Positive Technology Journal

Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS) 

Applications are invited for a three-week summer workshop that will be held in Frankfurt, Germany from Saturday, August 4 to Sunday, August 26, 2007.

The application deadline is Monday, April 30.

IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng. 2007 Mar;15(1):9-15

Authors: Hauschild M, Davoodi R, Loeb GE

Building and testing novel prosthetic limbs and control algorithms for functional electrical stimulation (FES) is expensive and risky. Here, we describe a virtual reality environment (VRE) to facilitate and accelerate the development of novel systems. In the VRE, subjects/patients can operate a simulated limb to interact with virtual objects. Realistic models of all relevant musculoskeletal and mechatronic components allow the development of entire prosthetic systems in VR before introducing them to the patient. The system is used both by engineers as a development tool and by clinicians to fit prosthetic devices to patients.

Graphical tactile displays for visually-impaired people.

IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng. 2007 Mar;15(1):119-30

Authors: Vidal-Verdú F, Hafez M

New technologies and concepts for rehabilitation in the acute phase of stroke: a collaborative matrix.

Neurodegener Dis. 2007;4(1):57-69

Authors: Siekierka EM, Eng K, Bassetti C, Blickenstorfer A, Cameirao MS, Dietz V, Duff A, Erol F, Ettlin T, Hermann DM, Keller T, Keisker B, Kesselring J, Kleiser R, Kollias S, Kool JP, Kurre A, Mangold S, Nef T, Pyk P, Riener R, Schuster C, Tosi F, Verschure PF, Zimmerli L

The process of developing a successful stroke rehabilitation methodology requires four key components: a good understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying this brain disease, clear neuroscientific hypotheses to guide therapy, adequate clinical assessments of its efficacy on multiple timescales, and a systematic approach to the application of modern technologies to assist in the everyday work of therapists. Achieving this goal requires collaboration between neuroscientists, technologists and clinicians to develop well-founded systems and clinical protocols that are able to provide quantitatively validated improvements in patient rehabilitation outcomes. In this article we present three new applications of complementary technologies developed in an interdisciplinary matrix for acute-phase upper limb stroke rehabilitation - functional electrical stimulation, arm robot-assisted therapy and virtual reality-based cognitive therapy. We also outline the neuroscientific basis of our approach, present our detailed clinical assessment protocol and provide preliminary results from patient testing of each of the three systems showing their viability for patient use. Copyright (c) 2007 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Virtual reality in mental health: A review of the literature.

Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol. 2007 Mar 12;

Authors: Gregg L, Tarrier N

BACKGROUND: Several virtual reality (VR) applications for the understanding, assessment and treatment of mental health problems have been developed in the last 10 years. The purpose of this review is to outline the current state of virtual reality research in the treatment of mental health problems. METHODS: PubMed and PsycINFO were searched for all articles containing the words "virtual reality". In addition a manual search of the references contained in the papers resulting from this search was conducted and relevant periodicals were searched. Studies reporting the results of treatment utilizing VR in the mental health field and involving at least one patient were identified. RESULTS: More than 50 studies using VR were identified, the majority of which were case studies. Seventeen employed a between groups design: 4 involved patients with fear of flying; 3 involved patients with fear of heights; 3 involved patients with social phobia/public speaking anxiety; 2 involved people with spider phobia; 2 involved patients with agoraphobia; 2 involved patients with body image disturbance and 1 involved obese patients. There are both advantages in terms of delivery and disadvantages in terms of side effects to using VR. Although virtual reality based therapy appears to be superior to no treatment the effectiveness of VR therapy over traditional therapeutic approaches is not supported by the research currently available. CONCLUSIONS: There is a lack of good quality research on the effectiveness of VR therapy. Before clinicians will be able to make effective use of this emerging technology greater emphasis must be placed on controlled trials with clinically identified populations.

Preliminary study on force feedback of acupuncture in virtual reality based on the visible human

Zhongguo Yi Liao Qi Xie Za Zhi. 2007 Jan;31(1):5-9

Authors: Cheng Z, Wang HS, Min YJ, Yan ZG, Hong ZT, Zhuang TG

This paper discusses the application of virtual reality technology in the 3-D visible human body and acupuncture research. Based on the 3-D visible human fused with the localization information and hierarchy of acupoints, the paper analyzes the force against the needle and haptic rendering during the needle manipulation according to the physical properties of different tissues. A haptic model is constructed to demonstrate the force behaviors during acupuncture, and the force will be produced and passed to the manipulator by a force feedback device. It enriches the contents of 3-D visible human project, provides a dynamic simulation instrument for acupuncture teaching, and supplies a platform for acupuncture research.

Via Medgadget

From the Press Release: InfraScan Announces First Patients Enroll in Clinical Trial in Brain Hematoma Detection (PDF)

The application of eye-tracking technology in the study of autism.

J Physiol. 2007 Apr 12;

Authors: Boraston ZL, Blakemore SJ

For over three decades, eye-tracking has been used to investigate looking behaviour in the normal population. Recent studies have extended its use to individuals with disorders on the autism spectrum. Such studies typically focus on the processing of socially salient stimuli. In this review, we discuss the potential for this technique to reveal the strategies adopted by individuals with high-functioning autism when processing social information. We suggest that eye-tracking techniques have the potential to offer insight into the downstream difficulties in everyday social interaction which such individuals experience.

From Networked Performance

Center for Global Studies (Academy of Sciences and Charles University), International Centre for Art and New Technologies (CIANT) and Prague Biennale 3 invite you to send proposals for Glocal & Outsiders, the conference on the interplay between art, culture and technology and issues of globalization and international cooperation (part of the Prague Biennale 3): Prague, July 13-14, 2007.

Read full post on NP 

Effects of meditation on frontal alpha-asymmetry in previously suicidal individuals.

Neuroreport. 2007 May 7;18(7):709-12

Authors: Barnhofer T, Duggan D, Crane C, Hepburn S, Fennell MJ, Williams JM

This study investigated the effects of a meditation-based treatment for preventing relapse to depression, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), on prefrontal alpha-asymmetry in resting electroencephalogram (EEG), a biological indicator of affective style. Twenty-two individuals with a previous history of suicidal depression were randomly assigned to either MBCT (N=10) or treatment-as-usual (TAU, N=12). Resting electroencephalogram was measured before and after an 8-week course of treatment. The TAU group showed a significant deterioration toward decreased relative left-frontal activation, indexing decreases in positive affective style, while there was no significant change in the MBCT group. The findings suggest that MBCT can help individuals at high risk for suicidal depression to retain a balanced pattern of baseline emotion-related brain activation.

Re-blogged from KurzweilAI.net

The University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Central Florida plan to combine AI, advanced graphics and video game-type technology to enable creation of historical archives of people.

The UIC's Electronic Visualization Laboratory will build a state-of-the-art motion-capture studio to digitize the image and movements of real people, who will go on to live a virtual eternity in virtual reality. Knowledge will be archived into databases. Voices will be analyzed to create synthesized but natural-sounding "virtual" voices. Mannerisms will be studied and used in creating the 3-D avatars.

The team hopes to create virtual people who respond with a high degree of recognition to different voices and the various ways questions are phrased . 

ScientificAmerican.com, April 4, 2007

Researchers in Greece have developed a new system that converts video into virtual, touchable maps for the blind.

The software tracks each structure and determines its shape and location. That data is used to create a three-dimensional grid of force fields for each structure.

Read the full article on Sciam

Classification of motor imagery by means of cortical current density estimation and Von Neumann entropy.

J Neural Eng. 2007 Jun;4(2):17-25

Authors: Kamousi B, Amini AN, He B

The goal of the present study is to employ the source imaging methods such as cortical current density estimation for the classification of left- and right-hand motor imagery tasks, which may be used for brain-computer interface (BCI) applications. The scalp recorded EEG was first preprocessed by surface Laplacian filtering, time-frequency filtering, noise normalization and independent component analysis. Then the cortical imaging technique was used to solve the EEG inverse problem. Cortical current density distributions of left and right trials were classified from each other by exploiting the concept of Von Neumann entropy. The proposed method was tested on three human subjects (180 trials each) and a maximum accuracy of 91.5% and an average accuracy of 88% were obtained. The present results confirm the hypothesis that source analysis methods may improve accuracy for classification of motor imagery tasks. The present promising results using source analysis for classification of motor imagery enhances our ability of performing source analysis from single trial EEG data recorded on the scalp, and may have applications to improved BCI systems.

Via Usability News 

Call for Papers: International Journal of Human-Computer Studies Special Issue on Mobility: Understanding Mobile Use and Users

Via Usability News 

This Special issue of the Journal of Computers in Human Behavior is a consequence of a UbiComp 06 workshop and looks at understanding crucial design issues of incoming scenarios of pervasive networked systems for elderly people

Via Usability News

From Networked Performance

Via pasta & vinegar 

An article in The Economist about brain-controlled devices and games.

From the article:

At the moment, EEG's uses are mostly medical. Though the output of the electrodes is a set of crude brain waves, enough is now known about the healthy patterns of these waves for changes in them to be used to diagnose unhealthy abnormalities. Yet, because parts of a person's grey matter exhibit increased electric activity when they respond to stimuli or prepare for movements, there has always been the lingering hope that EEG might also manifest someone's thoughts in a machine-readable form that could be used for everyday purposes.

To realise that hope means solving two problems—one of hardware and one of software. The hardware problem is that existing EEG requires a helmet with as many as 120 electrodes in it, and that these electrodes have to be affixed to the scalp with a gel. The software problem is that many different types of brain waves have to be interpreted simultaneously and instantly. That is no mean computing task.

Via Pasta & Vinegar

An Intel Chief Technology Officer predicts that within five years we “could use gesture recognition to get rid of the remote control” and “drive demand for its important new generation of semiconductors, the superprocessors known as teraflop chips, which Intel previewed in February”

virtual reality 1.0 was a bust. The hype was too loud, computers were too slow, networking was too complicated, and because of motion-sickness issues that were never quite resolved, the whole VR experience was, frankly, somewhat nauseating.
(…)
VR 2.0, enhanced by motion capture, is different in many critical ways. Most important, the first batch of applications, such as the Wii, while still primitive, are easy to use, inexpensive, and hard to crash. You don’t get anything close to a fully sense-surround experience, but neither do you feel sick after you put down the wand. The games are simple and intuitive
(…)
system enables a presenter to take audiences on a tour of a 3D architectural design or on a fly-through of a model city. And the presenter’s measured theatrics make a big impression. “Everyone’s looking for the new, sexy way to communicate with their employees and their clients. We’re selling their ability to sell,”