This blog has been transferred!

Hello guys:). I've transferred this blog to 52brian.com( a brain science community). Unfortunately, contents from now on will be only written in English.

See you there:).

If gfw in China unblocks Google Blogger, I'd be back.

Robot suit-one form of cyborg

Robot suit is a suit with mechanical devices which can assist people's daily work especially for the disabled.

Person who devotes himself to the industry of robot suit should has a deep understanding of electrical engineering and automation（电气工程与自动化）as opposed to electrical and information engineering(电子信息工程）which mainly focuses computer hardware. The latter could build nano scale robots（with automation tech) called Nano-Electromechanical System, NEMS, 纳机电系统).

One commercialized product of robot suit is called "Hybrid Assistive Limb"(HAL). It has 3 forms - the upper part(the body), the lower part(the leg), and the whole body. Different form could be used for specific purposes like weight carrying and walk assistance.

If the price could be lowered, HAL and robot suit will be popular like today's computer. I guess it needs 20-30 years for this day to come.

Narco Analysis, Compusense and BPS certification

1.Narco Analysis
In criminal psychology, these exists one area which uses so-called truth drug to elicit true answer from criminals. And administration of such drugs are called narco analysis( narco analysis method of interrogation, in chinese it's called"
麻醉分析讯问法"）
. For more info, go to wikipedia.

2.Compusense sense labratory solution
According to one job description at 51job, Compusense is a commercial software needed while establishing labratories of taste. In google scholar, I've found no psychological researcher with compusense specialty. Interesting.

3.BPS certification
British Psychological Society may be as large as the renowned American Psychological Association. It has a variety of certifications of psychological assessments(level A, level B).Among psychological best practices, SHL specialises psychological assessment. In fact, SHL is a UK-based company. So this fact tells me that if you want to join SHL, you must first get certification from BPS. It's the same to engineering psychology and user centered design. Human Factors International(HFI) is a best practice in this field and it business is mainly focused on certification and training.

Google's Adsense and Psycholinguistics

Adsense is one of google's profitable tools. Its tech is based on Applied Semantics acquired（Chinese：收购） by Google in 2003. Applied Semantics uses a tech called CIRCA(patented information maybe seen at here and here). In its tech's introduction, it tells it's based on Cognitive Psychologist George Miller's Wordnet. This person may be called the founder or key role in modern cognitive perspective to human psy. His main contribution is in language and semantics(psycholinguistics, which uses cognitive perspective to study language).
Today, Wordnet has been used widely in Natural Language Processing(NLP). Other important resources for NLP(English) maybe British National Corpus. As for Chinese, it's Penn Treebank Project. Tks for Alex00zee at douban for directions.


This phenomenon is very surprising cauz google's horizon on science from several cutting edge and well flourished scientific disciplines. Why not to study the spread of science and decide your next M&A(merge and acquisition, in fact large companies often buys tech advanced small companies to keep their competence)?

Next phase, I will cover human 2.0 and one of google's geek ambition: technology singularity, transhumanism.

Indeed, with NBIC convergence and neuroengineering(neuroinformatics), I feel I've become a transhumanist. Maybe one day I'll join transhumanism.org.

Long time no see friends:)

I'm coming back. Currently I've proposed a neuroengineering salon in Shanghai. Welcome to join.

Today we'll talked about two areas:
1.Psychoacoustic modeling:
Google.org.cn (in Chinese) has reported that some employees of G thought it was useful to let browser understand user's request verbally. So they used a technique called psychoacoustic modeling. It reminded me the important field of sensory psychology. Excluding vision science, there exists such scientific area which models acoustic phenomena. It's very exciting!!

2.Psychological Assessment Best Practice:
In business domain, a best practice may be refered to Fortune 500. And what dominates their personnel recruiting process is a service based on psychological testing. I've found some top consulting MNC(multinational company) and investment bank using performence test offered by a company called SHL. Interestingly, its scientific board director is former chair of one committee of British Psychological Society(BPS).
Mckinsey also uses top educational testing service called "Mckinsey Caselets" offered by ETS which creats God Red English(GRE, graduate record examination).It's interesting since I've never realised the popularity and high end application of psychological testing and assessment among top companies.

Robot solves puzzles with Nokia N95 camera

乐高机器人（乐高这个著名的模型制造商有可能是高端机械发烧友的主要供应商）、机器视觉（N95手机）、问题解决（人工智能）、还有一个莫名的ARM架构。

Robot solves puzzles with Nokia N95 camera.

Seems very interesting.



http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTQ5NzQxODAw.html

About vocal DOD tech：A summary

Vocal DOD tech means using vocal analyser to analyse psychological factors of sound including tone, loudness, musical quality.

According to wiki, vocal analyser DOD tech is named "Voice Stress Analysis" or specifically "Layered Voice Test"(also from wiki). It is mainly used in airports and some insurance companies to detect lying. However, Deception blog has lots of articles indicating it doesn't work.

Unfortunately, I haven't found any other test equipments so famous like polygraph to analyse sound's psychfactor and detect lies. But we do see Lock("Lie to Me") used unfamiliar device to decompose subject's voice. What's that? I guess it won't be voice stress analysis software "X13-VSA".

Anyway, consulting expert might be a better choice. I've found one in Chine. Her name is Cuiling Zhang and her book(in Chinese) has lots of details of vocal lie detection esp. in Chapter 2.

Quirkology: Fun and Elevator

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTI4MzQyMTQw.html


Detailed information is here.
http://www.thefuntheory.com/

BCI X prize

X prize foundation is a non-profit organization which promote technology innovation including commercial space flight capsule.

Now it has established a Brain Computer Interface X prize to promote BCI and maybe larger distributive human machine interface.

More could be seen below.

http://singularityhub.com/2010/01/21/igniting-a-brain-computer-interface-revolution-bci-x-prize/

&

Igniting a Brain-Computer Interface Revolution – BCI X PRIZE

Barack Obama and Psychology

Honestly speaking Obama is a president full of different working styles when compared to former US presidents (at least I think so).

One I believe is his choice of psychology application to a lately established(? see below) government section called Consumer Financial Protection Agency( CFPA) to help US recover from 2009 great depression. Insterestingly I've not found it at US gov website. However, US Chamber of Commerce has established a website to tell mass "STOP the CFPA".

Whatever, this department has an origin deeply rooted in psychology with Nobel Laureate Kahneman's research at the intersection between psychology and economics. It's called behavioral economics in economics or decision making in experimental psychology. And thanks to Kahneman's collaborator Sunstein, a law professor once in Chicago with B. Obama, this field has been introduced to US government.

Further information could be read at websites listed below:

1. http://www.douban.com/subject/3541320/ (the book "Nudge")
   
2. http://www.douban.com/subject/4022709/ (the book "Nudge" Chinese)
   
3. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124545477468032915.html(WSJ)
4. http://chn.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2009/06/24/20090624000030.html (Chinese introduction)
   

Cold spring harbour asia conference center

Suzhou

Cold Spring Harbor Asia conferences will be held at Suzhou Dushu Lake Conference Center in Suzhou, China, sixty miles west of Shanghai and in easy reach of international and domestic airports. Suzhou is an ancient city known as the Venice of China, famous for its canals and private gardens and home to scholars for more than two millenia. Symposia, conferences and summer schools follow the Cold Spring Harbor tradition in showcasing merit-based scientific advances in an informal but intense atmosphere.

To encourage participation by significant international participation from throughout Asia, Europe and the Americas, the language of all programs will be English.

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And this place intends to cooperate with Shanghai neuroscience insitute, Chinese academy of sciences according to MumingPU at here（Chinese）

What's Neurotech?

I created this blog about 1 year ago, and today it's almost one year(01/31/09-01/23/10, GMT+8). Cauz this anniversary, I've recently read about IC(Intelligence Community)'s report on neurotech from emerging cognitive neuroscience(uploaded in Google group) and will tell readers briefly what neurotech will cover according to it.

The report offered a complete framework on cognitive neuroscience fields including:

-Detection of deception tech with the help of neuroimaging

-Neuroimaging systems with real time brain activity measurement and implications for coaching and mind control esp. for military purpose

-Neuropsychopharmacology and nanobiomedicine tech to develop enhancers like cognitive, affective and sensory

-Computational biological models and artificial intelligence which work hard to replicate "mind" outside human body

-Distributed human machine system
-Brain computer interface
-Cyborg which means part of human body (usually motor system) is replaced by machine
-Cognitive Cyborg which means part of human advanced brain function is replaced
-Intelligent robot assistant

And within those tech, drug enhancers and distributed human machine system are predicted to be closest to reality and maybe societal change.

Neuroengineering institute in China

Neuroengineering is the subfield of biomedical engineering. It seems more related to NBIC and Psychology.

Here is the list without institute ranking information:

1.Tianjin Neural Engineering Research Center, TNERC
2.Institute of Neural Engineering, TsingHua University
3.Research Center of Neural Engineering, Shenzheng Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
4.Wuhan Insitute of Neuroscience & Neuroengineering, South Central University of Nationalities
5.Research Center of Neuroscience & Neuroengineering, Shanghai Jiaotong University Med-X Institute

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East China Normal University also has an institute named nbic.ecnu.edu.cn(only a mail server, but offers a lot).

Can monkeys help your investment?

Quote "This article mainly focuses on the debate on monkey's investment ability and its anecdotes. I've sent it to my friends in finance department but no reply, and to 52brain.com neuroeconomics forum also no rely. What's wrong? The research made by psychologist is interesting and it may cover such topics like the book "Nudge" & behavioral portfolio (company) by famous decision making research scientist Thaler. Huge gap, huh?"

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In "Quirkology", prof. Richard Wiseman mentioned two famous/infamous psychological experiment about monkey like portfolio on stocks. In both two experiments, one invested by a little girl via picking up scraps of paper and another by a champzine called Aula(in Chinese edition, "奥拉") via dart throwing, so called random selections beat financial professionals.

I was surprised at that time. How could this happen? As I know, financial professionals use logical/statistical mathematical tools analyse the stock information and gain market insights. Among them, Black-Scholes Option Pricing model may be the most widely used one. And this field is not magic but has a formal academic name called "Econophysics"(see this book in Chinese). In this industry, Renaissance hedge fund may be the most famous company based on such models and gain great market success as well. Most of its employees are mathematical graduates from top US universities(however they lack Wall Street working background, and Wall Street is the famous place where top financial companies locate). They call themselves "Quants"(in Chinese 宽客）(see this book in Chinese).

Based on these facts, I think it isn't possible for them (those who use rigid mathematical models like Renaissance, not those in Wall Street) to lose. As for those in Wall street, indeed, Wall Street Journal established a contest between random selection of stocks and those financial professionals from 1988 to 2002. It is to respond prof. Burton Malkiel's "A Random Walk Down Wall Street". The contest ended without delaration of any winner. More details can be found here and here. The 14 contest's outcome seems interesting (the graph can be found here).

Though professionals beat the "monkeys" (dart selection), the percentages they outperform over them aren't larger enough.

I hope these words will help readers and myself as well:). For more info, pls google for keywords
"飞镖选股法", "darts portfolio" and "monkey business".

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Term explanation

- In English, monkey business originally means fraud business like Bernard Madoff but here it is really made by monkeys or random dart throwing.

In movie: Nano-robot

About 2 months ago I watched a movie: G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (in chinese: 特种部队：眼镜蛇的崛起). I was impressed by the weapon which crimes use to destroy Paris (exactly Eiffel Tower）in just 10 seconds (time in the movie). Which sci-fi weapon has this kind of power? Maybe it's nano-robot. These guys are self reproducible and if without any control, like after n times of self reproduction all guys will detroy themselves, they will soon ruin earth (not only the surface). Gezhi.org has an interesting article on "how to use nano-robot to destroy earth"(in chinese). It mentioned a movie at here ( http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/23426 ). Watch it(from youtube)! It's amazing.

Below is a sci-fi snapshot of nano-robot by artist Adam Baines. Imaging this guy come into your brain, will it be OK?

http://www.321design.com.cn/blog/attachments/month_0912/i20091215111917.jpg

Neural prosthesis and neural engineering

In medicine there are two ways to save people's lives. One is medicine which uses drug to cure without any damage of human body. The other is surgery which uses invasive operation.

Thus we can divide neural scientific applications into those two ways.

Biomedical engineering has a subfield called neural prosthesis, neural regeneration, or neural restoration.(in chinese:神经修复）

Two important techs of neural prosthesis, cyborg( BCI or HMI ) and brain function enhancement drugs, are very similar to them. The former belongs to surgery, and the latter belongs to medicine.

I guess as for some molecule level, surgical operations will be useless because biostructure is too small. But at cell level, it seems both ways are OK. For larger biostructure, surgical operations will take its role. Am I right? Pls tell me your opinion. It would be highly appreciated.

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If disabled people use BCI they get cured. If normal people get it they become cyborg or human v2.0.

If psychiatric patient and those who have brain function disorder get enhancement drugs they get cured. If normal get them they become (no formal term) "superman"?

From patient to normal, neural prosthesis becomes neural engineering.

Psychosocialpharmacology

Almost every stakeholder in today's scientific community know science itself should be unique which probably means beneath its cover there may be found one structure which can explain or unite all relevant concepts or theories. The example in physics may be "string theory".

But in completely different sciences such as social psychology which studies human behavior in social situations and pharmacology a so-called natural science or biological science, history tells us there was a wide gap. Now a Chinese scholar tries to narrow it by exclaiming a new discipline he calls "psychosocialpharmacology".

Chinese information could be retrieved here. His and his colleague's paper about it has been accepted by at least one journal "British Journal of Pharmacology" (in pubmed).

Positive Neuroscience awards

Maybe friends who go abroad knows Templeton foundation, which put money into essential questions like "Can evolution explain human nature?"

Today it suddenly comes to me the idea "Positive Neuroscience". When I google it, interestingly I find U. of Pennsylvania and Templeton foundation have established a award for innovative research in the intersection between positive psychology (which give insights about human positive mental function like happiness) and neuroscience.

Science had a report about it.

Submission of research has reached the deadline (Sep. 30, 2009). What a pity:).

Maybe it will become another research trend of psychological research or NBIC related topics.

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或许出国的朋友都很清楚，美国的Templeton基金会是专门投资研究某些深奥哲学问题（或本质问题）的一个著名组织。例如进化能解释人类本性吗？

今天突然想到积极神经科学这个词，网上一搜。很巧，就在今年8月份，宾夕法尼亚大学建立了Templeton积极神经科学奖，用于鼓励神经科学与积极心理学的交叉研究。

Science对它做了报道。

很可惜，我查到的时候该奖项已经停止了申请（该链接在大陆已被墙。。。）。




各位群里研究积极心理学的朋友，请多和神经科学家交流。这会是下一个热潮吗？

“纳米机器人面面观”与“机器视觉”

howstaffworks.com is a world leading DIY website. It can be frequently seen in douban as website recommendations.

Its chinese version (science.bowenwang.com.cn) offers a lot about advanced techs. Recently I saw two of them related to Brain Science.

One talks about nano machine by Jonathan Strickland. As in everyday experience, robots have some human like functions such as manufacturing, moving. So it has already been used at least in auto manufacture industry. Nano robot uses nano tech to produce robot that can reproduce itself using resources from the enviroment, like virus, and can move or repair some microstructures in human body, like cell. Most importantly, it can also be navigated/controlled using tracking tech like MRI outside human body.

However, what kind of material this little robot is made of is still unknown as I know. Possibly it is made by nano silicon tech or synthetic biology tech. Both have the chance to revolutionize what we call human. If you have played game Metal Gear Solid(TM) 4, you will see nano robots' function. In it, soldiers are controlled by it and become emotional modifiable, cognitive enchanced, and psychotelepathy among a group of soldiers because of communication ablity between nano robots.

Another article talks about computer vision. Here I will not cover the details because I don't know much about it. This tech may be useful in neuroscience/psychology simulation. Computerized human sense is the next frontier in computational neuroscience. Today's neurosciences related to cognitive function, and those done by neuroscientists, mostly cover topics like vision, memory. In engineering, those field will soon become computer X like topics.

【转载】美科学家首次成功遥控机械昆虫飞行

source:http://www.sciencenet.cn/htmlnews/2009/10/224133.shtm

据国外媒体报道，一个由美国五角大楼资助的机械昆虫研发项目的测试日前取得成功，在科学家当中引发了浓厚的兴趣。

美国加州大学伯克利分校的开发人员对“机械甲虫”的测试取得了成功。视频片段显示，一名男子通过笔记本电脑，遥控甲虫在房间到处“飞行”。它一度被拴在透明塑料板上，微小的肢体随操作人员的操纵杆不断颤动。开发人员迈克尔·马哈尔比兹 (Michel Maharbiz)和佐藤隆(Hirotaka Sato)在接受最新一期《神经科学前沿》杂志采访时说：“我们通过一个安装有无线电的可植入微型神经刺激系统，演示了对昆虫自由飞行的遥控。”

据英国谢菲尔德大学机器人技术和人工智能学教授诺埃尔·萨基(Noel Sharkey)介绍，尽管控制诸如蟑螂等昆虫的尝试并不是什么新鲜事，但这却是研究人员首次成功遥控飞行昆虫。最令他好奇的是，加州大学伯克利分校的研究最终将应用于军事领域。据悉，开发人员在甲虫处于蛹期生长阶段时向其植入电极。

萨基教授表示：“之所以这样做，是因为我们对纳米技术已有了更深入的了解，可以制作出能让我们做到这一点的微型探测器。将电子装置植入其神经系统控制肌肉，当它飞行时，如果你多给左侧的肌肉施以更多力量，它的飞行就会变得困难起来，这可以让你控制它的飞行方向。”

加州大学伯克利分校的研究团队使用的甲虫来自喀麦隆，有人手掌那么大，这让萨基迷惑不解。他说：“电子装置太重，小甲虫就无法携带其飞行。他们可以遥控甲虫的肌肉，但甲虫其实不能飞起来，我不太清楚他们是如何做的。我们谈论的是飞机或飞机模型等飞行物体的有效载荷，即它停留在空中时所能携带的有效载荷。”

“既然有了这些大个昆虫，他们就可以将电子仪器植入它的身上。例如，由于这项研究将应用于军事领域，它必须要携带GPS接收器和发射器，以便他们可以辨别飞虫所在的方位。”萨基还介绍说，如果没有安装适当镜头的摄像机，“机械甲虫”并不能顺利完成侦察任务。他说：“按照当前法律规定，使用这种装置法完全不合法。其他的用途还包括携带某种化学和生化武器，所以，个人可以从事暗杀活动了。”

加州大学伯克利分校的研究团队在研究报告中写道，机械甲虫可以充当“小型飞行器”的有用模板。资助这项研究的美国国防高级研究计划局(DARPA)一直在研制纳米飞行器(NAV)。据国防高级研究计划局的官方网站介绍，纳米飞行器超小、超轻，长不足7.5厘米，重不到10克，“将为战斗人员提供史无前例的城市任务行动能力”。

加州大学伯克利分校的科学家表示，机械甲虫本身能“充当人员或陆上机器人不易靠近的地点的向导”。除了甲虫，他们还在研究苍蝇、飞蛾、蜻蜓，因为“它们都具有无与伦比的飞行能力，以及人们了解越来越深入的肌肉和神经系统”。萨基教授承认，这种概念变成现实或许还需要10年或20年的时间。

他笑着说：“这确实是令人毛骨悚然的家伙。我现在还能笑得出来，但这的确是一种危险的工具。还记得怀特兄弟吗？在很多喜剧电影中，当怀特兄弟尝试驾驶飞机飞行时，每一个人都嘲笑他们。现在，机械甲虫就处于这个阶段。”无论美国五角大楼的无人机舰队最终是否会装备昆虫发射或侦察飞行器，加州大学伯克利分校的研究都会增加我们对飞行的理解。萨基说：“揭示昆虫飞行动力学和生物力学之谜大有裨益。相比于军方，科学家从中获取的知识和经验会更多。”

更多阅读

英国广播公司相关报道（英文）

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Comments:

Early this year, MIT technology review made biological robot as its 2009 ten major technologies（www.neurosociety.co.cc/2009/02/mit-2009.html ）. Luckily, at the end of this year, this tech advances and comes into say for civil use, though some may think it has already been used in DARPA sponsered projects for military use.

I think this animal brain-machine interface is readable-writable. The future of it is awesome. As far as I know, most BMI techs of human are read only and those writable tech also can't be used in the cell level. So its pragmatic use is limited: for disabled and for playing games. However, implantable BMI for human，say Libra DBS like devices, may be of great use.

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本博客评论尝试使用英文写作，练练英文啊：）