Rattrovo 1

Justin Rattrovo

Debra Jizi

UWRT 1104-017

9 April 2017

Annotated Bibliography

Turner, PhD Rhonda. Prosthetics Cost. Disabled World. Disabled World, 20 Mar. 2017

Web. 28 Mar. 2017.

This article provides factual ranges for prosthetic devises costs from a member of

the medical side of prosthesis. Dr. Turner in the article talks about the benefits of helping

support financially those that require prosthetic limbs and cannot afford themselves. Her

article also touches on different lifestyles of people and how that affects the overall wear

and tear, forcing amputees to get multiple prosthetics throughout their life.

The article shows its importance to my topic by breaking down the possible

reasons for a cost of a prosthetic to be high. A big contender in prosthetic prices are the

different types of materials that it can be made of, which also affects the longevity of it

meaning you might have to replace it sooner based on the materials toughness. The

numbers it uses are reliable, using surveys done by The California Health Benefits

Review Program that show the benefits of supporting amputees financially. This article

answers the first half of my question being what makes prosthetic prices increase, while

not touching on the growth of prosthetic research.

The post itself was copied from an article that was written a few years ago, by Dr.

Rhonda Turner. Dr. Turner is a license physician and was a practicing prosthetist for

eleven years until she moved her focus into breast cancer research and is currently with
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the AABCP as an executive director. While said earlier the website might not be entirely

credible but the article written by Dr. Turner was written while she was in the forefront of

her field and still provides valuable information.

Winkler, Rolfe. "Elon Musk Launches Neuralink to Connect Brains With Computers." The Wall

Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company, 27 Mar. 2017. Web. 03 Apr. 2017.

This article is about Elon Musks newest endeavor, neural lace which is being

researched by his newly founded company Neuralink. Neural lace is a technology that

Musk has been working on for about a year now, he wants to implant brain electrodes

that can be accessed and used to output data faster than our current methods of speech,

writing, and typing. He first is focusing on using this technology on people with brain

diseases to try and replace the damaged neurons with his artificial electrodes. Musk has

stated that he is still four or five years away from creating something meaningful but that

time may shorten with other companies jumping to join this race. Facebook, Braintree,

and the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency are creating similar programs to

achieve similar goals.

A neural implant like this can be used in the field of prosthetics by connecting to a

prosthetic and giving it the range of motion that a normal hand or leg has. This relates to

my second half of my question being about the research into prosthetics and

developments being made. While none of the contenders are promoting it as something

that can be used for prosthetics, having a direct connection to the brain would eliminate

any need to replace damaged nerves that would tell your limbs what to do.

The website that I got the article from is the Wall Street Journal which is a very

credible source within itself providing reliable news articles for over 120 years. The
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author that wrote the article Rolfe Winkler focuses on technology and is based in San

Francisco which is a tech focused city. The information is coming from a press

conference that Musk spoke at about his new company and direction he wants to steer it.

Musk is very much a futurist and with all the information stated was backed up by

another member of his new team Max Hodak a lead researcher for his new company.

Geggel, Laura. "Sunlight Powers This Touch-Sensitive, Prosthetic Skin." LiveScience. Purch, 04

Apr. 2017. Web. 05 Apr. 2017.

In this article researchers at the University of Glasgow in Scotland lead by Dr.

Ravinder Dahyia created a transparent synthetic skin powered by solar cells. The skin

itself is made up of four layers with the solar cells integrated within it. With one of the

layers being made of graphene, a one atom thick material, gives the transparent skin

flexibility while making it stronger than steel but still allowing 98% of sunlight through

to power the cells. With that much sunlight reaching the power cells the skin is able to

power itself only requiring 20 nanowatts per square centimeter which is not a lot of

required power. Graphene is also electrically conductive allowing the skin to be touch

sensitive and can sense pressure as low as 0.01 pounds per square inch. After testing the

material on a prosthetic hand, it allowed it to do things that other prosthetics have

difficulties doing like grasping soft materials correctly.

This is ties to my question because a major issue with having smart prosthetics

is that it is difficult to find ways to power them. With this synthetic skin it is becoming

easier to do just that while not having to sacrifice in the weight or ergonomics of the

prosthetic, making it more like a hand. Along with that the capability of the skin to be
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touch sensitive means that prosthetics that use the skin will have more functions than

those that dont and will allow people to live better lives.

The source is a website dedicated to technology news making it proficient in the

field that it is talking about. The author of the article is a senior writer for LiveScience

and has had work appear in the New York times and has a degree in journalism from New

York Universitys journalism department. The researchs source is from Dr. Dahyia who

is an engineering professor at the University of Glasgow for three years. He has

published twenty articles on nanotechnology and robotics and four of them focus on

energy and the material graphene. He leads a team comprised of both graduates and

undergraduates who have wide range of majors and degrees allowing for more complex

research.

Mroz, Jacqueline. "3-D Printing Prosthetic Hands That Are Anything but Ordinary." The New

York Times. The New York Times, 16 Feb. 2015. Web. 07 Apr. 2017.

An online volunteer organization by the name of E-nable founded by Jon Schull

in 2013 creates prosthetic designs targeted for kids. The design is available online and it

is in format where it can be 3D printed and assembled easily at low prices ranging from

$20 to $50 excluding the price of a printer. Many high-tech prosthetics are not made for

children because they are still growing and the prosthetic cannot grow with them making

it difficult and expensive to get a prosthetic for a child. With these cheap printable

prosthetics, it allows kids that need it to live a normal life along with the ability feel

comfortable with their disability due to the designs being intentionally more robotic and

super hero inspired. With the material being made of ABS plastic people can make it

whatever color they want to give the children more confidence with their prosthetic. The
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prosthetic does have some functionality allowing the user to close and open the fingers

with the movement of their wrist, because of that though it cannot be used as effectively

on people without wrist motion or do not have majority of their arm.

This is important to both parts of my question allowing there to be cheaper ways

to obtain prosthetics while at the same time allowing them to have easier ways to produce

them. Along with those points the design is online and open sourced so people can adjust

based on their needs and sizes along with make additions to the functionality of it. With

that kind of ability, it allows for many different minds to work on making this prosthetic

better leading to more developments and it can easily be tested by printing one out at a

MakerSpace or their own 3D printer which is not that expensive either.

The source is credible being the New York times and the writer is a technology

expert having written about tech news before. The source of the information is from the

E-nable organization and organization focused on prosthesis research and in particular

children prosthetics. Ivan Owen one of the people that originally came up with the idea

runs a 3D printing lab at the University of Washington at Seattle.

DARPA. "Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency." DARPA Helps Paralyzed Man Feel

Again Using a Brain-Controlled Robotic Arm. DARPA, 13 Oct. 2016. Web. 09 Apr. 2017.

This article documents the first two-way connection between the brain and a

prosthetic limb. The two-way connection allows for the user to move the arm while able

to take in signals from the arm and give a sense of touch. The volunteer Nathan Copeland

has been living as a quadriplegic for ten years after a car accident that broke his neck and

damaged his spinal cord. When the tests took place researchers at the University of

Pittsburgh touched each of the robotic fingers and Nathan could tell which ones were
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being touched and when he was being touched with 100% accuracy. The procedure to

attach the robotic arm require an invasive surgery where four sensors were placed on the

parts of his brain that corresponded to feeling in his palms and fingers.

This is a big leap in prosthetic research because it allows for both a range of

motion and gives the ability of touch to the user. With this being the first time this has

been done it whole heartily relates to my second part of my question being more about

research. With that being said, this breakthrough is more like the first computer where the

entire rig to complete this is large, clunky, and expensive. The robot arm has almost no

function beyond research purposes with all the equipment required to operate it and it

cost a lot of money to set up and research. Still it is an amazing step because this

technology can be used and improved upon like the first computer allowing for

commercial use later down the road.

The source of this article comes from the Defense Advanced Research Projects

Agency a government funded agency working with very talented researchers on various

projects. Dr. Justin Sanchez headed this particular project in the subset of DARPA called

Revolutionizing Prosthetics which was started in 2006. Dr. Sanchez has published more

than 75 peer-reviewed papers is the acting director of the Biological Technologies Office

and previous to joining DARPA he was an Associate Professor of Biomedical

Engineering ant the University of Miami and lead many projects there. Dr. Sanchez also

has seven patents in neural prosthetics.