http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/story/2012-05-15/robotic-arm/55004238/1

The demonstrations, reported in the journal Nature, mark yet another significant step in efforts by researchers to connect severely paralyzed patients to prosthetic devices that they can maneuver with their own thoughts.

The study team, headed by neuroscientist John Donoghue of Brown University and the Department of Veterans Affairs in Providence, R.I., made news in 2008, when one of the patients in the latest study, Cathy Hutchinson, 58, used brain implants to control computer cursors.

In the slowly progressing world of brain implant research, Hutchinson grabbing herself a cup of coffee for the first time in nearly 15 years , stands as the emotional highlight of the latest study, Donoghue says. “This is just a start at restoring independence to paralyzed patients.”

In the study, Hutchinson and a paralyzed 66-year-old man, both stroke victims unable to speak, controlled a right-handed robotic arm by signals sent from brain implants. The brain implants, about the size of a baby aspirin, have 100 thin wires that slightly protrude into the covering of the patients’ brains, centered over the regions connected to arm movements.

“We asked them to imagine moving their arms and the implant picks up the signal,” in brain cells, Donoghue says. Essentially a computer weighed signals from brain cells firing beneath the implant to initiate movement from the patients. But instead of making those movements in discreet directions — up, down, backward, forward and sideways — the updated program allows the robotic arm to move in a smooth curving path to touch targets. Success rates varied from 46% to 62% in grasping foam balls, using a robot arm designed by “Segway” inventor Dean Kamen with Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) support.

Most notably, Hutchinson’s implant has worked for six years, Donoghue says, despite fears that scarring would build up around the implants and stop their signals. “There has been some dropoff, but we think a lot of that is tied to the equipment, which was only designed to last a year,” he says. (“The warranty is over,” he jokes.)

“Immobilized patients should be encouraged by these capabilities,” says neurobiologist Andrew Schwartz of the University of Pittsburgh, who was not part of the study team. “In the future we are going to be seeing even more improvements,” says Schwartz, whose team has demonstrated similar robot arm and wrist control in monkeys . And on Monday, neurosurgeons from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis reported the partial restoration of finger and thumb control to a 71-year-old man paralyzed with a spinal cord injury, by rerouting an undamaged nerve in his neck to connect to arm muscles……

for the rest of the story go to http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/story/2012-05-15/robotic-arm/55004238/1

In March 2012 Stacy and I (Monty) had been researching shelf stable foods and water treatment for our church, home and community.  We have always had water filters at home to take out chemicals and impurities.  Camping we have used filter straws, bucket filters, bag filters and bottle filters.  In an emergency setting we have a combination of all of them for the “Get Home bag”, “Bug Out bag”, “Home Food and Supply Storage”, and the “Cache Sites”.  (Check back at the Food Life blog category for other articles about each of these.   You can also search the web for information about it. )   Doomsday Preppers show is a great resource for learning more about water and other essentials for preparing for emergency.

At a show in May we met two people withing two hours that were wanting to buy a Water Bob to prepare for an emergency by storing a bathtub of water that they could keep clean.  If you have never seen the Water Bob you can check it out at http://www.waterbob.com/Welcome.do;jsessionid=A7FD96505B093D295068376CB04334EE   follow this other link to order from Dan at Hurricane Preppers   1-877-760-3773

Holds up to 100 gallons with a pump for clean drinking water.

The factory had run out of the Water Bob product and several people wanted them now.  After making several phone calls and checking the web there were a lot of websites offering to take orders and ship them when they come.  The people told me they had seen the pricing from $25 up to $75 for the Water Bob.  I found a site that has them for $39 and currently on sale for $33.99. Dan at Huricane Prepper will only sell one to each person because he wants to be fair to all customers.

In addition to the Water Bob there are other concerns.  The Water Bob is great if you are aware there is an emergency coming and you have time to fill it before the water is contaminated or is cut off.  If the water is contaminated you will need to clean it.  You can clean the water by boiling if you have heat, filtering or purifying the water and then storing it in your Water Bob.

If the water is contaminated or cut off you will need to consider the other options.  You could get an extra bathtub that someone is tossing

out or getting rid of and place that tub in your storage shed, garage or basement and pre fill it.  If you do this you will need to be sure there is drainage because the Water Bob is only rated to keep the water safe for four weeks.

Other treatment options include a filter straw that you may want to consider for all locations: Home, work, car, bug out bags, get home bags, church, school and cache sites.

You can also get water filtration from Amazon

There are a lot of books at Amazon that will allow you to find out more about prepping for an emergency

 

Showing 1 – 10 of 5365 results for “emergency water” in Books.
	Emergency Food Storage & Survival Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Keep Your Family Safe in a Crisis by Peggy Layton Buy new: $10.88 / Used from: $9.93 Usually ships in 24 hours
	Water Storage: Tanks, Cisterns, Aquifers, and Ponds for Domestic Supply, Fire and Emergency Use–Includes How to Make Ferrocement Water Tanks by Art Ludwig Buy new: $12.95 / Used from: $12.14 Usually ships in 24 hours
	The Complete Guide to Water Storage: How to Use Gray Water and Rainwater Systems, Rain Barrels, Tanks, and Other Water Storage Techniques for Household and Emergency Use (Back to Basics Conserving) by Julie Fryer Buy new: $13.79 / Used from: $15.30 Usually ships in 24 hours
	Emergency Essentials Tips for Preparedness: Quick and Easy-To-Use Information on Food Storage, First Aid Andemergency Preparedness to Safeguard Your F by Larry Barkdull Buy new: $19.99 / Used from: $12.06 Usually ships in 24 hours
	In case of emergency: web-based notification systems can send out thousands of messages in mere minutes, alerting parents to everything from school … Journal (Technological Horizons In Education) by John K. Waters Buy new: $9.95 Available for download now
	Handling In-Flight Emergencies by Jerry Eichenberger Buy new: $25.74 / Used from: $6.99 Usually ships in 24 hours
	The Prepper’s Pocket Guide: 101 Easy Things You Can Do to Ready Your Home for a Disaster by Bernie Carr Buy new: $10.36 / Used from: $7.52 Usually ships in 24 hours
	31 Days to Survival: A Complete Plan for Emergency Preparedness by M.D. Creekmore Buy new: $16.00 / Used from: $30.11 Temporarily out of stock. Order now and we’ll deliver when available. We’ll e-mail you with an estimated delivery date as soon as we have more information. Your credit card will not be charged until we ship the item.
	Water Supply in Emergency Situations (NATO Science for Peace and Security Series C: Environmental Security) Buy new: $89.95 / Used from: $57.10 Usually ships in 24 hours
	Emergency Power Planning Guide for Water & Wastewater Utilities Buy new: $59.00 / Used from: $44.93 Usually ships in 24 hours
1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   …  Next > >

 

You can also get water filtration from Amazon

	Katadyn Vario Multi Flow Water Microfilter Buy new: $76.68 / Used from: $61.34 Usually ships in 24 hours
	Katadyn Hiker PRO Water Microfilter Buy new: $69.95 / Used from: $64.35 Usually ships in 24 hours
	iOSAT Potassium Iodide Tablets, 130 mg (14 Tablets) Buy new: $7.63 Usually ships in 1-2 business days
	Katadyn Base Camp Water Filter Buy new: $69.95 Usually ships in 24 hours

Copy this short link for facebook or twitter http://theyshallwalk.org/?p=1486

Being a little paranoid I prefer to be prepared.  It started with the Boy Scouts teaching us to “be prepared” and the military topped it off.   I have always had shelf stable foods around. When I was growing up it was mostly for camping. Now we are planning ahead.  In an emergency you
want to be sure you have extra food to eat and water to drink in case there is none available.

Many people believe the grocery store has enough food to supply the local community even after a disaster.  The illusion that most people never see through is that most grocery stores are taking deliveries all day long creating an illusion that there is an endless supply.  The supply is endless until it ends…

Kinect to replace the TS or telemetry suit

We have been working hard to add the Microsoft Kinect to the list of HIT (Human Interface Technology) devices that are able to control the LIFESUIT robotic exoskeleton.

LIFESUIT eight LS8 electrogoniometer

In it’s current configuration the LIFESUIT therapy model is set up to be trained or taught to move with a hard wired solid telemetry suite or TS.  We have built several version of the TS that include plastic, metal, fabric and more.  The first one that I showed to Dr Steve Steins was in 2003 when he first visited our research lab at the community college (North Seattle Community College aka NSCC)  ”you have built an electrogoniometer” he exclaimed as I walked around the lab.  I asked him to repeat it so I could write down the name of the device that I had built.

In the old days that was part of LIFESUIT prototype eight LS8.  That model used electric actuators and linear trim pots (potentiometers) as sensors.  When I walked around the lab with the LS8 wired up to the PC the ‘debug’ screen showed an output of several columns of numbers.

As I took steps the basic stamp microcontroller put the numbers on the screen of the pc.  These are called gait recordings.  The way the LIFESUIT is set up to work is that these gait recordings are stored in a gait library.  When the LIFESUIT pilot is ready to walk and roll in the LIFESUIT they just push on the joystick and the computer “plays” the gait recordings back.

With the Kinect we will be able to offer a simple version of the HIT that allows PT (Physical Therapists) to stand in front of the Xbox Kinect and the device would record their motions.  The LIFESUIT therapy system would be able to mimic the PT movements by powering the LIFESUIT that the paralyzed person is strapped into.

If you work at Microsoft your volunteer time and donations will be matched to double your efforts and money.

We were part of the Abilities conference on April 5, 2012  at building 33 where people were able to see the LIFESUIT demonstration.

They Shall Walk with a Kinect and a LIFEUSIT

Almost two dozen non profit organizations were represented including:

http://terentinocatering.com/dinner.html

Terentino’s Catered our first Art Auction, WOW and I mean WWWOOOWWW!!!  The food was amazing.  The apitizer was like a little heaven on earth.  It was Cold Hors d’oeuvres  they called it the “Greek Trio” and what was in it was; Red Pepper Hummus, Babaganosh, and Basil Feta, Served with Toasted Pita and they only charged $2.25 per person.  The food was ready in a flash even though the venue did not have a kitchen.  It was amazing to see the crew from Terentino’s show up, set up, serve, clean up, and pack up.  It reminded me of some of the military operations I saw while I was serving with the US Army Rangers at Fort Lewis.  Very professional and very delicious.

The main course was so beautiful that most people did not want to disturb the artistic display on their plate.  It was an art auction and the art was on every plate. When people dug into the meal you could see faces light up with surprise and amazement.

When we had our first golf tournament we had snow and wow what a day on the golf course that was.  People had to dig trenches on the putting green to get the ball to go into the hole.  Only two foursomes went home early.    Jackson Park Golf Club hosted a great tournament at a resonable price.  The Rotary Club of Shoreline sent volunteers, the Shoreline Jaycees sent volunteers, North Seattle Community College sent volunteers from the golf team, and we had 72 players registered.  The Shotgun Start allowed us to place a foursome on each hole; one through eighteen so everyone could start at the same time.

At the end of the tournament I was approached by an artist who suggested he put on an auction for us.  The result was the first Art Auction so They Shall Walk…  More about that later.  The point of this blog is that if you are looking for amazing food at the right price, this is the place to get it.

More about the golf tournament…..

Four! Let's Play Golf

We had hole sponsors, cart sponsors, a hole in one sponsor, and a marshmallow driving contest sponsor.  The hole sponsors got their company logo and website on a sign at each of the holes that they sponsored.

HOLE Sponsors: One sign was placed at the tee box and another near the green so the golfers would see who sponsored each of the holes.  In addition the hole sponsors were featured on the tri-fold brochure, the tournament posters and on the website.

CART Sponsors: Two signs were placed on each of the carts they sponsors.  The first sign was on the front window of the cart and it was double sided so each of the riders in the cart could see the sponsors logo, website and a special offer for the players.  By offering a special offer the sponsors get the players to come into the store or visit the website depending on where the sponsor wanted to drive traffic.   One of our best cart sponsors was the www.SnoqualmieRetreat.com that had a special discount for the players.

Massage envy sponsored the golf towels and provided free massage all during the registration period, the tournament, the silent auction and prize session at the end.  Each player that registered got a golf towel for wiping off the ball, club and hands.  There was a goody bag too that many of our sponsors gave 75-100 items for us to put in all the players bags and items for the silent auction.  Massage envy also offered a couple of massage certificates that we were able to combine with a great chef for an in home dinner and massage for two package.

for Freeze Dried food go to www.FoodLife.shelfreliance.com 

Monty K Reed, Founder - They Shall Walk  (    http://theyshallwalk.org/?p=1452    )

One of his best received talks is titled  “Get STARTED-business owner” a survival guide for businesses to succeed and grow in this new economy.  http://www.befreeexpo.com/seminar-schedule/  

At age 7 Monty started his own candy business when he discovered a 2cent source for candy his customers were used to paying a dime for, he sold them for a nickel and quadrupled his money every time he bought and ate a piece of candy.

Monty K Reed served as an Army Airborne Ranger until suffering a broken back from a parachute accident.  This accident lead to the development of the LIFESUIT robotic exoskeleton.   When he got out of the hospital after a nine month stay he could not work a regular job and was forced to have an entrepreneurial seizure and start a retail sporting goods store that did $25k year 1, $100k year 2, and $500k in year 3.  From there he started a wholesale business, a mail order business and became a consultant and public speaker.

Monty has just published his first book “Get STARTED-don’t quit” that was released February 11, 2012.   www.getSTARTED-dontquit.com.  Monty over came a learning disability and graduated with honors from North Seattle Community College.  He was Captain of the Golf Team, Robotics club and president of the Chemistry Club. He transferred to the University of Washington where he was allowed to design his own major called: biosynthetics.  He has been recognized as two-time NASA Space Grant Scholar and a Mary Gates Scholar (one of 3000 over the last 15 years). He was also selected to the National Honor Society at the UW.

Monty K Reed is the founder of They Shall Walk, a member of the Rotary Club of Shoreline, Board member of Rotary First Harvest, and on the board at Philadelphia Church.

Last May we had 70 cars at the car show and a lot of people to support the event.  Participants walked and rolled while others looked at the cars and participated in judging all of the different categories of collectible cars.   Vendors galore made the event a lot of fun; Blu Cafe, Diva Espresso, Miche Bag purses, Cookie Lee Jewelry, Ford, Groovy Impressions, Barefoot Promotions, Club Hollywood, Sears Tools, Tupperware, Special Occasions Catering, Rotary Club of Shoreline, Knights of Columbus (did pancake breakfast and hot dogs), McDonalds, Shoreline Community College.

There was a great swap meet called the “Shoreline Rotary Rummage Ramble” where some folks reported buying “great Italian boots” and a “decent bike” for for “five bucks”.  This next event on May 6 will include garages from three Rotary Clubs so the booty should be much more and still great deals.

The car show component has developed into quite an event all on its own as part of the Walk & Roll a thon.  www.CruiseTheAve.com

Thank our sponsor Diva espresso buy some coffee

LIFEUIT Robotic Exoskeleton.  Paralyzed  people will be able to think about walking the the LIFESUIT will stand them up and move their legs so…. They Shall Walk.  We are currently using a hard wired telemetry suit that measured the movements of a Physical Therapist to train the LIFESUIT to walk.  Then the operator uses a joystick to make it walk.  The same control and mimic and playback scenario will be done with the Microsoft Kinect.                 (Shortlink     http://theyshallwalk.org/?p=1411  )

With the BCI we will be able to allow more people to drive the LIFESUIT by just thinking about it.

Check out our sponsor for this blog posting    Diva Espresso

Check out this article re-post…

The robot that reads your mind to train itself

By Lakshmi SandhanaTechnology journalist

Rajesh Rao is a man who believes that the best type of robotic helper is one who can read your mind.

In fact, he’s more than just an advocate of mind-controlled robots; he believes in training them through the power of thought alone.

His team at the Neural Systems Laboratory, University of Washington, hopes to take brain-computer interface (BCI) technology to the next level by attempting to teach robots new skills directly via brain signals.

Robotic surrogates that offer paralyzed people the freedom to explore their environment, manipulate objects or simply fetch things has been the holy grail of BCI research for a long time.

Dr Rao’s team began by programming a humanoid robot with simple behaviours which users could then select with a wearable electroencephalogram (EEG) cap that picked up their brain activity.

The brain generates what is known as a P300, or P3, signal involuntarily, each time it recognizes an object. This signal is caused by millions of neurons firing together in a synchronised fashion.

This has been used by many researchers worldwide to create BCI-based applications that allow users to spell a word, identify images, select buttons in a virtual environment and more recently, even play in an orchestra or send a Twitter message.

Skill set

The team’s initial goal was for the user to send a command to the robot to process into a movement.

However, this requires programming the robot with a predefined set of very basic behaviours, an approach which Dr Rao ultimately found to be very limiting.

The team reasoned that giving the robot the ability to learn might just be the trick to allow a greater range of movements and responses.

“What if the user wants the robot to do something new?” Dr Rao asked.

The answer, he said, was to tap into the brain’s “hierarchical” system used to control the body.

“The brain is organised into multiple levels of control including the spinal cord at the low level to the neocortex at the high level,” he said.

“The low level circuits take care of behaviours such as walking while the higher level allows you to perform other behaviours.

“For example, a behaviour such as driving a car is first learned but later becomes an almost autonomous lower level behaviour, freeing you to recognize and wave to a friend on the street while driving.”

To emulate this kind of behaviour – albeit in a more simplistic fashion – Dr Rao and his team are developing a hierarchical brain-computer interface for controlling the robot.

“A behaviour initially taught by the user is translated into a higher-level command. When invoked later, the details of the behaviour are handled by the robot,” he said.

A number of groups worldwide are attempting to create thought-controlled robots for various applications.

Early last year Honda demonstrated how their robot Asimo could lift an arm or a leg through signals sent wirelessly from a system operated by a user with an EEG cap.

Scientists at the University of Zaragoza in Spain are working on creating robotic wheelchairs that can be manipulated by thought.

On-the-job training

Designing a truly adaptive brain-robot interface that allows paralysed patients to directly teach a robot to do something could be immensely helpful, liberating them from the need to use a mouse and keyboard or touchscreen, designed for more capable users.

Using BCIs can also be a time-consuming and clumsy process, since it takes a while for the system to accurately identify the brain signals.

“It does make good sense to teach the robot a growing set of higher-level tasks and then be able to call upon them without having to describe them in detail every time – especially because the interfaces I have seen using… brain input are generally slower and more awkward than the mouse or keyboard interfaces that users without disabilities typically use,” says Robert Jacob, professor of computer science at Tufts University.

Rao’s latest robot prototype is “Mitra” – meaning “friend”. It’s a two-foot tall humanoid that can walk, look for familiar objects and pick up or drop off objects. The team is building a BCI that can be used to train Mitra to walk to different locations within a room.

Once a person puts on the EEG cap they can choose to either teach the robot a new skill or execute a known command through a menu.

In the “teaching” mode, machine learning algorithms are used to map the sensor readings the robot gets to appropriate commands.

If the robot is successful in learning the new behaviour then the user can ask the system to store it as a new high-level command that will appear on the list of available choices the next time.

“The resulting system is both adaptive and hierarchical – adaptive because it learns from the user and hierarchical because new commands can be composed as sequences of previously learned commands,” Dr Rao says.

The major challenge at the moment is getting the system to be accurate given how noisy EEG signals can be.

“While EEG can be used to teach the robot simple skills such as navigating to a new location, we do not expect to be able to teach the robot complex skills that involve fine manipulation, such as opening a medicine bottle or tying shoelaces” says Rao.

It may be possible to attain a finer degree of control either by utilising an invasive BCI or by allowing the user to select from videos of useful human actions that the robot could attempt to learn.

A parallel effort in the same laboratory is working on imitation-based learning algorithms that would allow a robot to imitate complex actions such as kicking a ball or lifting objects by watching a human do the task.

Dr Rao believes that there are very interesting times ahead as researchers explore whether the human brain can truly break out of the evolutionary confines of the human body to directly exert control over non-biological robotic devices.

“In some ways, our brains have already overcome some of the limitations of the human body by employing cars and airplanes to travel faster than by foot, cell phones to communicate further than by immediate speech, books and the internet to store more information than can fit in one brain,” says Rao.

“Being able to exert direct control on the physical environment rather than through the hands and legs might represent the next step in this progression, if the ethical issues involved are adequately addressed.”

A friend of mine described there recent stay there like this.  ”We were driving on the freeway, the road was clear and as we exited at the West Summit it was like driving into a winter wonderland.  The gas station was covered the pancake house was covered in snow, snow everywhere.   It was great, we took a Jacuzzi, sat by the fire and just enjoyed being in the snow and having a luxurious place the stay.  It was a great opportunity to get away from it all and relax, and it was so close to the city.”

I love the Snoqualmie Retreat, especially now with all of the snow.  You can walk to the lift and ski back to the house when you are done, get in the hot tub and relax next to the fire with a book.  I can literally be sitting at my desk in the lab, decide to go to the SnoqualmieRetreat, book online in a couple of minutes and within an hour be checked in or on the slopes.

The snow just keeps coming down up there and the season will be extended as long as there is snow.  I was surprised to find an opening on the schedule so I was able to book it and stay a few days.  How cool is that.

Walk to the lift from the Snoqualmie Retreat

More Snow, it keeps coming down.

Get some snow now.

For skiing or snowboarding it is one of the easiest places to get to and get back from.  click on the Book It Now button on the website to reserve your stay at the Snoqualmie Retreat now.

Check out the webcams to see the snow in real time.  If you are hungry and you want a Bacon Bleu Cheese Burger the place to get it is at Webbs  http://theyshallwalk.org/?p=112

Flanagan’s characters have the warm, well-worn feel of familiarity by now — it’s like visiting old friends, whom you can  depend on to always do the noblest,

best things that they can. Will, Horace, Halt, Evanlyn and the feisty, boisterous Skandians are all pleasantly familiar, and he introduces some endearing people in Nihon-ja as well, such as the down-to-earth Shigeru.

Nihon-Ja is a sort of fantasy Japan with emperors and warriors. And Horace has gone on an extended stay there to learn from them. When Horace is about to leave he gets caught up in a plot to over throw the Emperor.

His friends are summoned and take on the challenge of reaching Horace in the far off land. The journey is full of dangers; pirates, desert warriors, and squabbles aboard the Skandian
I recommend this book and the other 9 that go before it!ship Wolfwill.

You can share this link http://theyshallwalk.org/?p=693

“John Flanagan” in Kindle Store.
	The Outcasts (Brotherband Chronicles) by John Flanagan
	Ranger’s Apprentice: The Lost Stories by John Flanagan
	The Ruins of Gorlan: Book One (Ranger’s Apprentice) by John Flanagan
	The Burning Bridge: Book Two (Ranger’s Apprentice, Book 2) by John Flanagan
	The Ranger’s Apprentice, Book 10: The Emperor of Nihon-Ja: Book Ten by John Flanagan
	The Icebound Land: Book Three (Ranger’s Apprentice, Book 3) byJohn Flanagan
	Erak’s Ransom: Book 7 (Ranger’s Apprentice) by John Flanagan
	Ranger’s Apprentice, Book 8: The Kings of Clonmel: Book 8 by John Flanagan
	The Siege of Macindaw: Book Six (Ranger’s Apprentice) by John Flanagan
	Ranger’s Apprentice, Book 9: Halt’s Peril: Book Nine by John Flanagan
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