what was stumbled upon today

 

Mainly photos:

 

http://prometheus.med.utah.edu/~bwjones/

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ethanhein/

 

 

Flickr果然是宝藏

Story of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar [转载]

 

转载自： 【杨建邺　发布时间： 2007-03-15 15:09　科学时报】

 

钱德拉塞卡由于第一次突然遭到严重打击而转变研究领域，这一转变居然使他感到受益匪浅，形成了以后不断转变研究领域的特殊风格。虽然不免孤独，却因为每

到一个新的领域它都不可避免的是"新手"，不可能有"傲慢"的可能，只能老老实实从虚心当学生开始。这样倒使得他一生谦逊地对待大自然。这岂不是"塞翁失马，焉知非福"吗？

     我们很少看到印度科学家的传记。这本书使我们有机会了解20世纪30年代前后印度科学家经历的人生历程。所以这本书的翻译出版，可以说填补了一个空白，因此很有价值。仔细看了这本书以后，它给我的震撼和对于科学界曾经发生过的一些不公正事件，有了深入肺腑的了解，而让我感到惊心动魄的是发生在1935年的事件。这件事情几乎可以说决定了钱德拉塞卡将走上"孤独的科学之路"，而且妙不可言的是，它居然塞翁失马得到了一个伟大的启示！要弄清楚其中一些事情和奥妙，还得从1930年讲起。
 
    1930年，钱德拉塞卡带着两篇论文来到了英国剑桥大学。一篇论述的是非相对论性的简并结构，另一篇则论述了相对论简并机制和恒星临界质量的出现。福勒看了这两篇文章，对第一篇他没有什么意见，赞同钱德拉塞卡已取得进展；然而第二篇所说的相对论简并以及由此而生的临界质量，福勒持怀疑态度。福勒把第二篇论文给著名天体物理学家米尔恩看，征求他的意见。米尔恩同福勒一样，也持怀疑态度。
 
    虽然两位教授对钱德拉塞卡的结论持强烈怀疑态度，但钱德拉塞卡通过与他们的讨论和争辩，愈加相信临界质量是狭义相对论和量子统计结合的必然产物。1932年，钱德拉塞卡在《天文物理学杂志》上发表了一篇论文，公开宣布了自己的观点。
 
    1933年，钱德拉塞卡在剑桥大学三一学院获得了哲学博士学位，并被推举为三一学院的研究员。几年来，他与米尔恩已经建立了密切的工作联系和深厚的友谊，他也逐渐熟悉了英国著名的天文学家和物理学家爱丁顿。爱丁顿经常到三一学院来，与钱德拉塞卡一起吃饭，一起讨论问题，爱丁顿几乎了解钱德拉塞卡每天在干什么。
 
    到1934年底，钱德拉塞卡关于白矮星的研究终于顺利完成。他相信他的研究一定具有重大意义，是恒星演化理论中的一个重大突破。他把他的研究成果写成两篇论文，交给了英国皇家天文学会。皇家天文学会作出决定，邀请他在1935年1月的会议上，简单说明自己的研究成果。
 
    会议定于1935年1月11日星期五举行，钱德拉塞卡踌躇满志，自信在星期五下午的发言中，他宣布的重要发现将一鸣惊人。在下午会议上，钱德拉塞卡简短介绍了自己的研究：一颗恒星在烧完了它所有的核燃料之后，将会发生什么情形？如果不考虑相对论性简并，恒星最终都塌缩为白矮星。这正是爱丁顿同意的理论。但是，当人们考虑到相对论简并的时候，任何一颗质量大于1.44M⊙（太阳质量）的恒星在塌缩时，由于巨大的引力超过恒星物质在压缩时产生的简并压力，这颗恒星将经过白矮星阶段继续塌缩，它的直径越变越小，物质密度也越来越大，直到……
 
   "啊，那可是一个很有趣的问题。"他明确地宣称："一颗大质量的恒星不会停留在白矮星阶段，人们应该推测其他的可能性。"
 
    接着，大会主席请爱丁顿讲"相对论性简并"，爱丁顿开始发言了。钱德拉塞卡怀着异常紧张的心情，等待着这位权威的裁定。爱丁顿说：
 
    钱德拉塞卡博士谈到了简并。就此而论，通常使用两种表达："普通的"简并和"相对论性"简并。……我不知道我是否应该逃离这次正在召开的会议，不过我的论文的论点是并不存在像相对论性简并这样的东西！……恒星不得不继续辐射、再辐射和收缩、再收缩，我推测，这样直到它达到几千米的半径为止，此时重力变大，足以抑制住辐射，从而恒星最终能归于平静。……
 
    各种不同的偶然事件也许会介入以拯救恒星，但我希望有比这更多的保护。我认为应有一条自然定律阻止恒星以这种荒谬的方式行动!
 
    钱德拉塞卡惊呆了！怎么爱丁顿从来没有同他讨论过这一点呢？！在那么多的相互讨论中，爱丁顿至少应该表白一下他的观点才对呀！但是，爱丁顿并没有办法驳倒钱德拉塞卡的逻辑和计算，他只是声称，钱德拉塞卡的结果过于"稀奇古怪和荒诞"。这哪里是科学的反驳！
 
    钱德拉塞卡说的这种恒星的最终结局（"直径越变越小，物质密度也越来越大，直到……"），实际上就是现在已被广泛承认的黑洞（black hole），这个名称是30多年后于1969年由美国科学家惠勒正式定下的。但1935年1月11日的那天下午，爱丁顿断然宣布它是绝不可能存在的。他的理由只不过是一种直觉："我认为应有一条自然定律阻止恒星以这种荒谬的方式行动!"
 
    可以想象，1935年1月11日的下午对于钱德拉塞卡来说，真是一个惨淡得可怕的下午。他曾经心疼地回忆过那天下午会议结束后的惨况，他写道：
 
    在会议结束后，每个人走到我面前说"太糟糕了，钱德拉，太糟糕了"。我来参加会议时，本以为我将宣布一个十分重要的发现，结果呢，爱丁顿使我出够了洋相。我心里乱极了。我甚至不知道我是否还要继续我的研究。那天深夜大约1点钟左右我才回到剑桥，我记得我走进了教员休息室，那是人们经常聚会的场所。那时当然空无一人，但炉火仍然在燃烧。我记得我站在炉火前，不断地自言自语地说："世界就是这样结束的，不是砰的一声巨响，而是一声呜咽。"
 
    钱德拉塞卡原本想通过玻尔、泡利等的介入，把这个争论继续下去，但是由于当时物理学家们正忙于建立量子力学而无心介入，钱德拉塞卡的处境变得十分不利，他几乎失去了在英国寻找一个职位的任何机会，人们对爱丁顿的嘲笑记忆极深。没有办法，他只得于1937年来到美国，很幸运的是他在芝加哥大学找到了一个教职。与此同时，钱德拉塞卡决定不与爱丁顿争论，暂时放弃恒星演化的研究，但他坚信他的理论总有出头露面的一天。于是他把他的整个理论推导、计算、公式等统统写进了一本书中，这本书的书名是《恒星结构研究导论》。
 
    写完了这本书以后，他改弦更张，开始研究星体在星系中的几率分布，后来又转而研究天空为什么是蓝颜色的。有趣的是，钱德拉塞卡后来似乎十分满意这种不断转换研究领域的做法，以致他后来又全面地研究了磁场中热流体的行为、旋转物体的稳定性，广义相对论，最后他又从一种全然不同的角度回到了黑洞理论。1983年，他终于因为"对恒星结构和演化过程的研究，特别是因为对白矮星的结构和变化的精确预言"，获得了诺贝尔物理学奖。但这已是他最初提出这种理论后的48年了！
 
    法国著名作家蒙田曾意味隽永地说过：
 
    命运对于我们并无所谓利害，它只供给我们利害的原料和种子，任那比它更强的灵魂随意变转和利用，因为灵魂才是自己的幸与不幸的唯一主宰。
 
    钱德拉塞卡后来的经历，可以说是蒙田说法的一个佐证。1935年1月11日那天下午突然落到钱德拉塞卡头上的严重打击，有可能毁掉一个人的人生；但对于具有"更强的灵魂"的钱德拉塞卡，这一严重的打击却给了他一个千载难逢的机会，使他悟出了一个深刻的道理：为什么科学家到了50岁以后（甚至更早），就基本上不再会有什么创造性了。科学家为什么不能像伟大的文学家、艺术家那样不断地具有创新精神呢？钱德拉塞卡通过自己奇特的经历，找到一个答案，那就是：
 
    "由于没有更恰当的词，我只能说这似乎是有一些科学家对大自然产生某种傲慢的态度。这些科学家有过伟大的洞见，作出过伟大的发现，但他们此后就以为他们的成就，足以说明他们看待科学的特殊方法必然是最正确的。但是科学并不承认这种看法，大自然一次又一次地表明，构成大自然基础的各种真理超越了最强有力的科学家。"
 
钱德拉塞卡举爱丁顿和爱因斯坦为例：
 
    以爱丁顿为例，他是一位科学伟人，但他却认为，必然有一条自然定律阻止一个恒星变为一个黑洞。他为什么会这么说呢？无非是他不喜欢黑洞的想法。但他有什么理由认为自然规律应该是怎样的呢？同样，人们都十分熟悉爱因斯坦的那句不赞成量子力学的话："上帝是不会掷骰子的。"他怎么知道上帝喜欢做什么呢？
 
    而钱德拉塞卡由于第一次突然遭到严重打击而转变研究领域，这一转变居然使他感到受益匪浅，形成了以后不断转变研究领域的特殊风格。虽然不免孤独，却因为每到一个新的领域它都不可避免的是"新手"，不可能有"傲慢"的可能，只能老老实实从虚心当学生开始。这样倒使得他一生谦逊地对待大自然。这岂不是"塞翁失马，焉知非福"吗？这一事例大约会使我们得到很多很多的感受吧？

 

 

2007 news report about Emotiv Corp

Emotiv Ushers New Era of Gaming; Enables Players to Control Games with Their Brains
Posted by: Kevin Hawkins at March 7, 2007 11:50:04 AM
 

Game Developers Conference, San Francisco, CA - March 7, 2007 - Emotiv Systems, the pioneer in brain computer interface technology, today launched the Emotiv Development Kit (EDK) for the electronic games industry. With the EDK, developers will be able to create games that respond to a player's emotions and allow players to control their characters' expressions and manipulate objects using only the power of their brain.

Emotiv's technology represents a scientific breakthrough: it is the only brain computer interface solution that can detect and process both human conscious thoughts and non-conscious emotions, including those represented by brain activity patterns unique to a particular individual. Unlike earlier brain computer interfaces, which only detect a limited number of mental 'states' such as concentration (by identifying when the user is focusing on the screen), Emotiv can process dozens of expressions, gestures and emotions. For the first time, computers will be able to differentiate between thoughts of pushing an object or lifting it; detect a user's smile or win; and respond to emotions such as excitement and calmness.

The EDK is the first product offering from Emotiv, which publicly launched today. It enables game developers to attach dozens of specific thoughts and emotions to many different actions in their game. For example, they can enable players to move an object in a game without the use of a keyboard or joystick, make their character smile when they smile, or require that a player stays calm in order to ensure his or her character remains undiscovered in a stealth game. As a result, developers can create a more interactive, immersive, personal experience than is currently possible.

"The games industry is ripe for a revolution in the way players interact with a game. Current interfaces, such as keyboards and controllers, are relatively basic and non-intuitive and are out-of-keeping with the sophistication levels of today's games and the movement towards more immersive environments," said Nam Do, CEO and co-founder at Emotiv Systems. "Brain computer interfaces dramatically change the way players interact with a game and, as such, have a profound effect on the gaming experience. Developers are looking to this technology to take their games to another level, to differentiate their products and to retain their fans."

Emotiv Development Kit (EDK)
The EDK comprises a headset with multiple sensors for detecting brain activity and a series of application development suites:

_ The Expressiv(tm) suite can identify facial expressions in real-time, allowing developers to create characters that respond to the expressions of the player, such as smiles and winks.

_ The Affectiv(tm) suite measures players' discreet emotional states, allowing a game to respond to the player's emotions, such as excitement or calmness.

_ The Cognitiv(tm) suite detects players' conscious thoughts, enabling them to move or manipulate objects just by thinking about an action, such as push, pull, lift or rotate.

How brain computer interface technology works
The brain is made up of approximately 100 billion nerve cells, which are called neurons. These active neurons cause electrical activity, which can be observed using non-invasive electroencephalography (EEG).

Brain computer interface technology works by observing an individual's electrical brain activity and processing it so that computers can take inputs from the human brain. Human thoughts and emotions can therefore control and influence an application.

About Emotiv Systems
Emotiv Systems is a pioneer in brain computer interface technology. Its focus is on leveraging neuro-technology to create the ultimate interface for the next-generation of man-machine interaction. It does this by evolving the interaction between human beings and electronic devices beyond the limits of conscious interface. Emotiv creates technologies that allow machines to take both conscious and non-conscious inputs directly from your brain. These technologies include a hardware and software platform that can be licensed to commercial software developers and other third parties, as well as a suite of products for consumer applications.

Today, Emotiv is developing solutions specifically for the electronic games industry. In the future, Emotiv's technology has the potential to be applied to numerous industries, including interactive television, accessibility design, market research, medicine, and security.

Founded by four award-winning scientists and technology entrepreneurs, Emotiv is headquartered in San Francisco, CA, and has offices in Sydney, Australia. Investors include Technology Venture Partners, Epicure Capital Partners and the Australian Federal Government. More information is available at www.emotiv.com.

 
 
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 "Emotiv Ushers New Era of Gaming; Enables Players to Control Games with Their Brains" Discussion
   
  shengshwi     Member since: 1/16/2007  From: Woodland Hills, CA
 
  Posted - 3/7/2007 3:54:24 PM
This is really interesting. I can definitely see it being a huge market in the future.

 
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  Tolo     Member since: 3/3/2007  From: Lassa hang, Louangphrabang
 
  Posted - 3/7/2007 10:27:42 PM
cool era! :)

 
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  Dwiff     Member since: 12/9/2006  From: Eugene, OR
 
  Posted - 3/8/2007 12:24:50 AM
I have been excited about this technology for years, I think it will be a while before a game will outright benefit for the technology though. None-the-less I think it will be one step closer to the next real generation of gaming.

 
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  Elektordi     Member since: 5/10/2003  From: France
 
  Posted - 3/9/2007 9:54:17 AM
I want one... ;)

 
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  Rolando     Member since: 6/1/2008  From: Santiago, Santiago de Cuba
 
  Posted - 6/1/2008 1:00:27 PM
It looks really very interesting. Unfortunately the public (or at least the available) demonstrations of Emotiv have the following weak points:
- The available choices on each scene seem to be usually YES or NO (do it or not). A more interesting situation must include several possibilities and show that the user can freely select one of them.
- All the scenes implies the use of hands, arms or face muscles then it is hard to believe that Emotiv is really using brain activity instead of electromyogram.
- The claim of an optimal electrode position is really hard to justify without additional theoretical elements, at least if the goal is brain activity and not electromyogram.
www.electrical-neuroimaging.ch

 
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[URL: http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=438376&whichpage=1&#2907682]

Article by Professor Allan Snyder FRS

OWNING INNOVATION:  From Idea to Delivery

Home › Publications › Symposia Proceedings › 2002 › Snyder

Academy Symposium, November 2002

Dinner Address Genius, Madness and Innovation Professor Allan Snyder FRS Director, Centre for the Mind/ You know, when you think about it, creativity is an act of rebellion! It is downright subversive! Creativity must, by its very nature, confront conventional wisdom. Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. Creativity, this wondrous expression of our minds, underpins innovation, underpins real genius and even underpins the world's economic growth. And yet, and yet creativity remains largely illusive. We don't really know how it can be nurtured. We don't really know how it manifests itself in some and not in others. Why in some and not in others? I want you to recall "A Beautiful Mind". The recent film about Nobel Prize winner John Nash. John Nash's extraordinary mathematical genius, by his very own admission, came NOT from his conventional training, but rather from his particular form of schizophrenia. Quite simply, John Nash could 'see' patterns and relationships that normal people could not. And, this revelation, resonates with other expressions of genius, from the impressionist artist Gaugin to the Russian novelist Dostoyevsky, and possibly even onto the great Newton. Madness, bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia or whatever, somehow facilitate creativity. Ladies and gentlemen - Why is this so? Why do altered mental states facilitate genius? Answer this question and we will have unlocked one of the mysteries of creativity. Answer this question and we may even allow ordinary people greater access to genius. To be really creative, you must see the world in a new light. Sounds easy, but it is virtually impossible. The disturbing reality is that we don't see what is out there. What we do see is based largely on what we expect to see. What we do see is based largely on what we know. Two people looking at the very same cloud formation can see radically different images. The portrait painter sees a face of dignity, the ultrasound sonographer sees a diseased gall bladder. To me, this says it all. We project out what we know onto everything. Nothing we see is looked at afresh. We are blinded by what we know. We are blinded by our expertise. We are blinded by our mindsets. Have you ever wondered why you can't draw? I mean of course draw without being shown the tricks of how to do so. This really is deeply mysterious, because our brains already possess the information necessary to draw, otherwise we couldn't see at all! For example our brains have algorithms for calculating the shape of an object from subtle shading across its surface. Yet, we are not conscious of this shading. Because, if we were, we would be able to draw without training. When you think about it, when you think about it, this is rather an extraordinary state of affairs. Why does our brain have secret information? But when you think about it, why should we be conscious of subtle shading? Why should we be conscious of any so called backroom deliberations? Isn't it the final decision, the executive decision, and not the intermediate details leading to that decision that is of ultimate importance to us? No wonder subtle details are a secret of the nonconscious mind. But the frightening consequences of this strategy is that we don't see what is actually out there. And, here is the fundamental block to creativity. Is it possible to extricate ourselves from this intrinsic block? Is it possible to access the secrets of the nonconscious mind and see the world the way it really is? Just think of the rich applications if we could actually do that! Now, surprisingly, our approach to accessing the nonconscious is inspired by severely brain damaged people known as autistic savants. You know, like the character Dustin Hoffman played in the Hollywood film, Rain Man. Autistic savants are peculiarly literal. They lack the big picture. They lack executive decision making. Autistic savants would appear to be the exact opposite of the creative mind. But, they display extraordinary skills. Skills which demonstrate that they, unlike us, can access the nonconscious mind. Nadia, a severely mentally retarded girl could draw like Leonardo da Vinci. She did so without any training and from memory. And yet, Nadia was only three years old. She had no language ability and could not even recognise her mother from the nurse. Somehow Nadia could access the mechanisms for vision directly from the raw data of the nonconscious mind. Somehow she could access what is in all of our nonconscious minds. So, a peculiar brain damage affords autistic savants privileged access to the secrets of the nonconscious mind. Privileged access to something that exists in us all but is normally not accessible. Now here's the big idea! Although we do not have access to the nonconscious mind as do savants, is there nonetheless some artificial means to promote this access? Wouldn't it be amazing if, on command, we could switch off the part of the brain that is damaged in savants and allow ordinary people this privileged access to the nonconscious mind? Wouldn't it be amazing if we could just momentarily see the world as it really is? Incredibly, we can! We have actually been able to turn on savant like skills in people by shutting off part of their left brain with magnetic pulses. Incredibly, we can allow anyone access to the unprocessed raw information about the world, information that is normally a secret of the nonconscious mind. And, we do so not by stimulating the brain but rather by turning part of it off! Now this could really have some truly extraordinary applications, especially to learning and problem solving. Because, if we can, through artificial means, allow ordinary people a glimpse of the nonconscious mind, then they too would have an opportunity to see a novel interpretation - a novel way to join up the dots. Then they too would have a greater opportunity for innovation. And, this is precisely what we are attempting right now at our Centre for the Mind. Technological ways to enhance learning and creativity. But how does all this relate to John Nash. How does this relate to mental illness and genius? Well, I wonder if our results with magnetic pulses could help explain why so many geniuses suffer mental disorders? I wonder if, for example, bi-polar disorders, intermittently switch off the left side of the brain, allowing privileged access to raw sensory data of the nonconscious right-brain. This would lead to alternating views of the world. One view that driven by the left brain is consistent with past experience, consistent with what we know. The other view that dictated by the right brain sees the world anew and hence is devoid of familiarity and meaning. Taken together, these alternating views are deeply unsettling because they are unexpected. But, taken together they provide the fertile ingredients for creativity. I am sure you are thinking that there must be other ways than magnetic pulses or mental abnormalities to seeing the world unfiltered through our mindsets. Now, it is very hard to obliterate mindsets, and you need them anyway, so the way to see more of the world is to take on more mindsets. Because the more mindsets you imbue, the more different views you have of the world. So, after mastering one situation, you should go on and master something completely different. And, this strategy emulates the very effects of switching off the left side of the brain because it plunges you into unfamiliar territory. Take Picasso, arguably the most innovative painter of the 20th century. Picasso's four major stylistic shifts were precipitated, in every instance, by an upheaval in his life. He changed everything. He changed his woman. He changed his circle of friends. He changed his house. And, he even changed his dog!!! In every instance, the radical transformations of Picasso's styles, were reflected in the radical transformations of his private life. Take Steven Jobs, the co-founder of Apple computers. After Apple, he started Pixar digital animated films. Animated films? Yes! Returning to Apple years later, he revolutionised the appearance of computers and saved Apple industries. Take my career. My insights about optical fibres for telecommunication were inspired, not from engineering physics, but amazingly from insect eyes. Insect eyes! Working in completely different fields facilitates creativity. Somehow our minds link seemingly disparate concepts into a new synthesis. And, I emphasise, I emphasise the nonconscious nature of this process. Because in the final analysis, true genius is about making nonconscious leaps! Making leaps that explode upon you, seemingly from nowhere. Take the brilliant mathematician Poincare. Poincare's breakthrough solution leaped into his mind, unexpectedly, as he stepped onto a bus, and most importantly, after a lengthy holiday. The problem had incubated in his nonconscious mind. It's this crucial incubation period, the 'let me sleep on it' phenomenon, which links seemingly disparate concepts into a new synthesis. It's this crucial incubation period which facilitates the uprush of innovation and genius. And, it's this crucial incubation period which I believe can be enhanced by new technologies. Ultimately, creativity, this driving force of innovation, is the process of destroying ones own gestalt to build a completely new picture. But as I said, creativity is an act of rebellion! And to initiate a rebellion you must have courage. So, in conclusion remember what the celebrated Sigmund Freud said about his ability to innovate: "I am not really a man of science, I am not an observer, I am not an experimenter, I am not even a thinker. I am nothing but an adventurer - a conquistador - with all the boldness, and the tenacity of that type of being." In other words, in other words, from his own assessment, Freud was not especially skilled or talented. Rather, he had the courage to break the rules and to confront conventional wisdom. Thank you.

Professor Allan Snyder FRS Director Centre for the Mind http://www.centreforthemind.com Centre for the Mind: A joint venture between Australian National University and University of Sydney __________________________________ Centre for the Mind University of Sydney Main Quadrangle (A14) Sydney NSW 2006 Australia Phone: 61 (2) 9351 8531 Fax: 61 (2) 9351 8534 ________________________________ Centre for the Mind (Bdg 59) Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200 Australia Phone: 61 (2) 6125 2626 Fax: 61 (2) 6125 5184   The views expressed in the above article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Academy.

Polly Matzinger 从会问问题的女招待到世界闻名的科学家 [转载]

【 以下文字转载自 square 讨论区 】
【 原文由 pico 于 Fri Mar 28 13:02:58 2008 发表 】

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Polly Matzinger，从会问问题的女招待到世界闻名的科学家

mdoctor

　　第一次听说Polly的故事，是在研一时免疫学的课堂上。何维老师在讲授
"危险模式"理论时，特意卖了个官子："大家知道提出这个理论的是谁吗？在
国际免疫学界可是一位传奇人物啊！"

　　Polly是一位极具个人魅力的女人。每次学术会议，只要有她的演讲，会场
总是爆满。而且，她曾经为Playboy工作过。当年她做学生时曾向JEM（国际权威
的免疫学杂志）投稿，只署了自己的名字。编辑认为这篇论文只有一个作者并不
可靠，怎么也得把老板的名字也属上吧！文章修回后，增加了一个作者。不久，
论文发表了。后来，Polly的一位同学，也是JEM主编的女儿拿着这篇论文，去找
她老爸说："您知道Polly后边的那个名字是谁吗？"主编说："不是她老板
吗？"女儿哈哈大笑："那是Polly养的小狗（一只阿富汗猎犬）的名字！"此
后，Polly被禁止作为主要作者在JEM上发表文章，直到那位编辑去世。

　　那篇发表在JEM上的论文：Polly Matzinger and Galadriel Mirkwood.
(1978). In a fully H-2 incompatible chimera, T cells of donor origin
can respond to minor histocompatibility antigens in association with
either donor or host H-2 type. Journal of Experimental Medicine, 148,
84-92.

　　就是这么一位传奇的女科学家，在1994年时提出了"危险模式"理论，引发
了免疫学界一场新的"革命"，堪称近10来免疫学最重要的理论突破。随着网络
的不断发展，能从网上搜集到的有关Polly的资料也越来越多。

　　Polly的经历非常特殊，在成为一名科学家之前，做过各种各样的工作，包
括爵士乐手、实验室技术员、训狗员以及Playboy俱乐部的"兔女郎"（Playboy
bunny）等。在她看来，"兔女郎"是一项"伟大的"工作（a great job）。而
在Playboy俱乐部的网站中，Polly也被列入著名的前兔女郎名录：

http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/explayboybunnies/information/faq2.html
Dr. Polly Matzinger - world renowned immunologist.
Denver Playboy Club, 1969

　　不过，Polly的这些工作都干不了多久，她很快就会感到乏味。1972年她来
到加州Davis做酒吧服务生，同时也使自己有些时间来阅读、写作和从事动物工
作。

　　一天，Davis加州大学的两位教授来到这个酒吧。和往常一样，他们喝着啤
酒，讨论着动物拟态的问题。Polly问："为什么没有动物模仿过臭鼬呢？"
Robert Swampy Schwab教授，也是野生动植物、鱼类、菌类学系主任，竟然被问
得哑口无言。Schwab教授断言，这个"会问问题的女招待"应该成为一个科学家。
于是，他花了9个月的时间，到酒吧给Polly送去各种科学著作，使她相信科学是
永不令人厌倦的工作。1974年，Polly回到了学校，这年她已经27岁。2年后，
Polly获得了迟来学士学位。1979年，获得博士学位，终于开始了她永不觉得厌
倦的科学研究工作。她说，她终生感激那个（引导她走上科学道路的）人（I
owe that man my life）。

　　Polly目前在NIH（国立卫生研究院）的NIAID（国家过敏和传染病研究所）
领导着细胞和分子免疫学实验室的T细胞耐受和记忆研究部门。Polly给自己的实
验室取了一个奇怪的名字："幽灵（GHOST）"。
　　
http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/labs/aboutlabs/lcmi/tCellToleranceMemorySect
ion/matzinger.htm

　　作为一名国际知名的科学家，Polly的文章并不算多，迄今为止在PubMed上
只能检索到不足70篇，但大部分发表在Nature系列（23篇）、Science（4篇）、
JEM（10篇）、Annu Rev（1篇）等顶级学术杂志上。Polly的研究性论文不多，
而大都是综述、评论、讨论，这也是理论免疫学家的一个特点。
　　
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=search&db=pubmed&ter
m=(matzinger%20p[auth])

　　Polly的传奇经历，给我们太多的启示和思考。我们可以赞扬Schwab教授的
伯乐识马，也可以感叹Polly的的特立独行，还可以赞扬那个自由、平等、开放
的学术风气。如果没有Schwab教授，Polly恐怕永远只是芸芸众生中的一员，唯
一值得骄傲的，恐怕就只是曾经做赤戴着可爱的大耳朵和小尾巴的兔女郎。

　　其实，通过网络，我也有幸与Matzinger教授有过几次交流。研究生时，曾
将自己的实验与"危险模式"理论结合，用Email与Matzinger教授讨论过中其中
一些问题，很快就收到了她的详尽的解答和有关实验方向的指导。可惜，由于时
间和条件有限，我没能继续相关研究。

　　前不久，看到Matzinger教授在Nat Immunol上最新的一篇关于"危险模式"
理论的文章，于是再次向她去信，希望获得这篇文章的reprint。第二天，
Matzinger教授便给予了回复。显然，Polly已经不记得我这位3年前曾向她求教
的学生。她说："我对一位外科住院医师能对免疫感兴趣觉得非常惊讶。"同时，
她还附上另一篇几年前发表在Science上的相关的文献，供我参考。虽然实际上
我已经读过阐述"危险模式"理论的大部分文献，包括Science上的那篇，但是，
Matzinger教授此举，着实让我感动。她在用自己的行动，影响着每一个正在或
尚未走上科学之路的渴望科学的年轻人，就像当年Schwab教授带她走上科学之路。

　　Matzinger教授给我的回复：

From: "polly matzinger" <pcm@helix.nih.gov>
To: "**" <**@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: a reprint (or pdf) of your paper
Date: 2007年8月28日 18:22
hi
i am also sending you another paper about the danger model of immunity
(and the web supplement that went with it), just in case you have not
seen it. i am surprised that a surgery resident is interested in
immunity. good work!i hope you enjoy these, let me know if you can't open
them.
cheers polly

　　科学，对某些人来说，可能只是枯燥乏味的工作，而对另一些人来说，则可
能是永不令人厌倦的快乐的源泉。

　　我想，不管从事什么工作，只要能从中获得快乐，那便是成功。

说明：本文最早于2007-11-03发表于我的博客
http://blog.sina.com.cn/u/1401213573
http://xinguancha.blog.tianya.cn/

(XYS20080327)

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Tan Le 报道中所提到的竞争对手 OCZ 公司生产的脑电波信号游戏控制器

脑电波游戏控制器将上市 定价159美元

作者：大文轱辘  2008-03-11

　　【IT168 资讯】再强的游戏鼠标，再好的游戏手柄，恐怕都不能与人脑电波直接控制游戏操作更加吸引人吧，OCZ公司展示过的脑电波系统并不是一项科学发明，而是一种真真切切即将上市的产品！

　　OCZ的"神经脉冲激励者"（NIA）利用一个头带探测脑电波活动，并将其转换为游戏中的各种动作，通过驱动程序定义，可将某种脑电波信号定义为具体的键盘按键或鼠标动作。玩家使用它，不需要动一根指头，就可以在游戏中完成跑、跳、开火的动作。

　　近日OCZ的首席执行官Ryan Petersen在接收采访时说，这套系统的定价为159美元："我们希望每个用户都来使用它，而不是那种高不可攀的概念型产品"。

 

Tan Le on the Cover of Inc. Magazine

 

 Tan Le on the Cover of Inc. Magazine
 December 1, 2008

The scientists at Emotiv have done the impossible: created a brain-wave-reading headset that lets you conjure entire worlds using nothing but your mind -- a breakthrough that could be worth billions. Now comes the hard part.

I'm sitting in a darkened room, attempting to move a large block with nothing but my thoughts. I stare at it intently and imagine myself physically tugging on it, trying to flood my mind with a sense of strain and determination. But the block doesn't budge. I try again, concentrating, concentrating: Move, damn you; I am your master. After a long moment, the block trembles a bit, then slowly skids toward me a few feet before stopping. Encouraged, I mentally bear down until the block resumes its sliding, and this time it keeps going. I'm gripped by the immensity of what I have just accomplished: effecting a change in the world around me without moving a muscle. Well, that's not entirely true. I may have squinted a bit.

This isn't a dream; it's science -- and soon, maybe, a big business. OK, the block was only a virtual one on a computer screen, but that's a nit. The same technology that converted my thoughts into action on the screen someday could be hooked up to a real-life backhoe, robot surgeon, or microwave oven, placing any of those objects at my mental whim. This thought-conversion technology is composed of some extremely sophisticated software and a piece of headgear that looks like a cross between a telephone headset and a skeletal bike helmet. Embedded in the headset are 16 electrodes that press lightly on my scalp, monitoring the electrical signals generated by the 3 pounds of toothpaste-like goo sealed in my skull. The signals are my brain waves, the stuff of thought and emotion. The headset passes the signals to the software, which extracts patterns that can be used to control anything that's run by electronics.

Brain waves usually are monitored in hospitals or research labs, but I'm in a conference room at a company called Emotiv, where a few dozen scientists have developed the gear and software that quite literally read my mind, allowing me to play a sort of video game with nothing but sheer thought. This is not a rough, spare-no-expense research and development prototype of some distant-futuristic product, but rather an upcoming stocking stuffer. For $299, you and yours will very soon be able to vaporize onscreen enemies with an angry thought, have your online characters smile when you smile, and see video games react to your level of excitement.

And that's just for starters. Backed by some impressive partners, Emotiv has a long-range strategy that sounds like a business-school case study from the 22nd century. After enabling us to control video games with our minds, Emotiv intends to let us control most everything else we do on our computers and, after that, what's around our homes. In 10 years or so, according to the company's co-founder Tan Le, we will all go around in a world that will respond to our mental commands. Fed by data wirelessly streaming in from a few freckle-size sensors embedded in your scalp, your stereo will know when you are feeling blue and what sort of music cheers you up. Movies will know when you are getting bored and cut to the action. Car advertisers will know when you are feeling the need for speed. Your doctor will know when you are depressed. Doors will open at your mental command.

Given all this, you might expect that Emotiv would be sitting pretty. But if you think building a mind-reading device is tough, try marketing one. It turns out the old saw about building a better mousetrap doesn't hold in the context of a product most people hesitate to believe is possible and aren't sure they want anything to do with if it is. And that has left Emotiv with a challenge every bit as big as conquering mind reading: figuring out how to present its breakthrough device to the world in a way that will transform it from a slightly scary gadget to the next must-have consumer technology. And Emotiv has to do it while taming persistent hiccups in the system, herding video-game producers into tailoring games to the device, and trying to halt a skidding launch date before competitors -- yes, there are other companies making mind-reading devices -- pick off pieces of the market. "Emotiv faces some crucial decisions it absolutely has to get right," says Stephen Prentice, an analyst at Gartner (NYSE:IT) who has sampled the company's device.

Le admits that such challenges are real. But once consumers give the headset a try, she predicts, a lot of the doubts will themselves be vaporized, and demand will snowball. "We see it becoming a totally ubiquitous device, allowing you to interact in a seamless way with everything else in the world," she says.

That grandiose strategy reflects the intensity and outsize ambitions of Emotiv's founders, and especially of Le. Her entire life has been a string of hard-won, improbable triumphs, and she is loath to lower her standards to anything less than spectacular. Going all in with Emotiv doesn't scare her. "When you start with nothing," she says, "you don't get attached to a lot of things. You end up unafraid to push outside your comfort zone."

It's not entirely true that Le started with nothing. She had a bottle of poison. Her mother kept the bottle and little else on the small, calamitously overcrowded boat on which she, 4-year-old Tan, and Tan's younger sister, grandmother, aunt, and uncle fled the Communist government in South Vietnam in 1981. At first, they had felt lucky to have avoided being captured and jailed. But floating in the South China Sea, they weren't so sure. Pirates were chasing the hapless vessels and picking them off one by one. Hence, the bottle of poison: Tan's mother was determined to grant her children a swift and relatively painless chemical end if their boat should be overtaken. "She didn't tell us about any of the horrible stuff, but she didn't have to," says Le. "You see the fear on people's faces, and you know."

The women and girls were kept in the stifling lower deck all day to make the boat a less appealing target, but they were allowed some fresh air late at night. On the fifth night, when the boat was out of fuel and passengers were down to their final rations, Tan, though she had been warned not to speak while above deck, couldn't resist remarking to her mother on the sudden appearance through the clouds of a wide patch of brilliant stars. "Those aren't stars," her mother gasped. "Those are lights." It was a British tanker steaming alongside. They were rescued and taken to a refugee camp in Malaysia. Three months later, they were given a choice of countries that were accepting refugees. Tan's mother had heard that Australia was a young country with a big future, so that's where the family ended up.

They settled outside of Melbourne, where Le's mother, still in her early 20s, picked vegetables and struggled to learn English in night school while raising her daughters. It's not hard to see why Le grew up with an unshakable belief in her ability to accomplish anything. Her mother, who went on to get a bachelor's and then a master's degree, started a cosmetics business and then a consultancy aimed at facilitating Australian-Vietnamese trade. In 1997, she became mayor of Maribyrnong, a suburb of Melbourne, becoming the first Vietnamese woman to be elected mayor anywhere outside of Vietnam.

Grateful that her family had been able to find a comfortable place in Australian society, Le grew up wanting to help others do the same. At 15, she joined an organization that aids Vietnamese immigrants. Smart, ambitious, and disciplined, she was elected the group's president at 18. Somehow, she also found time to complete her schoolwork and entered Australia's prestigious Monash University at 16. In 1998, Le, then 20, was named Young Australian of the Year, a highly publicized government honor that made her a national celebrity and put her on a speaking circuit, where she hobnobbed with prime ministers, scientists, and international captains of industry. That same year, she graduated with a combined degree in business and law.

Le took a job at one of Melbourne's most prestigious law firms, seeing it as a natural extension of her community service work. But by the time she was 22 and a full-fledged lawyer, she found she couldn't stop thinking about the successful entrepreneurs she had met. In particular, she was captivated by the high-tech moguls, some not much older than herself, who had the ability to forge new types of electronic ties that left people better connected to one another and to the world. "There was a technology revolution going on, and I didn't want to just be a facilitator," Le says. "I wanted to be part of the creating."

In 2000, as her restlessness was peaking, she delivered a speech at the University of Melbourne. Afterward, she was approached by a young Vietnamese student who was studying business and information technology on a scholarship at the nearby Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. This was Nam Do, like Le newly aspiring to high-tech entrepreneurship. The two hit it off so well that they decided to try to start a company, one that would give Le a chance to make her contribution to the connectivity revolution.

Their idea was for small bar-code scanners that could be built into cell phones so that consumers could aim their phones at products and get a text message back with product information and price comparisons. Telcos weren't interested in the bar-code part but were impressed with the high-speed text-messaging capabilities -- these were pre-American Idol-voting days, and mass text messaging seemed a novel idea. Le and Do sold licenses for the software and stuck in a clause that would allot them a modest-sounding five cents for every message handled by the system. Within a few years, their software was handling 150 million messages a month; you do the math. In 2003, Le and Do sold the company, which they had owned outright. They were 26, rich, and looking for a new -- and bigger -- idea.

Le knew where the pair could grab a little inspiration. A few years earlier on the speaking circuit, she had been at yet another dinner event, feeling a bit overwhelmed as a young Asian woman in a sea of suits, when she spotted another misfit -- a middle-aged man in cargo pants, with wildish hair tucked under a sideways baseball cap. This turned out to be the scientist Allan Snyder, who had a prestigious award of his own to boast about: the Marconi Prize, a near-Nobel-level honor he had been awarded for his role in the development of fiber optics. Snyder and Le got on well and stayed in touch. Le and Do went to dinner at Snyder's home, where he enthralled them with his work on using magnetic fields to stimulate human brains. He went on to bemoan the fact that the computer revolution had shut out emotions, which are, after all, what drive us. The industry had thrived on digital signal processors -- chips and software that could handle images and sounds. What was needed, insisted Snyder, was an emotional signal processor.

The notion rang every bell in Le's head. Snyder was describing a technology breakthrough, an entrepreneurial adventure, and a way to form an entirely new, world-changing type of connection. "We stayed up until 4 in the morning talking about it," Le recalls. "By the time we got together again a few months later, we realized none of us had been able to get the idea out of our heads."

In fact, Snyder had been approached by larger companies about developing his idea. But he liked the idea of starting a company with Le and Do. "There are magical qualities to both of them," he says. "I just had a strong intuition this could work with them in charge." Le brought in another friend: Neil Weste, a prominent Australian chip designer who had sold his last company to Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) in 2000 for several billion dollars. Among these four very successful partners, start-up capital would not be a problem for the new company, which they dubbed Emotiv. There was no shortage of strategic vision, either. "We wanted to bring to computers and the Internet all the facial expressions and emotions that are so important in our interactions with each other," Le says.

Emotiv's headquarters looks like that of any Web 2.0 start-up, which is to say it is a cluttered warren with mostly twentysomethings hunched over multiple monitors in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood. But you have to meet only a few of these laptop lizards to realize that something unusual is going on here. One is an expert on facial expressions. Another has designed high-powered communications software. Yet another has produced best-selling video games. Smoke from a soldering iron wafts from a side room teeming with custom circuit boards. The payroll includes mathematicians as well as an evolutionary biologist.

And then there's the charismatic Le, now 31, who is a bit harder to characterize. She is comfortable shooting the breeze about the fine points of intellectual-property protection, the structure of the human cortex, and the future of the music industry, punctuating all of it frequently with an infectious laugh. But there are also flashes of a less easygoing, sharper-edged Le -- flaring, for example, at the suggestion that Emotiv can be compared with any of the countless start-ups that have set up shop nearby. "They may take on some technology risk in their development, but they know what they want to do is doable," she says. "Here, we're pushing the boundaries of what's possible."

Measuring brain waves, of course, isn't such a big deal. Electroencephalography, or EEG, machines that track the brain's electrical activity at the scalp have been around for the better part of a century. But the best EEG machines cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars -- and for all that, they generally haven't been used for much more than measuring relaxation levels or detecting signs of life.

When they launched Emotiv, the partners figured there was no point in hiring established EEG experts, since the state of the art in EEG machines wasn't even close to what they needed. "We decided that we'd look at the whole landscape of science," says Do, "because there had to be something out there traditional researchers were missing." Ultimately, Emotiv decided to treat emotional signal processing as a sort of math problem that could be solved with clever software. Emotiv opened an office in Sydney and staffed it with mathematicians, digital signal processing experts, and artificial intelligence whizzes. To help keep R&D costs manageable, Emotiv leaned heavily on graduate students willing to work for free in exchange for having some exciting, cutting-edge research on their resumé.

The result was a software program that broke brain waves down into 90,000 components. It was so complex that running a single 10-second brain-wave reading through the program took six computers two days. And sometimes the two-day crunching session would be for naught: The brain-wave readings were so faint that just the electrical activity generated in an eye blink was enough to swamp them. To work well, the software had to learn to filter out the noise. "It was like listening to all the phone conversations in New York at once and trying to pull a few of them out," says Snyder. But the researchers made steady progress, and as they did, Le was quick to file patents; she eventually claimed some 25 that covered a range of processes.

In late 2004, after a day of particularly good progress, the group sensed it was close to being able to read a person's level of excitement in real time. No one went home that evening. Le, Do, and the research team pulled an all nighter; they took turns wearing a standard electrode cap -- sort of like a bathing cap coated inside with gel to improve electrical conductivity -- while watching movies, listening to jokes, arguing, and more, all while a graph on the screen tracked excitement. "By morning, we knew we had it," says Le. "We knew we were going to succeed." Without any champagne on hand and with the bars closed, the team members went to a coffee shop to celebrate, their hair glistening with conductive gel.

By now, I can move that block with ease. I'm ready for a new challenge: making something happen onscreen that has no real-life analog. In this case, I'm to make that same damn block vanish into thin air. What am I supposed to think and feel? Disappear isn't part of my mental repertoire. It's suggested that I stare at the background scene and visualize it without the block. I conjure the image in my mind and focus on making it vivid. The block flickers. I sear the blockless image into my brain, and just like that, the block is gone. Who knew I had the ability to concentrate in such deadly ways? Now for some easier fun. An animated face comes up on the screen, and I'm told to make faces. As I grin, the face grins; it matches my frown, blink, wink, and eyebrow arching. I'm a cartoon! I feel as if the headset is helping me realize fantasies I didn't even know I harbored.

Le and her colleagues were just as tickled when they found they could perform similar feats. But they soon realized they now had a serious decision to make, one they had been putting off while the very feasibility of the project was in play: What do we do with this? Hit the market with an expensive device that would sell in low volume? License the technology to one or more big companies? Or somehow figure out how to bring the costs down enough to sell to a mass audience? The co-founders had been dreamily discussing the possibilities all along, but now they met to formally choose their future. "Nam and I were very excited about the opportunities around licensing, but then Allan said to us, 'We don't want to make money doing this,' " recalls Le. "Nam and I rolled our eyes, thinking that this was typical scientist talk. Then Allan added, 'We want to make a lot of money.' " They all laughed, but the point was clear: They had all seen success in past exploits. Why bother to do this if they weren't going to go for the jackpot? They decided to shoot for the mass market.

The strategy is counterintuitive, to say the least. "The best beachhead strategy for a new technology is one that demonstrates that the technology works, is highly valued by the customer, and gives you a high margin," says Jerome Engel, executive director of the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley. The transistor, for example, was first brought to market in 1952, when it was used in hearing aids. Customers were grateful rather than finicky, marketing was fairly simple, and the revenue funded expansion into bigger markets. Emotiv, in fact, is working with a wheelchair company to develop a thought-controllable device for those who can't move their body. But that's a sideline. The company's biggest bet remains squarely on consumers -- which Engel finds risky. "If you go for a consumer market first," he says, "you're racing against limited resources, you need to get a lot of partners, and you need to have a very sexy product that delivers exactly what unforgiving customers are looking for. These guys made a choice that carries a huge risk."

The decision to shoot for a mass market immediately led to another: The one market that seemed ripe for a large-scale invasion of innovative interface technology was the video-game industry. "Better and better graphics had reached a point of diminishing returns, while there had been almost no innovation in controllers," Le says. "And gamers tend to be early adopters, making them a good incubator for a new technology." Emotiv opened a new headquarters in San Francisco, placing it close to the heart of the gaming industry, while keeping an R&D team in Sydney.

With a market in mind, Emotiv could now pin down the details of its device. Gamers weren't going to wear a gooey bathing cap, so the team came up with a rigid, relatively unobtrusive, even cool-looking headset able to get an accurate brain-wave reading with 16 gel-free sensors instead of the 128 sticky ones in a standard EEG cap. The headset was augmented with a tiny gyroscope to track head motions and a wireless transmitter to free the wearer of wires. More important, the software's brain-wave-interpreting capabilities were improving by leaps and bounds. The software would eventually be able to differentiate among 30 of what the company characterizes as mental states, roughly divided into three categories -- emotions, facial expressions, and actions. All three types of mental states would be critical: Actions would allow controlling what a character does, facial expressions would convey feelings and intentions to fellow online players, and emotions would allow a game to respond to how a player was feeling. A plot could change when you were bored, a virtual character could appear more often if you found him engaging or threatening, music or lighting could shift to complement your mood.

The technology worked, but it didn't work perfectly for everyone. Some users had more trouble than others sending out consistent, identifiable signals, even after running through a training session. And that, says Le, was a shadow hanging over the future of Emotiv. "If we let something seen as half baked get onto the market, it would be a disaster," she says. "We have an opportunity to revolutionize the way people interact with technology. But we won't get a chance to do that unless we provide the right experience in the beginning."

To make the device easier and more fun to use, Emotiv's team worked furiously with a small video-game-development company called Demiurge Studios in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to embed the technology in a gamelike context. Instead of a boring training session, an Asian sensei walks you through an exotic introduction to your new powers. He gets you to grimace at annoying flying creatures to make them flee, to lift heavy objects, and more. This acclimation process gives the software a chance to record your brain waves and trains you to use them consistently before it throws a series of increasingly difficult challenges at you, such as reconstructing simply via thought a fallen bridge needed for a mystical journey while a fiery sky changes hue in response to your emotional state. Another mini game teaches you to hurl thunderbolts.

The market seemed to break in Emotiv's favor with the success of the Nintendo Wii, which lets users wield game controllers like rackets or steering wheels; the Wii's popularity suggested a real thirst for new sorts of interfaces.

And so, buoyed by early results with test subjects, Emotiv decided to take a chance and unveil a prototype in February 2008, at the closely watched Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. There, new video games and accessories can pick up buzz or sink under the gaming community's disdain.

On the show's opening night, with thousands of attendees and reporters in the audience and video cameras rolling, an Emotiv team member named Zachary Drake attempted to move a cube and more, which by this point was something anyone at Emotiv could do in his or her sleep. But for the first time since the team's big breakthrough, the device, which the team had named the Epoc, simply stopped working. Clearly rattled, Drake gamely tried again and again to work his will on the screen, his face a knot of concentration, his arms reaching out plaintively. For a moment, the crowd was silent. "I think people cringed for us," says Le. Then, the murmuring and snickering began. "Welcome to demo hell, folks," Drake said.

The Emotiv team later learned that a powerful wireless network at the facility had wiped out the connection between the headset and the PC. That the demo might fail had never entered Le's mind, and she just stood there, stunned: "We had done so many dry runs and had never had a problem. I was so shocked. I was speechless." The debacle led to widespread ridicule of the company -- "The Force Is Not Strong With Emotiv's Epoc," "Watch Emotiv's Performance Anxiety," and "The Trade Show and Demo Hall of Shame" were among the headlines on gaming sites.

On the other hand, more than 300 people gave the device a shot at the company's booth, and by almost all accounts, it was a big hit and worked well for virtually everyone who tried it. The company was encouraged enough to set a product launch time frame of the 2008 holiday season. The plan was to sell the headsets through game and electronics retailers, as well as online. Meanwhile, competitors were massing. CyberLearning Technology in San Marcos and OCZ Technology in Sunnyvale, for example, have both developed neural headsets. Hitachi in Japan has poured money into potential mind-reading products, and dozens of universities have made efforts to develop better, cheaper thought processors, any of which could lead to spinoffs. There's even an ambitious project funded by the U.S. military, which hopes to have patrolling soldiers communicating by thought within two decades.

But most notably, there's NeuroSky in San Jose, which has developed a single-electrode game-control headband. NeuroSky's device can detect only two mental states -- attention and meditation. But at a projected $50 or so, it is about one-sixth the price of Emotiv's. And for games, at least, keeping it simple could turn out to be an advantage. "People can use ours right away without training," says Greg Hyver, NeuroSky's vice president of marketing. "You can add on all the features you want to a headset, but if people can't use it right out of the box, they won't use it at all." At a conference in October, Square Enix demonstrated a zombie game that uses the NeuroSky device, and Sega is considering releasing a toy sword or a game based on the technology.

Meanwhile, a company called EmSense is making inroads into the corporate market with a headset that measures the reactions of consumers to games, ads, and other entertainment and marketing creations. EmSense hopes to provide its clients with a detailed, high-tech analysis of what flies with what types of consumers. Coca-Cola used EmSense last year to help fine-tune its Super Bowl advertising decisions. That's a business Emotiv wants to be in on as it moves beyond gaming, and no wonder. Says EmSense CEO Keith Winter: "The market research business is worth billions. It's an ocean. Gaming is a pond."

Le and her teammates have tried these rival systems and remain confident they don't come close to the Epoc's capabilities. Still, Emotiv decided in September to postpone the rollout. Why? Because it can, Le says. She insists Emotiv's technology edge is insurmountable. She also says funding isn't a problem, at least in the near term; the company raised $13.4 million in a round of financing in 2007 -- the Australian government chipped in, along with three venture capital firms. "Trying to make the Christmas time frame just wasn't necessary," she says. "We don't have to risk the whole business trying to meet an early delivery date." Le even suggests that delaying the product could prove to be a smart marketing move. "We want pent-up demand," she says. "We've already got 5,000 preordered through our website. After we deliver a good experience to those early customers, we can talk about making tons of them for next Christmas." The company hasn't announced a new launch date, but Le says the headset will be out in 2009.

Meanwhile, the team continues to think beyond games. The headset already can be used to control most ordinary functions in common software, such as word processing and spreadsheet programs, by taking the place of a mouse -- the cursor simply follows your gaze, and you can think your way into triggering the equivalent of a left or right mouse click. Not only might that be a critical tool for people who may have trouble working a mouse, but it might end up feeling a lot more natural for the rest of us. The technology could be applied to entertainment, Le says, noting that wearing a headset while listening to music or watching a video would allow your computer to track what you like and dislike down to individual choruses or scenes, and start automatically tailoring what it serves you, perhaps via a website -- a sort of brain-powered iTunes that Le hints she would like to see Emotiv own. The headset could help educators who work with children who have autism or attention deficit disorder. Social networking sites could use emotional feedback from the headset to create compatible online gatherings or even assist in matchmaking. Well, maybe. "Love is tricky to identify in brain signals," Le allows. "I'm not sure we know how to tell it apart from lust."

Some powerful partners have come on board. IBM (NYSE:IBM) is working with Emotiv to develop a corporate version of the headset that would allow, for example, virtual conferencing with avatars that represent people's expressions and feelings -- so you would know who was engaged, who was bored, who was laughing at your jokes, and, maybe, who was pretending to laugh. Ketan Paranjape, chief of technical staff at Intel, says the chip giant is interested in enlisting Emotiv's headset to navigate via thought three-dimensional representations of corporate data -- the company featured Emotiv prominently at its annual conference for developers. "We think neural devices will be the next interface," he says.

And that brings us, hypothetically, to the day when we are all wearing Emotiv hair plugs, our thoughts and feelings productively ricocheting through our homes, offices, and, through the Internet, the whole world. That's Le's vision, anyway, and she is almost dismissive of lesser goals. "We don't want to be some niche company providing a specific solution to a specific problem," she says. "We have an opportunity to create an industry that will revolutionize the whole framework of technology."

That may well happen. But first, she has to give the world a chance to move that block mentally, before someone beats her to it.

Contributing editor David H. Freedman is a Boston-based freelance writer.

 [URL: http://www.allianceofceos.com/press/member_news/2008/the_scientists_at_emotiv_have.php]

 

Difference Between Asperger's Syndrome and High Functioning Autism - Dr Tony Attwood's View

Is There a Difference Between Asperger's Syndrome and High Functioning Autism?

Dr Tony Attwood

We have been exploring the nature of autism, as described by Leo Kanner, for nearly 60
years. He described a severe form of autism, typified by the silent and aloof child. We
have only been exploring the profile of autism described by Hans Asperger for about 15
years. The children he described had speech and were active participants in social
interactions. There is currently some debate in the academic literature and between
clinicians as to whether Asperger's syndrome is a unique disorder with a profile of
abilities that does not occur in any other syndrome or simply a form of autism with a
higher intelligence quotient.

There is general agreement that autism as defined by Leo Kanner and 'autistic
psychopathy' (the original descriptive term of Hans Asperger which was later changed
to the term Asperger's syndrome by Lorna Wing) are two conditions within the range of
disorders known as Pervasive Developmental Disorders or Autistic Spectrum Disorders.
In 1994 the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) provided
diagnostic criteria for Asperger's syndrome. The opinion of the authors of the manual,
which was revised in 2000 (DSM-IV-TR) was that Asperger's syndrome could be
differentiated from autism by an examination of the child's early development and the
existence of some characteristics that were rare in children with autism. They considered
that early language and cognitive skills are not delayed significantly in children with
Asperger's syndrome. There is also no clinically significant delay in age-appropriate selfhelp
skills, adaptive behaviour and curiosity about the environment in childhood. The
clinical profile of a child with Asperger's syndrome is also less likely to include motor
mannerisms and preoccupation with parts of objects as occurs in autism but the child
can have a circumscribed interest that consumes a great deal of their time amassing
information and facts. They also noted that the profile of social skills in children with
autism includes self-isolation or rigid social approaches, while in Asperger's syndrome
there can be a motivation to socialise but this is achieved in a highly eccentric, one-sided,
verbose and insensitive manner. Should the child's profile of abilities and developmental
history be consistent with the criteria for both autism and Asperger's syndrome, the
authors of the DSM state that a diagnosis of autism should take precedence.

The diagnostic criteria in the DSM, which provide a differentiation between autism and
Asperger's syndrome, have been examined by several research studies over the last five
years. There has been some criticism from clinicians and research that the criteria do not
identify the disorder Hans Asperger originally described. The four cases he described in
his original paper would be diagnosed, according to DSM criteria, as having autism not
Asperger's syndrome. (Miller and Ozonoff 1997). If one was to use the DSM criteria,
Asperger's syndrome would be a very rare condition.

Research has also been conducted on whether delayed language in children with autism
can accurately predict later clinical symptoms. Three studies have cast considerable
doubt over the use of early language delay as a differential criterion between autism and
Asperger's syndrome (Eisenmajer, Prior, Leekam, Wing, Ong, Gould and Welham 1998,
Dickerson Mayes and Calhoun 2001 Manjiviona and Prior 1999). Any differences in
language ability that are apparent in the pre-school years between children with autism
and Asperger's syndrome has largely disappeared by early adolescence (Eisenmajer,
Prior, Leekam, Wing, Ong, Gould and Welham 1998, Ozonoff, South and Miller 2000).
There is general agreement that children with Asperger's syndrome may not show any
conspicuous cognitive delay in early childhood. Indeed, some can be quite precocious or
talented in terms of learning to read, numerical abilities and in some aspects of their
constructive play and memory. Children with autism can be recognised as having
developmental delay in their cognitive abilities from infancy and diagnosed as young as
18 months of age with a mean age of diagnosis of five years. Children with Asperger's
syndrome are often not diagnosed until after they start school with a mean age of
diagnosis of eleven years (Howlin and Asgharian 1999). However, the signs of
Asperger's syndrome in very young children may be more subtle and easily
camouflaged at home and school. On reflection, parents (especially mothers) and
teachers have often been concerned about some aspects of the child's cognitive
development, in particular their social reasoning, but their concerns may have been
intuitive, and difficult to describe to clinicians. It is not until the child is expected to
show more advanced cognitive abilities that formal assessments indicate significant
delay or an unusual profile in cognitive development.

There has been research comparing the cognitive profile of adolescents with autism and
Asperger's syndrome. The studies have examined the cognitive profile of what may be
called 'High Functioning Autism', that is children with a diagnosis of autism with an
Intelligence Quotient in the normal range, i.e. above 70. The term High Functioning
Autism has been used in the past to describe children who had the classic signs of
autism in early childhood but as they developed, formal testing of their cognitive skills
indicated a greater degree of intellectual ability with greater social and adaptive
behaviour skills than are usual with children with autism. Their clinical outcome was
better than expected. The cognitive abilities of this group of children were then
compared to the cognitive profile of children with Asperger's syndrome, who did not
have a history of early cognitive or language delay. The results of the research has not
established a distinct and consistent profile for each group. Ehlers, Nyden, Gillberg,
Dahlgren Sanberg, Dahlgren, Hjelmquist and Oden (1997) found that only a minority of
each diagnostic group showed a characteristic profile.

One group of researchers, based at Yale University in the United States have suggested,
on the basis of their research studies, that the neuropsychological profiles of children
with Asperger's syndrome and High Functioning Autism are different. (Klin, Volkmar,
Sparrow, Cicchetti and Rourke 1995). However, research by other scientists examining
diagnostic differentiation using neuropsychological testing has not identified a distinct
profile that discriminates between the two groups. (Manjiviona and Prior 1999, Miller
and Ozonoff 2000 Ozonoff South and Miller 2000).

The DSM criteria refer to children with Asperger's syndrome as having, in comparison
to children with autism, no clinically significant delay in age-appropriate self-help skills
and adaptive behaviour. Clinical experience indicates that parents, especially mothers of
children and adolescents with Asperger's syndrome, often have to provide verbal
reminders and advice regarding self-help and daily living skills. This can range from
problems with dexterity affecting activities such as learning to tie shoelaces to reminders
regarding personal hygiene, dress sense and time management. Clinicians have also
recognised significant problems with adaptive behaviour, especially with regard to
anger management, anxiety and mood. (Attwood 2002). Clinical experience and research
has confirmed that in terms of the child's behavioural profile, children and adults with
High Functioning Autism and Asperger's syndrome have a very similar presentation
(Ozonoff, South, and Miller 2000). Both groups benefit from the same behavioural
treatment programs.

The academic may decide whether a particular subject in a research study has a
diagnosis of autism or Asperger's syndrome to ensure that their research examines the
same clinical populations as in other studies. The clinician has other considerations and
decides whether the child has a diagnosis of autism or Asperger's syndrome to help
define and understand their differences to other children. However their
recommendations for treatment for both High Functioning Autism and Asperger's
syndrome are the same.

Clinicians have noted that as the clinical picture of Pervasive Developmental Disorders
or Autistic Spectrum Disorders changes over time, a child may receive a diagnosis of
severe autism or High Functioning Autism at one point in their developmental history
and Asperger's syndrome at a later stage. (Attwood 1998, Gillberg 1998). There is also
the opinion among clinicians that, contrary to DSM, if a child meets criteria for both
autism and Asperger's syndrome, the child is given a diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome
(Mahoney, Szatmari, MacLean, Bryson, Bartolucci, Walter, Jones and Zwaigenbaum
1998)

A dilemma for the clinician is whether a particular diagnosis enables the child to have
access to the government services that they need. In some countries, a child may only
have support in the classroom or the parents receive government allowances or medical
insurance coverage if the child has a diagnosis of autism. Clinicians may write reports
with a diagnosis of autism rather than the more accurate diagnosis of Asperger's
syndrome. This is particularly relevant when one considers the epidemiological research
suggests that one person in 250 has Asperger's syndrome, using the criteria being
adopted by clinicians (Kadesjo Gillberg and Hagberg 1999). Government and nongovernment
agencies, especially Education and Health departments, have usually not
been funded for such an incidence and are reluctant to 'open the floodgates'.

Conclusion

Having reviewed the literature, we may be able to answer the question, is there a
difference between Asperger's syndrome and High Functioning Autism? The reply is
that the research and clinical experience would suggest that there is no clear evidence
that they are different disorders. Their similarities are greater than their differences. We
appear to be taking, particularly in Europe and Australia, a dimensional view of autism
and Asperger' syndrome rather than a categorical approach. (Leekam, Libby, Wing
Gould and Gillberg 2000). At present both terms can be used interchangeably in clinical
practice.

 

References

Attwood T. Asperger's syndrome: A guide for parents and professionals. London Jessica
Kingsley Publications. 1998.
Attwood T. (2002) Frameworks for behavioural interventions. Child and Adolescent
Psychiatric Clinics of North America. 12 (in press).
Dickerson Mayes, S. and Calhoun, S.L. (2001) Non-significance of early speech delay in
children with autism and normal intelligence and implications for DSM-IV Asperger's
Disorder. Autism. 5, 81-94.
Ehler, S., Nyden A., Gillberg C. Dahlgren Sandberg A., Dahlgren S.O., Hjelmquist, E.,
and Oden A. (1997) Asperger syndrome, autism and attention disorders: A comparative
study of the cognitive profiles of 120 children. Journal of Child Psychology and
Psychiatry, 38 207-217.
Eisenmajer, R., Prior, M., Leekam, S., Wing L., Ong, B., Gould, J., and Welham M. (1998)
Delayed language onset as a predictor of clinical symptoms in Pervasive Developmental
Disorders. Journal of Autism and developmental Disorders, 28, 527-533.
Gillberg C. Asperger syndrome and High Functioning Autism. British Journal of
Psychiatry, 171, 200-209.
Howlin P. and Asgharian A. (1999) The diagnosis of autism and Asperger syndrome:
findings from a survey of 770 families. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology,
41, 834-839.
Klin A., Volkmar F.R., , Sparrow S.S., , Cicchetti D. V., and Rourke B.P. (1995) Validity
and neuropsychological characterization of Asperger Syndrome: Convergence with
Nonverbal Learning Disabilities Syndrome. Journal of Child psychology and Psychiatry
36, 1127-40.
Kadesjo B., Gillberg C., and Hagberg B. (1999) Autism and Asperger syndrome in sevenyear-
old children: a total population study. Journal of Autism and Developmental
Disorders, 29, 327-331.
Leekam S., Libby S., Wing L., Gould J., and Gillberg C. (2000) Comparison of ICD-10 and
Gillberg's criteria for Asperger syndrome. Autism 4, 11-28.
Mahoney W. J., Szatmari P., , MacLean J.E., Bryson S. E., Bartolucci G., Walter S.D., Jones
M.B. and Zwaigenbaum L. (1998) Reliability and accuracy of differentiating Pervasive
Developmental Disorder subtypes. Journal of the American Academy of Child and
adolescent Psychiatry, 37, 278-285.
Manjiviona, J. and Prior M. (1999) Neuropsychological profiles of children with
Asperger syndrome and autism. Autism 3, 327-356.
Miller, J.N. and Ozonoff, S. (1997) Did Asperger's cases have Asperger Disorder? A
research note. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 38. 247-251.
Miller, J.N. and Ozonoff,S. (2000) The external validity of Asperger Disorder: Lack of
evidence from the domain of Neuropsychology. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 109,
227-238.
Ozonoff S., South M., and Miller J.N. (2000) DSM-IV defined Asperger syndrome:
Cognitive, behavioural and early history differentiation from High Functioning Autism.
Autism 4, 29-46.

Copywrite 2003 Tony Attwood

 

[URL: http://www.sacramentoasis.com/docs/8-22-03/as_&_hfa.pdf]

 

Difference between Asperger's Syndrome and High-functioning Autism

1) About Asperger's Syndrom
一九四四年，在维也纳执业的小儿科医师汉斯"亚斯伯格，率先提出关于亚斯伯格症的案例报告。但是他的文章以德文发表，语言本身即造成藩篱；加上他研究的个案数目，又比肯纳医师在一九四三年发表的研究个案少；而且亚斯伯格医师描绘患者时的精确性以及概念性的陈述，均不及肯纳医生。以上种种原因，让亚斯伯格医师的报告，并未如肯纳医生类似的研究，获得学界广泛的关注。事实上，直至一九八一年，才有人陆续开始整理、发表其临床个案，并引用"亚斯伯格症"这个名词表述这些个案的临床特征，西方世界才真正开始关注这一群患者。

　　相关文献从此逐渐累积，但研究文章大量出现，则是一九九○年以后的事。这个障碍被列入自闭症的亚型，至今已有超过十年的历史；然而学界对这个障碍的界定，却不断有纷云的讨论。大多数学者同意将亚斯伯格症归纳在自闭症的诊断之下，但对于是否应将其独立为一个亚型，或应将之视为高功能自闭症的变异状况，至今仍有争议。争议的主因是高功能自闭症患者与亚斯伯格症的分界并不明确，即使长程追踪研究的结果，也无法清楚显现两者之间的差异。  

2) Difference between Asperger's Syndrome and High-functioning Autism

区分亚斯伯格症和婴幼儿自闭症（肯纳症），主要关键点为患者三岁前的语言发展与智能，是否均在正常的范围内。但是对于智力正常的高功能自闭症患者而言，若无法澄清早年的语言发展史，便会产生辨认上的困难。而且由于大部分亚斯伯格症患者发现、就医或接受诊断的时间较晚，因此这个亚型出现后，许多临床工作者便将某些语言发展出现轻度障碍、在临界接近正常范围的患者，或者智能轻度障碍、临界接近正常范围，但是有人际关系问题的患者，或者行为局限、固执与怪异的患者，甚至许多不明的人际、社交或社会情境学习困难的患者，通通归类在亚斯伯格症之下，导致亚斯伯格症的诊断，更不容易被人所了解。不过由于目前通用的诊断手册中，并无关于高功能自闭症操作定义的描述，因此亚斯伯格症也可以被视为目前唯一被界定的高功能自闭症。

　　亚斯博格症估计盛行率约在万分之二到二点五之间；美国一项对新泽西洲及特定小区的研究，则显示此症的盛行率约为万分之三左右。该症常见于男生，出现率约为女生的八倍。Safra指出瑞典的盛行率约为千分之七，而Neil指出在美国的出现率约为千分之二，近年的研究显示，每千名7-16岁的儿童中，约有3.6至7.1位为亚斯博格症，较自闭症患者多（大约每一万名出生的新生儿中，有7-16位为自闭症患者）。亚斯博格症病患的男女比例约在10-15：1，以男性居多。

　　一般而言，亚斯博格症儿童和高功能自闭症儿童的差异性很小，通常被称为自闭症的延续或是变异的自闭症因此有些亚斯博格症儿童，也常被误认为是自闭症，但其和自闭症之间仍存在着差异性。

 

　　语文智商是判断的标准

　　一般在定义亚斯博格症和高功能自闭症，通常以智商七十以上来作为范围。一九九八年，调查三百三十个个案研究发现，高功能自闭症儿童在语文智商方面，普遍低于亚斯博格症儿童，高功能自闭症儿童语文智商平均为七十七，亚斯博格症儿童则为九十八；在操作智商方面，亚斯博格症儿童为九十，高功能自闭症儿童为八十六。研究结论显示，语文智商是可以做为诊断亚斯博格症儿童和高功能自闭症儿童的标准。

　　自闭症儿童对于某些事情大多有特殊的兴趣或特殊的天赋，例如机械性计数的能力、机械性音乐的能力、机械性的判断能力，比较不属于思考性能力，而亚斯博格症儿童则不同，亚斯博格症儿童可能一直会思考诸如"美国应该有一州是没有空气的"。

　　国内有个典型的亚斯博格症儿童，他就是一直在专研印度橡树，连叶脉偏向几度时受风会比较大的问题都会去思考。

　　另外，在语言的流畅性方面，对亚斯博格症儿童没有困难，两岁前即会出现单字，三岁就会说整个句子，但四岁前，你、我、他还是会混淆，而且会有反复和重复对方话语的情况。相对于高功能自闭症所特有的机械性特殊能力，亚斯博格症儿童在特殊能力方面则属思考性的，例如曾有个国外知名的心脏科专家，即是亚斯博格症患者，他就是对于心脏特别感兴趣。

　　亚斯博格症者的鉴定方法

　　在语言方面，亚斯博格症和高功能自闭症最大的差异在，高功能自闭症的自发性语言非常少，不会流畅的表达，亚斯博格症儿童则在自发性语言和对谈上并没有问题，问题则在于对谈时，亚斯博格症儿童会有"冗长的对谈"，不管对方有没有兴趣，会和对话者一直谈同一件事情（例如印度橡树），而引起对方的反感，进而影响到其人际关系的互动。

　　在动作方面，高功能自闭症儿童的大肌肉动作没有问题，亚斯博格症儿童则动作非常笨拙，他们一般的标准有四项：一、模仿肢体动作有困难，二、无法顺利的接球，三、单脚站立有困难，四、两手无名指弯曲有困难。

　　在社会互动能力方面，和自闭症儿童不同的是，亚斯伯格症儿童是具有能力、有兴趣，且会去参与，但因为他的社会直觉和一般人有差异，所以无法了解人际互动的意义。例如请他举右手，他会举左手，原因是他面对着施令者，会以模仿的方式，跟着施令者举相同的手。

　　所以在教导亚斯博格症儿童时，应注意其"参考点"的问题，以教写字为例，不要面对着他写，而是到他身旁教导他，以免写出来的字左右上下相反，造成家长又要担心孩子是否还有视觉知觉统合的问题。

　　在攻击暴力行为方面，亚斯博格症儿童因有满高的道德标准，因此也会引发互动上的冲突。例如过马路时，看到有人闯红灯，他们会马上义正严词的制止："不行，叫警察来抓你喔！"也曾有一个亚斯博格症儿童常扬言："我要拿刀子来杀那些坏人。"像是发生类似的情况，就很容易和其它人发生冲突，而被误解有攻击暴力行为。有时候，他们是因为被"逼急"了，才会产生攻击暴力行为。

　　此外，有些过动儿也曾被误判为亚斯博格症儿童，一般正常儿童出现过动的机率为百分之四到百分之六。

　　

　　根据国际精神医学会的鉴定标准，亚斯博格症儿童鉴定的标准有：一、语言发展问题，二、社会互动，三、行为问题，四、非精神症状况的行为问题。前三项和自闭症的鉴定标准是相同的，主要是以第四项来作为判别的不同。利用视觉线索来解决问题。

　　亚斯博格症儿童的情感相当丰沛、敏感，很在意别人的看法、嘲弄或挑剔，有时候一个嘲弄或挑剔，会使其产生低自尊，甚至有忧郁症、焦虑症的症状；在教育上必须使其了解别人的意向、行动、态度有时并非是负面的。例如，曾经有一个亚斯博格症女童在过生日时，因看到蛋糕上的小裂痕，使得原本高兴的情绪，顿时转为嚎啕大哭，原来她从蛋糕上的裂痕，联想到山川河流的切割，以及自己的身世背景和不被他人接受的人际关系。

 

　　如何为亚斯博格症的孩子选择适当的治疗？

　　当父母首次由医师的口中得知，孩子罹患的是亚斯伯格症(以下简称AS)时，脑中闪过的第一道问题常是"接下来怎么办呢？"。真正的答案，其实还是在孩子身上。各种专家及医师都有满腹经典要协助你的AS孩子，但世界上真的没有某种治疗是放诸四海皆准，适合每一位病童的。父母的重责在于为自己的孩子找到最适合他的治疗策略。

　　截至目前，已发展出许多AS的治疗模式。但受限于研究对象的数目太少，父母将会发现许多治疗方案在执行时未必实用。最重要的是，至目前为止，世界各地的精神医学专家对AS的诊断标准仍未有一致的看法，治疗方式也因而五花八门。有的父母因而转向"有经验的父母"求助。总而言之，父母必须多方收集信息，先行筛选掉对孩子无帮助的治疗方式。在配合治疗师或医师治疗时，父母不必对于疗效过于惊慌或计较。记住，只要治疗方式是正确的，孩子的行为或情绪就会出现你所期望的转变。反之亦然。

　　当然，有些治疗需要数周以上才会出现疗效。如果在耐心等待一段时间，或问题没有改善、甚至是恶化时，父母就必须立即再与治疗师或医师讨论。休息一阵后，你可以选择另一种治疗方法，也可以再给旧方法一次机会。

　　在惊慌无助中，许多父母会选择性的注意到一些"治愈"的AS个案报导。父母满心期盼地打听，他们怎么"好的"？是什么神秘的治疗？维他命或稀有矿物质的补充？其实，AS的症状、轻重程度相差极大。某一位个案"痊愈"了，但他（或她）可能是症状与你的孩子完全不同的一位AS病童，或甚至是被误认为是AS的孩子。

　　因此，我们强烈建议父母们多看、多听、多比较，也多搜集讯息来协助自己及其它无助的家长。有时，治疗一般情障、智障、或正常儿童情绪问题的方法也都适用AS孩子。

 

　　［如何选择适合孩子的治疗？］

　　在开始任何一种治疗时，父母不妨先思考下列数个问题：

　　1）我选择的这种治疗是要针对孩子的什么问题，要改善什么问题？没有一种治疗是全方位的。不妨与治疗师或医师讨论即将进行的治疗（不论是行为治疗、感统治疗、职能治疗或语言治疗）对孩子的帮助及治疗极限。如果治疗师告诉你这种治疗可以改善孩子一切问题时，一定要请他详细说明改善症状的原因。如果他在解释时使用太多专有名词，就要进一步请他「翻译」成你听得懂的语句！

　　在与治疗师谈话时，最好可以做笔记。把你的疑问、你得到的解答及新的发现等都记好，才可有效率地利用每一项及每一次的治疗及治疗时间。最重要的是千万不要不好意思问问题。

　　举个例子，如治疗师告知你孩子有「精细动作障碍」时，你必须弄清楚，这个毛病会使孩子出现书写的困难，或不会自己扣扣子。因此，如果你不能体会「精细动作」对孩子的影响，就要问个明白！

　　2） 治疗到底要进行多久？

　　大部分针对AS的治疗都没有「结束」的时刻表。孩子的各种问题常纠缠不清（如：社交技巧不好导致情绪困扰；协调能力不好使得学习及写字能力变差）。因而许多治疗时间都是以月或年来计算。目前受限于保险制度，有的治疗会在进行一段时间后停止。这时如果孩子的进步仍有限，父母自己必须持续协助训练孩子。

　　3）除了到医院治疗外，老师在学校及父母在家中还有什么协助孩子的方法吗？

　　一旦孩子在治疗中学到某些技能，父母不妨立即在生活中或学校教室内强化他的印象。譬如孩子在职能治疗中学会分辨外形一样，但触感完全不同的物体时，我们就可以在超市与他一起进行同样的辨识练习。如治疗师以隔离法（time out）来处理孩子的情绪时，我们可以同时告知老师，当孩子在教室中有不当行为时，也可以time out方式来使他冷静下来。

　　4） 在家中治疗孩子时，父母要注意什么？

　　许多父母在"旁观"孩子治疗一段时间后，就会跃跃一试，在家中为孩子进行治疗的工作。其实许多治疗项目，尤其是牵扯到心理层面的治疗时（如：行为处理、情绪治疗），技巧常只是工具而已。好的治疗师还必须可以客观地观察孩子的改变，冷静地维持自己中立但坚定的态度。但父母在"治疗"孩子时，往往无法像治疗师一样，因为经过完整的训练，有能力审思自己的情绪，而在不知不觉中带给自己及孩子更多压力。有的父母则认为与AS孩子相处已够令人心烦了，就把治疗工作交给治疗师，自己只努力做好"父母"的角色。

　　不管你决定如何面对AS孩子的各种治疗选择，记着：

　　1.这是一场长期抗战，要随时保持客观，不要吝于寻找资源及发问，但也不要累坏自己。有时候你会对某一种治疗"意兴阑珊"或"忍无可忍"时。这时，至少先与治疗师谈一谈再中止治疗。因为往往是孩子或你最无法解决的问题，在治疗上最困难，带给父母的挫折也最大。记住！保持客观！

　　2 .孩子才是治疗的重心。孩子在成长过程中，会逐渐了解到，他一定是"有问题"的，才需要定期至某处"治疗"。想想看，他的压力有多大！？我们其它的人都只是在敲边鼓，他却必须在正确时间做出正确反应。所以，请常常用力称赞孩子既有的优点（记性好、会帮忙作家事…）、他对治疗的耐心及勇于改变的气魄。

 

Asperger Syndrome - A CNN Manager's View (转载)

 

Asperger's: My life as an Earthbound alien

One CNN manager, who asked to remain anonymous, recently learned -- at 48 -- that she has Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism. Today she shares an inside view of life with the condition.

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Recently, at 48 years of age, I was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. For most of my life, I knew that I was "other," not quite like everyone else. I searched for years for answers and found none, until an assignment at work required me to research autism. During that research, I found in the lives of other people with Asperger's threads of similarity that led to the diagnosis. Although having the diagnosis has been cathartic, it does not change the "otherness." It only confirms it.

When I talk to people about this aspect of myself, they always want to know what it means to be an "Aspie," as opposed to a "Neurotypical" (NT). Oh, dear, where to start . ...

The one thing people seem to know about Asperger's, if they know anything at all, is the geek factor. Bill Gates is rumored to be an Aspie. We tend to have specialized interests, and we will talk about them, ad infinitum, whether you are interested or not. Recognizing my tendency to soliloquize, I often choose silence, although perhaps not often enough. Due to our extensive vocabularies and uninflected manner of speaking, we are called "little professors," or arrogant.

I don't quite understand small talk, and early in my adult life, solecisms were frequent. At meetings, I launch into business without the expected social acknowledgments. It's not that I don't care about people, I am just very focused on task. Do you have to rehearse greeting people to reinforce that you should do it? I do.

I am lucky to have a very dear friend who savors my eccentricities. She laughs, lovingly, about one particular evening at a restaurant. Before she could get seated, I asked her what she knew about the golden ratio and began to spew everything I know about it. I re-emphasize how lucky I am to have her as a friend, because this incident occurred long before I was diagnosed.

A misconception is that Aspies do not have a sense of humor. It is true that we can be very literal, so we often miss the humor in everyday banter, but we can and do enjoy even subtle humor. Our literal interpretations, however, can be problematic.

In first grade, whenever someone made a mess in the classroom, the teacher would ask a student to get the janitor. The student would come back with Mr. Jones (not really his name), who carried a broom and large folding dustpan. When I was asked to get the janitor, I looked all over the school and reported back to the teacher that I could not find it. After all, the person was Mr. Jones, so the janitor must be the object, right?

I lack the ability to see emotion in most facial expressions. I compensate for this deficiency by listening to the inflections in people's voices and using logic to determine emotional context. The words people choose, their movements, or even how quickly they exit a meeting can provide clues to emotion.

I also have intensified senses -- touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound -- so I am attuned to lights, noise, textures, and smells. In a "busy" environment, I will eventually go into sensory overload and my mind will go blank. When this happens, I have to "go away" mentally for a brief period to regain focus. When I "return," I have to piece together what occurred while I was "away." The additional mental processing I must do to function every day is fatiguing, and I don't handle "ad hoc" very well. Being asked to respond quickly in the midst of all this other processing is difficult, sometimes impossible.

I am so sensitive to touch that a tickle hurts me. This is the hardest concept for most people to understand. How can a tickle hurt? All I can tell you is that it does, so I avoid being touched except by those who have learned how to touch me.

Hugs are dispensed infrequently, but if I do hug someone, I resemble Frankenstein's monster, arms extended to control contact. When my dad (who I suspect is an Aspie, too) and I hug, we both have "the approach." We sometimes miss and have to re-approach a couple of times until a brief, awkward hug is achieved.

In school, other children noted my differences, and I was bullied (and tickled into fits of despair) for years. Already needing extended periods of time alone, my response was to become even more of a loner. Uh oh. When you are weird, you are a joke. When you are a loner, you frighten people. It's always the quiet ones. ...

I am married (wow!), and my brilliant husband is an absolute sweetheart. I don't know any other man who has the self-confidence to be pushed away (sometimes sharply), both physically and mentally, as often as he has been. He has been gentle and patient (and, yes, frequently emotionally depleted) as we both worked through my need for space, tendency to go so deep into my own world that the real world and everyone in it cease to exist, and sensitivity to touch during the 26 (soon to be 27) years of our marriage.

I live with anxiety, because the world can be overwhelming and people have expectations that I always, sooner or later, fail to meet. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have been told that I am rude, inaccessible or cold, yet I have never purposely tried to harm anyone, nor do I mean to be, well, mean.

I could tell you so much more, but instead let me share one last insight. Don't pity me or try to cure or change me. If you could live in my head for just one day, you might weep at how much beauty I perceive in the world with my exquisite senses. I would not trade one small bit of that beauty, as overwhelming and powerful as it can be, for "normalcy."

 

[URL: http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/03/28/autism.essay/index.html]