8/9/2019 0807 Management

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/0807-management 1/2

By RACHEL DUFFnews@ColumbiaMissourian.com

In the equine veterinaryindustry, lameness in horseshas been assessed subjectivelyfor centuries, said Paul Schiltz,a veterinarian for Equine Medi-cal Services in Columbia. Eachvet has his or her own opinionabout what’s wrong with a horse— and they often disagree.

But Kevin Keegan, professorof veterinary medicine and sur-gery at MU, has a solution tothis problem with the technol-ogy he has created that is goingcommercial in the next coupleof weeks to months.

In the late 1990s, Keeganbegan working on the Lame-ness Locator with a simple goal:to develop an objective way ofdetecting lameness.

“Each practitioner says some-thing different when observing,so we need a way to teach ourstudents exactly what to lookat,” said Keegan, also directorof the E. Paige Laurie EndowedProgram in Equine Lamenessat MU.

Through a lameness evalu-ation performed by multiplevets, he found, for example, thatin looking at a horse’s frontlegs, these vets agreed only 25percent of the time.

Keegan then began observinghorses on treadmills and put-ting markers on their bodies torecord movements and transmit

them to a computer. He attend-ed MU engineering meetingsand developed rules and equa-tions to analyze the movements,pairing up with MU engineer

professor P. Frank Pai, who hasworked with airplane vibrationevaluations.

The Lameness Locator is aspinoff of Pai’s work with air-planes. The locator analyzesvibration damage to see wherethe horse’s movement is off,

Keegan said.But the invention wasn’t prac-

tical for other industry profes-sionals. It was then that Keeganbegan collaborating with Yoshi-haru Yonezawa, an electronicsengineering professor fromJapan, Keegan said.

Keegan and Yonezawa workedintensely on decreasing the sizeof the sensors and the numberof other instruments and wiresthey put on the horses to recordthe movements, he said.

One of the first steps was touse fewer sensors. Their previ-ous work showed they neededonly four markers to determine

the lameness: on the top of thehead, the right front leg, the topof the pelvis and the right hind

Thursday, August 7, 200850 cents

ESTABLISHED IN 1908  n  www.ColumbiaMissourian.com

INSIDE

An MU

professor

started

discussing sex in

his class early on. 

      H      E      A      D      L      I      N      E      S Outside today

This morning: Partly sunny.

Temp: 84°

This evening: Partly cloudy,

with north wind around 6 mph.

Temp: 64° Page 2A

Getting it rightThe Missourian’s policy is to check all local

stories for accuracy before publication. If

you are a source of information, and we

don’t double-check it with you, let us know.

If you spot a mistake, let us know that, too.

Call Tom Warhover at 573-882-5734.

Abby 4B

Calendar 2A

Classified 5B

Comics 4B

Life Stories 6A

Lottery 2A

Nation 8A

Opinion 5A

Second Front 6A

Sports 1B

Sudoku 4B

World 8A

Index Our 100th year/#328

2 sections

16 pages

6 54051 90850 3

columbia’s morning newspaper 

The final installment of a four-part series on the lives of female wrestlers. Read

the entire series online at ColumbiaMissourian.com.

4Physically gining sengh

part 

DREW SCHMENNER Writer    JENNIFER WHITNEY Photographer 

BROOKE FLETCHER/Missourian

Loni Taylor runs with American Thunder. The Lameness Locatormeasures acceleration and velocity at different points on ahorse’s body to help vets pinpoint problems.

 the scle is he fis oonen wesles mee. In ode o ge

o wh elly mes — he mches, he women mus mee

weigh, which cn be suggle in iself.

 Athletes wrestle

 with weight

mberlee Ebert is calm the day before the finalcollegiate wrestling meet of the season.

Her blue eyes are not glaring on this Fridayafternoon in mid-March. The Missouri Valley

College sophomore is not thinking about her rival, Okla-homa City University’s Ashley Sword. The 24-year-oldveteran, known as “Mama Sword,” dominated her onemonth earlier, but Ebert has shrugged off that match fornow. Her current opponent looms ahead of her.

The scale.

Ebert is not worried about making weight, but herteammate Samantha Fee is anxious. The light auburn-haired sophomore is minutes away from breakingher fast. She will soon face the five seconds that haveplagued her for the past week.

Fee and her teammates are weighing in for theWomen’s College Wrestling Association Women’s Col-lege Freestyle Nationals, the culmination of the women’scollegiate wrestling season, which started in Januaryfor Valley. Winners will be crowned in 10 weight classes

An official at the Women’s College Freestyle Nationals writes “59” in black marker on Missouri ValleyCollege wrestler Samantha Fee’s arm. Fifty-nine was Fee’s weight in kilograms at weigh-in.

Popularity 

of paper ballots up

City weighsbenefits of new system

Electronic ballotshave been ditchedfor fear of glitches.By ALLISON HOFFMANThe Associated Press

SAN DIEGO — ComeNovember, more Americansmight cast their ballots onpaper than in any other elec-tion in U.S. history.

That wasn’t supposed to hap-pen. If everything had goneaccording to the government’s$3 billion plan to upgrade vot-ing technology after the hang-ing-chad fiasco in Florida in

2000, that sentence would read“electronic machines” insteadof paper.

Instead, thousands of touch-screen devices are collect-ing dust inwarehousesfrom Cali-fornia toF l o r i d a ,where offi-cials wor-ried abouth a c k e r sand fed upwith techni-cal glitch-es haver e p l a c e dthe equip-ment withscanners that will read paperballots.

An Associated Press electionresearch survey has found that57 percent of the nation’s reg-istered voters live in countiesthat will be relying on paperballots this fall.

The number of registeredvoters in jurisdictions that willrely mainly on electronic vot-ing machines has fallen froma high of 44 percent during the2006 midterm elections to 36percent. Much of the rest ofthe electorate consists of vot-ers in New York state, who willbe using old-fashioned pull-lever machines.

Because of growth inthe electorate over the pastdecade, expansion of absenteevoting rules, and expectationsof high turnout for the contestbetween Barack Obama and

John McCain, some expertsare predicting a record num-ber of Americans will cast bal-lots on paper this year.

“More people will be usingcomputer-read paper ballotsthan at any other time in thenation’s history,” said KimballBrace, head of Election DataServices, a consulting firm.“As you get more registeredvoters and more people in thepool, it exacerbates this biggerissues of paper.”

In 2000, about 97 million reg-istered voters lived in countiesthat relied on some form ofpaper ballot, Brace said. Thatfigure is expected to top 100million this fall, according tothe AP data.

MU vet invents Lameness Locator to help treat injured horses

He will receive the PriestleyMedal for his work with boron.By JUSTIN MYERSnews@ColumbiaMissourian.com

An MU radiology professor has been selectedto receive the American Chemical Society’shighest honor for his contributions to under-

standing the chemistry of boron, the fifth ele-ment on the periodic table.

M. Frederick Hawthorne, who is also thedirector of MU’s International Institute of Nanoand Molecular Medicine, will receive the 2009Priestley Medal at the society’s semiannualnational meeting in March. The award is namedfor Joseph Priestley, who is credited with dis-covering oxygen.

Hawthorne is in good company; past Priest-ley recipients include Linus Pauling, who wona Nobel Prize for his work on chemical bonds,and Glenn Seaborg, another Nobel laureate wholed the team that discovered plutonium. Paulingalso won a Nobel Peace Prize.

“It (the Priestley Medal)’s the most importantaward one can get in the field of chemistryshort of a Nobel Prize,” Robert Churchill, MUradiology department chair, said.

Recipients are invited to deliver an address atthe meeting when they receive the award, and

The Community IssuesManagement system couldimprove resource allocation.By KOURTNEY GEERSnews@ColumbiaMissourian.com

Community leaders met Wednesday nightto gain a better grasp of “the major goal for2009” for the Columbia/Boone County HealthDepartment in the proposed fiscal 2009 bud-get.

The goal is not a simple one and required alecture-style crash course to understand theCommunity Issues Management system, alsoknown as CIM, the city is considering adoptingin order to improve its ability to use resourceswhere they can make the best impact.

The system was developed at MU’s campusby a group led by Christopher Fulcher, co-director of the Center for Applied Researchand Environmental Systems.

Four cities in the U.S. have found their ownuses for the complex, Web-based system thatallows various data to be aligned with mapsand sent representatives to Columbia to pres-ent some of CIM’s uses. Some of the uses theyhave found for the program include communi-ty development, improving community healthby understanding and assessing the socialand environmental factors that may affect thehealth of residents, and increasing the numberof tax returns for a targeted area.

“CIM provides public and nonprofit organi-zations and communities with facilitation tech-nologies that improve choice-making,” Fulcher

said in his presentation.The program is in use in Tucson, Ariz.;

Detroit; Lehigh Valley, Pa., and Charleston,S.C. The cities worked with organizations, such

MU professor to be honored

“It’s a new approach

to a very old problem.

Depending on theprice, I don’t know any 

lameness clinic that

 wouldn’t want one.”PAUL SCHILTZE

Veterinarian for Equine Medical Services

BY THE

NUMBERS

57: Percent of

voters that live in

an area relying on

paper ballots.

3 Billion: 

Dollars budgeted

for a government

plan to upgrade

voting technology.

Please see VOTING, page 3A

Please see HORSES, page 3A

Please see CHEMIST, page 3A

Please see WRESTLING, page 7A

Please see CIM, page 3A

Mexican-born killer put to death in Texas

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — Jose Medellin, a Mexican-born

condemned killer whose case drew international atten-

tion, has been executed over the objections of an

international court and the Mexican government, which

contended he was denied access to legal help from his

consulate. — The Associated Press

A

8/9/2019 0807 Management

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/0807-management 2/2

Columbia missourian THURSDAY, August 7, 2008 — Page 3A

The return to paper createsextra stress on an already-strapped election system.Cash-poor counties will haveto spend tens of millions ofdollars printing ballots. Vot-

ers, many of them first-timers,may wind up confused by theballot formats and frustratedby long lines of people waitingto use the scanners. And count-ing all the paper could hold upthe results of the election.

“After 2000, there was a wide-spread revulsion about paper— everyone had the mentalimage of the guy cross-eyedlooking at the punch-card bal-lot,” said Doug Chapin, direc-tor of the watchdog organiza-tion Electionline. “But there’sno silver bullet. You’re trad-ing one set of problems foranother.”

All states but Idaho havejunked the punch-card ballotsthat caused so much trouble inFlorida. But many plan to usepaper ballots that require vot-

ers to fill in ovals with a pen.The ballots are then read bydigital scanners.

Unlike touchscreens, papercan’t malfunction or be hackedinto. But it has to be printed,shipped and securely storedbefore and after Election Day.Counties already paying towarehouse electronic machineswill have to buy reams of cardstock, print extras in multiplelanguages, pay for deliveryand eventually destroy theunused ballots.

In counties that are on theirthird system in three presi-dential contests, officials areretraining workers in how touse the equipment and dem-onstrate it to voters. BrowardCounty, Fla., which was caught

in the punch-card maelstromin 2000, has produced guidesshowing voters how to feedtheir paper ballots into thescanners.

Other counties making theswitch, including some of Cali-

fornia’s largest, are planning tocollect ballots at polling placesand pay workers overtime tofeed them into industrial-sizescanners at central offices.

None of that is likely to pre-vent voters from making othersorts of mistakes, such as fill-ing in the wrong oval or usingthe wrong color pen.

“A lot of officials are in dam-age-control mode becausethey’re going to try to limitthe problems of switching topaper,” said Mike Alvarez, anexpert in voting technologyat Caltech in Pasadena. “Youwill have ballots not showingup, being printed wrong, thelitany of mistakes voters makewith these ballots, and thenthere’s incredible pressure ina crowded polling place for

people who are trying to make

their decision.”As Brace put it: “Paper is

traditionally the device thatthe public is really good atscrewing up.”

In 2000, about 61 percentof registered voters lived in

counties that relied on someform of paper ballot, whetherpunch-cards or fill-in-the-ovalforms, according to ElectionData Systems. Only 13 percentof voters lived in counties thatused touchscreens or other e-voting devices; the rest usedpull-lever machines.

With fewer than 100 daysuntil Nov. 4, the first concernfor many election officials ismaking sure they will be ableto get all their ballots printedbetween the time the national,state and local slates have beenselected and Election Day.

California, the nation’s big-gest electoral prize with morethan 16 million people regis-tered to vote, abruptly outlawedmost electronic machines lastsummer, creating a potential

crunch in the highly special-ized ballot-printing industry.San Diego contracted with aWashington state companyafter local businesses saidthey couldn’t produce the 3.5million extra ballots in thetwo-month window.

Many paper ballots maywind up in the shredder.

Last week, Ohio’s secretaryof state ordered all 53 countiesusing electronic machines toprint paper ballots to accom-modate voters in Novemberwho opt out of e-voting. A simi-lar order during the primaryresulted in the pulping of morethan a million unused ballotsafter only 14,484 voters askedfor them.

 Voting: Offcas woy baotswtch w caus xta stss

Chemist: Pofsso wants to xpandcanc tatmnt to dffnt tumos

leg. A year ago, they stoppedusing the locator on the righthind leg because it was trans-mitting the same informationreceived from the right frontleg, Keegan said.

The equipment, now wire-less, measures the accelera-tion of the head and pelvis andthe angular velocity of thefront leg. If they’re sound, thedata looks like a symmetricalsine wave, and if they’re not,Keegan and Yonezawa mea-sure the shape of the signal.A lame horse has a disruption

in the shape, Keegan said. Afrequency analysis, which pin-points the location of the lame-ness, is performed.

With the Lameness Locatorready to go for a wider mar-ket, Keegan needed funding.He started a business calledEquinosis and got a license. His

company raised money fromAngel Investors in Columbia,and production will begin inthe coming months with 100units this year for vets acrossthe country, Keegan said. Aprice has not yet been set.

“I’ve been impressed,” saidSchiltz. “It’s a new approach toa very old problem. Dependingon the price, I don’t know anylameness clinic that wouldn’twant one.”

Schiltz said it will benefit vetswhen they’re observing subtlelameness that isn’t visible bysimply looking at the horses.

He said that because lamenessis a specialty in equine vets,another big advantage is thatvets who don’t look at lamenessevery day could have a wayto evaluate the horses withoutrelying solely on their experi-ence. It would also be a greatteaching tool, Schiltz said.

Tom DiSalvo, co-owner ofthe thoroughbred racehorseAmerican Thunder, didn’t knowabout the Lameness Locatorbefore bringing his horse tothe MU Equine Clinic fromIllinois, and he is impressed.

“I think the system is great,”said DiSalvo. “It helps Dr.Keegan focus on the problemand save time in diagnosing.”

It will also help vets locatemultiple problems that mighthave been overshadowed by anobvious lameness in anotherarea, Schiltz said. All of thelameness will be shown at the

same time, he said.“It would be useful for anyvet practice that deals withlameness, but the limiting fac-tor will be the cost of the equip-ment,” Schiltz said. “I think it’ssuch an applicable program thatI would be able to justify buyingit even if it’s not cheap.”

BROOKE FLETCHER/Missourian

Loni Taylor places one of three sensors on Goldie. The sensors transmit information used todetermine lameness in a horse before symptoms are present.

Horses: Too sas ts’ tmCONTINUED from page 1A

CONTINUED from page 1A

Hawthorne said he’s alreadythinking of what to say.

“I want to use this as a meansto explain to the people outthere the unique properties atMU,” he said.

He cited MU’s emphasis oncollaboration, which he callsan “unusual and very favorablesituation in which to accom-plish new and difficult researchgoals.”

“You just don’t find it betterthan this,” he said.

Hawthorne’s colleaguesdescribe his personality aswarmly as they do his accom-plishments.

“He’s one of the most enthu-siastic, upbeat, curious peopleyou’ll ever talk to,” Churchillsaid.

Calvin Lewis, an under-graduate student who works inHawthorne’s research group,described him in an e-mail as“an outstanding role model.”

“Because of Dr. Hawthorne’skind heart, he gave me thechance of a lifetime,” Lewissaid.

Most of Hawthorne’s workhas focused on the basic chem-istry and applications of boron,

which he said was “a relativelyunknown element” when hestarted his career.

Hawthorne said the elementcan be used to make all kinds ofsmall structures and devices,including molecular motors,which he called “really kindof cute and possibly useful inmany ways.”

Another use of boron thatinterests Hawthorne is a typeof cancer treatment known asboron neutron capture ther-apy.

In this treatment, boron atomsare brought into cancer cellsbut not into healthy cells. Theboron atoms split apart and killthe cancer cells when exposedto neutrons — subatomic par-ticles found in the nucleus ofan atom.

Hawthorne didn’t haveaccess to a suitable source ofneutrons, though, until afterhe came to MU and such asource was built at its researchreactor.

Hawthorne said he has highhopes for the treatment, whichso far has mainly been studiedfor use with brain tumors, to beused in other parts of the body.

“One of my main purposes in

being here is to open up boronneutron capture therapy toapply it to all sorts of tumors,”he said.

Eventually, Hawthorne said,he hopes to commercialize thetechnology.

“I would like to see this hap-pen in Columbia and the state ofMissouri,” he said.

Hawthorne arrived at MU in2006 after spending 44 yearsin the University of CaliforniaSystem, where he taught atthe Riverside and Los Angeles

campuses.Before he lived in Califor-

nia, he went to school in Kan-sas and Missouri. He went tohigh school in Rolla and studiedchemical engineering for threeyears at Missouri University ofScience and Technology, whichwas then known as the Mis-souri School of Mines and Met-allurgy.

“This is also like cominghome, in a way,” Hawthornesaid.

Hawthorne said he hasreceived more than 100 e-mailscongratulating him since theaward was announced.

“It was and still is very excit-ing,” he said.

as the United Way and otherhuman service groups, to applyCIM data to improve commu-nity services. This is similar tothe prospective plan for Colum-bia.

Stephanie Browning, directorof the Columbia/Boone CountyHealth Department, said theabout $75,000 system has yetto be purchased by the city butwould be covered by an infra-structure grant from the Mis-souri Foundation for Health.

Some in attendance askedabout the practicality of such asystem for the average personand about how much time usingthe program would require ofstaff.

“Our challenge is to makeit really understanding for thefolks in our community so theycan use this tool in a uniqueway and make a difference intheir community,” said DanDuncan, senior vice presidentof external relations with Unit-ed Way of Tucson and Southern

Arizona.For now, however, the rep-

resentatives from the citiesare focusing on sharing theirknowledge over the course ofthree days of discussion.

“For us, it’s not just where weput money, it’s how we engageresidents and the communityto get results,” Duncan said.“We really absolutely need tolearn from each other how todo that — it’s a key componentof CIM.”

CIM: Systm woud cost $75,000;cost woud b cod by gant

CONTINUED from page 1A

“You will have ballots

not showing up, being 

printed wrong, the litany 

of mistakes voters make

 with these ballots, and

then there’s incredible

pressure in a crowded

polling place for people

 who are trying to make

their decision.”

Mike AlvArezexpert in voting technology at Caltech

CONTINUED from page 1A