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Dummies
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particpate
in impact
research
By SUSAN BARTO
While the University certainly can be
proud of its alumni, churning out dum-
mies seems a more lucrative business
lately.'
The University Transportation
'Research Institute recently garnered a
($550,000 federal contract to develop
'automobile crash test dummies to be
used in future impact studies.
CRASH-TEST dummies, technically
'known as anthropomorphic test devices
'tATDs) are human-like dolls resear-
chers use to measure the effects on
humans of impact in car crashes.
Researchers use various restrain
systems - harnesses, padded vests,
cushioned dashboards and others -
and study the results when the car con-
taining the dummy hits a barrier at
specific speeds.
The dummies are built to be
"repeatable, reproduceable, and able
to be calibrated, said project director
John Melvin. "They should do the same
thing under the same conditions every
time."
FOR THE past ten years, car safety
has been tested using a "Part 572
Dummy," named affectionately after its
own reference in the United States Code
of Federal Registration. Though well
liked, Part 572 has been eclipsed by
technology.
"He has a chest that doesn't deform,
and a neck that doesn't move," Melvin
said of Part 572. "Researchers need a
dummy with 'biofidelity,' a term coined
to represent biomechanical respon-
siveness."
To meet the new research demands,
Melvin will adorn the new dummy -
called AATD for (you guessed it) Ad-
vanced Anthropomorphic Test Device
- with flexible joints, especially in the
neck, and will have more human-like
responses.
MELVIN SAID particular attention
will be paid to making the bones the
correct weight in proportion to the
heavier, softer tissues of the body.
To study lacerations-of the face, the
dummy will have a head of animal skin
or vinyl.
The Michigan Daily - Friday, October 7, 1983--Page 5
National drinking age proposed
WASHINGTON (UPI) - Transpor-
tation Secretary Elizabeth Dole said
yesterday she favors raising the legal
drinking age to 21 as part of a coor-
dinated effort to reduce drunken
driving and increase highway safety.
In a speech to the American
Automobile Association, Dole called for
"The beginning of a new and massive
crusade" to reduce traffic deaths.
"Make no mistake about it,
Americans today have declared war on
the drunk driver," she said. "It's a war
we don't intend to fight with rubber
bullets or mere words of outrage."
Dole said alcohol-related auto ac-
cidents are the leading cause of deaths
among young people.
Blanchard
stresses
team effort
(Continued from Page 1)
"Today, I am calling on all of the
people of Michigan to rally to the cause
of Michigan's future - to help us move
Michigan ahead - to build and to
rebuild a competitive Michigan - to
work together for a future of jobs for
people, growth for our businesses and
security for all our citizens."
Blanchard said he will announce this
month "a proposal for our welfare
system that can turn welfare spending
into workfare investment."
Regulatory changes were promised,
including securities reforms to make it
easier to raise private capital, help for
franchisors interested in coming to
Michigan and efforts to streamline
worker's compensation.
Correction
A story in yesterday's Daily
erroneously stated that two University
Security officers were allegedly
assaulted last Wednesday. The incident
actually occurred on Tuesday.
"I wholeheartedly support your effor-
ts to raise the minimum legal drinking
age in all states to 21," she said.
The secretary did not comment
specifically on proposals before
Congress to set a national drinking age
of 21, an idea opposed by some on
state's rights grounds.'
Nineteen states have set 21 as the
minimum legal age for drinking any
alcohol, including spirits, wine and
beer. In all, 26 states prohibit selling
hard liquor to those under 21. There are
proposals in several states to raise
present age limits.
Dole also said she wants to make
organizational changes at the Tran-
sportation Department to promote
safety and to coordinate with state and
private efforts.
"I plan to establish a separate
National Traffic Safety Ad-
ministration," she said. "This is nota
-mere shuffling of the boxes on some
federal organization charts. We are, in
fact, elevating safety to a level con-
sistent with its importance while sim-.
plifying the organizational structure."
Any such proposal would have to be ap-
proved by Congress.
"Our goal is to improve the effec-
tiveness of the safety mission by in-
tegrating closely safety activities,"
Dole said. "Such consolidation will also
make it easier for non-federal
organizations, such as your own, to deal
with the department on issues that are
literally of life and death importance."
Mom=
Daily rnovo Dy Jt-E HRIER :
John Melvin, project director of the Universities Transportation Research
Institute, displays one of the dummies used in impact testing.
Melvin said the institute has only
decided what the outside of the dummy
will look like. It must still, in conjun-
ction with the subcontractor Wayne
State University, assemble the
specifications of how it should behave,
design the body to give it human-like
responses, and determine how to produce
it economically and repeatably.
IT WILL THEN be sent to the plant
for mass-production. The entire project
will take about five years, Melvin said.
He said the dummy can cost
anywhere from $20,000 for General
Motors' "Hybrid #3" which is used only
for private testing to $8,000 for the basic
Part 572.
To keep the price of the AATD down,
manufacturers will offer baseline
dummies and dummies with all the op-
tions. One such option will be a com-
puter which gives the dummy the
ability to record data inside itself
(that's no dummy).
BUT THE basic doll is described as a
50th-percentile adult male. This means
it is structured to resemble an average
male human. It weighs approximatley
160 pounds and is five feet nine inches
tall.
Even though there is a historical
tradition of male-based data for con-
structing dummies, there are female
and child dummies available, Melvin
said.
Dummies range from "5th percentile
small female to the 95th percentile
large male."
THOUGH cosmetics are a low
priority, the dummies do have a right to
some vanity. When they appear in
educational films, for example, they
get to wear nice clothes and wigs. For
testing they just wear long underwear
so they will slide on the seat as a person
in street clothes would.
East Lansing SPECIAL
After the Game Relax and Enjoy
"The Ultimate HOT TUB Adventure" at
CLEARWATER SPA
Open 'til3 AM Sat.
This Ad Will Save Wolverines
$2.00
Phone Corner Grove & Linden
517-332-6318 (near Dooley's)
. I
Students ignorant of 'U'
bud
(Continued from Page 1)
added that the University should "absol-
utely" communicate with students
directly, not through the media.
Communicating to students directly
"shouldn't be part of any specific plan,
but it should be coordinated into their
operating budget," said Kolb.
ACCORDING to administrators,
however, communication through local
publications such as the Daily, The
University Record, The Ann Arbor
News and even Detroit media has been
sufficient and even excessive. Direct
mailings would not be worth the costs
and would also be "unnessary and apt
to be ineffective," said Billy Frye, the
SUniversity's vice president for
academic affairs and provost.
h When told that few students were
aware of what is happening, Frye
responded, "Pardon me while I go into
hysteria," noting the great attention
given to the subject in the local press.
The opportunities for students to learn
about the reviews were "enormous,"
but students have to take the initiative
to be informed, he said.
"IT'S ABSOLUTELY incredible, not
,so much that students wouldn't know
(about the five-year plan), but that they
Swould imply that it is the University's
;responsibility to inform them," Frye
F> said.
In the past year, Frye has spoken at
three forums on the budget cuts spon-
sored by, faculty and students at which
student attendance was sparse.
It isn't clear whether students are
Ignorant of the five-year plan because
they are apathetic or because the Un-
iversity has failed to inform them, said
LSA junior Piers Lewis.
"I DON'T KNOW which is a bigger
factor or if one is caused by the other. I
don't know which is the root, but
(ignorance) has definitely set in," said
Lewis, a member of the activist
Progressive Student Network.
Since February 1982, when the five-
year plan was introduced, the ad-
ministration has reallocated about $9.5
million of the University's $300 million
general fund budget.
Three schools are undergoing exten-
sive reductions:
* The School of Education is losing 40
percent of its budget, including 30
faculty members;
" The School of Natural Resources will
lose 25 percent and nine professors and;
'The School of Art is being cut by 18
percent losing 11 faculty positions.
"LETTING students know is bad
publicity for the school," said Shari
Lynn, a senior in LSA. If the University
wrote students letters about the cuts, it
would discourage potential applicants,
explained Lynn.
"Ideally they should be honest, but
practically they can't," she said.
But even if the University directly
notified students, would they care?
"The same students who don't read
newspapers are probably the same
people who won't read their mail
anyway," said Art School Dean George
Bayliss.
"IT SEEMS impossible to me that an
intelligent student wouldn't know
what's going on, but then again, I'm
continually amazed," he said.
Students in the art school were in-
formed about the cuts since the reviews
started through a mass meeting in the
school, Bayliss said. Similar com-
munication was initiated by the deans
of education and natural resources.
Bayliss still says he hasn't the "fain-
test idea" why the art school was
chosen to be reviewed.
"Some still believe that there was
something arbitrary and capricious
about the way things were run,"
Bayliss said.
STUDENT critics of the budget plan,
however, say the reasons certain
schools were chosen for budget cuts are
clear: To decrease emphasis on the
humanities and turn the University into
a haven for high technology.
Meetings of the influential Budget
Priorities Committee (BPC) which
made recommendations on cuts to
schools were closed to the public.
Mary Ann Swain, former chair-
woman of the BPC who now works in
Frye's office, said she isn't sure better
communication with students is
necessary.
"IT'S CLEAR there are many mem-
bers of the University community who
aren't as informed as they'd like to be,"
she said. But she added that direct
mailings are expensive and the reports
are available in the library.
"The BPC would welcome
suggestions of better ways to get infor-
mation out," she said.
Asking for student participation is in-
sincere, said Tom Mendelsohn, a mem-
ber of the Michigan Student Assembly.
"ADMINISTRATORS don't really
want student input, they only say they
do as a political safeguard," he said.
Appointing a few token student
1 l'
Iget cuts
representatives on committees is not a
sincere commitment, he said.
What speaks louder is the ad-
ministration's silence in failing to
communicate directly with students,
Mendelsohn said.
"If they want this to be a University
community and not an impersonal in-
stitution they are really going to have to
beef up communication," he said.
New -medical
adminisftrator-
nominated
(Continued from Page 1)
He also will be expected to bring
about improved communication, coor-
dination, and cooperation between the
medical school and the hospitals in
what Hospital Executive Director Jep-
tha Dalston described yesterday as
'uncertain and perilous times.'
Harrison joined the Stanford faculty
in 1963 after receiving his medical
degree from the University of Alabama
in 1958.
Harrison's secretary at Stanford said
he was on vacation and could not be
reached for comment.
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