Helping the sick live normal lives

I recently had an interview with Aswin Aristama, a photonics graduate from Algonquin College, about his work on a project known as ROMOBS (Remote objective monitoring of bio-signals). The project's goal is to create a device that monitors a patient's vital signs -- like heartrate, blood pressure, etc. -- even when the patient isn't necessarily in a hospital. In other words they want to create a mobile monitoring device that uses wireless technology to transmit a patient's readings to a remote location where a supervising physician can review the information and then advise the patient if any of the readings are not as they should be.

The project offers exciting possibilities for critically ill patients who would otherwise be confined to a hospital bed. With this kind of technology the patient can go about living a close to normal life, so long as they carry around the tentatively -- and even Aristama was quick to admit -- boringly named "ROMOBS device".

The device works by communicating a patient's vital signs via Blue Tooth technology to a cell phone which it has been linked with. With programming done by Aristama, the cell phone then sends the signal through its company's existing wireless communications network to an assigned doctor monitoring the patient.

The project is a collaboration between the University of Ottawa, Algonquin College and a manufacturing company charged with creating the hardware. Currently, ROMOBS is nearing the end of its first year of work, and is scheduled to take three years to complete.

Aristama's job in this was to program the ROMOBS device and design an application for cell phones that allows patients to both see their bio-signals and to send them off to their doctor.

Aristama and the team's work has payed off so far, having won awards from the IEEE of eastern and central Ontario.

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Exciting news from the world of photonics! Which as a matter-of-fact may not be a bad field to go into. Aristama told me that he believes the photonics industry will get hot soon. The 3 dimensional TVs we've been hearing about will require a lot of work from scientists with photonic's backgrounds

There's a button on my keyboard

There's a button on my keyboard.

It sits on the far left and beside it is a small white picture of Saturn. I assume it's supposed to help me understand the button's purpose

Many nights I've spent staring at the button. I've always been too nervous to touch it. 'What does it do?' I wondered. Will it take me to Saturn? I don't particularly want to go there. Especially not in this clothing.

Today, for the very first time, for your reading pleasure I will push the button.

Curiosity overwhelms me as I anxiously reach for the button.

I click it, it makes a clicking noise. Buttons typically make such a noise; Everything normal so far.

I gasp as a screen pops up on my desktop. Something's loading... what could it be!?

....

My Firefox web browser has opened.

What the Olympics Meant

The Olympic games has become a curious contemporary event. It juxtaposes the idea of global unity with the fervent nationalism of international competitive sport.

Recently, the winter Olympics took place in Vancouver, Canada and our home country exploded with national pride as we watched Canadian athletes take home more gold medals than any host nation ever has in either the summer or winter games. The Canadian Olympic team was aided by the Own the Podium funding program. It was designed to give our Olympians an edge in competition. The money went to things like coaching and technology, designing new snow boards with a plastic plating on top helped Jasey Jay Anderson win gold in his fourth Olympic appearance.

The gathering of different cultures and ethnicity's of the world is an inspiring sight. Attendees at the men's alpine skiing event cheered enthusiastically for the sole Ghana athlete, Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong. Nicknamed the "Snow Leopard", he skied comparatively slowly down the hill and finished near the bottom of the leader board, but was greeted at the end of his run with a welcoming roar from the crowd.

Can two seemingly competing values both be embodied in this sporting event? Nations have often used the Olympics as a coming out party to display their political power. The 1936 Berlin Olympics comes to mind. Even the last summer games in Beijing was seen as a display for the country's rising global might. Are viewers expected to choose between the idea of unity and competition? Very few would be naive enough to see the Olympics as solely a universal coming togetherness of the human race.

To Canadians, this Olympics will be regarded as a success. We won men's ice hockey gold after all. People were partying in the streets after the victory and all the celebrators were filled with energy, and a new sense of pride. Does this mean the Olympics is primarily a competitive event, where each nation is bent on victory? It's difficult to say, but it will be interesting to see where Canadians and the Canadian government invest this newly rejuvenated energy in the near future.


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What do the Olympic games mean to you? Do you agree with my opinion on the conflicting values of the Olympics? Any and all comments are welcome.

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