have cracked the code of the electronic blipper that locks and unlocks cars and garage doors. The team from Ruhr University says it is now relatively straightforward to clone the remote control devices that act as the electronic keys.

The scientists say they have overcome the KeeLoq security system, which is made by US-based Microchip Technology and is used by Honda, Toyota, Volvo, Volkswagen and other manufacturers to transmit access codes using radio frequency identification technology.
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The revelation caused consternation among the car makers. If the claims are correct, it could pose a major headache for the car companies, whose keyless entry systems are becoming increasingly more common in their high-end marques.

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Labels: Computer-Science, Safety

Wired Magazine published an article in 2004 about Dutch traffic engineer Hans Monderman, and a trend he started to improve roadway safety by making things appear more dangerous.

The theory goes like this. Putting up signs and designing to remove all possible things that interfere with traffic makes roads appear safer than they really are. Drivers react by becoming more relaxed and less vigilant, resulting in accidents. But if you make roads appear dangerous, for example, by removing signs, people pay more attention and there are less accidents.

Monderman has several real life examples. A quote:

"Riding in his green Saab, we glide into Drachten, a 17th-century village that has grown into a bustling town of more than 40,000. We pass by the performing arts center, and suddenly, there it is: the Intersection. It's the confluence of two busy two-lane roads that handle 20,000 cars a day, plus thousands of bicyclists and pedestrians. Several years ago, Monderman ripped out all the traditional instruments used by traffic engineers to influence driver behavior - traffic lights, road markings, and some pedestrian crossings - and in their place created a roundabout, or traffic circle. The circle is remarkable for what it doesn't contain: signs or signals telling drivers how fast to go, who has the right-of-way, or how to behave. There are no lane markers or curbs separating street and sidewalk, so it's unclear exactly where the car zone ends and the pedestrian zone begins. To an approaching driver, the intersection is utterly ambiguous - and that's the point.

Monderman and I stand in silence by the side of the road a few minutes, watching the stream of motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians make their way through the circle, a giant concrete mixing bowl of transport. Somehow it all works. The drivers slow to gauge the intentions of crossing bicyclists and walkers. Negotiations over right-of-way are made through fleeting eye contact.

It applies to things other than roads as well. Any system with extensive safety measures and procedures becomes at some point prone to catastrophic failure!"

Interesting perspective...

Mored from here

Labels: Civil-Engineering, Design-Engineering, Logistics-Transportation-Engineering, Safety

Former White House Cyber Security Adviser Howard Schmidt was asked to detail the biggest challenges a company or organization might face in mobile security. He said the biggest hurdle is in convincing leaders how important mobile security is to their organization. Beyond that, companies need to retune and restructure their organization to tie security into the day-to-day operations of the business, he said. And finally, consumers must understand the level of responsibility they carry as well.

Any company looking to further protect its mobile data should look at five components, he said: engineering and architecture, day-to-day operations, education and awareness, ability to investigate and the data connection source.

Full report here

Labels: Electronics-Communications-Engineering, Safety

Adam Laurie, an RFID security expert, used the Black Hat DC 2008 conference to demonstrate a new Python script he's working on to read the contents of smart-chip-enabled credit cards.

As part of his presentation Wednesday, Laurie asked for someone from the audience to volunteer a smart card. Without taking the card out of the volunteer's wallet, Laurie both read and displayed its contents on the presentation screen--the person's name, account number, and expiration clearly visible.

Demonstrations like that show the potential misuse of RFID technology in the near future. Without touching someone, a thief could sniff the contents of an RFID-enabled credit card just in passing. The same is true for embedded RFID chips in the human body, work access badges, some public transit cards, and even the new passports in use in more than 45 countries.

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Labels: Computer-Science, Electronics-Communications-Engineering, Safety

AirPatrol sniffs out trouble on Wi-Fi, cellular networks

AirPatrol is a company that made its name in wireless intrusion detection. Now the company is introducing its own branded product line, called WiVision, openly competing with enterprise network rivals. AirPatrol's new wireless intrusion detection/prevention systems adds two features intended to mark it out. One is software algorithms for location tracking, to identify where a radio is. The other, new with this product release, is integration with Check Point Software's firewalls at the network's edge and core, to block traffic from that radio based on its IP address.

Full story here

Labels: Electronics-Communications-Engineering, Safety