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Her AI Arm

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楼主
发表于 7-2-2024 14:40:43 | 只看该作者 |只看大图 回帖奖励 |倒序浏览 |阅读模式
The story focuses on a middle-aged London woman named Sarah de Lagarde. She is obviously very petite (refer to a photo in (2)), but I do not know how a person can fall through a gap between a platform and a train. Though Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) warns about it so that when a passenger board or leave the train, one should not step into the gap.

On further research, the London Underground is different from MBTA. In the latter, the gap is about three inches, the train floor is on par with the platform (on the same level with platform), and the undersurface of a train is very low (so that one can not duck under a train to survive). The gap in London Underground can be a foot wide or more, which is not uniform throughout a train at a train station, and train floor is high (higher than the platform). See
(a) Mind the gap
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_the_gap
, whose photo 1 shows train floor is high relative to a platform, and photo 2 (showing the gap with varying widths) has the caption: "The Central line platform at Bank station with a 1-foot (30 cm) gap between the train and the platform edge."
(b) Tom Edwards, Minding the Gap: 'It's a Scandal, It's a Death Trap.' BBC, May 3, 2024
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckv7kge48z4o
has photo 2 with a caption: "A train gap at Ealing Broadway."
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沙发
 楼主| 发表于 7-2-2024 14:41:07 | 只看该作者
(1) Sarah de Lagarde's Story. London Air Ambulance Charity, Apr 9, 2024.
https://www.londonsairambulance. ... h-de-lagardes-story

Note:
(a)
(i) Compare Christine Lagarde
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Lagarde
(1956- ; President of the European Central Bank 2019- ; Managing Director of IMF 2011-2019; "She graduated from Paris Nanterre University, where she obtained master's degrees in English, labour law, and social law.[20][21] She also holds a master's degree from the Institut d'études politiques in Aix-en-Provence")

These are the highest degrees she obtained (with which she started out as an attorney); she did not get a PhD (or JD).
(ii) The French surname Lagarde (not de Lagarde) is from place "name from Lagarde or La Garde names of several places in various parts of France named in Old French with garde 'watch protection' (see panother French surname] Garde)."
(iii) (Modern) French-English dictionary:
* garde (noun masculine or feminine from context; plural gardes): "watch, guard"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/garde
   ^ The English noun or verb guard came from Middle English garde. (Middle English was what People in England spoke following the 1066 Conquest.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/guard

(b) "Sarah was on the tracks for 15 minutes before the alarm was raised." Another report about her said that after fifteen minutes someone finally heard her cries and looked down.
(c) London's Air Ambulance Charity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London%27s_Air_Ambulance_Charity
("The charity was founded in 1989 by General Surgeon Dr Richard Earlam in response to a report by the Royal College of Surgeons, which documented cases of patients dying unnecessarily because of the delay in receiving prompt and appropriate medical care. The charity was the first in the UK to carry a senior doctor in addition to a paramedic at all times on a helicopter, introducing a system that reduces the death rate in severe trauma by 30–40%")
(i) Richard John Earlam (1934 - 2016) was a consultant general surgeon at the Royal London Hospital. You see, "general surgeon" is not a title (so should not be capitalized as Wiki does), but a surgeon who performs general surgery.
(ii) London's Air Ambulance Charity relies on donation for its annual budget of about 15 million pounds. Its service is free.
(iii) Andrew Smart, How Much Does an Air Ambulance Call Out Cost in the UK?  Telegraph & Argus, Feb 19, 2024.
https://www.thetelegraphandargus ... lance-call-cost-uk/
(A) Telegraph & Argus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegraph_%26_Argus
(section 2 History: name)
(B) Argus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argus
is a name in Greek mythology.
(C) A&E
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%26E
(may refer to "Accident and emergency, a term for a hospital's emergency department")
, which is what we in the United States call ER (emergency room).
(d) Royal London Hospital
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_London_Hospital
(1740- ; table: Affiliated with  "Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry[, Queen Mary University of London, a constituent college of the federal University of London]")
(e) "During rehab at the amputee unit in Lambeth"
(i) That is Lambeth Community Care Centre- Amputee Rehabilitation Unit (whose address is Monkton Street, Lambeth, London, SE11 4TX). AccessABLE (Your Accssibility Guide), undated.
https://www.accessable.co.uk/guy ... rehabilitation-unit
(ii) Lambeth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambeth
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板凳
 楼主| 发表于 7-2-2024 14:45:45 | 只看该作者
本帖最后由 choi 于 7-7-2024 12:34 编辑

(2) Adam Satariano, She Learned How to Use Her Prosthetic Limb, and It Learned from Her. An intricate AI hand performs everyday tasks. New York Times, July 2, 2024, at page B5 (B is Business section; published online on May 26, 2024).
https://www.nytimes.com/card/202 ... y/ai-prosthetic-arm

Four consecutive paragraphs:

"Before being fitted with her prosthetic last year, a process that requires taking a cast of her remaining limb, Ms. de Lagarde spent months visiting a London clinic to help train the software that would eventually power her arm.

"With electrodes attached to the end of her remaining limb, near her shoulder, technicians told her to think about making basic movements like turning a door handle or pinching her fingers.

"The process triggered her muscles as if her arm was still there and provided data to teach her prosthetic how to react when she made certain actions or gestures.

" '[before] It would take me like 10 seconds and a lot of brain power to complete a movement like opening my hand,' she said. 'Now I just open up the hand and I realize I didn't even think about it.'

Note:
(a) "Her AI Arm" was the online title of the NYT article.
(b) The photo at the bottom appeared in the online, but not print, article. Other photos will not help you understand the Covvi hand. So I do not upload them. Go read (3) instead.

----------------------------NYT
Sarah de Lagarde’s arm is heavy. It has to be charged at least once a day. When the weather is hot, it becomes sweaty and uncomfortable. It connects just below her shoulder and will never function as the one she once had.

But the more she uses it, the better its software gets at predicting what she’s trying to accomplish. Her arm is powered in part by artificial intelligence.

As prosthetics become more sophisticated, a form of A.I. known as machine learning is teaching bionic limbs how to learn. They can understand patterns and make predictions from past behavior. Arms and hands have become more dexterous, more subtle, more lifelike.

After losing her right arm in a subway accident two years ago, Ms. de Lagarde connected with makers of some of the world’s most advanced prosthetics.  

Now, when Ms. de Lagarde, 45, moves, sensors embedded in her right arm track muscle movements and send a signal to her hand to perform the job — making morning coffee, straightening her hair or snuggling with her daughter.

It’s a far cry from her former life, but the prosthetic has provided her with capabilities that may have been gone forever.

A.I. is seeping further into fields like health care. While many researchers have raised alarms about A.I.’s risks, other experts said those concerns must be weighed against the technology’s potential to improve lives.

“When we get the opportunity to show people A.I. that is truly assistive for helping somebody, that’s positive,” said Blair Lock, a founder of Coapt, which made the machine learning software used in Ms. de Lagarde’s arm.

Ms. de Lagarde, a corporate affairs executive at an investment firm in London, was rushing to a train in September 2022 when she slipped and fell through a gap between the platform and the train.

Just a month earlier, she had hiked Mount Kilimanjaro with her husband. “I had thought I was invincible,” she said.

For 15 horrifying minutes, she was stuck on the tracks undetected. Two trains ran over her.

She survived, but her right arm and the lower portion of her right leg had to be amputated.

Before being fitted with her prosthetic last year, a process that requires taking a cast of her remaining limb, Ms. de Lagarde spent months visiting a London clinic to help train the software that would eventually power her arm.

With electrodes attached to the end of her remaining limb, near her shoulder, technicians told her to think about making basic movements like turning a door handle or pinching her fingers.

The process triggered her muscles as if her arm was still there and provided data to teach her prosthetic how to react when she made certain actions or gestures.

“It would take me like 10 seconds and a lot of brain power to complete a movement like opening my hand,” she said. “Now I just open up the hand and I realize I didn’t even think about it.”

Simon Pollard, the chief executive of Covvi, the British company that makes the hand used by Ms. de Lagarde, said her prosthesis points to further advancements to come.

But the prosthetics are not cheap. The arm, elbow, hand and A.I. software for Ms. de Lagarde were made by separate companies. A full arm like Ms. de Lagarde’s can cost more than 150,000 pounds, or about $190,000. She paid for it in part with donations raised through a crowdfunding campaign. Covvi donated the hand, and Ms. de Lagarde now does some ambassador work for the company.

The technology is not perfect. Ms. de Lagarde said the design of the prosthetic seems more oriented for men. The weight sometimes causes her shoulder and back to hurt. There is also no tactile function to help her feel what she touches. She has dropped her phone several times after forgetting that she was holding it in her right hand.

“Every day, there is a moment where I think, ‘Ooh my gosh, I miss my arm so much,’” she said. “It makes you realize, as sophisticated as this is, our bodies are incredible.”

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4#
 楼主| 发表于 7-2-2024 14:46:12 | 只看该作者
(3)
(a) Covii, Ltd, a specialist on upper arm (it does not deal with lower limb, which does not require exquisite functions as hands do), makes the arm at issue.
(b) There is no peer-reviewed medical report on Covii products.
(c) Here is a recent video from the firm, lasting more than nine minutes.

The COVVI Hand; An overview of the world's leading bionic hand. Covvi, Feb 13, 2024.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd79yoccTE8

(d) Here is a sales brochure from the firm.

Sales Brochure; The Covii hand. Covii, undated
https://www.covvi.com/wp-content ... les-Brochure-UK.pdf
, whose page 3 states, "COVVI is a portmanteau of the Latin 'Coperor' and 'Vita’ 'translating as 'working together [co-]' and 'life'[, respectively]."  Elsewhere in the website, it states that two v's means plural (in the firm's thinking, definitely NOT Latin grammar --indicating working together to improve MANY lives).

at page 12: "To keep hands up to date with the latest features, we offer quarterly software updates which can be done remotely without the need for the hand to come back to our office."
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