PAGE 4, THE HERALD, Monday, November 7, 1977

General Office . 635-6357
(Kitlena) - 632-4209

Postage guaranteed.

Publisher.

i

. —{the herald ) .

Circulation (Terrace) - 635-6357

PUBLISHER... W.R. (BILL) LOISELLE
MANAGING EDITOR... STU DUCKLOW

Published every weekday at 3212 Kalum St. Terrace 8.C, A
member of Varitied Circulation. Authorized #3 second class
mall. Registration number 1201. Postage pal. . cash, return

NOTE OF COPYRIGHT

The Herald retains full complete and sale copyri
S full, ght In any
advertisement produced and-or any editorial or
Photographic content published in the Herald. Reproduction
is not permitted without the written Permission of the

Published by
Sterling Publishers

Electronic hand

jor amputees

STOCKHOLM (Reuter) —
An electronic hand for
people with below-elbow
amputations, controlled by
the thought processes of the
wearer, has beendeveloped
by a Swedish team of doc-
tors and engineers and is
being tested on four men.
_The plastic-covered _ar-

‘tificial extremity, whict
strongly resembles a nor-
mal hand, contains a
sophisticated control unit
that responds to electric
signals from the arm
muscles within the wearer's
forearm, It is capable of six
different movements.

The electric impulses are
filtered and amplified and
activate “tendons” inside
the artificial hand. The
wearer can rotate his wrist
in either direction, flex the
wrist upward or downward
and grip or release an ob-

ject.

The hand is still in the
initial stage of clinical tests.

“Tt will be some time
before we can make it
available to large numbers
of patients here in Sweden,
much less in other coun-
tries,” said Dr. Peter Her-
berts, an orthopedist at Sah-
lgren Hospital.

FOUR MODELS TESTED

Developed over a 12-year
period at a cost of about $1
milion in public grants, the
device, known as the Sven-
hand, has been fitted on four
men in their 30s.

Although the device is not
yet commercially available,
the price would have to be
set al $4,000 to $8,000 to
cover the costs of small-
scale production.

Before fitting the hand on
each of the four patients this
last summer, a group of
doctors, working with
engineers from the city’s
Chalmers University of
Technology, first used an
oscilloscope and other
equipment to test the
electric signals in the
forearm stump.

These signals occur when
the amputee, who has the
‘phantom limb” sensation
that his hand is still there,
attempts to make it carry
out specific movements.

After a computer has
analysed these command
patterns, which differ from
person to person depending
on the shape of the am-
putation stump, the patterns
are programmed into a
digital control unit which is

laced inside the artificial
nd,

POSITIONING VITAL

To pick up the signals
from the stump muscles, a
sensitive electrode must be
placed in exactly the right

RCRAAN

ition on the skin. Her-

rts said no commercially
available electrode fitted
the requirements of the
electric signalling process
and it proved necessary to
design a special electrode.

- It is important for the

socket of the device to fit
perfectly against the stump
so that all electrodes stay in
contact with the skin
regardless of arm
movements, Herberts said.
This is done by mounting the
electrodes on_ elastic
springs, providing a
resilient contact, |

Patients wear
rechargeable batteries and
other electronic gear needed
to operate the artificial hand
ona special belt under their
jackets.

Tests on one of the four
patients, a 35-year-old man
who had lost his left hand
and forearm in an accident
25 years ago, showed that
without any special training
he was able to use his ar-
tificial hand to make all six
movements within one
second of his mental
command.

Torbjoern Holmqvist, an
engineer at Systemteknik,
the medical technology firm
that made the first 10
protot es, said that to his

owledge the Sven-hand
and related projects being
carried out in Sweden were
the most advanced of their
kind in the world.

Housing
_ drops

ST. JOHN'S, Nfld. (CP) —
Housing srarts in
Newfoundland have been
slow and well below the 1976
figure, according to Central
Mortgage and Housing

Corp.

ere were only 101 starts
in urban areas of the
province during September,
down from 336 for the same
month last year. The figure
for the first eight months
was 30 per cent lower than in
1976.

CMHC figures show that
there were 1,665 housing
units completed in urban
centres from January to
September this year while
at the end of September
there were 1,497 housing
units under construction.

Municipal Affairs
Minister James Dinn says a
$600 subsidy for new-home
buyers did not make any
difference in the number of
housing starts.

O1977 Untwersal Press Syndicate

“In the good old days, you could get a haircut
without taking your cap off all the time.”

___Where bugging is big business

SPRING CITY, Tenn. (AP) — Bugging
is big business in the United States these
days, Says one counter-intelligence ex-
pert, and less than one per cent of it is

egaliy done.

‘“There’s a jillion of these listening
devices,” said Jesse Creech, founder of
Creech Counter-Intelligence Inc., a rather
stariling small business in this sedate

eastern Tennessee town.

“I would say 90 per cent of the time we
go on a sweep, we find something,” he

explained.

Creech said he retired after serving 30
years a8 a government agent. He declines
to name his former employer or to discuss
what he did and he insists on taping in-

“Many,

terviews so he can send them to
Washington for clearance. 4
Now Creech hires former intelligence
officers to make sure that businesses and
_ homes are free of unwanted ears,
many times, a usedca
_ Salesman will leave you sittin
cubbyhole while he goes back to talk to the
boss about what kind of a deal they can
et for you,” he said. “And he and the
§ are there in the back listening while
you tell your wife that you'd buy that thing
for $200 less.

in a

“Car salesmen, real-estate salesmen,

the bu
done

and finance people use it covertly. Of all
ing an
ay, less than one percent is done

electronic surveillance

legally with a court order.”

Bugs start simply with a $21 wireless
microphone sold over the counter in many

_ electronic shops.

With materials readily available, more
sophisticated bugs can be buiit.

“By using a condenser microphone, you
can get a bug down to the size of a

Pinhead," Creech said.

And there is a black market for
precision-made Hstening devices. One .
unit about the size of a domino can pick up
a whisper 50 feet away and transmit it 1,-
000 feet to a booster transmitter or a tape
recorder with a sound-activated on-off

switch.

Another unit, once sold over the counter
but now sold only through security

mn e448

“We decided to forego a trip abroad and heed Mr. Chretien’s plea for Canadian
to stay home this winter.”

Canada’s new continental shelf is
where the biological action is

HALIFAX (CP) — Ever wonder
why Canada laid claim to a 200-mile
limit off its coast instead of 150 or 300

miles?

Dr. R.O. Fournier, professor of.
2 Dalhousie
University, says it is because the
resources of the oceans are not

oceanography at

equally distributed.

Although 200 miles represents less
than 10 per cent of the total width of
the North Atlantic, it is in this area
that the interactions of marine food

chains are most active.

Phytoplankton, floating marine
vegetation at the beginning of the
food chain, can multiply there at

t, copepods,
the next step in the food chain, and
eventually fish of all kinds become
abundant in this limited area.

Scientists are not sure wh)
plankton grows in such abundance
aver the continental shelf, but Dr.
Fournier suggests that the nutrients
on which they depend for their

freat speed, As a resu

REGINA (CP) — A set of
wheels will make the first of
about 500,000 passes over a
120-foot-long circular track

in a dome-shaped city

building this fall. ;

It will mark the opening of
Canada’s first pavement
test track, developed by the
Saskatchewan highways
department for $325,000 tc
help researchers find the
most economical way to
pave highways.

Computerized sensors, a
unique loading system to
simulate highway traffic
and special equipment to
imitate effects of the en-
vironment will combine to
ive researchers
aboratorystyle control over
experiments on full-scale
highway structures.

“It represents a big jump
in terms of highway
research," said Bill Culley,
Saskatchewan highways
department research
director.

than elsewhere.

LIKE COMPOST HEAP

Helikensit toa compost heap used
by a gardener. Decaying plants are
piled up and decompose int<
nutrient-rich soil which is returned
to the garden as fertilizer.

In the ocean the same principle

prevails.

available.

growth are being supplied more
rapidly to the plankton ie this region

The phytoplankton grows rapidly
when close to the surface of the
ocean where it is well lighted, as
long as sufficient nutrients are

Eventually some plants settle into
deeper water where they die, decay
and become a marine compost.
When this rich deeper water comes
near the surface where light is
abundant, plants thrive.

_ Periodically, within the 200-mile
limit, a huge volume of deep
nutrient-rich water moves over the
continental shelf where it rises to the

plants.

surface and helps fertilize marine

Off the Nova Scotia coast, this

movement is brought about by the -
northern edge of the Gulf Stream

which periodical]
beyond the 200-mile limit.

The nutrient cycle is not, however,
the only important factor.

undulates just

Dr. Fournier says there is an

frowth.

Pavement research

Highway to nowhere may save money

“There is nothing quite
like it. If preliminat
studies are correct it wil
pay off tremendously,
determining optimum sub-

ade and pavement sur-
aces,”

The decision to develop
the track was based on
economics,

Saskatchewan has the
most extensive highway
network in Canada—12,000
miles at the end of 1976,
consisting of 4,000 miles of
pavement, 5,000 miles of oil-
treated highway and 3,000
miles of earth and gravel
road in the north.

SAVINGS CON-
SIDERABLE

It costs $13,000 a mile to
build a three-quarter-inch,
oil-treated road and $100,000
a mile for a two-lane paved
route. The life expectancy of
ail-treated roads withow
heavy maintenance is three
years, for pavement 15
years.

Harold Eley, the high-
ways department’s
materials testing engineer,
said that if by using the
track researchers -can
lengthen the life of highway
surfaces it will result in
annual savings’ of thousands
of dollars.

The track is designed to
enable four-feet-deep high-
way structures to be built
and tested inside the
building. Engineers will be
able to build five different
types of roadway within the
circle,

Environmental _—_ control
equipment will enable
researchers to simulate the
type of weather conditions
in which they want to test.
Infra-red heating devices
suspended from the ceiling
ean produce summer heat
while a sprinkler system
dictates when rain falls,
Two sections of the track
are underlaid with a copper-

considerably richer
shelf. This is because the mixing of
the two types of water at the front
promotes a condition which buoys
the plankton up and keeps it close to
the surface and the light it needs for -

oceanographic boundary just off the
edge of the continental shelf where
two different kinds of water meet.
This boundary is referred to as a
front and occurs in a narrow band
running parallel to the edge of the
shelf,

During the winter and spring this
narrow ban mn

d of perhaps 20 miles is
] an even the

pipe system that allows the
freck to be frozen.

Culley ‘said other
provincial
departments, universities
and private engineering
firms will be given the
opportunity to use the track,
probably at. cost. He
estimated it will cost ap-
Prone ately $30,000 to

0,000 to run a test.

By being able to get, for
example, 500,000 passes
over the track in a relatively
short time researchers hope
to observe the effects of
between five and 10 years’
highway use in as little as
two months,

Culley said the track Is the
only one of its kind'in North
America. No other test
tracks exist in Canada.
There are a number of
smaller-scale indoor tracks
and one Jarge outdeor track
in the United States.

highways |

brin
market.

tone.”

specialists, allows a person fo dial a phone
number and listen in through
telephone speaker.
“fhe phone never rings, but you have
taken control of the telephone 1]
can sit in your room and listen to ev-
erything that goes on in a house 5,000
miles away,” Creech said. Such units now
$2,000 to $10,000 on the black

the

e line and you

“When someone picks up the phone, you
merely release the line and he gets a dial

Such invasion of personal privacy is
frightening, Creech said, but it makes for

an exciting and rapidly growing business.

"This business is unlimited. I'll never
live to see it reach its potential.”

VOICE OF READERS|

Blind group
says thanks

From Monday, Oct, 3,
1977, to Saturday Oct. 8, the
Canadian National Institute
for the Blind conducted its
annual, and so far most
successful campaign for
funds in the Terrace area
under the excellent chair-
manship of Mr. Al Pur-

. scehke.

- As the representative of
the Canadian National
Institute for the Blind for the
Terrace area, I like to take
this opportunity to thank
past district governor of the
Lions Club, Al Pursehke for
taking such excellent care of
all the preparatory work
and the. members of the
Terrace lions clubs as well
as the members of the
Salvation Arm,y and the
many volunteers for con-
ducting the campaign for

this agency. Of course, a
special note of appreciation
goes to all the citizens of the
Terrace area and friends of
the CNIB whose con-
tributions helped to make
this campaign such an
outstanding success.

At the Canadian National
Institute for the Blind, we
shall sincerely try to prove
ourselves worthy of the trust
of this community by doing
our utmost in conducting
our prevention of blindness
program and also in
assisting our citizens who
had the misfortune to lose
their eyesight through
illness or accident by
providing then! with ad-
Justment and rehabilitation
training.

With sincere appreciation,

Fred Koalenz
District Administrator

More news on
School Board

There are three can-
didates seeking election as
Terrace trustees on our
local School Board but the
reporting of these important
positions in the November
19th elections has been
virtually ignored by you and
your staff. In your past four
issues, municipal council
elections have receive
headline reporting, anc
while I, as a member of the
community, appreciate
your extended coverage of
the municipal election and
feel it was a contributing
factor in increasing the
number of candidates, the
Same result could have
occured with equal
coverage of the School
Board elections and we
could Possibly have had a
desirable five candidates
rather than three, seeking
the two positions on the
Terrace School Board.

There is good reason not
to ignore the local School

Board during election time.

The Board operates. under a.;::
budget in excess of. eleyen,

million doHars, there are
5883 students enrolled in
twenty-one schools in the
Terrace School District, and
within the Municipality of
Terrace the Board is
probably the largest single
employer.

School Boards in B.C,
operate under the Public
Schools Act of the Govern-
ment of British Columbia.
School Boards administer
the school district budget
made up of local and
provincial funds, and are
responsible to their local
communities to provide the
best standard of education a
local community desires
and will support.

School Board elections are
too important to be ignored.
Sincerely,

Jayce Krause
Terrace Trustee
School District No. 88

Great new way to
get rid of pigeons

MILAN, Italy (AP) — —
City officials think they may
have found a formula for
ridding the downtown area
of pigeons.

After experiments’ with
contraceptives, bans or
tourists feeding the birds
and attempts to capture and

transfer them elsewhere, |

the experts have come up
with a chemical that gives
the piegons itchy feet. A
recent test of the British-
made product, Scarecrow,
on the cornices and eaves of
Milan’s Merchant Palace

' forced the pigeons to fly to

other roosts in the city.

Municipal experts said
several months will be
needed to extend ‘the
chemical campaign to other
sections and prove its ef-
fectiveness. Even then, they
say, other control metheds
will have to be combined
with the itchy feet,

The Merchant Palace ig
an artistic building a few
yards from the Gothic
Cathedral Square. It and
other monuments and

buildings in the city have

been subject to corrosion

from the droppings of the pi-

geons,

TERMED DANGEROUS
The number of pigeons in

Milan is estimated at 300,000

to 400,000 or one for every
four . inhabitants, a level
termed intolerable by city
officials both for the
monuments and for the
health of the people. °

Prof. Giorgio Persiani,
head of the. municipal
veterinarian office, salt
short-term effects of
Scarecrow proved good.

“Pigeons kept away from
the Merchant Palace after
the experiment wit

‘Scarecrow.’ If it also works —

in the longer term, we would
extend painting the
chemicals to all municipal
buildings and artistic monu-
ments,” he said.

He said a German-made
contraceptive for birds, to
be given once a year, and
massive capture of birds
and their transfer to distant
areas would be compulsory
and parallel choices.

“The German product is
especially good as it can be
given once a year, while
previous contraceptives
were needed every month,
mixed with eed."

Persiani said even
zoologists have by now
realized the need to reduce
the number of city pigeons,
although they prefer
“peaceiul” means.

Cea