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：）