Gary T Yamaguchi - US grants

The purpose of this proposal is to: 1) provide children and adults with mental or physical disabilities with an improved educational experience and a more self-sufficient capability. 2) provide superlative training for the engineering student who designs, builds and implements a device to help a person in need; this "real world" experience will certainly generate great motivation and foster an engineering education with a unique sense of purpose and pride. 3) provide the engineering school with an opportunity to perform a unique service to the community. 4) provide the bioengineering academic community an opportunity to build infrastructure within the university.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the stabilization of posture during stepping. The research will combine experimental and theoretical approaches. Experiments on normal subjects will measure ground reaction forces and the electrical activity of muscles using surface electrodes. The mechanical system is described by a 3-dimensional mathematical model that has 8 degrees of freedom; this model will be used for the interpretation of the experimental results. The research will increase understanding of the stepping process, and may lead to the improved design for functional electrical stimulation systems. Such systems are being increasingly utilized in research to restore motility in paraplegic individuals.

This NYI award will fund research on the basic mechanisms of multisegmental movement, coordination and control. With the use of a 3-dimensional, 16 degree of freedom model that the investigator developed, studies of the gait of cerebral palsied children, methods to control balance and methods to predict movement patterns will be investigated. Also being investigated are methods of automating the measurement of musculoskeletal parameters through the use of MRI and the use of optimal control techniques to coordinate the computer-simulated models. The NYI Award also will help the investigator develop a new course on Microcomputer Applications in Bioengineering and author a new textbook on movement biomechanics.

9414061 Guilbeau This proposal from Arizona State University requests partial support for the 1994 Annual Fall Meeting of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) to be held on October 14-16, 1994 on the Arizona State University Campus in Tempe, Arizona. Funding from the NSF will be used for travel support for invited speakers to the special sessions on Cost Effective Health Care Delivery Through Engineering and Rehabilitation Engineering. The symposium focuses on cardiopulmonary engineering, cardiovascular science and engineering, cellular and tissue engineering, medical imaging, neural engineering, orthopedic engineering, and rehabilitation engineering. The aim of the conference is to bring together biomedical engineers to promote the increase of biomedical engineering knowledge and its utilization. Presenter participants in the symposium are world leaders in biomedical engineering. Funding requested from the NSF would provide partial support for invited participants in Cost Effective Health Care Delivery Through Engineering and the Rehabilitation Engineering sessions. The results of the conference will be recorded in a Proceedings, which will be sent to all conference participants and to related organizations and agencies, thereby making symposium results available to a large audience. ***

0221597
Yamaguchi
This award provides support to continue Design Projects' activities begun under NSF award #9631744 at Arizona State University (ASC) in which students designed and built custom projects for people with disabilities. The objectives of the activities are to enhance engineering education, provide students with insight into careers in biomedical engineering, improve the quality of life of people with disabilities, and serve the community. The past 12 years of design projects activity at ASU led to the successful completion of 109 design projects and training of 115 undergraduate students in basic design principles.

The design projects' activity is structured to work successfully within the environment of ASU. Disability Resources for Students (DRS), which provides accommodations for hundreds of mentally and physically disabled students on the ASU campus, will be closely integrated with the student engineers' work. Ten senior design projects are to be pursued each year in conjunction with DRS to develop the prototype devices. Two undergraduate summer interns are to be supported under the program to work part-time at DRS to develop a listing of appropriate projects for the student engineers. A graduate student is to assist in administering the program by helping the undergraduate design teams and fostering new connections between ASU and nearby communities to serve and/or support persons with disabilities. This project is to introduce 10 to 20 new engineers each year to the daily problems faced by the disabled. Additionally, the disabled community will be directly involved as design consultants and thereby increase the participation of an underrepresented group in the activity.