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Coyote_Buttes_in_Utah_Arizona_1.pps Download this file

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Awesome_Aviation_Art_WW2.pps Download this file

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1st Annual Wal-Mart Car Show

More Wal Mart but a little different this time …

Here's what you might find at the 1st Annual Wal-Mart Car Show

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I joined DoubleTakeDeals.com for useful coupons and deals on restaurants and fun activities. It is free to JOIN !

Link:    http://www.doubletakedeals.com/friend/~snydeb3a173

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I finally figured out ... the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.

Ned Snyder   
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2. AVOIDABLE:
What a bullfighter tries to do

3.  BERNADETTE:
The act of torching a mortgage

4. BURGLARIZE:
What a crook sees with

5. CONTROL:
A short ugly inmate

6. COUNTERFEITERS:
Workers who put together kitchen cabinets

7. ECLIPSE:
What an English barber does for a living

8. EYEDROPPER:
A Clumsy ophthalmologist

9. HEROES:
What a guy in a boat does

10. LEFTBANK:
What the robber did when his bag was full of money

11. MISTY:
How golfers create divots

12. PARADOX:
Two physicians

13. PARASITES:
What you see from the top of the Eiffel Tower

14. PHARMACIST:
A helper on the farm

15. POLARIZE:
What penquins see with

16. PRIMATE;
Removing your spouse from in front of the TV

17. RELIEF:
What trees do in the spring

18. RUBBERNECK:
What you do to relax your wife

19. SELFISH:
What the owner of a seafood store does

20. SUDAFED:
Brought litigation against a government official

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Get out your history books and open them to the chapter on World War
II. Today's lesson will cover a little known but very important hero
of whom very
little was ever really known. Here is another important piece of lost
US history, which is a true example of our American Spirit.

Mauldin died at age 81 in the early days of 2003. The end of his life
had been rugged. He had been scalded in a bathtub, which led to
terrible injuries and infections. Alzheimer's disease was inflicting
its cruelties. Unable to care for himself after the scalding, he
became a resident of a California nursing home, his health and spirits
in rapid decline.

He was not forgotten, though. Mauldin, and his work, meant so much to
the millions of Americans who fought in World War II, and to those who
had waited for them to come home. He was a kid cartoonist for Stars
and Stripes, the military newspaper. Mauldin's drawings of his muddy,
exhausted, whisker-stubbled infantrymen Willie and Joe were the voice
of truth about what it was like on the front lines

Mauldin was an enlisted man just like the soldiers he drew for. His
gripes were their gripes, his laughs their laughs, his heartaches
their heartaches. He was one of them. They loved him.

He never held back. Sometimes, when his cartoons cut too close for
comfort, superior officers tried to tone him down. In one memorable
incident, he enraged Gen. George S. Patton, who informed Mauldin he
wanted the pointed cartoons celebrating the fighting men, lampooning
the high-ranking officers to stop. Now !!

The news passed from soldier to soldier. How was Sgt. Bill Mauldin
going to stand up to Gen. Patton ?? It seemed impossible.

Not quite. Mauldin, it turned out, had an ardent fan: Five-star Gen.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allied forces in
Europe. Ike put out the word: Mauldin draws what Mauldin wants.
Mauldin won. Patton lost.

If, in your line of work, you've ever considered yourself a young
hotshot, or if you’ve ever known anyone who has felt that way about
him or herself, the story of Mauldin's young manhood will humble you.
Here is what, by the time he was 23 years old, Mauldin accomplished:

He won the Pulitzer Prize, was featured on the cover of Time magazine.
His book "Up Front" was the No.1 best-seller in the United States.

All of that at 23. Yet, when he returned to civilian life and grew
older, he never lost that boyish Mauldin grin, never outgrew his
excitement about doing his job, never big-shotted or high-hatted the
people with whom he worked every day.

I was lucky enough to be one of them. Mauldin roamed the hallways of
the Chicago Sun-Times in the late 1960s and early 1970s with no more
officiousness or air of haughtiness than if he was a copyboy. That
impish look on his face remained.

He had achieved so much. He won a second Pulitzer Prize, and he should
have won a third for what may be the single greatest editorial cartoon
in the history of the craft: his deadline rendering, on the day
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, of the statue at the
Lincoln Memorial slumped in grief, its head cradled in its hands. But
he never acted as if he was better than the people he met. He was
still Mauldin, the enlisted man.

During the late summer of 2002, as Mauldin lay in that California
nursing home some of the old World War II infantry guys caught wind of
it. They didn't want Mauldin to go out that way. They thought he
should know he was still their hero.

Gordon Dillow, a columnist for the Orange County Register, put out the
call in Southern California for people in the area to send their best
wishes to Mauldin. I joined Dillow in the effort, helping to spread
the appeal nationally, so Bill would not feel so alone. Soon, more
than 10,000 cards and letters had arrived at Mauldin's bedside.

Better than that, old soldiers began to show up just to sit with
Mauldin, to let him know that they were there for him, as he, so long
ago, had been there for them. So many volunteered to visit Bill that
there was a waiting list. Here is how Todd DePastino, in the first
paragraph of his wonderful biography of Mauldin, described it:

"Almost every day in the summer and fall of 2002 they came to Park
Superior nursing home in Newport Beach, California, to honor Army
Sergeant, Technician Third Grade, and Bill Mauldin. They came bearing
relics of their youth: medals, insignia, photographs, and carefully
folded newspaper clippings. Some wore old garrison caps. Others
arrived resplendent in uniforms over a half century old. Almost all of
them wept as they filed down the corridor like pilgrims fulfilling
some long-neglected obligation."

One of the veterans explained to me why it was so important: "You
would have to be part of a combat infantry unit to appreciate what
moments of relief Bill gave us. You had to be reading a soaking wet
Stars and Stripes in a water-filled foxhole and then see one of his
cartoons."

Mauldin is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. What a story, and a
fitting tribute to a man and to a time that few of us can still
remember. But I say to you youngsters, you must most seriously learn
of and remember with respect the sufferings and sacrifices of your
fathers, grand fathers and great grandfathers in times you cannot ever
imagine today with all you have. But the only reason you are free to
have it all is because of them.

I thought you would all enjoy reading and seeing this bit of American history !!

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________________________________
Tower: "TWA 2341, for noise abatement turn right 45 Degrees."
TWA 2341: "Centre, we are at 35,000 feet. How much noise can we make up
here?"
Tower: "Sir, have you ever heard the noise a 747 makes when it hits a 727?"

________________________________
From an unknown aircraft waiting in a very long takeoff queue: "I'm
f...ing bored!"
Ground Traffic Control: "Last aircraft transmitting, identify yourself
immediately!"
Unknown aircraft: "I said I was f...ing bored, not f...ing stupid!"

________________________________
O'Hare Approach Control to a 747: "United 329 heavy, your traffic is a
Fokker, one o'clock, three miles, Eastbound."
United 329: "Approach, I've always wanted to say this... I've got the
little Fokker in sight."

________________________________
A student became lost during a solo cross-country flight. While
attempting to locate the aircraft on radar, ATC asked: "What was your
last known position?"
Student: "When I was number one for takeoff."

________________________________
A DC-10 had come in a little hot and thus had an exceedingly long roll
out after touching down.
San Jose Tower noted: "American 751, make a hard right turn at the end
of the runway, if you are able. If you are not able, take the
Guadeloupe exit off Highway 101, make a right at the lights and return
to the airport."

________________________________
There's a story about the military pilot calling for a priority
landing because his single-engine jet fighter was running "a bit
peaked". Air Traffic Control told the fighter jock that he was number
two, behind a B-52 that had one engine shut down. "Ah," the fighter
pilot remarked, "The dreaded seven-engine approach."

________________________________
A Pan Am 727 flight, waiting for start clearance in Munich, overheard
the following:
Lufthansa (in German): "Ground, what is our start clearance time?"
Ground (in English): "If you want an answer you must speak in English."
Lufthansa (in English): "I am a German, flying a German airplane, in
Germany. Why must I speak English?"
Unknown voice from another plane (in a beautiful British accent):
"Because you lost the bloody war!"

________________________________
Tower: "Eastern 702, cleared for takeoff, contact Departure on frequency
124.7"
Eastern 702: "Tower, Eastern 702 switching to Departure. By the way,
after we lifted off we saw some kind of dead animal on the far end of
the runway."
Tower: "Continental 635, cleared for takeoff behind Eastern 702,
contact Departure on frequency 124.7. Did you copy that report from
Eastern 702?"
BR Continental 635: "Continental 635, cleared for takeoff, roger; and
yes, we copied Eastern... we've already notified our caterers."

________________________________
One day the pilot of a Cherokee 180 was told by the tower to hold
short of the active runway while a DC-8 landed. The DC-8 landed,
rolled out, turned around, and taxied back past the Cherokee.

Some quick-witted comedian in the DC-8 crew got on the radio and said,
"What a cute little plane. Did you make it all by yourself?"

The Cherokee pilot, not about to let the insult go by, came back with
a real zinger:

"I made it out of DC-8 parts. Another landing like yours and I'll have
enough parts for another one."

________________________________
The German air controllers at Frankfurt Airport are renowned as a
short-tempered lot. They not only expect one to know one's gate
parking location, but how to get there without any assistance from
them. So it was with some amusement that we (a Pan Am 747) listened to
the following exchange between Frankfurt ground control and a British
Airways 747, call sign Speedbird 206.

Speedbird 206: "Frankfurt, Speedbird 206 clear of active runway."
Ground: "Speedbird 206. Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven." The BA 747
pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop.
Ground: "Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?"
Speedbird 206: "Stand by, Ground, I'm looking up our gate location now."
Ground (with quite arrogant impatience): "Speedbird 206, have you not
been to Frankfurt before?"
Speedbird 206 (coolly): "Yes, twice in 1944, but it was dark, and I
didn't land."

________________________________
While taxiing at London's Gatwick Airport, the crew of a US Air flight
departing for Ft. Lauderdale made a wrong turn and came nose to nose
with a United 727.

An irate female ground controller lashed out at the US Air crew,
screaming: "US Air 2771, where the hell are you going?! I told you to
turn right onto Charlie taxiway! You turned right on Delta! Stop right
there. I know it's difficult for you to tell the difference between C
and D, but get it right!"

Continuing her rage to the embarrassed crew, she was now shouting
hysterically: "God! Now you've screwed everything up! It'll take
forever to sort this out! You stay right there and don't move till I
tell you to! You can expect progressive taxi instructions in about
half an hour, and I want you to go exactly where I tell you, when I
tell you, and how I tell you! You got that, US Air 2771?"

"Yes, ma'am," the humbled crew responded.

Naturally, the ground control communications frequency fell terribly
silent after the verbal bashing of US Air 2771. Nobody wanted to
chance engaging the irate ground controller in her current state of
mind.

Tension in every cockpit out around Gatwick was definitely running high.

Just then an unknown pilot broke the silence and keyed his microphone,
asking: "Wasn't I married to you once?"****
 
 ________________________________________

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Anti-lock braking (ABS) Demonstration

                      For  those of you unfamiliar with the concept of
      ABS  (anti-lock braking system) operation
 Here’s  a visual representation.
   
   

  
  

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The Washington Post's Mensa Invitational once again invited

readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding,

subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition:

Here are the winners:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders

the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

2. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

3. Intaxicaton: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts

until you realize it was your money to start with.

4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that

stops bright ideas from penetrating.

The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down

in the near future.

6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself

for the purpose of getting laid

7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic

wit and the person who doesn't get it.

9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

11. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending

off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the

Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

12. Decafalon (n): The grueling event of getting through the day

consuming only things that are good for you.

13. Glibido: All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter

when they come at you rapidly.

15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after

you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into

your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

17. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding

half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

--------------

The Washington Post has also published the winning

submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are

asked to supply alternate meanings for common words:

And the winners are:

1. Coffee, n. The person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering

how much weight one has gained.

3. Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. Esplanade, v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly, adj. Impotent.

6. Negligent, adj. Absent mindedly answering the door

when wearing only a nightgown.

7. Lymph, v. To walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle, n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. Flatulence, n.   Emergency vehicle that picks up someone

who has been run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash, n. A rapidly receding hairline.

11. Testicle, n. A humorous question on an exam.

12. Rectitude, n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. Pokemon, n. A Rastafarian proctologist.

14. Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

15. Frisbeetarianism, n. The belief that, after death, the soul

flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

16. Circumvent, n. An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

-----------------

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http://www.delanceyplace.com/view_archives.php?1848

the invention, and reinvention, of incubators for newborns ...

"Sometime in the late 1870s, a Parisian obstetrician named Stephane Tarnier took a day off from his work at Maternite de Paris, the lying-in hospital for the city's poor women, and paid a visit to the nearby Paris Zoo. Wandering past the elephants and reptiles and classical gardens of the zoo's home inside the Jardin des Plantes, Tarnier stumbled across an exhibit of chicken incubators. Seeing the hatchlings totter about in the incubator's warm enclosure triggered an association in his head, and before long he had hired Odile Martin, the zoo's poultry raiser, to construct a device that would perform a similar function for human newborns. By modern standards, infant mortality was staggeringly high in the late nineteenth century, even in a city as sophisticated as Paris. One in five babies died before learning to crawl, and the odds were far worse for premature babies born with low birth weights. Tarnier knew that temperature regulation was critical for keeping these infants alive, and he knew that the French medical establishment had a deep-seated obsession with statistics. And so as soon as his newborn incubator had been installed at Maternite, the fragile infants warmed by hot water bottles below the wooden boxes, Tarnier embarked on a quick study of five hundred babies. The results shocked the Parisian medical establishment: while 66 percent of low-weight babies died within weeks of birth, only 38 percent died if they were housed in Tarnier's incubating box. You could effectively halve the mortality rate for premature babies simply by treating them like hatchlings in a zoo. ...

"Modern incubators, supplemented with high-oxygen therapy and other advances, became standard equipment in all American hospitals after the end of World War II, triggering a spectacular 75 percent decline in infant mortality rates between 1950 and 1998. ...

"In the developing world, however, the infant mortality story remains bleak. Whereas infant deaths are below ten per thousand births throughout Europe and the United States, over a hundred infants die per thousand in countries like Liberia and Ethiopia, many of them premature babies that would have survived with access to incubators. But modern incubators are complex, expensive things. A standard incubator in an American hospital might cost more than $40,000. But the expense is arguably the smaller hurdle to overcome. Complex equipment breaks, and when it breaks you need the technical expertise to fix it, and you need replacement parts. In the year that followed the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the Indonesian city of Meulaboh received eight incubators from a range of international relief organizations. By late 2008, when an MIT professor named Timothy Prestero visited the hospital, all eight were out of order, the victims of power surges and tropical humidity, along with the hospital staff's inability to read the English repair manual. ...

"Prestero and his team decided to build an incubator out of parts that were already abundant in the developing world. The idea had originated with a Boston doctor named Jonathan Rosen, who had observed that even the smaller towns of the developing world seemed to be able to keep automobiles in working order. The towns might have lacked air conditioning and laptops and cable television, but they managed to keep their Toyota 4Runners on the road. So Rosen approached Prestero with an idea: What if you made an incubator out of automobile parts?

"Three years after Rosen suggested the idea, the team introduced a prototype device called the NeoNurture. From the outside, it looked like a streamlined modern incubator, but its guts were automotive. Sealed-beam headlights supplied the crucial warmth; dashboard fans provided filtered air circulation; door chimes sounded alarms. You could power the device via an adapted cigarette lighter, or a standard-issue motorcycle battery. Building the NeoNurture out of car parts was doubly efficient, because it tapped both the local supply of parts themselves and the local knowledge of automobile repair. These were both abundant resources in the developing world context, as Rosen liked to say. You didn't have to be a trained medical technician to fix the NeoNurture; you didn't even have to read the manual. You just needed to know how to replace a broken headlight."

THE NEED
Of the four million babies worldwide who die in the first month of life, one million die on their first day. Preterm birth is attributed, either directly or indirectly, to at least 25 percent of neonatal deaths [1], and low birth-weight (LBW) newborns are at the greatest risk. About half of the worldwide total, or 1.8 million babies each year, die for lack of a consistent heat until they have the body fat and metabolic rate to stay warm.

The current recommended method of providing infant temperature regulation in resource-constrained settings is Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC), the practice of placing newborns directly onto the mother's chest. KMC has demonstrated benefits in terms of improved weight gain for preterm infants, earlier hospital discharge and higher breast-feeding rates. At the same time, KMC also has important limitations:

   * If the mother either dies in childbirth (as one of the 529,000 maternal deaths annually worldwide), or is too ill after delivery, she is unable to provide KMC.
   * The majority of mothers have other obligations that prevent them from being able to provide continuous KMC, such as other children and/or a job to which they must attend. If no one else is able to provide KMC, a baby sent home for this care may receive it inconsistently at best and therefore suffer the complications of hypothermia, including respiratory distress, acidosis, hypoglycemia and even death.
   * Skin-to-skin contact is considered a culturally inappropriate violation of privacy in some areas that rely on KMC.

As a consequence, at-risk newborns in developing countries need a warm, clean environment in which to grow stronger. Incubators can also help provide millions of at-risk infants with shorter hospital stays and can enable infants who might otherwise have faced a lifetime of severe disability to experience full and active lives.

THE CONTEXT
In many poor countries, the majority of children are born at home. Part of the challenge is that district hospitals in rural regions typicaly lack the training and resources to improve upon the care offered by traditional birth attendants.

Despite the benefits and need for this equipment, incubators are not available in most poor countries. Conventional incubators designed for industrialized markets can cost up to US$30K. Not only is this price tag prohibitive, even if purchased, the devices are of limited utility in rural clinics due to the ongoing cost and extensive training requirements both for their use and maintenance. According to a study conducted by the Engineering World Health group at Duke University, up to 98% of donated medical equipment in developing countries is broken within five years. [2]

Our interviews with clinical and maintenance staff at hospitals in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia provided concrete evidence of the challenges associated with incubators. In South Asia, there exists little in the way of trained technical staff outside of major cities. Spare parts are difficult to locate in rural settings, forcing medical staff to forego regular maintenance. In several instances, DtM's research team found operating incubators in rural Nepal with air filters that had not been changed in over five years, when filters are meant to be changed every six months. In addition, many broken incubators go without repair for want of inexpensive parts. For example, we found a broken incubator in Katmandu that needed a specific US$0.60 fuse--a part the hospital technician hoped to find on his semiannual trip to Delhi.

Maintenance staff in rural clinics also highlighted an inconsistent rural power supply as a problem. Load-shedding, which occurs when utilities temporarily turn off power to their customers due to electricity supply shortages, leads to voltage spikes that can easily damage or destroy sensitive hospital equipment--including incubators. In our research, parts associated with the power supply were the most common repair item on incubators.

IMPACTS ON HEALTH AND WELFARE
The impact of reducing neonatal deaths reaches far beyond the short-term goal of saving lives. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a reduction in infant mortality rates yields lower birth rates and higher economic growth [3]. Because high fertility rates in many societies are due in part to high child and infant mortality rates, lowering mortality rates at an early stage has a lasting effect on society and impacts the decisions parents make later on in life.

In turn, families are able to invest more in the health, education and future of their children, enabling families to be more sustainable. The WHO Commission on Macroeconomics and Health states that "each 10 percent improvement in life expectancy at birth (LEB) is associated with a rise in economic growth of at least 0.3 to 0.4 percentage points per year, holding other growth factors constant." [4] There is, then, a tangible return on the investment made to promote healthy individuals in developing countries, beginning at birth.

Partnering the implementation of the incubator technology with improved training for rural healthcare providers can have a multiplier effect on community health. The presence of a "good" rural clinic, with an incubator and trained staff, can create a magnet for clinical deliveries, as opposed to home births. Families deciding to give birth in a clinic, rather than at home, will lead to the mother and the infant receiving better care and having a higher chance of a healthy outcome. An incubator designed for local conditions and resource constraints, coupled with a rigorous training program for rural clinicians and non-physician care providers, will transform infant and maternal health in India and around the world.

OUR DESIGN APPROACH
We began the infant incubator project with extensive field research, starting with facilities in the United States. Our question was: in a context where money is no object, what are the standards for care? We conducted interviews and observations with domain experts and caregivers at Children's Hospital in Boston, the Harvard Medical School, the Stanford Medical School and many local neonatal intensive care units (NICUs).

Next, we conducted similar interviews and observations in newborn care facilities in our target markets, including hospitals and rural clinics in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia. Interview subjects included hospital directors and administrators, NICU medical staff, newborn parents and extended family members, as well as members of the hospital maintenance and cleaning staff. In this case, our goal was to understand how the nature of newborn care changed given severe resource constraints.

Our contention from the beginning was that the creation of a context-appropriate infant incubator was, above all, a design problem. Maintaining a consistent temperature inside a box is not a difficult engineering problem. The success of our project entirely depended on our ability to get the context details right--and in this, establishing empathy with our intended users was critical [5].

This approach meant answering questions like:

   * What qualities of the developing country context necessitate a radical re-thinking of the incubator features and requirements?
   * How might we adapt the definition of an incubator, meaning the product requirements and specifications, to better fit the technology to the local needs?
   * Who will pay for the incubator, both its purchase and its ongoing maintenance, and what are their requirements?
   * Who will use the incubator, and how much training and education will they have?
   * Who will maintain the incubator, and what do they have for tools and training?

THE CAR-PARTS INCUBATOR
Our research lead us in a surprising direction. After seeing countless piles of discarded medical device donations behind every hospital we visited overseas, we started asking the question, "What does gets fixed?" This lead us to the following series of insights and design directives:

  1. Automobiles are one of the few technologies that are reliably repaired in rural communities. Is it possible to design an incubator such that, if you know how to fix a car, you can figure out how to fix this incubator?
  2. There are over 40,000 parts in a standard SUV, and the auto industry has the distribution channels necessary to deliver those parts to the most remote communities. Is it possible to make use of some of those auto parts in the incubator design, in order to take advantage of economies of scale and access to spares?
  3. To paraphrase Paul Hudnut at Colorado State University, Coke, cigarettes and car parts are three products you can find pretty much anywhere in the world. Given that the auto industry can deliver parts to the most remote communities, is it possible for the incubator to take advantage of their supply chain to deliver incubator parts?

Following these directives, as well as the list of product requirements sourced during prior art research, user interviews and observations and a survey of the technical literature lead us to our design: NeoNurture.

WHAT MAKES NEONURTURE BETTER?
NeoNurture takes advantage of an abundant local resource in developing countries: car parts and the knowledge of auto technicians. This incubator leverages the existing supply chain of the auto industry and the technical understanding of local car mechanics. Among other components, it uses sealed-beam headlights as a heating element, a dashboard fan for convective heat circulation, signal lights and a door chime serve as alarms, and a motorcycle battery and car cigarette lighter provide backup power during incubator transport and power outages.

NeoNurture uses accessible parts while also meeting the needs of the infant, health care workers, and those who maintain and clean the device. It is an incubator that anyone — whether living in the richest country or the poorest — will be comfortable using.

NeoNurture is composed of two distinct parts: the bassinet and the base. The bassinet is detachable from the base and a surrounding handle allows two people to easily carry the newborn up and down stairs and over uneven ground — important features in the context of a rural hospital where infants often need to be carried long distances between the delivery room and the newborn intensive care unit (NICU).

The bassinet houses all of the mechanical systems for the incubator. This allows the bassinet to wait in the delivery room, maintaining a constant-temperature environment until the newborn is ready for transport to the NICU.

The warming system functions by powering two sealed beam headlights which provide warmth through conduction (warming the mattress from below) and convection (a motor blower which brings in filtered outside air for warming or cooling). The body also houses a door chime and signal lights which alert healthcare workers when the temperature of the baby or the environment rises or falls out of range. NeoNurture has built-in power regulation to protect against voltage spikes which is the source of 95% of damage caused to donated incubators. This low cost addition is not standard in most US equipment. A motorcycle battery and 12 volt car charger serve as additional power sources during travel from a home to a clinic or from a clinic to the hospital.

The bassinet canopy opens along a single hinge, providing three-sided access to the newborn during medical procedures--a feature currently limited to only the most expensive incubator models. The side windows of the canopy also drop open, allowing single-side access to the newborn for routine changing and feeding, without losing all of the warm air inside the bassinet.

The base of the NeoNurture mates precisely with its body allowing the incubator to maintain a level position, as well as two positions tilting ten degrees to the left or right. Mattress tilt is an important feature in many incubators as it aids infants with acid reflux. By integrating mating curves into the base and body we have addressed this feature while eliminating the need for a costly, automated system to power the tilting action.

NeoNurture’s base also provides for sterilized storage space for blankets. Located in the back door of the base is the battery charger and such items as additional air filters. The 18” inflatable wheels are durable for uneven terrain and the front full-swivel casters can be easily locked when stationary. If this portion of the incubator needs to be lifted or transported, integrated hand-holds have been included on all four sides.

The incubator’s temperature is controlled through an interface that integrates analog and digital controls for ease of use and the potential for easy repairs. The analog dial provides feedback to the user and the digital temperature screen provides quick visibility.

THE TEAM
Active in the development of newborn care technology for the poor since 2004, Design that Matters (DtM) has had the great fortune of working with a huge crowd of talented students, professional volunteers and domain experts in the development of Neonurture, the Car Parts Incubator. Partners in our infant incubator work have included Medicine Mondiale in New Zealand and the Center for the Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technologies (CIMIT) in Boston. The project has benefitted from the design insights and clinical expertise of health care experts at Children's Hospital, St. Elizabeth's Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Harvard Medical School in Boston, as well as from first-hand observations and interviews with newborn health experts and caregivers in Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia.

The design of Neonurture is based on concepts and prototypes developed by faculty and student volunteers at MIT, the Rhode Island School of Design, Stanford University and the University of Arizona, and from the input of professional volunteers at IDEO and Boston-area contract engineering and design firms. The alpha prototype was built by RISD graduates Tom Weis, Mike Hahn and Adam Geremia, and the beta prototype was built by Tom Weis, Emily Rothschild, Huy Vu, Paul Sherwood-Berndt and Mike Donelly.

~~~

FOOTNOTES:
1. Lawn et all. Neonatal Survival 1: 4 million neonatal deaths: When? Where? Why? Lancet 2005;365:891-900 (PMID:15752534).
2. Malkin Robert A., Technologies for clinically relevant physiological measurements in developing countries. Physiological Measurement, 2007, 28 R57-R63
3. World Health Organization. Macroeconomics and Health: Investing in Health for Economic Development. World Health Organization, Geneva, 2001
4. ibid
5. Prestero, T., Better by Design: How empathy can lead to more successful technologies and services for the poor. MIT Innovations Journal. Feb 2010

http://socialcapital.wordpress.com/tag/timothy-prestero/

Importance of social capital in innovation

Steven Johnson has an interesting new book out called Where Good Ideas Come From.

He talks about a number of conditions that help make innovation possible (the fact that often it takes a long time for innovation to emerge from rough drafts of earlier ideas, and requires incubation of these neonate ideas).

But, one precondition he focuses on is the social dimension.  Often a breakthrough innovation requires marrying or “colliding” two partial ideas.  Sometimes these ideas rest on hunches, often residing in two separate individuals, and unless these hunches are brought together and connected, the innovation goes undiscovered.  [It's what Matt Ridley calls "When ideas have sex."] To do this we have to create spaces for people to get together so we can unlock this innovation, hence the import of the coffee house during the Enlightenment or Modernist Salons in Paris (what Steven calls the “Liquid Network”). Kevin Dunbar also documented how something as prosaic as the weekly lab meeting was where most of the innovation at a lab typically occurred, not while poring over the microscope.

What Steven Johnson is really talking about is social capital.  In fact Steven Johnson thinks that “connectivity” is the key engine of historical and American creativity: “Chance favors a connected mind.”  [This is analogous to the process Andrew Wiles used to  solve one of the great math riddles of all: Fermat's Last Theorem.]  Johnson thinks that the Internet will turn out to a net plus in this process.

An example of this collision of ideas to produce innovation is a neonatal warmer (to halve infant mortality) in developing countries. Timothy Prestero, Design that Matters, took the concept of a warmer, but used bicycle and auto parts from those countries so that when the warmer broke down, local mechanics could repair them.  It’s an analogy for the infusion of ideas from lots of different sources.

Another interesting example he draws on is showing how a few scientists in their spare time trying to compute Sputnik’s speed and ultimately its path from listening to its signal, ultimately led to putting up satellites to enable the military to know where its nuclear submarines were, and then ultimately to using these satellites to determine where one’s phone or car was.

On the topic of social capital and innovation, other game theory and social network research shows that often it is not your close ties that unlock this creativity and innovation but your weaker ties (that connect those to others who are a little less similar who are likely to have differing and highly valuable new ideas). Think cross-fertilization.  So one not only needs to create social spaces, but spaces and a mindset that lets you connect with your weaker ties (maybe someone in your lab with a different specialty or background, or someone at your school with a different focus, or a coffee shop that brings people together whose only connection is that they drink coffee every morning at 10 AM).

See Wired Interview with Steven Johnson and Kevin Kelly here.

See TED video with Steven Johnson here.

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I finally figured out ... the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.

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LITTLE KNOWN TIDBIT OF NAVAL HISTORY ...

The U. S. S.. Constitution (Old Ironsides), as a combat vessel,
carried 48,600 gallons of fresh water for her crew of 475 officers and
men. This was sufficient to last six months of sustained operations at
sea. She carried no evaporators (i.e. fresh water distillers).

However, let it be noted that according to her ship's log, "On July
27, 1798, the U.S.S. Constitution sailed from Boston with a full
complement of 475 officers and men, 48,600 gallons of fresh water,
7,400 cannon shot, 11,600 pounds of black powder and 79,400 gallons of
rum."

Her mission: "To destroy and harass English shipping."

Making Jamaica on 6 October, she took on 826 pounds of flour and
68,300 gallons of rum.

Then she headed for the Azores , arriving there 12 November.. She
provisioned with 550 pounds of beef and 64,300 gallons of Portuguese
wine.

On 18 November, she set sail for England . In the ensuing days she
defeated five British men-of-war and captured and scuttled 12 English
merchant ships, salvaging only the rum aboard each.

By 26 January, her powder and shot were exhausted. Nevertheless,
although unarmed she made a night raid up the Firth of Clyde in
Scotland . Her landing party captured a whiskey distillery and
transferred 40,000 gallons of single malt Scotch aboard by dawn. Then
she headed home.

The U. S. S. Constitution arrived in Boston on 20 February 1799, with
no cannon shot, no food, no powder, no rum, no wine, no whiskey,
and38,600 gallons of water.

GO NAVY!

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fly away.pps Download this file

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81200-Antarctica.pps Download this file

PPS: Antarctica attached ...
How could such a cold and uninviting place have such charm and beauty? 
Wow. 
 Beautiful scenes as you click to the next photo.
 

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Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?

You better slow down. Don't  dance so  fast.
Time is short. The music  won't last.

Do you run through each day On the fly?
When you ask How are you? Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done Do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores Running through your head?

You better slow down. Don't  dance so  fast.
Time is short. The music  won't last.

Ever told your child, We'll do it tomorrow?
And in your haste, Not see his sorrow?

Ever lost touch, Let a good friendship die
Cause you never had time To call and say, 'Hi'

You better slow down. Don't  dance so  fast.
Time is short. The music  won't last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.

When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift ... Thrown away.

Life is not a race. Do take it slower
Hear the music Before the song is over.

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I finally figured out ... the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.

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"I got my first impression of the parish from the first confession I heard here. I thought I had been assigned to a terrible place. The very first person who entered my confessional told me he had stolen a television set and, when questioned by the police, was able to lie his way out of it. He had stolen money from his parents, embezzled from his employer, had an affair with his boss's wife, taken illegal drugs and gave an STD to his sister. I was appalled. But, as the days went on, I learned that my people were not all like that and I had, indeed come to a fine parish full of good and loving people ....."

Just as the priest finished his talk, the politician arrived full of apologies at being late. He immediately began to make the presentation and gave his talk:

"I'll never forget the first day our parish priest arrived," said the politician. "In fact, I had the honor of being the first person to go to him for confession."

Moral: Don't be late.

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We are human ~ We make mistakes.

Trust that while mistakes are inevitable, you can learn from them.

No matter what happens you will get value from it, and must apply that lesson to the future.

Progress is rarely a straight line, but if you keep learning you will have more successes than failures.

The mistakes you make along the way will help you get to where you want to go.

Learn. Live. Love. Laugh.

Remember to find the Joy!

I finally figured out ... the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.

Ned Snyder   
E-Mail: snyder.ned@gmail.com

http://unhub.com/NedSnyder

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One day a teacher asked her students to list the names of the other students

in the room on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name.

Then she told them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their

classmates and write it down.

It took the remainder of the class period to finish their assignment, and as the

students left the room, each one handed in the papers.

That Saturday, the teacher wrote down the name of each student on a separate

sheet of paper, and listed what everyone else had said about that individual. 

On Monday she gave each student his or her list.

Before long, the entire class was smiling. '

Really?' she heard whispered. 'I never knew that I meant anything to anyone!'

and, 'I didn't know others liked me so much,' were most of the comments.

No one ever mentioned those papers in class again.

She never knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents, but it didn't matter.

The exercise had accomplished its purpose.

The students were happy with themselves and one another.

That group of students moved on.

Several years later, one of the students was killed in Vietnam

and his teacher attended the funeral of that special student.

She had never seen a serviceman in a military coffin before.

He looked so handsome, so mature.

The church was packed with his friends.

One by one those who loved him took a last walk by the coffin.

The teacher was the last one to bless the coffin.

As she stood there, one of the soldiers who acted as pallbearer came up to her.

'Were you Mark's math teacher?' he asked.

She nodded: 'yes.'

Then he said: 'Mark talked about you a lot.'

After the funeral, most of Mark's former classmates went together to a luncheon.

Mark's mother and father were there, obviously waiting to speak with his teacher.

'We want to show you something,' his father said, taking a wallet out of his pocket

'They found this on Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it.'

Opening the billfold, he carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper

that had obviously been taped, folded and refolded many times.

The teacher knew without looking that the papers were the ones

on which she had listed all the good things each of Mark's classmates had said about him.

'Thank you so much for doing that,' Mark's mother said.

'As you can see, Mark treasured it.'

All of Mark's former classmates started to gather around.

Charlie smiled rather sheepishly and said,

'I still have my list. It's in the top drawer of my desk at home.'

Chuck's wife said, 'Chuck asked me to put his in our wedding album.'

'I have mine too,' Marilyn said. 'It's in my diary'

Then Vicki, another classmate, reached into her pocketbook,

took out her wallet and showed her worn and frazzled list to the group.

'I carry this with me at all times,' Vicki said and without batting an eyelash,

she continued: 'I think we all saved our lists'

That's when the teacher finally sat down and cried.

She cried for Mark and for all his friends who would never see him again.

The density of people in society is so thick that we forget that life

will end one day. And we don't know when that one day will be.

So please, tell the people you love and care for,

that they are special and important.

Tell them, before it is too late.

Remember, you reap what you sow.

What you put into the lives of others comes back into your own.

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Photos_-_Effet_miroir1.pps Download this file

Reflections …


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