Weekly QUEST Discussion Topics
Aug 19, 2011
1.) Topic one is to continue the brainstorming session on the open source layered
sensing simulation model (BURKA lab experiment) and its potential use as the sys2
cognition engine for a quest agent. Last week we suggested emphasizing a Knowledge
engineering video analysis application twist:
a. Modify Current KEVA / VIRAT Capability:
i. Index, track, relocate objects of interest in stored and new
still and streaming imagery
We want to extend the discussion to a potential to investigate the use of a VIRAT like
technology (activity recognition in streaming or stored video). The sorts of questions we
would want the BURKA lab QUEST agent solution to answer: Finding an OOI at various
size and aspect angles – once an OOI has been chosen you can start a series of link
generations (what frames is it in, what entities is it associated with – situation based
analysis, on multiple soda straws simultaneously…) What road is it on – how did it
get there – are there other cars ‘associated’ with it – did it stop anywhere? Find it
where ever it is in a stored data set – also extract the ‘situations’ that define those
located data sets. In a VIRAT like environment how can we take a relatively fragile
description of an activity and make it a more robust representation. This discussion
led us down the path of why generate the simulation (except when needed for the
humans involved in the quest solution to get insight into the computer quest agent’s
representation). There were a series of emails that we would like to review on opinions
on generation of the simulation – why or why not generate it and how to use it?
Hopefully Mike Young, Brian Tsou and Scott Weir will provide their views and Capt
Amerika will then present his view of how the sys2 ‘simulation’ provides the context to
construct situations. The Capt Amerika view will include a short discussion on ‘filling in’
and philosophical issues and implications on ‘simulations’. As a reminder we are using
the word simulation in a unique way – we are not talking strictly about running in the
background a program to compare alternative outcomes based on proposed action. We
are suggesting that an internal representation that is composed of both measured and
inferred data is used, that is what we call the sys2 illusory representation = qualia =
simulation, is used to reason with to deliberate with. The word simulation is used to
emphasize the point that we aren’t creating a sensor data blackboard and then
reasoning off of that. The implication of the inferred data to provide context is key and
thus the word simulation. Capt Amerika will propose a multiresolution Burka
experiment where conflicts between the simulation and the observations at coarse
resolutions can drive exploitation resources and when those conflicts don’t exists we
can avoid expending those exploitation resources and potentially not drown in that
data. A simple WAMI test case will be discussed. Also we would like to return to our
prior discussions on blindsight – the reason being is it provides us insight into sys1 and
sys2 representation of visual data – similarly there is the analogous issue of ‘numbsense’
in the somatosensory channel.
2.) Topic two when we eventually get to it is the recent Sci Amer ‘Mind’ issue July 2011,
a word doc with some snippets from some of the articles can be provided to stimulate
discussion.
News Articles
1. Car sleep detectors
http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/38366/?p1=A3
Manufacturers are testing a brain-wave-sensing system that sounds an alarm
when it detects sleepiness…Several leading carmakers are exploring whether
sensors built into the driver's headrest can tell if he or she is too drowsy to drive
safely, based on the pattern of electrical activity in the brain…Fatigue causes
more than 100,000 crashes and 40,000 injuries, and around 1,550 deaths, per
year in the United States, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration. Some studies suggest drowsiness is involved in 20 to 25 percent
of all crashes on monotonous stretches of road…brain-sensing hardware comes
from NeuroSky, a company based in San Jose, California, which makes basic
electroencephalography (EEG) headsets and chips for various applications
including computer gaming, interactive films, sports training, and market
research. Whereas current EEG headset sensors must touch the scalp or skin to
pick up the brain's weak electrical signals, NeuroSky say its latest sensors can
operate through fabric, such as the outer layer of a vehicle's headrest…
2. Cyber Defense Sharing of Information
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=7416591&c=AME&s=TOP
U.S. Defense Department is moving forward with a program intended to increase
sharing with industry of classified and sensitive data about cyberattacks…threemonth pilot program - the Defense Industrial Base Cyber Pilot - has "stopped
hundreds of attempted intrusions,"… program will be extended beyond its
original end date of Sept. 30. About 20 companies initially volunteered to
participate in the pilot program. "In the coming months, we will expand the pilot
to the rest of the industrial base, as well as other key areas of critical
infrastructure,"… In addition to thwarting attacks against contractors, DoD says it
has identified strings of malware used by hackers. That information was
incorporated into DoD network defenses and shared with companies
participating in the pilot…
3. Crowd sourcing for travel
http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/travel/crowd-sourcing-for-traveladvice.html?ref=technology
my favorite vacation spots, several have one vital thing in common: they were
suggested by friends…no surprise that travelers tend to trust the advice of
people they know. Now, several new travel sites are trying to put those
inclinations to use by allowing travelers to use social media sites for targeted trip
advice…Take Gogobot.com and Afar.com, which both made their debuts last
year. Each allows users to post specific questions about upcoming vacations to
both Facebook friends and users of the sites…Gtrot.com, which focuses on users’
immediate network of Facebook contacts, operates on the premise that 10
recommendations from friends you trust are better than 100 suggestions from
people you don’t know…AFAR.COM An interactive extension of the travel
magazine with the same name, this social networking site offers personalized
recommendations from travelers, locals who share your interests, and editors
and writers at Afar…initial travel personality quiz is designed to connect you
with people with similar tastes…filled out a profile with a Facebook-like layout
that allowed me to post previous trip highlights with photos and ask questions
about my coming trip. The site sends your queries only to members who are
familiar with the destination at issueA nifty feature aggregates previous
recommendations from members and automatically files them under a tab with
the name of the city right above your question, allowing you to find extra tips
easily…GOGOBOT.COM This trip-planning site also taps your social networks
(Facebook and Twitter) for advice, but provides a few added layers. Unlike Afar,
it will supply photos, phone numbers and addresses, if available, for the
recommendations users make. It also includes tools to help you build a working
itinerary that you can adjust as you go…Gogobot can also sync with Foursquare
and Facebook so your public check-ins on those sites show up on your Gogobot
profile as well…GTROT.COM Essentially a travel companion to Facebook, Gtrot
was created by Harvard students in 2009 as a way for college students to keep
track of friends while on school break. Now anyone can link their Facebook
accounts to the site to share their travel plans, find out who they know in the
destination they are visiting and get travel advice…Also, because Gtrot
determines which friends may have advice on a place based on what they make
public in their Facebook profiles, not all of my family members who have been to
Quito showed up as potential resources…
4. Imaging for cardiac risk
http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/08/16/tests.picture.heart.attack/index.html
?hpt=hp_t2
Most heart attacks strike with no warning, but doctors now have a clearer
picture than ever before of who is most likely to have one…relatively new
imaging tests give real-time pictures showing whether plaque is building up in
key blood vessels, alerting doctor and patient to an increased risk of a
potentially deadly heart attack…coronary calcium scan, which looks at plaque in
the arteries leading to the heart. Plaque in these arteries is a red flag for a
potential heart attack…other imaging test Agatston recommends is an
ultrasound of the carotid artery, looking at plaque in the main blood vessel
leading to the brain. Plaque in the carotid artery is a sign of increased risk for a
heart attack and stroke…Both tests are non-invasive and outpatient, although
the calcium scan does expose the patient to the equivalent of several months of
normal background radiation…One large federally funded study found the
coronary calcium score a better predictor of coronary events like a heart attack
than the traditional Framingham Risk Score, which considers age, cigarette
smoking, blood pressure, total cholesterol and HDL, the "good"
cholesterol…Most hospitals now offer the imaging tests, some at less than $100
for both, and they are often covered by insurance…Cardiologists now generally
use the calcium scan only for patients considered at intermediate risk for heart
disease, determined by traditional measures such as cholesterol, blood pressure,
lifestyle and family history…High-risk patients already receive such aggressive
treatment as cholesterol-lowering statin medication…good candidate for a
coronary calcium scan, she says, would be a 50-year-old man with slightly
elevated cholesterol and a father who had a heart attack…third test Agatston
likes: a $65 blood test that looks at a patient's LDL, or bad cholesterol. LDL
particles come in different sizes, and patients with a lot of small-particle LDL are
more likely to build up plaque in their blood vessels…"One of the best-kept
secrets in the country in medicine is the doctors who are practicing aggressive
prevention are really seeing heart attacks and strokes disappear from their
practices. It's doable,..
5. Cancer’s secrets
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/16/health/16cancer.html?pagewanted=all
cancer research has been guided by a common vision of how a single cell,
outcompeting its neighbors, evolves into a malignant tumor….genes that
encourage cellular division are pushed into overdrive, while genes that normally
send growth-restraining signals are taken offline…With the accelerator floored
and the brake lines cut, the cell and its progeny are free to rapidly multiply. More
mutations accumulate, allowing the cancer cells to elude other safeguards and
to invade neighboring tissue and metastasize…These basic principles still serve as
the reigning paradigm…recent discoveries have been complicating the picture
with tangles of new detail. Cancer appears to be even more willful and
calculating than previously imagined….Most DNA, for example, was long
considered junk — a netherworld of detritus that had no important role in
cancer or anything else…“junk” DNA is referred to more respectfully as
“noncoding” DNA, and researchers are finding clues that “pseudogenes” lurking
within this dark region may play a role in cancer…By binding to a gene’s
messenger RNA, microRNA can prevent the instructions from reaching their
target — essentially silencing the gene — and may also modulate the signal in
other ways….As the various cells are colluding, they may also be trading
information with cells in another realm — the micro-organisms in the mouth,
skin, respiratory system, urogenital tract, stomach and digestive system. Each
microbe has its own set of genes, which can interact with those in the human
body by exchanging molecular signals…
6. Distributed Stanford AI class
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/16/science/16stanford.html?_r=1&hp
free online course at Stanford University on artificial intelligence, to be taught
this fall by two leading experts from Silicon Valley, has attracted more than
58,000 students around the globe — a class nearly four times the size of
Stanford’s entire student body…The course is one of three being offered
experimentally by the Stanford computer science department to extend
technology knowledge and skills beyond this elite campus to the entire world,…
The online students will not get Stanford grades or credit, but they will be ranked
in comparison to the work of other online students and will receive a “statement
of accomplishment.”… instructors are Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig, two of
the world’s best-known artificial intelligence experts. In 2005 Dr. Thrun led a
team of Stanford students and professors in building a robotic car that won a
Pentagon-sponsored challenge by driving 132 miles over unpaved roads in a
California desert. More recently he has led a secret Google project to develop
autonomous vehicles that have driven more than 100,000 miles on California
public roads…computer scientists said they were uncertain about why the A.I.
class had drawn such a large audience. Dr. Thrun said he had tried to advertise
the course this summer by distributing notices at an academic conference in
Spain, but had gotten only 80 registrants…several weeks ago he e-mailed an
announcement to Carol Hamilton, the executive director of the Association for
the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. She forwarded the e-mail widely,
and the announcement spread virally…two scientists said they had been
inspired by the recent work of Salman Khan, an M.I.T.-educated electrical
engineer who in 2006 established a nonprofit organization to provide video
tutorials to students around the world on a variety of subjects via
YouTube…three online courses, which will employ both streaming Internet
video and interactive technologies for quizzes and grading, have in the past
been taught to smaller groups of Stanford students in campus lecture halls.
Last year, for example, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence drew 177
students…Hal Abelson, a computer scientist at M.I.T. who helped develop an
earlier generation of educational offerings that began in 2002, said the Stanford
course showed how rapidly the online world was evolving…
7. Crowdsourcing outperforms scientists
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/the-public-playing-a-moleculebuilding-game-outperforms-scientists/32835
A Web-based game that uses the brainpower of biology novices to understand
molecules key to life and disease is producing working designs of those
molecules in a Stanford University laboratory—and the process could influence
the way scientific discovery works…RNA shapes depend on how the molecules’
components fit together, but the rules that govern what fits where are not well
understood. Shapes that should work in theory often prove impossible to
produce in practice…game EteRNA, which was started by the Stanford
biochemist Rhiju Das and the Carnegie Mellon computer scientist Adrien Treuille,
allows researchers to farm out some of the intellectual legwork behind RNA
design to 26,000 players, rather than a relatively few lab workers. Players are
given a puzzle design—an RNA molecule in the shape of a star or a cross, for
example—that they must fill in with the components, called nucleotides, to
produce the most plausible solution…community of players then votes for the
blueprint it thinks will have the best chance of success in the lab. The Stanford
researchers select the highest-rated blueprints and actually synthesize them. The
scientists then report back the results of the experiments to the crowd to inform
future designs…crowd-sourcing has produced results that tend to be more
effective than computer-generated arrangements. “Computational methods are
not perfect in making these shapes,”… attributes this chasm to the fact that
humans are much better than machines at thinking through the scientific
process and making intelligent decisions based on past results. “A computer is
completely flummoxed by not knowing the rules, but players are unfazed: they
look at the data, they make their designs, and they do phenomenally.”… Since
the game-and-crowdsourcing project began in January, Mr. Das’s lab has
synthesized 306 designs in test tubes, and he hopes to soon begin testing these
molecules in cells. And while the project is still in its early stages, the researchers
for EteRNA believe it shows great promise for integrating machine learning,
experimental data, and the intelligence of the masses to come up with new
ideas…
8. Numbsense
http://u864.lyon.inserm.fr/Pathologies/Numbsense
Numbsense
Blindsight (Weiskrantz et al. 1974) and Numbsense (Rossetti et al. 2001) provide
examples of the complete loss of sensory experience in the visual or in the
somesthetic modality, where actions can still be performed towards undetected
target objects (review in Rossetti 1998 or Rossetti and Pisella 2002). Blindsight
patients may be able to gaze or to point at unseen visual targets, or even to
significantly size their grasp or orient their hand while reaching to an object
(Perenin and Rossetti 1996). Blindfolded numbsense patients are able to point to
unfelt tactile stimuli applied to their arm (Paillard et al. 1983, Rossetti et al. 1995)
and to point to unfelt proprioceptive targets (Rossetti et al. 1995) with abovechance performance. For example, patient J.A. presented with a subcortical
stroke of somatosensory relays. He exhibited a complete loss of all
somatosensory processing on the left half of his whole body when he was tested
clinically for light touch, deep pressure, moving tactile stimulation, pain, warm
and cold, vibration, segment position, passive movement, etc. When blindfolded
and required to guess verbally the locus of tactile stimuli delivered to his forearm
and hand, he performed at chance level. Strikingly, he nevertheless showed a
significant ability to point at stimuli delivered to his right arm, despite he could
not otherwise indicate where the stimulus was applied (Rossetti et al. 1995,
2001).
A possible neural substrate for blindsight has been put forward (Rossetti et al.
2001; Rossetti and Pisella 2002). Neuroanatomical connectivity between the
posterior nucleus of the thalamus and the posterior parietal cortex might
provide a way for residual somatosensory signals to reach the motor network, by
passing the main projection from the lateral thalamus to the primary
somatosensory cortex
9. Siggraph articles
http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/38260/
SIGGRAPH conference, which takes place in Vancouver, Canada, this year, is a
showcase for the latest research in computer graphics, interfaces, and design.
These images were captured using a new kind of video camera developed by
Contrast Optical and the University of New Mexico that is able to mimic the
human eye’s ability to capture details from both bright and dark features
simultaneously. The three smaller images, right, show the output from the
camera’s three digital image sensors, each of which captures a slightly different
range of brightness. A system of prisms directs light from the lens onto three
sensors; software combines the output from the three into one image (shown at
left) that captures detail in both bright sparks and dark shadows. See a video of
the camera and its output…Software developed by Thibaut Weise and colleagues
at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne makes a digital
character mirror your facial expressions. The system uses Microsoft’s Kinect
motion-sensing camera to track a user's face and translate its shape and
motion onto a digital character…
10. Go try it on
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/12/do-those-pants-make-you-look-fatask-the-internet/?ref=technology
Go Try It On, a start-up that runs a Web site and mobile app for getting real-time
feedback on outfits, believes that with computers and cellphones, fashion
consultations should be possible even when people aren’t together…“It’s
crowdsourcing an opinion on an outfit and getting a quick, unbiased second
opinion,”… Go Try It On will announce that it has raised $3 million from investors
including SPA Investments and Index Ventures. It is also introducing a way to
make money, by allowing brands to critique users’ outfits and suggest products,
beginning with Gap and Sephora…Users upload a photo or use a Webcam to
show an outfit and solicit advice from other users. The service, which is one of
several trying to make online shopping more social, started last year, and so far
250,000 people have downloaded the app and commented on outfits 10
million times. Most of the users are young women, and 30 percent live
abroad…users will be able to choose a group of people to judge their outfits
instead of sharing with everyone. The group can include friends, active users or
professional stylists from brands. To start, Gap and Sephora will have stylists on
Go Try It On on Fridays and Saturdays, when the most people ask for advice.
They could suggest a shade of Sephora lipstick or a pair of Gap jeans, for
instance…“A Gap reviewer is interacting and engaging with their customers in a
very one-to-one way, based on what someone looks like or an outfit, which is a
discussion we’ve all had offline for years,” Ms. Evans said. “Why can’t that be
something brands are paying for, like a new ad model?...
11. Wearable electronics
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/08/12/wearable-electronics-couldtransform-therapies/
Wearable electronics usually trade flexibility for computing power, but engineers
have created a new ultrathin device from silicon that can stick to skin like a
temporary tattoo and are powerful enough to read brain signals….most
approaches to wearable electronics involved skinlike electronic platform creating
points of contact, like electrodes, or focused on flexibility over computing
capabilities…The new platform has silicon-based circuitry fabricated in a wavy
structure dubbed "filamentary serpentine" that allows it to form a web of
electronics. Those circuits are integrated into extremely thin rubber sheets that
naturally stick to skin without the need for adhesive. The researchers took
continuous measurements successfully for 6 hours and found that there was no
irritation or degradation caused when leaving the devices on for 24 hours.
Rogers says that after about two weeks, naturally-occurring skin exfoliation
would make it difficult for the electronics to stay in place…When laminated on
the forehead, the heart and the forearm, the device worked as well as standard
electrodes in measuring activity. On the throat it was sensitive enough to record
throat muscle contractions during vocalization, which means it could help
people with difficulty speaking…This nearly invisible technology isn't entirely
passive, either. Working with a team from Johns Hopkins, the researchers
found that by placing patches on rat legs they were able to make the legs move
back and forth through electrical stimulation. Stimulating muscle without
constraining it is important for physical rehabilitation…The technology could
one day be used by gamers…ultimate goal is to commercialize this technology
through Mc10, a startup based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that Rogers cofounded in 2008. Eventually he'd also like to enable the electronics to process
dead skin cells, allowing the device to stick much longer…
12. Weak internet mobile security
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/10/technology/hacker-to-demonstrateweak-mobile-internet-security.html?_r=1&ref=technology
German computer engineer said Tuesday that he had deciphered the code used
to encrypt most of the world’s mobile Internet traffic and that he planned to
publish a guide to prompt global operators to improve their safeguards…Karsten
Nohl, who published the algorithms used by mobile operators to encrypt voice
conversations on digital phone networks in 2009, said during an interview he
planned to demonstrate how he had intercepted and read the data during a
presentation Wednesday…intercepted and decrypted wireless data using an
inexpensive, modified, 7-year-old Motorola cellphone and several free software
applications. The two intercepted and decrypted data traffic in a five-kilometer,
or 3.1-mile, radius…Mr. Nohl said he was able to decrypt and read data
transmissions on all four mobile networks — T-Mobile, O2 Germany, Vodafone
and E-Plus. He described the level of encryption provided by operators as
“weak.”… Mr. Nohl said his interceptions revealed that two operators, TIM, the
mobile unit of the market leader, Telecom Italia, and Wind did not encrypt their
mobile data transmissions at all. A third, Vodafone Italia, provided weak
encryption…GPRS networks were introduced in 2000 as successors to GSM digital
networks and were the first mobile networks to deliver significant data besides
short text messages. GPRS networks are still widely used as backups for newer,
faster 3G wireless networks, and consumers are often diverted to GPRS grids
when they reach the limits of their monthly data plans…“One reason operators
keep giving me for switching off encryption is, operators want to be able to
monitor traffic, to detect and suppress Skype, or to filter viruses, in a
decentralized fashion,”… “We are releasing the software needed to reprogram
cheap Motorola phones to become GPRS interceptors,” Mr. Nohl said. “This
exposes operators with no encryption, like those in Italy, to immediate risk.”…
13. Social media mining gone wrong
http://www.technologyreview.com/web/38256/
complex picture of your personal life can now be pieced together using a variety
of public data sources, and increasingly sophisticated data-mining
techniques…howed how a photograph of a person can be used to find his or her
date of birth, social security number, and other information by using facial
recognition technology to match the image to a profile on Facebook and other
websites. Acquisti acknowledges the privacy implications of this work, but he
warns that the biggest problem could be the inaccuracy of this and other datamining techniques…Acquisti says that his current work is an attempt "to capture
the future we are walking into." In this future, he sees online information being
used to prejudge a person on many levels—as a prospective date, borrower,
employee, tenant, and so on…worries about what will happen when the
technology makes mistakes. "We tend to make strong extrapolations about
weak data," says Acquisti. "It's impossible to fight that, because it's in our
nature."… number of companies have already begun using social media to
measure and track reputation. The Santa Barbara, California, company Social
Intelligence, for example, performs social-media background screenings on
prospective employees, promising to reveal negative information such as racist
remarks or sexually explicit photos, or positive information such as signs of social
media influence within a specific field. Other companies, such as Klout, track
users' level of social influence, allowing advertisers to offer special rewards to
those with high scores…Acquisti's research demonstrated the pitfalls of placing
too much relevance on social networking data. His team took photos of
volunteers and used an off-the-shelf face recognizer called PittPatt (recently
acquired by Google) to find each volunteer's Facebook profile—which often
revealed that person's real name and much more personal information. Using
this information, the team could sometimes figure out part of a person's social
security number. They also created a prototype smart-phone app that pulls up
personal information about a person after they are snapped with the device's
camera…Seventy-five percent of the time, they correctly predicted subjects'
interests. They correctly predicted the first five digits of volunteers' social
security numbers about 16 percent of the time given two tries. (Accuracy
increased with more attempts.)… means that two-thirds of the time, they did
not identify people correctly. And those who were correctly identified were still
incorrectly matched 25 percent of the time to particular personal interests, and
more than 80 percent of the time to the wrong social security number…Online
Privacy Foundation researchers found a positive correlation between people
whose personalities tended toward openness and those whose Facebook
profiles were loaded with more information: longer lists of interests, longer bios,
and more discussion of money, religion, death, and negative emotions. They also
found a positive correlation between "agreeable people"—defined as "being
compassionate, cooperative, having the ability to forgive and be pragmatic"—
and Facebook statuses that were written in longer sentences, that discussed
positive emotions, or had relatively more comments, friends, and photos.
However, in both cases, the correlations were relatively weak…
14. Spy cams for buses
http://www.infowars.com/dhs-funds-real-time-spy-cams-on-sf-buses/
Department of Homeland Security will fund an effort by San Francisco to install
real-time video cameras on 358 city buses, according to the San Francisco
Chronicle. The existing system, installed a decade ago, stores footage on tape
located on each vehicle….new surveillance system will use a wireless network
“that will enable SFMTA personnel to view, download and store the captured
video images wirelessly and view them in real-time or through the Internet.”…
new technology allows the government to “track your eye movements, capture
and record your facial dimensions for face-recognition processing, bathe you in
X-rays to look under your clothes, and even image your naked body using
whole-body infrared images that were banned from consumer video cameras
because they allowed the camera owners to take ‘nude’ videos of people at
the beach,”… Documents discussing the technology were obtained by the
Electronic Privacy Information Center.
“EPIC calls these vans ‘mobile strip search devices’ because they give the federal
government technology to look under your clothes without your permission or
consent,” Adams notes. “It’s also being done without probable cause,…