Archive for the 'Microsoft' Category

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Mind Reading Software

Published on September 5, 2007 by Bob in EEG, HCI, Medical Devices and Microsoft. 7 Comments

I spent quite a few years developing diagnostic Electroencephalography (EEG) systems and software. I always get a kick out of articles with titles like this one: Microsoft Working On Mind-Reading Software. It’s the mind-reading part that gets me because your first impression is that Microsoft is developing technology that will allow it to somehow detect what you’re thinking. This, of course, will not be happening in the near or foreseeable future.

The work that Microsoft Research is doing in this area (see here) is fundamental research on the Human-Computer Interface (HCI). The Using a Low-Cost EEG for Task Classification in HCI Research article uses standard frequency domain EEG features (delta, theta, alpha, etc.) as classifiers in a Bayesian Network for differentiating three mental tasks. What was interesting to me was that they recognized the limitations of using EEG technology alone as a human-computer interface. The understanding and use of other physiological data (e.g. motor activity) along with EEG will have to be explored as a way to improve task detection.

Not only is this type of work important for meeting the needs of the physically disabled, as the Wii and Surface have shown, innovative HCI systems can have a dramatic affect on how we all interact with computers.

‘Thought-reading’ system controls wheelchair and synthesizes speech is another one. The system processes larynx nerve signals for speech synthesis and wheelchair control. The technology looks very cool and has the potential to improve the lives of handicapped individuals. I suppose you could consider motor neuron activity as the output of thought, but ‘thought-reading’ just feels like a misnomer. Maybe it’s just me.

Another ‘mind-reading’ technique is the use of Evoked Potentials (EP). One that got a lot of press is a few years back was Brain Fingerprinting (also see here). I’m sure there’s still on-going research in the P300 area, but nothing has grabbed much attention since.

Also, checkout Computers can read your mind. Amazing!

UPDATE:

I found some companies that appear to be trying to use EEG processing algorithms for HCI. Both are focused on the gaming industry. They provide no details on how their products work, so it’s hard not to be skeptical about their functionality claims.

NeuroSky

Emotiv

Also, Smart BrainGames provides more classical biofeedback development systems. All are mentioned here.

UPDATE-2:

Here’s another interesting technology: Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is an emerging non-invasive, lightweight imaging tool which can measure blood oxygenation levels in the brain. Check out the article here.

UPDATE-3 (15-Oct-2007):

Here’s the Microsoft patent application: Using electroencephalograph signals for task classification and activity recognition (via here).

UPDATE-4 (13-Nov-2007):

Check out Brain2Robot Project which uses EEG signal processing (my highlighting):

Highly efficient algorithms analyze these signals using a self-learning technique. The software is capable of detecting changes in brain activity that take place even before a movement is carried out. It can recognize and distinguish between the patterns of signals that correspond to an intention to raise the left or right hand, and extract them from the pulses being fired by millions of other neurons in the brain. These neural signal patterns are then converted into control instructions for the computer.

If they can do this reliably, that’s quite an accomplishment.

Google, Microsoft, and Health

Published on August 15, 2007 by Bob in EMR, Google, Interoperability, Microsoft and PHR. 4 Comments

I think the recent New York Time’s article entitled Google and Microsoft Look to Change Health Care missed the bigger picture. The article talks about other Internet companies (like WebMD), but it does not make any mention of the Federal Government’s involvement in this arena.

In particular is the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) which was initiated by an executive order in April 2004:

The Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) is the critical portion of the health IT agenda intended to provide a secure, nationwide, interoperable health information infrastructure that will connect providers, consumers, and others involved in supporting health and healthcare. The NHIN will enable health information to follow the consumer, be available for clinical decision making, and support appropriate use of healthcare information beyond direct patient care so as to improve health.

At the end of May NHIN published four prototype architectures. The proposals are standards-based, use decentralized databases and services (‘network of networks’), and try to incorporate existing healthcare information systems. The companies involved were Accenture, CSC/Connecting for Health, IBM, and Northrop Grumman.

It seems to me that Google and Microsoft are using their proprietary technologies to try to achieve the same goals as NHIN. One of the major differences of course is transparency. Everything that NHIN does is open to public scrutiny whereas GOOG/MSFT have their own market research programs and keep their strategies (for making money) close to the vest.

Besides ensuring privacy, I would argue that one of the key components for creating a successful NHIN is interoperability. Even with “standards” like HL7 and DICOM being available, IMHO the current state of the Electronic Health/Medical Records industry is total chaos. Just like GOOG/MSFT are creating their own islands of knowledge, there are a lot of other vendors (84 listed on Yahoo! Directory) doing the same. As a medical device developer trying to interface with customer EMR systems, we’re faced with having to provide essentially unique solutions to (what seems like) just about every customer. If that’s the reality down here in the trenches, a NHIN is most likely a very long way off.

In a related item, there are some screen shoots from the future Google Health service (codenamed “Weaver”) here.

Update: Dr. Bill Crounse at the HealthBlog also has some thoughts about the NYT article: Doctor Google and Doctor Microsoft; if not them, who?

Microsoft Robots and Medicine

Published on August 5, 2007 by Bob in Medical Devices, Microsoft and Robotics. 0 Comments

In this months IEEE Spectrum magazine there’s an interesting article about Microsoft’s efforts in robotics called Robots, Incorporated by Steven Cherry.

The article describes the team that created Microsoft Robotics Studio, how the group came to be, some of the software technologies, and an overview of the Microsoft’s strategy in the Robotics marketplace.

What prompted this post is an example of how robotics might be used for medical purposes:

Imagine a robot helping a recovering heart-attack patient get some exercise by walking her down a hospital corridor, carrying her intravenous medicine bag, monitoring her heartbeat and other vital signs, and supporting her weight if she weakens.

Also, in the discussion about multi-threaded task management:

Or there might arise two unrelated but equally critical tasks, such as walking beside a hospital patient and simultaneously regulating the flow of her intravenous medications.

It’s clear that these are just illustrative examples and there’s no attempt to delve into the complexities of how to achieve these types of tasks. What I think is enlightening is that it provides examples of what the expectations are for robotics in medicine.

There are many research efforts in this area, but there’s not really a lot of commercialization yet. There are numerous efforts in Robotic Surgery and robotic prosthetics (e.g. see iWalk) hold a lot of promise for improving lives. It’s not exactly robotics, but the integration of an insulin pump with real-time continuous glucose monitoring for diabetes management (see the MiniMed device) can certainly be considered the application of “intelligent” technology.

I think that the expectations for the future use of robots for medical purposes are as realistic as any other potential use. There are some areas where the technological hurdles are very high, e.g. neural interfacing (see BrainGate), but many practical medical uses will have the same set of challenges as any other robotic application. Human safety will have to become a primary issue anytime a robot is interacting with people. Manufacturers of medical devices have the advantage that risk analysis and regulatory requirements are already part of their development process. Cost is certainly the other major challenge for the use of robots in both the consumer and medical markets. No matter how good the solution is, it must still be affordable.

First Look: Microsoft Health Common User Interface (CUI)

Published on July 24, 2007 by Bob in .NET, GUI and Microsoft. 1 Comment

My initial impression is that the current implementation of the Microsoft Health CUI (v1.0.114.000) is strong on depth and weak on breadth. Because of the limited number of components available this software is too early in its implementation of be of much use in a real product. For example, the first thing I would need is a ‘PatientGrid’ component, which doesn’t exist yet. This is just the first CTP, so missing features are be to expected.

Here are the component lists for WinForms and Web applications:

CUI WinForm Components CUI Web Components

The design guidance documents are the most impressive aspect of this project. Each control has its own complete document that includes sections like ‘How to Use the Design Guidance’ and ‘How Not to Use the Design Guidance’. The higher level terminology and accessibility guidance documents are equally as comprehensive. As a software developer that has had to work from ambiguous requirements specifications, nothing is left to the imagination here. The requirements for some components (e.g. AddressLabel) are written to UK specifications, but that’s be expected since CUI is being developed there.

The Visual Studio integration is good and the source code for the individual components appear to be well constructed and documented.

The CUI Roadmap isn’t very specific, but I like the design guidance driven approach. All of the up-front design work makes me think of my previous post on Agile development. The CUI Delivery Lifecycle is described as iterative, but I doubt it’s actually being developed using one of the Agile methodologies. In any case, I’ll continue to watch the progress of this project and look forward to future releases. It could be my excuse to actually use (instead of just playing with) WPF someday!

Microsoft Health Common User Interface (CUI)

Published on July 23, 2007 by Bob in .NET and Microsoft. 1 Comment

This looks like an interesting initiative. Links (originally found here):

Microsoft Health Common User Interface (CUI)

Controls and Library from CodePlex

From the CodePlex site:

The Toolkit controls developed for this release conform to the recommendations contained in the Design Guidance documents. The Toolkit is a set of .NET 2.0 controls that help Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) build safe, consistent user interfaces for healthcare applications. The Toolkit controls have been created for use in both ASP.NET AJAX applications and WinForms.NET. The web versions of the controls are based on the ASP.NET AJAX Toolkit.

I’ll take some time and investigate the controls and library and how well it integrates into an existing .NET 2.0 WinForms application.

First impression: The CodePlex download is 62MB!!

I’ll let you know what I find.

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