Lanny's New Year Resolutions

At the beginning of the year of the rabbit, I wish you all a very productive and happy Chinese New Year!! 春节快乐！

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I'll be visiting Lausanne, Switzerland to attend a conference for about a week in early March, 2011. Anyone reading my blog from Lausanne Switzerland? Anyone knows a cheap hotel near EPFL? If so, please kindly leave me a comment or shoot me an email! Thanks!

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It's that time of the year again, time to make plans and resolutions.Although I know every single year should be just as valuable as the others, somehow I know this year is going to have particular importance in my entire life. So here below are the things I'd really like to accomplish in the next three hundred plus days:

1. Post two blog posts each day

Many people are still very confused by the dates of my blog posts. For example, you'll see this very post I am writing at this very moment be dated at March 24, 2009, when today is actually February 7, 2011. I think the dates of my posts are less important than the contents of my blog posts, therefore, I'll stick with this imaginary existence of the parallel university, and use the past dates to remind myself of how many blog posts I have fallen behind of my ambitious goal of one blog post per day. The only way to make up and catch up is to post more than one post per day, therefore, I'll try my best to stick to this resolution. Two is the minimum. Maybe I'll even get lucky some day and post more than two for that day. Let's wait and see. :)

2. Translate one page each day

There are simply too many good Chinese books I'd like to share with non-Chinese readers but too little time. Translating a novel well is quite a challenging and time-consuming task. I feel very sorry for keeping my readers waiting for so long, so I'll take the advice from one of them and make it into a habit of translating a little bit every day. This will also be a very good exercise for self-discipline, which I am certainly lacking these days. Note that the one page here is for the English text. I am thinking about posting a translation blog post about every three days (so three pages worth of translation). Bug me to death if you see I am lagging, by email or by leaving comments, because your support is the best force to keep me going.

3. Complete the majority of my dissertation work
In just a little bit over two weeks (February 24, 2011 to be exact), I'll be taking my PhD Oral Exam and defend my Dissertation Proposal. After that, it's just a matter of implementing code, run experiments, collect data, and then write quite a few papers. Hopefully I'll be able to get the majority of my dissertation work done in the next 12 months and shoot for graduation for Winter 2012. The good news is that my advisor agrees with the time line; the bad news is that there are plenty of planned work ahead. Work, here I come!

4. Build a robot of my own
I've always felt that my PhD would be incomplete if I didn't build a robot myself (here "build" means mostly putting off-the-shelf parts together, but with my own design, not simply assembling a kit), since my research is about Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. I've already acquired some of the main parts to be used. Hopefully by the same time next year, I'll have a working robot that's capable of some low-level intelligence. I have high hopes for this robot. I envision a long-term companion/assistant/tutor as I keep improving it for the years to come, as that famous says goes, "build your own friend!"

That's it! I wish myself and all of you a very productive year ahead. But also don't forget to take a break once a while to enjoy those small beautiful things and moments you might normally overlook. Also don't forget to visit my blog once a while and send your encouragements this way!





Key to success: Set high goals. Even if you can only achieve half of what you set out to do, it might still be a great achievement! -- Lanny





 
Video of the Day:

Despite not being able to score a single goal in the South Africa World Cup, Lionel Messi was still elected the winner of FIFA Ballon d'Or 2010 because of his excellence performance throughout the year. What a great way to start a new year!! I am so happy for him! He totally deserves it! I hope I also have a great start of a new rabbit year!

Smiling Proud Wanderer: Chapter 21 (7)

Today is a wonderful day, because I finally finished the draft of my dissertation proposal! To celebrate this monumental moment, I am posting the last installment of Chapter 21. Enjoy!

Read the first 20 chapters here!

 Linghu Chong was in a rush to finally get out of the dungeon. He didn’t pay any more attention to Mr. Black-White. Sticking his head out from the square-shaped opening and also extending his arms out, he pushed gently on the iron door. His body shot out swiftly and he landed on the ground without a stagger. He felt a great amount of inner energy depositing inside his Dan-Tian region once again, which made him quite uncomfortable. He had no idea that the inner energy streams were actually absorbed from Mr. Black-White, and only concluded that the energy streams from Peach Valley’s Six Fairies and Monk No-Commandment had returned to Dan Tian because he hadn’t practiced his energy cultivation techniques for a while. He decided to not worry too much about that and focus on how to get out of the dark dungeon as soon as possible, so he picked up the oil lamp Mr. Black-White had left outside and began following the tunnel out.

All the gates in the tunnel were left unlocked. He figured that Mr. Black-White must have decided to lock them on his way out. This made his escape so much easier. As he stepped through the many solid gates one after another, the many days of life in the dark underground prison suddenly felt as though they had occurred in a different lifetime. Strangely, his resentment toward Mr. Huang-Zhong and the bunch also seemed to have significantly lessened. All he could think of was the sweet smell of freedom, and everything else in the world no longer mattered to him.

At the end of the tunnel, he followed the steps upward until he was directly under an iron plate. He listened carefully but didn’t hear anything from the outside. This underground imprisonment experience had taught him to be more careful and cautious, so he didn’t rush out immediately, and instead, waited a good while underneath the iron plate and made sure there was no sound from the outside. By then he felt certain that Mr. Hung-Zhong was indeed not in his bedroom. Lifting up the iron plate gently, he climbed up and then leapt out from the hole in the bed. After carefully returning the iron plate to its original position and pulling the bamboo bedding sheet to cover it up, he treaded softly on tiptoe toward the door way. Then all of a sudden, someone spoke behind him in a gloomy voice.

“Second brother, what are you doing?”

Startled, Linghu Chong turned around and then saw Mr. Huang-Zhong, Mr. Bald-Brush and Mr. Paint completely surrounding him, each wielding his weapon in hand. He didn’t know that the entrance was equipped with secret trapping devices, and his breaking out had triggered the alarm and attracted Mr. Huang-Zhong and the others. Because he had a black mask on and was also wearing Mr. Black-White’s robe, no one had recognized his true identity.

Greatly frightened, Linghu Chong could only stutter, “I…I….”

“I what?” Mr. Huang-Zhong demanded in an icy-cold voice. “I had a feeling that you were up to something. You went down the dungeon and asked Ren Woxing to teach you the Evil Art of Essence Absorbing, didn’t you? Humph! Do you still remember what vow you pledged all those years ago?”

Linghu Chong found himself quite muddle-headed, not able to decide on whether to reveal his true identity or to keep pretending as Mr. Black-White. After a short hesitation, he drew the long sword by his waist and thrust it toward Mr. Bald-Brush.

“Good second brother! You really want to fight us?” Mr. Bald-Brush bellowed as he raised his brush to ward off the sword.

Linghu Chong’s sword thrust was only a fake. Seeing Mr. Bald-Brush’s attempt to block his attack, he quickly turned around and dashed out of the room. Mr. Huang-Zhong and the rest immediately chased after him. Running with all his might, Linghu Chong reached the front hall in no time.

“Second brother! Second brother! Where are you going?” Mr. Huang-Zhong shouted from behind.

Linghu Chong didn’t answer and kept on running full speed. He suddenly spotted a man standing in the middle of the front gate right in his path.

“Second Master, please stop!” the man uttered.

Since Linghu Chong was in such a hurry, he failed to slow down and ran right into the man. The collision sent the man flying in the air and landed almost thirty feet outside of the gate.

Linghu Chong threw a quick side glance and then recognized the man. It was “Straight Line Lightning Sword” Ding Jian, who, at this very moment, lay straight and stiff on the ground. His body position indeed resembled part of his nickname “Straight Line;” however, it had no relation whatsoever with the other part “Lightning Sword.”

Linghu Chong dashed along a small road nonstop. Mr. Huang-Zhong and the others stopped at the gate of the manor and gave up the chase. Only Mr. Paint continued shouting out loud.

“Second brother! Second brother! Come back! We brothers can always talk things through….”

Linghu Chong intentionally picked desolated small roads to follow and eventually arrived at an uninhabited wilderness, a place obviously quite a distance away from the city of Hangzhou. Although he had been running continuously at his top speed, when he stopped, he wasn’t tired at all and wasn’t even out of breath. It seemed as though his stamina was even better than the time before he got injured.

He took off the cloth mask and then heard the sound of gurgling water. Feeling very thirsty, he traced the sound and soon found a small creek. He squatted down and then leaned forward so he could scoop some water to his mouth when he suddenly saw a man’s face in the reflection of the creek water. The face was covered in filth, and with the disheveled hair it looked very odd and ugly. Linghu Chong was briefly startled, and then he could help but grin. Anyone who got locked up for several months and never bathed would look this filthy. He all of a sudden felt his body itching all over. He quickly removed his robe and jumped into the creek for a good deep cleansing, thinking, “the filth on my body must have weighed more than thirty catties.”

After he had thoroughly cleaned himself and also had a stomachful of clear water, he tied his long hair on top of his head. Checking in the water reflection, he found the familiar face again, a face that had no resemblance to that swollen face of the Feng Er-Zhong. As he was putting the robe back on, he felt some discomfort and blockage between his chest and stomach, so he sat down and meditated for a while using the newly learned inner energy cultivation techniques. Soon he could feel that the inner energy streams inside his Dan-Tian had been successfully dispersed into his unique channel and eight passages. The Dan-Tian region was once again like a bamboo that was empty inside or a valley that was always void. His entire body seemed to be vigorous and he also felt a soothing feeling of carefree beyond words. He didn’t realize that he had mastered one of the best martial arts in the entire world. The seven streams of inner energy from the Peach Valley’s Six Fairies and Monk No-Commandment, together with the inner energy streams infused into him by Great Master Fang-Sheng when he was treated at the Shaolin Temple, had all been transformed into his own. And when he gripped onto Mr. Black-White’s wrist, he had also absorbed into his Dan-Tian the entire load of inner energy Mr. Black-White had cultivated for his entire life. Once he dispersed those into his unique channel and eight passages, he had gained the inner strength of another superior master. Naturally he would feel utterly vigorous.

He leapt up, drew the long sword by his waist, and leisurely thrust it toward the hanging branch of a green willow by the side of the creek, whisking his wrist gently as he thrust out. The blade whistled as it cut through the thin air and then swiftly returned to the sheath before he landed smoothly on his left foot. Lifting his head, he watched as five leaves slowly drifted down in the air. The long sword cleared its sheath for a second time and made an arcing slash, catching all five leaves on the side of the blade. He picked up one of the willow leaves from the side of the blade with his left hand as a mixed feeling quickly submerged his heart. It was a mixture of joy and disbelief. He stood silently by the creek, and all of a sudden, found deep grieve in his heart.

“The superior Kung Fu I have right now would not have been possible from Master and Master-Wife’s teaching. But I would rather everything was the way it was as before, when my inner strength and my sword art were equally futile, when I could live a carefree life inside the Huashan School, spending time with little apprentice sister from morning till dusk, instead of wandering the martial world alone like a loitering ghost.”

His martial arts skills had reached the most superior level, but at the mean time, he had never felt so lonely and desolate in his entire life. All his life he’d enjoyed lively crowds, bosom friends, and tasty wines. In the past several months since he was locked away in the underground dungeon, he had no choice but to be alone. Now that his body had finally break free, but his mind was just as lonely. Standing next to the gurgling creek all by himself, the feeling of joy graduated waned away. The cold moon casted his lonely shadow on the ground as the gentle breeze brushed his body, filling his heart with boundless despair.

     

Now support the translator Lanny by following my blog and leaving comments! :)

Picture of the Day:

The beautiful West Lake in the city of Hangzhou, China. Remember, the Plum Manor resides along the bank of the lake, and the dungeon prison is somewhere underneath the lake.

Smiling Proud Wanderer: Chapter 21 (6)

Read the first 20 chapters here!

Mr. Black-White was astounded!  “You…You…,” his voice trembled.

At the time when Linghu Chong was handing the wooden tray out, the idea of grabbing Mr. Black-White’s wrist hadn’t crossed his mind. However, when he saw Mr. Black-White’s palms moved under the dim light of the oil lamp, ready to receive the wooden tray from him, an insuppressible urge all of a sudden overwhelmed his heart. It was all because of this person’s sly and calculated tricks that resulted in his many days of imprisonment. If he could break Mr. Black-White’s wrist, it would be a great way to vent some of his angle and hatred. Besides, this out of the blue seize of his wrist would definitely give him a good fright. For such a treacherous man, such a fright was the least punishment he could think of. He wasn’t even sure if it was the feeling of revenge or his childlike mischievous nature that led to the fake fall, which tricked Mr. Black-White into reaching his hands in, which in turn made the grabbing successful.

Mr. Black-White had always been vigilant, but this attack came so sudden and abrupt without any prior signs of warning. By the time he sensed something was not right, his wrist had already fallen into Linghu Chong’s grip. The grip was so strong that, to him, Linghu Chong’s fingers almost felt like an iron claw and clasped firmly onto the Inner-Pass and Outer-Pass acupoints in this wrist.

Without thinking, Mr. Black-White reflectively rotated his right wrist and executed an anti-grappling stance. A loud clank echoed when three toes of his right foot suddenly broke, and he cried out loud in painful groans.

How did Mr. Black-White end up breaking his toes on his left foot when his right wrist was been held? How strange? Turned out that Mr. Black-White always had great fear of the “revered mister.” As soon as his wrist fell into the grip, he desperately feared for his life, and in a rush, used a move named “Flood Dragon Rising above the Deep Pool.” This move worked particularly well when one’s wrist fell into the enemy’s grip by quickly pulling the arm inward while swiftly and unexpectedly kicking outward with one’s left foot. Such a powerful and fierce kick would land squarely on the enemy’s chest. The enemy would usually end up spitting blood from severe internal injuries. If the enemy were also a skilled Kung Fu master, he would have easily chosen to let go of his wrist in avoidance. Otherwise, he would have no way of dodging the kick right to the chest. Unfortunately, in the moment of extreme distress, eager to break free, Mr. Black-White completely forgot about the thick iron door right between him and his opponent. He had executed the move “Flood Dragon Rising above the Deep Pool” perfectly, and the kick had also been very accurate, powerful and fierce. Sadly, he kicked right into the iron door and the only positive effect was a loud echoing bang.

Only when Linghu Chong heard the loud bang did he realize how lucky he had been. If it weren’t because of the protection provided by the iron door, there was no way he could have escaped Mr. Black-White’s extremely formidable kick. He couldn’t help but burst into loud laughter.

“Kick again! If you kick as hard as the first time, I might just let you go,” he said sarcastically.

Mr. Black-White suddenly felt his inner energy gushing out continuously through the Inner-Pass and the Outer-Pass acupoints on his right wrist, and could not but remember the one thing he feared the most his entire life. Instantly, he was scared out of his wits! He tried his best to slow down the inner energy loss and at the same time begged in sorrow.

“Revered…revered mister, I beg…you….”

As soon as he spoke, his inner energy gushed out in even larger waves. He had no choice but to stop speaking. But the inner energy just kept flowing out of him rapidly.

Ever since Linghu Chong started practicing the Kung Fu techniques carved on the steel plate, his Dan-Tian region felt like a bamboo that was empty inside and a valley that was always void. At the moment when he felt some inner energy appearing in his Dan-Tian, he didn’t pay much attention to it. Instead, he noticed that Mr. Black-White’s wrist quivered continuously as though he had seen something terrifying. Since he had great grudges against Mr. Black-White, he decided to give him a good scare. So he yelled loudly.

“After I teach you the secret art, you have become an apprentice of mine. You have been caught deceiving your master. Shouldn’t I punish you for your crime?”

Mr. Black-White could feel that the inner energy inside him was rushing out even faster now. If he tried hard to hold his breath, the gushing could be temporarily stopped. But he simply had to breathe once a while, and in between the exhaling and inhaling, great amount of his inner energy would continue to flow out. At the moment he had completely forgotten about the pain from his injured toes. He only wished to be able to free his right hand out of the square-shaped opening. Even if he had to lose an arm or an leg, he would have no complaints. At that thought, he immediately reached for his sword by the waist. As soon as made the move, two large gaps seemed to have opened up at the Inner-Pass and Outer-Pass acupoints by his wrist, and all the inner energy from his entire body spurted out like river water bursting through dikes, and impossible to stop the flow ever again.

Mr. Black-White knew if this continued for another while, all his internal energy would be eventually sucked dry. Gritting his teeth, he finally managed to draw his sword out of its sheath. Raising the sword high, he wanted to swing the sword down to chop off his own arm, but this movement only caused even larger streams of inner energy surging out of him. A loud ring resonated in his ears and he fainted.

Linghu Chong had only planned to scare Mr. Black-White when he grabbed onto the man’s wrist. At most he was only going to twist and break Mr. Black-White’s wrist to vent his anger. He certainly did not expect Mr. Black-White to panic so much and faint as if having been scared out of his wits. Laughing out loud, Linghu Chong let go of the wrist, and as soon as he did that, Mr. Black-White’s torso collapsed and his right hand retracted backward from the square-shaped opening.

Suddenly, an idea shot up Linghu Chong’s mind and he quickly reached for the sliding hand. Luckily he was quick with his move and caught the palm in time.

“Why don’t I shackle him with the steel chains as a hostage, so I can coerce Mr. Huang-Zhong to let me go?” he thought.

He pulled Mr. Black-White’s wrist hard to get it closer. Unexpectedly, as he gave the strong pull, Mr. Black-White’s head actually came in also through the square-shaped opening, and then his entire body followed.

Linghu Chong did not see this coming. After a brief shock, he couldn’t help but scold himself for how stupid he was. The square opening was roughly a foot wide, big enough to a put a head though. And if one’s head can go through it, so can the body. If Mr. Black-White can be pulled in, why couldn’t he get out the same way? It would have been impossible for him to escape previously when his hands and feet were shackled in steel chains. But the shackle rings had been sawed through by someone secretly some time ago. Why didn’t he escape?

“After Mr. Paint secretly sawed through the shackles around my hands and feet, day after day, he must have hoped that I’d escape the prison following that old man who delivered my food. He must have been extremely anxious by now!” he thought to himself.

At the time when Linghu Chong had found out about the sawed-through shackle rings, he had been right in the middle of learning those inner energy cultivation techniques and had focused all his attention to the training. Also he had not memorized all the formulas on the steel plate, so subconsciously he didn’t really want to leave the prison cell. Therefore, the thought of running away by himself never even occurred to him.

Linghu Chong pondered for a second and then came to a decision. He hurriedly removed Mr. Black-White’s robe and his own and then swapped them. He even put Mr. Black-White’s black cloth mask over his own head, thinking, “Even if I bump into someone on my way out, they’ll think I am Mr. Black-White.”

Next, he hung Mr. Black-White’s sword by his own waist. With the sword right next to his hand, his spirit soured immensely. Then he cuffed Mr. Black-White’s hands and feet with the steel shackles and then pinched forcefully. The shackle rings were so tight that they even cut into flesh. 

The severe pain woke Mr. Black-White, and he groaned, “Revered…revered mister Ren…your…your Magical Art of Essence Absorbing….”

Linghu Chong had heard of the term “Magical Art of Essence Absorbing” before when he fought alongside Xiang Wentian in the remote wilderness. Someone in the crowd had shouted out this term. Now hearing the term again from Mr. Black-White, he couldn’t resist but ask, “What Magical Art of Essence Absorbing?”

“I…I…am…damn…damned…,” Mr. Black-White moaned.

Now support the translator Lanny by following my blog and leaving comments! :)

Video of the Day:

The world's most dangerous hike! This is where Linghu Chong's Mount Huashan Sword School is located at. No wonder you need martial arts skills to survive here!

Machine Learning and Chicken Fighting

When chickens attack, we have AI
(photo credit: Olena Istomina/iStockphoto)

Does machine learning have anything to do with chicken fighting? Turned out they could certainly be related according to this article I ran across at IEEE Spectrum.

A casual lunch conversation between robotics engineer Stephen Roberts and animal welfare specialist Marian Dawkins sparked an idea of using pattern-recognition technology to help identify misbehaving hens.

Chicken fighting is a difficult and costly problem for poultry farmers. Deprived of space to forage and peck (birds have the instinct to peck the ground in search of food), chickens are likely to peck at other things, like one another, and sometimes to death. A couple of tense chickens might evolve into an all out fight. But if a farmer can identify these stressed-out chickens early, the problem can be reduced. However, trained experts cannot watch the flocks constantly.

Stephen has been researching on human crowd movement using using a machine-vision system based on optical flow -- a technique that measures how the pixels "flow" from one frame to another frame in a video in order to identify object movements. When this technology is applied to chicken monitoring, especially on observing how they walk, it worked great -- after processing footage of more than 300000 commercial free-range chickens, the machine predicted troublemakers matched the flocks that had the most feather damage.

Here's an example video of the optical flow technique.

In order for machine learning algorithms to work with such a problem, the designer must first select features to track. A feature could be the average value of a group of pixels, or a moving pattern. Depending on the machine learning algorithm used, the number of features can span a large range (because some algorithms are smart enough to pick the "better" features to use). Chicken exports then label each data record (one footage of a chick walking) in the training set (say a few hundred records) identifying whether it was a stressed-out chick or not. The machine learning algorithm is then ran against the training set, maybe evaluate its own performance and try to improve against a held out set. The learning result is like a dividing surface in a multi-dimensional space (for example, a line divides a plane or a plane divides a 3D space), and points landing on one side of the dividing surface indicate troublesome chickens while points on the other side of the dividing surface show well-behaved chickens. Stephen had used Hidden Markov Chains (HMC) in his machine learning algorithm according to the IEEE article.

The biggest benefit of this approach is that a computer can take on the laborious constant monitoring work in place of human and only warn farmers when suspecting chickens are identified. Even if there is a good amount of false-positives, the human workload can still be dramatically reduced.

I am very glad to see another real application of AI techniques. Just one more thought: would the chickens behave better if we played ambient music to them all the time?

Video of the Day:

The biggest water balloon fight recorded in human history (4000+ people) right here at BYU in July 2010 during the shooting of Kyle Andrews' official music video "You Always Make Me Smile."

iPad -- a new tool to help treat autism?

Leo has plenty of toys, including this circular balance
beam, but nothing tops the iPad. (Photo by Kelly Nicolaisen)

iPad is probably the most popular high-tech toy on the market right now. But can it be more than just a toy and be useful in other ways, such as helping treat children with autism? The answer is a definite yes.

You might wonder why I am all of a sudden interested in the subject of treating children with autism. Actually, I have been a member of the TiLAR research group working on using assistive robotics technology to help treat children with autism. TiLAR stands for Therapist-in-the-Loop Assistive Robotics.

Recently, I came across an article named iHelp for Autism from SF Weekly. The article told multiple stories of how an iPad helped improve the behaviors of Leo, a 9-year-old artistic child, the son of Shannon Rosa. Shannon had won the iPad from a school raffle, and in the following months, she was pleasantly surprised again and again by how the iPad changed Leo's life and her own, to a better effect, that's of course.

It is important to note that the word autism could mean a spectrum of psychological conditions, that's why the more formal name Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is frequently used. Despite the wide spectrum, autistic children display common symptoms of deficiency in social interactions and communication and severely restricted interests and highly repetitive behavior.

So what are the benefits of using an iPad? Here I'll list some just off the top of my head:

• It looks slick and cool (remember it won't be like that forever).
• It's really a platform, so you can run all kinds of things on it like songs, movies, games, maps, etc.
• You can select things, move things, draw things with your fingers -- a multitouch interface -- and you have plenty of space to do it (unlike an iPhone). The interface is also relatively simple and intuitive, so it doesn't take a lot of time to learn or explore.
• It's relatively lightweight and is battery powered, so you can carry it with you everywhere you go.

Of course an iPad also has disadvantages:

• It's expensive.
• It's fragile (especially the screen).
• Battery life is not great.
• Apps have to be approved by Apple (but there's always iPad like devices running Android).

Now when we give an iPad to an autistic child, what could be good?

• Because an iPad is a fashionable item (at least for now), it would encourage the child to participate in more social activities while holding an iPad -- confirmed by a study.
• The intuitive and simple finger-controlled interface is attractive to autistic children because they can easily identify things and things are predictable. The finger touch interface is also great to encourage the autistic children to practice manipulate things with their fingers, improving motor skills that are normally problematic for autistic children.
• Because an iPad can run many games and apps, autistic children are more prone to play educational games on an iPad, so there's more opportunity to learn while feeling good about it.
• The portability of iPad allows the child to use it anywhere the child wants, and movie playing capability can let the child watch instructional demonstrations -- termed Video Modeling -- frequently and in various locations.
• An iPad can also act as a communication tool. For example, an autistic girl used an iPad to tell her mother where she'd like to go shopping.

So what could go wrong when we give iPad to an autistic child?

• One bad tantrum, there goes the screen, and it's expensive!
• If the child is over-reliant on the iPad as a communication tool, once the battery is dead, the child might go berserk.

As I mentioned earlier, autistic children tend to behave differently from social norms and have problems communicating with others. It seems that we ought to look at three different dimensions when we think about treatment. The first dimension is deviation from social norms. The child can behave more like social norms after treatment or deviate further away. The second dimension is the ability to communicate. A treatment might help the child to communicate better or make it worse. The third dimension is the ease for caregiver. A treatment can change the child's behavior so it's easier for the caregiver to take care of the child. It might also make the care-giving more demanding/challenging.

Ideally, we'd like the treatment to move the child positively on all three dimensions, but that might not always be true depending on the kind of treatment we provide and the kind of tool we use. Some people might also want to settle at different spots in this three-dimensional space. They'd accept a solution that improves the child's ability to communicate and makes the caregiver's life easier while the child's behavior might deviate further away from social norms. Therefore, one important question to ask is: Where in the 3D chart do you want the autistic child to be? For example, if an autistic child always uses the iPad to tell you what he wants, is that what you want? If the answer is no, then the iPad might actually have done harm instead of good.

Are there other creative ways of using an iPad to help support treating children with autism? The article mentioned that some researchers are actually using iPad to help collect physiological data of the autistic child on-the-go and maybe play a soothing sound/music if they get tense. I'll throw out some ideas of my own just for brainstorming purposes. If you can think of any, feel free to tell me in the comments section.

• Since we use a robot to assist the therapist in clinic sessions, the iPad can be used by the therapist before the session to program robot behaviors.
• We can put a virtual character in the iPad to encourage the child to imitate the character's moves. The virtual character can also encourage the child for certain behaviors such as turn taking with the therapist and the robot. The therapist can act as the sensor and use wireless devices to "inform" the virtual character if the child has performed the desired behavior.
• Maybe let the child use the iPad to choose what games to play with the robot and/or the therapist?
• The child can also use the iPad to tell the robot what to do (different sequences of moves). Later the child will be required to not only choose buttons on the iPad, but also speak out the request, for the robot to actually perform the moves. Either the robot will try to recognize the speech, or the therapist can be the sensor/processor and issue the approval command instead.
• The robot might also touch the iPad to do things. We just have to make sure the robot doesn't damage the delicate screen.
  

Picture of the Day:

TiLAR research group's robot Troy in the middle of a clinical
session with a therapist and a kid.