Robotic Surgery Links

Surgical robots, now used in operating rooms worldwide, are not performing surgical tasks on their own, but "lend a helping hand to surgeons," as discussed in this article from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)(1). How Stuff Works (2) provides a nice overview of some of the robotics systems currently in use and how they are used. This next website from the USC Robotic Surgery Institute (3), which was founded by the cardiothoracic surgeon who was one of the first "to see the potential for robotic surgery," discusses the medical procedures benefiting from this technology and includes a few videos of the surgeries (not for the faint of heart). This next article from Science Daily (4) reports on two studies from UPenn "that demonstrate the effective use of the daVinci Surgical Robotic System to perform Trans-Oral Robotic Surgery (TORS) which greatly reduces surgical trauma for patients." Another way that robotic technology is used in surgery is to allow doctors to perform surgery remotely. The history of this development known as telesurgery is described on this next website (5). This article from The Engineer Online (6) describes a project by researchers in the United Kingdom that aims to develop an image guidance system that uses 3-D images to improve the range of medical procedures for which robotics can be used. Brown University's website (7) also provides a nice overview of the history of Robotic Surgery as well as some basics on costs and demographics, and interviews with doctors and patients. Finally, PBS (8) offers this lesson idea, pro viding students a "journey to the operating room of the future."

For links to the referenced articles, see this post from Marcus P. Zillman

The Approach of Robot Swarms

t sounds like classic sci-fi: Robots, linked by a common network, roam the land. When one unit discovers something, they all know it instantly. They use artificial intelligence to carry out their mission.

Soon, such marching orders will be real, carried out by robot groups known as "swarms" or "hives."...

Robotmakers find inspiration for their programs in nature: the behavior of bee, ant, and wasp colonies, as well as of flocks of birds and schools of fish. Ants, for example, communicate by leaving pheromone trails that other ants can follow to food. Ants also work as teams to distribute their workload, such as finding the most efficient paths for foraging or deciding who will haul bits of leaves back to the nest, without needing any directions from a leader...

The development of "true swarms," thousands or tens of thousands of mobile robots working together, is many years off and "depends on some things that haven't been invented yet," Greiner says, including miniaturization of components and better power sources and sensors...

Read more in this article from csmonitor.com.

Robots Go to Work at London Hospital

"Science-fiction moved a step closer to reality on Wednesday when robots nicknamed 'Sister Mary' and 'Doctor Robbie' started work at a London hospital.

The pair allow doctors to visually examine and communicate with patients, whether they are in another part of the hospital or even another part of the world.

'This is a revolutionary concept which opens new avenues in telemedicine research and integrates technology with healthcare,' said Professor Sir Ara Darzi in a statement."

From this Reuters article.

20 Questions Neural Network

"Want to see an example of what artificial intelligence could do for search? Take a look at 20Q.net, which is an online version of the child's game 'twenty questions.' The premise behind the site is simple: Think of a common object, and then answer a series of questions. 20Q will then 'guess' what you're thinking about. Just about every time I've used it, 20Q has correctly identified the object I've imagined using fewer than 20 questions.

If 20Q.net can't guess what you're thinking, you 'win' the game. The system then presents you with a list of other possible objects that you might have been thinking about. If the object is in the list, click on it, and 20Q will explain its logic to you, indicating contradictions between your answers and its own knowledge base. These aren't necessarily 'wrong,' but rather are an indicator of the learning 20Q.net has gained by interacting with other people.

20Q is a neural network that works much like a human brain. The software has been 'trained' by thousands of users playing the game over the past decade. By interacting with users, the neural net has learned about objects in the real world, and continues to learn as it analyzes each game."

From this searchenginewatch.com post.

U.S. Open Soccer .... for Robots

"It looked like a scene from a sci-fi flick.

Hugging the sideline, the robot dog waddled down the field and hit a ball with its nose. The ball bounced off the goal post.

It was one of the University of Texas' last chances to get back in the game, which it eventually lost 2-0 to the reigning European champs from Dortmund University in Germany.

Robot dog soccer is one of five games that teams of scholars competed in during the 2005 RoboCup U.S. Open, held Monday at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The aim of the three-day competition, which ends Tuesday, is to develop software for better robots with the long-term goal of fielding a robot soccer team good enough to play a human team by 2050. "

Read more here.

Interest in Artificial Intelligence Rekindled

"After a speculative boom in the '80s, attempts to encode humanlike intelligence into systems that could categorize concepts and relate them to each other didn't really pan out, and "expert systems" packed with rules derived from human authorities couldn't translate their expertise into areas beyond the subject matter for which they were programmed...

Now a new generation of researchers hopes to rekindle interest in AI. Faster and cheaper computer processing power, memory, and storage, and the rise of statistical techniques for analyzing speech, handwriting, and the structure of written texts, are helping spur new developments, as is the willingness of today's practitioners to trade perfection for practical solutions to everyday problems. Researchers are building AI-inspired user interfaces, systems that can perform calculations or suggest passages of text in anticipation of what users will need, and software that tries to mirror people's memories to help them find information amid digital clutter...

Several industry trends also are helping move AI up on labs' agendas. The emerging field of wireless sensor networks, which have the potential to collect vast amounts of data about industrial operations, the ecosystem, or conditions in a building or home, could benefit from the use of AI techniques to interpret their data. The Pentagon continues to fund AI research, partly to lay the groundwork for intelligent vehicles and robots..."

Read more in this InformationWeek article.

Robot Nurses in the Roadmap

Japan in 2025 will have household robot nurses that can help lift elderly people into wheelchairs from their beds. So predicts Strategic Technology Roadmap released recently by the Japan Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

"The ministry's crystal ball offers mostly down-to-earth predictions, the officials said. The road map is aimed at helping to focus limited research and development budgets on priority projects in fields that are more feasible.

The 200-page road map, distributed to research institutes and businesses, gives predictions for the next two to three decades in 20 fields, including telecommunications, space exploration and the environment.

The report says one of the biggest changes in the home will be widespread use of robots to do chores.

In 2025, a cleaning robot will vacuum and mop floors without human supervision. A separate robot will move furniture out of the way.

Robot nurses will make life easier for elderly people or people with disabilities by helping them to the bathroom or performing other jobs.

Still, these won't be androids. They will be unable to walk, think or talk like humans because neither artificial intelligence nor smooth bipedal movement for robots is likely to be achieved by that time."

Read more in this asahi.com article.

The Robotization of Retail

"The article Robots in 2015, by Marshall Brain argues that the robotic Wal-Mart is just not that far away. From the article:

In 2015, at about the same time that the airlines are laying off all of their pilots, Wal-Mart or Target or some other large retailer will be introducing a totally automated inventory management system. Every shelf will be fitted with RFID tags, allowing a mobile pick-and-place robot to find the exact shelf location of every product in the store. Every individual product in the warehouse will also be fitted with an RFID tag, so the robot will be able to pick up and identify every product that it needs to shelve. A relatively simple computer vision system will allow the robot to stack items on the shelves. These inventory management robots will operate 24-hours-a-day shuttling merchandise from the back of the store onto the shelves as items are sold. The robots will also constantly straighten the shelves and re-shelve merchandise. All of the technology needed to do this is nearly in place today.

By 2015, every big box retailer will be using automated checkout lines. Robotic help systems will guide shoppers in the stores. The automated inventory management robots will allow the first retailer to lay off a huge percentage of its employees. Competitive pressure will force Wal-mart, K-Mart, Target, Home Depot, Lowes, BJ's, Sam's Club, Toys R Us, Sears, J.C. Penny's, Barnes and Noble, Borders, Best Buy, Circuit City, Office Max, Staples, Office Depot, Kroger's, Winn-Dixie, Pet Depot and so on to adopt the same robotic inventory systems in their stores. The entire transition will happen in just five years or so. Any company that does not automate will be at such a pricing disadvantage that it will go out of business. Ten million unemployed workers dumped onto the job market over the course of five years will have a profound effect on the unemployment statistics in the United States.

Read more in this post from Marshall Brain.