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A computerized instrument that allows people to play music with the tip of their nose could give those who suffer from physical disabilities, such as cerebral palsy, the chance to experience music's positive effects.

Not only could the interface allow for musical communication, it could also be adapted for speech, giving physically challenged patients the ability to form full sentences, rather than just providing yes or no responses.

"This instrument will give a voice to those who are all too often ignored, due to their physical disability," said Zane Van Dusen, a recent graduate of computer science and electronic media arts and communications at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY.

Van Dusen developed the interface with Pauline Oliveros, a musician and distinguished professor of the arts at Rensselaer.

Cerebral Palsy is a neurological disorder that permanently reduces muscle coordination, As a result, sufferers often feel mentally imprisoned by their inability to speak or move.

Music offers a way to break out of the bonds of a physical disability because it gives patients a means to express themselves. Unfortunately, current music tools are limiting.

Most tools restrict input to a joystick on a wheelchair, which can be expensive to add or modify; they may require wires or cables that impede or even distract a person, and lastly, not all music therapy allows for a broad range of creativity.

Van Dusen's "adaptive-use musical instrument" overcomes these challenges with an inexpensive Web camera and specialized computer software that he wrote.

The patient is placed in front of the computer, where they see live video of their face through a Web camera. Motion-tracking software places a red box on the tip of the person's nose and tracks the user's movement across an onscreen keyboard.

The lowest notes are located to the left and the highest notes are located to the right. The outline of a rectangle around the person's face can be widened or narrowed in order to accommodate the patient's range of motion.

 

 In "keyboard mode," the person stays within the rectangle, touching on keys to illicit notes. In "percussive mode," the person can move outside the rectangle to set off a snare drum or cymbal sound.

In a pilot study at REHAB Programs, Inc., in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., children who used the instrument paid more attention to their movements because they were motivated by the sounds they were creating. One 9-year-old child spent an hour creating a song, even though it required a lot of effort.

"The added benefit of all of this is that the children are working on their head control," said Leaf Miller, a professional musician and an occupational therapist at REHAB Programs.

Affordability is also an issue, she added.

"The cost of the hardware and software is not going to be expensive and that makes it accessible," said Miller. "It can also be adapted for speech language pathologists to use for communication."

The team will be working this summer to perfect the prototype and create additional interfaces for an organization that fosters a unique approach to music, literature, art and meditation.

They hope the interface might offer a way for otherwise frusterated patients to express the song they have on the tip of their nose.

 

take from/discovery.com 

 

 

 

Computers are socially awkward. They have a hard time with informal communication and the subtleties of natural language — especially when it comes to jokes.

But now a group of researchers have equipped a computer with a sensor of humor. The technology could lead to programs that can solve problems that are informally stated, as well as to robots that are able to interact with humans more naturally.

"We rely on computers more and more, yet they don't seem to handle the way we communicate," said Julia Taylor, a Ph.D. candidate for computer science and engineering at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio. "I think it would be great for computers to understand natural language the way we use it," she said.

Taylor developed the program with associate professor Lawrence Mazlack, coordinator of the university's Applied Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

Whether computer or human, getting a joke depends on the knowledge one has of the events mentioned in the joke.

Since programming a computer to have total world knowledge is a little overwhelming, Taylor and Mazlack restricted the domain of humor to children's jokes that have similar sounding words, the way puns and knock-knock jokes often do.

The program consists of two parts: a knowledge base derived from a children's dictionary and a collection of children's texts, and an algorithm that takes into account how the word sounds, how it's spelled, and what it means.

The knowledge base, called an ontology, represents an innovative, and more complex approach, said Christian Hemplemann, chief scientific officer at Hakia, an Internet search engine company.

Hakia conducts searches based on meaning, instead of popularity of key words or phrases. More popular approaches rely on statistics, which analyzes millions of words in a text and looks at what words occur frequently around other words.

For example, "bank" can mean a financial institution or land beside a river. Words such as "teller," "check" and "account" indicate financial institution, while "fish," "rapids" and "water" indicate land beside a river.

With an ontology, the researchers must build a database that includes all of the things and events in a given world — in this case, the world of children's jokes — and how they relate to each other. The relationships are categorized in a hierarchical structural from general to a more precise meaning.

"Humor is a very specific form of meaning that's related to a specific emotional response in humans that occurs in specific social situations," said Hemplemann. "If you understand how to do it artificially, that may give you an idea of how it works for the real thing."

To test the computer's understanding, Taylor enters text into the system and then lets the program tell her if it thinks the text is a joke or not. See what you think:

Mother to boy: "Johnny, you've been working in the garden a lot this summer."

Boy: "I know. My teacher told me to weed a lot."

Because "weed" sounds similar to "read," the program picks up on the wordplay and flags the text as a joke.

Taylor and Mazlack are currently working to build the knowledge base for the computer so that it can eventually recognize more sophisticated jokes. And one day, it may even be able to generate jokes of its own.

Getting a computer to recognize whether or not a joke is funny is a whole different matter.

 

take from/discovery.com 

 

 

 

 

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