may the force be with you

Avoiding RSI

4/21/2006 02:05:00 PM

Posted by Dr. Taraneh Razavi, M.D., Staff Doctor

From time to time, a resident physician at Google headquarters weighs in with her thoughts on healthy living. This is not medical advice, and you should check with your own doctor before pursuing any particular course of action.

There is a Chinese saying that "To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short." In other words, how long can you tap on that keyboard or sit in that chair before you hurt yourself. We’re not designed to remain as sedentary or perform the fine motor movements for the long uninterrupted hours that we have to do in so many of our jobs. Evidence suggests that prolonged abnormal posture and repetitive movements contribute to neck, limb and back pain. These conditions are collectively known as overuse syndromes, or repetitive stress injury (RSI).

RSI is no small matter. It accounts for 34% of all lost-workday injury and illness — and costs almost $20 billion annually, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The National Academy of Sciences has concluded that an estimated $50 billion is lost by businesses every year from sick leave, decreased productivity and medical costs linked to repetitive stress disorders. The Academy has published two reports since 1998 which directly link repetitive motion to workplace injury.

The damage sustained from RSI is due to structural changes in the muscle fiber as well as due to decreased blood flow. Nerves can also be involved. The immobile tissue and surrounding inflammation compress the nerve which can cause numbness or tingling and eventually weakness if the nerve is damaged severely.

For those of you who need evidence, see this study on "Overuse Syndrome." In this study, biopsies were taken from hand muscles of injured and normal subjects, which demonstrated the structural damage in the muscle fibers and correlated the damage with the severity of the injury. In another study, biopsies were taken from neck muscles, and reduced local blood flow was found in the injured areas. The greater the pain difference, the greater the reduction in blood flow.

Some of the most common RSI injuries are tendonitis and carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). Work-related carpal tunnel syndrome now accounts for more than 41% of all repetitive motion disorders in the United States, says this study. And here's a telling title: "Hard work never hurt anyone: or did it?" -- it's a review of occupational associations with soft tissue musculoskeletal disorders of the neck and upper limb.

So what should you do? The key to treatment is prevention. Research shows that injuries decrease and productivity increases when employers encourage stretch breaks and stress the importance of ergonomics. See for example this one at at Ergonomics Now.

Here are a few tips: -- Breaks should be taken every 30-45 minutes for at least 5 minutes. If you need assistance there are free downloadable timers that will help remind you to do so.
-- Stretch your arms, hands, neck, and back during breaks. This yoga site demonstrates some exercises. Other sites are listed below.
-- Maintain posture alignment. Don't slouch on the couch with the laptop.
-- Work stations should be reviewed initially and with each office move. Adjust your chair, monitor, keyboard, mouse, laptop. Alternate keyboards and mice periodically.
--Shift your gaze from the computer screen to the distance. And don't forget to blink!
--Limit non-essential computer use. This may be heresy -- but do give the surfing, gaming, emailing, and text messaging a rest.
-- If pain occurs or persists, see your doctor, who may recommend wrist brace, ice packs, anti-inflammatory medication such as ibuprofen, cortisone injections, physical therapy, and most importantly, rest to allow healing. Don't procrastinate in addressing your symptoms -- the sooner you tend to them, the better off you are.

And finally, here are more sites that may be helpful:
Safe Computing Tips
Alternative Pointing Devices
Alternative and Ergonomic Keyboards
Harvard RSI Action
RSI exercises
RSI Page

source:http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/04/avoiding-rsi.html

Internet2's network is growing up. That was one of the key topics discussed Tuesday at the group's Spring Member Meeting in Arlington, Virginia.

The research group is phasing out its Abilene network after about seven years of service with a big backbone that will support 10 10Gbps Lambdas, says Douglas Van Houweling, president and CEO of Internet2.

Internet2 is a consortium of 201 universities that works with government and the IT industry to develop and deploy advanced network applications and technologies with the goal of accelerating development of the public Internet.

In early April, Internet2 announced to its members that it would not renew its contract with Qwest Communications, the prime network provider of its Abilene network. At the same time, Internet2 said it has a "non-binding" contract with another carrier to support the group's next generation network needs.

Because Internet2 is a member organization, all contracts have to be approved by members. Once that happens the name of the new service provider will be revealed, the group says.

The new network, which will likely receive its own name akin to Abilene, will initially support 10 10Gbps Lambdas, but will eventually scale to 80 10Gbps Lambdas, Van Houweling says.

The new network will allow Internet2 to "focus on the trains, not the tracks," he says.

The additional bandwidth is needed to support high-speed experiments that are already being conducted. Van Houweling says Internet2 members are running an experiment that uses 7Gbps, but currently Abilene can only support one such experiment at a time.

The research group is still working out some details such as what type of service level agreements (SLAs) will be offered to Interent2 users. Today, no SLAs are offered over the Abilene network.

The new network will also include self-provisioning support so universities that are about to launch a new experiment will need only go to a Web site to have additional bandwidth provisioned.

All Internet2 members are expected to be transitioned off of Abilene by September 2007.

source:http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;102071774

Someday soon, video gamers may be able to use their heads, literally, to get better scores in their games.

At least two start-ups have developed technology that monitors a player's brain waves and uses the signals to control the action in games. They hope it will enable game creators to immerse players in imaginary worlds that they can control with their thoughts instead of their hands.

San Jose's NeuroSky has been testing prototypes of its system that uses a sensor-laden headband to monitor brain waves, and then uses the signals to control the interaction in video games. They hope that such games are just the beginning of a mind-machine interface with many different applications.

``Research on brain waves is well known,'' said NeuroSky Chief Executive Stanley Yang. ``But we have worked on a way for detecting them with a low-cost technology and then interpreting what they mean. We think this will have broad applications.''

Sensors in the head gear -- whether headbands, headsets or helmets -- measure electrical activity in the brain that scientists have studied for decades. Using NeuroSky's chip technology, the system can distinguish whether a person is calm, stressed, meditative or attentive and alert. Beyond games, the system might be useful for determining whether drivers are so drowsy that they need an alarm to awaken them.

NeuroSky's chief technology officer and co-founder, Koo Hyoung Lee, is a South Korean scientist who for years studied how athletes concentrate. He formed NeuroSky in fall 2004. The company has raised seed money and is raising its first round of venture capital now.

Lee's team of researchers figured out how to detect signals with simpler sensors than the devices used to monitor coma patients in hospitals. NeuroSky is selling the components for the monitoring as well as the software for interpreting the brain signals. Its customers and partners could include makers of game peripherals as well as developers who create games.

The goal is to create game console add-ons costing less than $100. Some of the game play features can be conscious -- such as forcing someone to concentrate in order to drive a car faster or toss something at an enemy. Others can be subconscious. The game could slow down, for instance, if the sensors pick up an increase in anxiety, Lee said. The company hasn't set a timetable for the product launches of its customers.

``It's a very cool idea,'' said Dean Ku, vice president of marketing at Sunnyvale game company RedOctane. ``We are looking at applications for video games, like controlling cars or airplanes. It might take time. But there are possibilities.''

Another company, CyberLearning Technology in San Marcos, has also created a gaming controller system with a helmet that monitors brain waves and can be used to direct a game. The company tapped technology developed by NASA scientists who wanted to train pilots how to focus on their cockpit equipment. It turned the research into Smart BrainGames systems.

CyberLearning also uses electrodes that attach to a player's scalp and monitor brain activity. In a fashion similar to NeuroSky, it monitors the relative stress or calmness in a person's neural patterns and links those signals to game controls. In a racing game, for instance, players can drive at faster speeds if they concentrate on being calm. If the players becomes too nervous, the game can send feedback such as vibrations to the game controller that make it harder to drive a car.

``It's fun because it adds a new element to game play,'' says Domenic Greco, chief executive of CyberLearning and a psychologist. ``What you are thinking affects the game.''

Greco's 5-year-old company has distributed the system to doctors around the country in order to test its impact on patients with concentration disorders such as attention deficit disorder.

Both companies have met with some disbelief.

In its February issue, Scientific American wrote about the prospects for treating such disorders with brain-concentration tools dubbed ``EEG biofeedback.'' The article noted there is ``no magic formula'' for learning how to harness brain waves, but researchers continue to look for ways to treat disorders.

CyberLearning Technology is selling its system starting at $584 and is targeting ADD patients.

Aside from any medical uses, both companies hope their tools could one day be used to create true ``Jedi'' effects in games set in a Star Wars universe. The player could use mind control to lift objects in video games and toss them at enemies in ways that resemble the action in the George Lucas films.

It remains to be seen how cheaply the companies can make the systems, which include both hardware and software. They're both trying to refine their gear to make it more comfortable. And it isn't clear just how precise the control can be in comparison to the lightning-quick dexterity of gamers who use hand controls.

Asked if monitoring brain waves means that their technology can read minds, Yang said, ``We're not there yet.''

source:http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/14415506.htm

University of New Mexico prof says diversity could be key to beating back computer attacks.

When a new virus strikes, some of us might fall ill, some might die and others will survive. That's the beauty of us each having a unique immune system.

It's a concept that the computer security industry should take to heart, said Stephanie Forrest, a professor of computer science at the University of New Mexico, who spoke this week at a Symposium on Information Security and Privacy in Boston. The event was organized by Boston University to celebrate the launch of its Center for Reliable Information Systems and Cyber Security, an outfit that is taking the sort of interdisciplinary approach to computer security that Forrest endorses.

Diversity of systems and applications can play a key role in safeguarding computers and networks from malicious attacks, Forrest said. Her team published a paper last year on a system dubbed RISE (Randomized Instruction Set Emulation) (PDF) that randomizes an application's machine code to stymie would-be attacks, such as those launched via binary code injection.

"One reason computers are so vulnerable to attack is that they are all the same," Forrest said. "In order for [buffer overflow and other attacks] to be introduced successfully, they require the attackers to know a lot about the program that the victim machine is running. The reason the attacker knows all of these details is because of widely replicated software."

Making each computer unique would make life a lot tougher on attackers, she said.

"This is a little tricky because we don't want to make everyone write their own operating system or e-mail reader from scratch or even learn a new interface," Forrest said. "The look and feel of the program and underlying functionality when it computes needs to somehow be constant."

The key to the RISE project was protecting code on systems rather than standing guard at each port, as other security systems have done, she said. RISE accomplishes its task by enabling each process to run its own instruction set.

She said this idea didn't fly very well with hardware engineers at Intel with whom she spoke to last year, as they envisioned having to build different chips around all these different instruction sets. Forrest's team got around this issue by building its technology atop virtual machine software dubbed Valgrind that she said provided flexibility because it is open source but that is not as efficient as she would have liked.

Forrest acknowledged that the RISE system is unwieldy in some ways and still has kinks to work out, but has proven tough to crack, as teams from other schools have tried to break it and failed.

RISE hasn't been commercialized, though past work from Forrest's team has been, such as immunology-inspired technology now found in Sana Security's Primary Response offerings.

What really has Forrest worried about computer security today ties into another biological concept: evolution.

"We already have malicious code that can replicate and spread itself. The only thing we're missing in terms of real Darwinian evolution is mutation," she said.

source:http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/041306-computer-immune-system.html