Inventions, Discoveries, and Software Developments
Indiana University has knowledge and technological advances to pass along to
industry, the government, and even other schools and colleges. What follows
are a few examples of technologies that are now, or will soon have the
potential to be, used beyond the research centers and laboratories where they
are designed, developed, and tested.
Computer-Simulated Mechanical Ventilation
Patients who are critically ill very often cannot breathe for themselves and
are placed on machines that push air in and out of their lungs. The clinician
must decide among other critical decisions how big a breath the machine should
deliver and how frequently it should be delivered. William C. Burke, assistant
professor of respiratory therapy and director of clinical education, Division
of Medicine and School of Allied Health Sciences, IUPUI, has developed a
computer-simulated mechanical ventilation software program that allows the
user to input a variety of chosen ventilator settings in response to simulated
clinical pulmonary disease states. The program displays real-time wave forms
showing flow pattern, volume, air pressure, and alveolar pressure. By
examining the graphic output, users can interpret results of mechanical
ventilator settings on predetermined lung conditions. The program can be used
by the medical education field to teach respiration therapy to respiratory
therapists, nurses, and physicians in training.
Rape Awareness
Did you know that the average age of a woman being raped is sixteen to
twenty-four years old? That one out of four women will be sexually assaulted
in their lifetime? That most rapes are committed by acquaintances or dates?
Diane Ledger of the Office of Women's Affairs and Assistant Professor
Elizabeth Boling and her graduate students from the School of Education,
Indiana University Bloomington, have developed a software program that
describes specifically what rape is by providing these and other statistics,
facts, and references. The program tries to unravel myths about rapeÑfor
example, that the woman is a seductive individual asking to be raped. It is
intended for students from junior and senior high school and for college
freshmen and sophomores, and it may be used in groups to foster discussion or
by individuals to gain personal awareness about rape. Users also learn how to
avoid becoming potential targets for a rapist, to locate useful resources on
the topic of rape, and to find help in their communities, for themselves and
others, in the event of rape.
Utilizing Asbestos
Once seen as a fire-resistant miracle product, asbestos is now known to cause
health problems in cases of long-term exposure. Glenn Mason, assistant
professor of geography at Indiana University Southeast, however, has
discovered a process to not only render asbestos harmless, but make it
potentially useful. Modifying the structure of the material's crystals by
combining it with a mineral called trona can turn the potentially hazardous
waste into a synthetic mineral useful in road paving, construction aggregate,
and sand blasting. In 1993, the journal Environment Today named his
process one of the ten promising research and development efforts that could
change the face of pollution control.
An Analytic Marketing Tool
How do museum visitors evaluate their interactions with the technological
aspects of exhibits? What makes a woman choose a tampon versus a pad? Jean
Umiker-Sebeok, director of the Marketing Signs Research Division of the School
of Library and Information Sciences at Indiana University Bloomington, looks
for answers to these disparate topics with the help of a qualitative
analytical tool she has developed from the research areas of semiotics (the
science of signs and symbols), cognitive science, and consumer behavior
studies. SemioProbeSM is an effective way of revealing the emotional and
cultural codes underlying the objects, words, music, images, and other signs
consumers use to make sense of themselves and their world. Using an innovative
image schemata analysis that consists of semantic network analysis, action
network analysis, and value network analysis, SemioProbeSM delivers insight
into what a product or communication means to consumers at many levels of
experience, including the often overlooked emotional ones. This analytical
tool reveals why these meanings are being communicated and what it would take
to alter the product or communication to produce desired results. By working
down to people's core values and examining the metaphors they use, this kind
of image analysis also can help determine what new products a company might
wish to develop.
Breaking Cells
A group of researchers from the Department of Biology at Indiana University
Bloomington, Stefan J. Surzycki, associate professor of biology, Robert K.
Togasaki, professor of biology, and Masahiko Kitayama, a graduate studentÑhave
discovered a new method for breaking cells. They have designed an apparatus
that enables cells to be broken without destroying what is inside. It cannot
only efficiently break intact cells of bacteria, plants, yeast, and fungi
without heat generation, but the same device can randomly shear
double-stranded DNA into uniform fragments of chosen size. This unique
technology should be useful in large-scale DNA sequencing (determining the
sequential order in which DNA molecules are arranged), as well as for DNA
fingerprinting (for hospitals, clinics, and forensic laboratories).
Commercially, this technology will be useful because current methods, which
use enzymes for breaking cells, are quite expensive, whereas this apparatus
makes the process more cost effective, easier, and milder.
Quality Services for Long-Term Health Care
How do you make sure of the quality of in-home health care services (such as
homemaking, attendants for wheelchair services, etc.)? How do you make sure
that the clients like the people who are providing the services? And how do
you make sure the services that are being provided are appropriate for the
needs of the client? Eleanor D. Kinney, a professor of law at the School of
LawÑIndianapolis, John F. Fitzgerald, an associate professor of medicine at
the Department of Medicine; and Cynthia A. Loveland Cook and Jay A. Freedman,
from the Veterans Administration Medical Center on the Indianapolis campus
have teamed up with Tom Robison, from the Indiana Department of Family and
Human Services in Indianapolis to design two quality assurance strategies that
case managers can use on a laptop computer to assess the appropriateness of
services provided. An individual care plan is developed by matching the needs
of the client with the services paid for by the state and provided by the
community and the client's own family. The evaluation of services and the
feedback and communications between the providers and the clients have created
a client-oriented, community-based, long-term quality-care program that helps
control costs while making quality care available.
A Healthy Heart Yet
For the moment only mice have been used in the experiments, but the future
holds the possibility that humans can have a healthy heart muscle cell grafted
onto a diseased heart with no regenerative capacity. What does the feasibility
of this intracardiac grafting mean? Besides a less invasive alternative to
some types of conventional cardiac surgeries now performed, it also might have
potential for development as a "biological pacemaker." Loren Field, an
associate professor of medicine, physiology, and biophysics at the Krannert
Institute of Cardiology, School of Medicine, has developed models that may
provide a method for replacement of scarred, nonfunctional myocardium in a
diseased heart with viable, functional cells. He also believes this process
may reduce or eliminate the "border zone" between healthy and infarcted
myocardium, which is known to contribute to arrhythmias.
Quickly Dissipating Fog
Many scientific instruments need an aerosol produced from a small sample
solution. The aerosol is usually fed into a spray chamber, whose main function
is to eliminate the big droplets and keep the small droplets. The small
droplets can be transported more easily and more efficiently. In the past,
spray chambers required considerable time to clear up after spraying because
of the circulating fog. So Gary M. Hieftje, professor of chemistry, and Min
Wu, his former graduate student, have designed a spray chamber that will clear
the fog very fast, making it possible to run many more samples per hour.
Earlier systems required between two and five minutes to clear out, whereas
this new system requires only between two and five seconds to clear out, a
gain of fifty to sixty times the number of samples that can be run per hour.
The company that has licensed this technology will use it with a device called
a plasma emission spectrometer, which is used for elemental analysis. The
technology could be used for testing a number of solutions, for example, blood
serum, cerebral spinal fluid, forensic samples, geological samples,
pharmaceutical samples, and many more.
Technology Transfer Office
Much of this information in this article was provided by the
Technology
Transfer Office (TTO) at Indiana University Bloomington. TTO is
responsible for the development and implementation of technology transfer
policies and procedures for Indiana University and the protection of
intellectual property. Serving as a centralized contact, the TTO's objectives
are to stimulate the transfer or commercialization of intellectual property;
to facilitate development of industrial collaboration; to provide education,
resources, and assistance to IU faculty, students, and staff related to the
identity and protection of intellectual property; and to manage the
intellectual property and license portfolios. For more information, call (812)
855-7842.