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Computer Science and Occupational
Therapy Team Up for Virtual Reality Conference
Student Develops Innovative Technology to Deal with Post-Traumatic
Stress
A Dog Is also a Hit at
Conference on Rehabilitation Technologies
 Passengers
who have undergone the horror and pain of a bus bombing on an
Israeli road. American soldiers who have experienced the shelling or
road-side attack of their humvee in Iraq. Survivors pulled out from
under the ruins of a building following an earthquake. In each case,
the victim may be severely scarred by trauma if not by physical
injury, as well.
The use of virtual reality to deal with the effects of trauma caused
by such events provided one focus of an international conference and
exhibition held at the University in early March. The conference,
“Virtual Reality, Associated Technologies, and Rehabilitation,”
brought to the Mt. Carmel campus some of the leading researchers in
the fields of occupational therapy and computer simulation from the
United States, Canada, England, Spain, Italy, and Japan, as well as
Israel.
Sponsors of the three-day gathering, which featured both talks and a
showcase of technologies, were the University’s Rothschild Institute
for Interdisciplinary Applications of Computer Science and the Dept.
of Occupational Therapy, in conjunction with the U.S.-Israel Science
and Technology Foundation.
The University’s Prof. Tamar Weiss and Dr. Naomi Josman described a
virtual reality program for dealing with trauma victims of terrorist
attacks. The simulation brings the traumatized individuals back to
the scene of the incident to deal with their fears. The VR program
is already in use.
The showcase involved a display of this innovative technology for
treating severe post-traumatic stress disorder. The effect on the
patient of recreating a terrorist incident through virtual reality
is the subject of a Master's degree thesis being written by a
student in the Department of Occupational Therapy. The technology
itself, involving a helmet that puts the patient into the virtual
scene, was developed in Seattle.
However, the university, through its Laboratory for Innovations in
Rehabilitation Technology, which Weiss heads, is making the first
use of it in Israel for both research and treatment, according to
Josman. She is the graduate student's thesis adviser and conceived
of the VR helmet’s adaptation to an Israeli virtual environment.
 The graphic display of an exploding bus—a too common reality in
Israel—is harrowing enough to watch on the television screen. The
emotional effect of being put into the scene even virtually is more
severe. But, says Josman, who chairs the Dept. of Occupational
Therapy, it is necessary for the patient's eventual recovery from
post-traumatic stress. For that reason, too, a clinical psychologist
who teaches at the University accompanies the sessions administered
by the occupational therapy student.
It was a little black dog of Japanese-Canadian pedigree that almost
stole the show at the showcase.
The dog's "trainer" is Dr. Ehud Sharlyn, assistant professor of
computer science at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada,
who has been programming for various human-robot interactions.
Though you would never know it from the way university students and
even professors were petting it and calling on this fido to sit up,
Aibo, the dog, is actually a robot.
Sharlyn, who conducts his research in Calgary's Interactions
Laboratory, and his students have been programming Aibo, originally
developed by Japan's Sony corporation, to behave like a "very cute
dog, playing with its bone and being friendly to people," as he put
it. Its official moniker is Aibo ERS-7M2.
Though an expensive toy, costing some $2,000, Aibo can be used in
rehabilitation, according to the Israeli-born Canadian scientist.
His goal has been to "elicit human emotions and responses from a
playful and fearful dog." People in need of rehabilitation, he
explained, may perceive these synthetic emotions as though they
elicited them. He cited autistic children and the lonely aged as two
categories of people who could possibly benefit from the
interaction. This dog, as he pointed out to onlookers at the
showcase, makes no demands.
Sharlyn's former mentor at the University of Osaka in Japan, Prof.
Yoshifumi Kitamura, also came to the Mt. Carmel campus. The Japanese
information scientist showed a film of his virtual chopsticks at the
rehabilitation showcase. He is investigating the changes that the
brain undergoes as a person learns how to do some new activity, such
as using a tool.
Other conference sessions were devoted to reality and simulation for
homeland security response, simulation and sensing for emergency
response, training for dealing with the effects of terror,
applications of technologies to mental health and to rehabilitation,
consciousness and presence, and collaborative interfaces.
Prof. Albert Rizzo of the University of Southern California
discussed the development of a virtual reality therapy for Iraq War
veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress. The talk by Dr.
Russell Shilling of the U.S. Office of Naval Research centered on
revolutionizing military medicine with virtual reality and
entertainment
technologies.
The exhibition displayed, among others, systems for working with
autistic children, VR games for improving motor and cognitive
performance after a stroke, a system for diagnosing learning
difficulties, and a driving simulator for rehabilitation patients.
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In
This Issue:
President’s Focus - Battling Unjust
Resolutions
Prof. Azy Barak’s SAHAR Offers a Vital
Virtual Shoulder to Those with Nowhere Else to Turn
University Joins War on Drugs,
Campaign Is Integral to Interdisciplinary Clinical Center’s Service
Kidma Project Helps Students Face Their Identities
University Will Not Be Silent in Face of UK
Boycott
Anat Liberman Is New External Relations
Head
Prof. Majid Al-Haj to Be New Dean of Research
Prof. Sophia Menache – New Dean of
Graduate Studies
Prof. Menachem Mor—Dean of Humanities
Virtual Open House Proves a Big Hit
Students Have an Address for Complaints:
Professor Schatzker, Their Ombudsman
Computer Science and Occupational Therapy
Team Up for Virtual Reality Conference
Student Develops Innovative Technology to Deal with Post-Traumatic
Stress
Giora Lehavi: His Job Is to Check on
Quality Management, and Other Standards
University’s Sports Teams Prove a Winner in
More Ways than One
Student Publishes His Road to Wisdom
Honors and Awards
Mother and Son—in utero—Studied Hebrew at University’s Summer Ulpan
University’s China Connection Continues
Unique Algorithm Enables Better Mobile
Wireless Communication
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