Ribhav Gupta – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com Breaking news from the Farm since 1892 Mon, 02 Nov 2015 08:27:41 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://stanforddaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/cropped-DailyIcon-CardinalRed.png?w=32 Ribhav Gupta – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com 32 32 204779320 Autism Glass Project kicks off https://stanforddaily.com/2015/11/02/autism-glass-project-kicks-off/ https://stanforddaily.com/2015/11/02/autism-glass-project-kicks-off/#respond Mon, 02 Nov 2015 08:13:47 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1106099 Over the past year a team of psychologists, computer scientists, doctors and students has come together for the Autism Glass Project to devise a new tool Google Glasses and facial recognition software to help teach autistic children basic social skills.

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(Courtesy of Paul Sakuma).
The Autism Glass Project uses the Google Glasses’s front facing camera to help children with autism better recognize facial expressions (Courtesy of Paul Sakuma).

Over the past year, a team of psychologists, computer scientists, doctors and students has come together for the Autism Glass Project to devise a new Google Glasses and facial recognition software to help teach autistic children basic social skills.

The Autism Glass Project was sparked by software developments, which were later connected to therapeutic potential. In his freshman year at Stanford, Catalin Voss ’16 – the project founder – devised the vital emotion recognition software for his startup.

According to Voss, the project itself was conceived out of a serendipitous series of interactions with the rest of the team.

The device that emerged uses the front facing camera on Google Glasses to read the facial expressions of people with whom the user interacts. The current algorithm can distinguish between eight of the most vital reactions and then immediately relay the information back to the child through visual or auditory cues. The device decrypts and develops cues to basic emotions for users in real time.

“[The project is] … grounded in the belief that we must empower families and children,” said Dr. Dennis Wall, Associate Professor of Pediatrics and the Principal Investigator of the Autism Glass Project.

Dr. Wall believes this is a groundbreaking endeavor in many ways. The aim is to use the best of the current Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) methods and combine them with the rise of technology over the last decade. Current ABA methods for helping autistic children develop social skills consist of rote memorization through means such as flashcards.

The issue stressed by Dr. Wall is that such methods do not translate into repeatable reactions in natural settings. Often times the children end up paying attention to the wrong stimuli on the flashcards, leading to marginal changes in social skills.

While the new Autism Glass Project can curb the chances of these mistakes through its use in day-to-day activities, this could also be its Achilles heel.

“We are trying to prevent building a prosthesis at all costs,” Voss stressed.

Project leaders believe that teaching the parents, therapists and others in the community how to use the device is the best way of ensuring the device is used as an educational tool, not just a daily aid.

As part of that educational aspect, the group highlighted the versatility of the device by showing how children can play games with it, how therapists can use it to enhance therapy and how parents can use it in the comfort of their home.

With the daily application of these glasses, Wall’s theory is that the phone will help to develop a child’s confidence in their social abilities and thus be able to react more adeptly. In addition, the data stored on the phone can be analyzed for further improvements.

The Autism Glass Project is in the midst of  its second study. Unlike the preliminary study, focused upon the use of the glasses in a sustained clinical environment, the latest study will allow patients to take the glasses home for three to four months to use in the child’s natural settings.

“We describe this as a make-it or break-it study for the project,” Voss explained, referring to the fact that until now it has only been speculation regarding how the parents, therapists and children will utilize the device.

 

Contact Ribhav Gupta at rgupta97 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Digital mechanoreceptor skin breakthrough https://stanforddaily.com/2015/10/22/digital-mechanoreceptor-skin-breakthrough/ https://stanforddaily.com/2015/10/22/digital-mechanoreceptor-skin-breakthrough/#comments Fri, 23 Oct 2015 06:20:08 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1105537 Earlier this week, Zhenan Bao, professor of chemistry, and her lab announced the creation of the first flexible and artificially intelligent skin with pressure sensing capabilities. Five years ago, Bao began the project of developing a plastic alternative to skin. Her group examined the springiness of different rubbers and materials. Growing capability in pressure sensing allowed […]

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Earlier this week, Zhenan Bao, professor of chemistry, and her lab announced the creation of the first flexible and artificially intelligent skin with pressure sensing capabilities.

Five years ago, Bao began the project of developing a plastic alternative to skin. Her group examined the springiness of different rubbers and materials. Growing capability in pressure sensing allowed for a dynamic waffled plastic embedded with billions of carbon microtubules to translate touch sensation into detectable signals.

Drawing from from groundbreaking work by Karl Deisseroth Ph.D. ’98 MD ’00 MF ’03, professor of bioengineering and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, Bao’s lab applied mechanisms that turn electric conductive signals into biochemical ones, which can be interpreted by the nervous system.

The current model, presented in Science, consists of two major components: the sensing mechanism and the circuitry. When pressure is applied to the body’s surface, the carbon nanotubes crowd together, inducing an electric current. The magnitude of this “signal” is proportional to the force applied onto the artificial skin.

This new technology will allow users to differentiate a range of sensations from a light handshake to a firm grip.

The Stanford lab worked with Working with PARC, a Xerox Company, to devise a laser-printing technique for the circuitry in order to improve the skin’s ability to bend, granting better dexterity and an enhanced range of motion.

Bao’s mission is to allow users to eventually detect the difference between unique textures and temperatures.

 

Contact Ribhav Gupta at rgupta97 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Researchers make breakthrough discoveries on heart cell growth https://stanforddaily.com/2015/10/07/researchers-make-breakthrough-discoveries-on-heart-cell-growth/ https://stanforddaily.com/2015/10/07/researchers-make-breakthrough-discoveries-on-heart-cell-growth/#respond Thu, 08 Oct 2015 06:46:33 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1104516 Two researchers from the Stanford School of Medicine have made breakthrough discoveries about heart cells that could aid scientists hoping to test drugs on lab-grown human heart cells. They have found that heart cells grown from stem cells require tension to develop properly and that cells grown in a long, thin shape will contract more strongly.

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Two researchers from the Stanford School of Medicine have made breakthrough discoveries about heart cells that could aid scientists hoping to test drugs on lab-grown human heart cells. They have found that heart cells grown from stem cells require tension to develop properly and that cells grown in a long, thin shape will contract more strongly.

These lab-grown cells have the potential to replace the traditionally used animal cells in drug testing, which have proven in recent years to produce questionable results.

“It gives us the potential to test drugs almost on an individual level,” said Beth Pruitt, a mechanical engineering processor and senior author on the study, to the Stanford Report.

The Stanford School of Medicine began its expedition to develop lab-grown adult heart cells in 2010. In the past, labs attempted to grow heart cells from stem cells but found that they didn’t look like adult heart cells.

Stanford postdoctoral research fellow in mechanical engineering Alexandre Ribeiro attempted to manipulate the shapes of the stem cells as they matured into heart cells. Starting with induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells), those derived from skin, he worked to shape the cells into everything from squares to very narrow rectangles. Upon testing the tension produced, he realized that the narrowest rectangles began to look more like normal heart cells.

Going a step further, Ribeiro manipulated the biomaterial used to grow the cells in order to simulate different degrees of tension exerted upon the cell. The testing conditions ranged from the loose stress of a developing heart to the stiffness expected in diseased hearts. In further testing, it became clear that based on the structure of these heart cells, the cells couldn’t operate in pressures that were too high or too low.

“We keep seeing in more studies that there is a certain blood pressure range in people where the heart is healthiest for longest,” Pruitt said to the Stanford Report. “I think we’re seeing that mirrored at the cell scale.”

 

Contact Ribhav Gupta at rgupta97 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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