University Traditions 2013: Response of Fr. Daniel J. McNamara, SJ

Fr. Daniel J. McNamara, SJ giving a response during the University Traditions book launching last March 11, 2013 at Ateneo de Manila University

by Fr. Daniel J. McNamara, SJ
March 11, 2013
Ateneo de Manila University

Science today can be seen in many lights through many lenses. We hear that it is a social construct, made essentially by the rules of modern men and women who themselves are the products of their culture and their times. This is in contrast to the founders of science and the scientific method as enshrined in the paradigmatic trilogy of observation, theory, and experiment. The founders thought they were discovering the laws of nature, not inventing them. What started as a European enterprise spread to the limits of the world and today is a world culture. It transcends any one culture or time as its development in any culture or nation is seen as a sign of progress. As such, it is aspired to by all nations.

But in Jesuit education, science is something even more. Its light is not only to illumine the human mind but also to cast its brilliance upon the way to God. What started as the philosophia naturae is meant to lead to the philosophia humanae in the educational structure of Jesuit pedagogy.  This is nothing new.  It is the tradition in which St. Ignatius himself grew up intellectually.  It is another of the creatures whose in depth understanding cannot but lead to the Creator.  It is stepping stone on the path to God.

The language of science is mathematics but the language of the soul is prayer.

Earlier generations of Jesuits saw the humanities such as literature and language/culture as the best educational path to follow, the most luminous torch to guide the student to an understanding of the Self and so of God.  St. Ignatius has already told his followers that God constantly speaks in the depths of the Self.  Hence, the Ignatian Exercises are but hearing aids for the listening soul.

Enter science.  How is it humanistic?  It helps the questing spirit to enter the path of rigor guided by mathematical training.  It inspires the search in nature for its laws with faith in the rationality, not to say the beauty of the material world.  It helps to listen because it trains to listen well.

The end or finality of science is the human being.  The human quest to understand not only oneself but all the matrix that evolution has given each of us.  Science  is part of the gift the Creator has given to his creatures.

Ateneo Physics student Mariel Dee programs the NAO Robot at Nara Institute of Technology, Japan

Mariel Dee and the NAO Robot in NAIST, Japan

by Quirino Sugon Jr.

It is a creature perhaps from an another world clad in white armor like a Storm Trooper shorn of its helm, revealing two large ears like a stereo speaker but glowing like Tron disc blades.  Its deep set eyes stared into space like black coals burning in blue flame.  Its three-fingered hand grasped the air like claws, as if wielding an invisible light saber.  And from lips unseen, save for a tiny hole beneath its eyes, the creature spoke in a child-like voice reminiscent of the White Queen in Resident Evil:

“My name is NAO.”

NAO is an autonomous, programmable humanoid robot developed in 2004 by a French startup company Aldebaran Robotics.  NAO stands a little less than two feet and weighs like a baby.  With about 21 to 25 ways to move–the swaying and nodding of the head, the rotations of the arms and legs, the grasping of the fingers–NAO can walk like a toddler, pick up an object, or play football in RoboCup.

Mariel Dee, a BS in Applied Physics with Applied Computer Systems student in Ateneo de Manila University, had programmed the NAO robot during her internship at Nara Institute of Technology in Japan last 14-27 October 2012.

“One can program NAO,” she said, “by typing text commands directly to its computer processor.  But I programmed NAO using the Kinect.”

Kinect is a motion sensing input device developed by Microsoft for the Xbox 360 video game console.  Kinect has a camera that receives red, green, and blue (RGB) colors as input.  Kinect also has depth sensor which consists of an infrared laser and a CMOS APS–an active pixel sensor that determines the noise level at each pixel and uses its circuitry to cancel it out.  Kinect is the technology that powers games like Dance Central where you try to match the dance moves of your virtual dancer on the computer screen.  The closer your moves are to your virtual dancer, the higher your score.

What Mariel did is to make Kinect read her movements, translate them into skeleton frame motion, and use this as input in a language that NAO can understand.  The Kinect skeleton frame is made up of several joints.  The central spine consists of the head, shoulder center, spine, and hip center.  The arm  consists of the shoulder center, shoulder (side), elbow, wrist, and hand.  The leg consists of the hip center, hip (side),  knee, ankle, and foot.  In all there are 20 joints connected by 19 line segments.

In her program, Mariel made use of a limited number of NAO’s movements: walk forward and backward, walk sideways to the left and right, turn left and right, kick with right leg, bend down, push with hands.  But NAO is like a deaf boy trying to learn his first sign language.  For example, if  Mariel raises her right hand forward, NAO walks forward; if backward, NAO walks backward.  If Mariel raises her right hand to the sides, NAO walks sideways to the right; if her left hand, NAO walks sideways to the left.

“The main problem is how to make the program robust,” said Mariel.  ”NAO should be able to obey commands even if it were posed by child or an adult whose heights and arm lengths are different.  So what I did is to compute the angles formed at the joints and use this as a Kinect input for NAO.  In this way, the lengths such as that  between the elbow and the wrist or from the shoulder to the elbow would not matter but only the angle formed by these two segments at the elbow.”

 The skeletal frame seen by Kinect looks like molecules in Chemistry, with the joints represented by atoms and segments by bonds.   In a way, what Mariel wishes to measure are the equivalents of body angles of a molecule.  For example, the body angle for a water molecule H-O-H at the Oxygen atom is 104.5 degrees.  But unlike molecules which have more or less fixed body angles, the body angles in a NAO robot have greater range of possible angles.

So can we now have robot combats as seen in old animes like Tosho Daimos or in more recent movies like Real Steel, with robots mimicking the actions of their human controllers?

“No.  We are not yet there,” said Mariel.  ”But I am glad that after I left, the NAO robot that I programmed was showcased during an open house of the NAIST Robotics Laboratory.  NAIST is nice.  It is fun working there.  They still have other robots there like a humanoid face that mimics your emotions.  But NAO is so cute.”

Ateneo Physics faculty Dr. Benjamin Chan is now a registered agent for the Intellectual Patent Office of the Philippines

Dr. Benjamin Chan checks the Universal Testing Machine in the Materials Physics Laboratory

by Quirino Sugon Jr.

Dr. Benjamin O. Chan, Associate Professor of the Department of Physics of Ateneo de Manila University, passed the patent agent qualifying examinations last June 2012.  His name is now included in the Register of Patent Agents of the Intellectual Patent Office of the Philippines.  Dr. Benjamin Chan and Dr. Nestor Valera of the Department of Chemistry are the university’s patent officers.  They hold office at the Innovation and Technology Support Office (ITSO) at Faura Hall Room 222.  Below is an interview with Dr. Benjamin Chan by the Ateneo Physics News:

1.  When did you star t working in the ITSO?

February 2011.  With me is Dr. Nestor Valera.  Now, there is a graduate assistant.  I am not sure if Dr. Muga is with us.

2.  When did the Innovation and Technology Support Office (ITSO) start?

It was officially launched sometime March 2012, but I have not attended the launching. It should be fully operational at this point.

3.  Where is the ITSO office?

It is at Faura 222.  The research assistant is there working halftime. It is not open all the time. Personally, I have difficulty spending a lot of time there. Most of the time I and Dr. Valera are working in our respective laboratories or offices. There should be a better way of running the office.

4.  Did you undergo training?

A lot.  There is a Basic Patent Information course sponsored by World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).  They have online courses such as Patent Information (301), Patent Search (318) and Patent Drafting (320).

Dr. Benjamin Chan’s Patent Agent Qualification Examination certificate of completion

5.  Are these sufficient for you to become a licensed patent officer?

No.  These are just courses. The patent agent qualification exam has a different set of training, but it includes the basic training on the patents. There were two weeks of intensive training. Then you have to pass an exam, which is patterned after the European Qualifying Examinations given by the European Patent Office. That exam was administered last November 2011.  Last June 2012, I passed the exam. My name was entered in the Register of Patent Agents for the Intellectual Patent Office of the Philippines. My name is recognized as a patent drafter for IPO Philippines, following European patent rules.

6.  Is there a difference between European and American patent rules?

The European patent rules require you just have a single independent claim. The rest are dependent on that single claim. The American system, on the other hand, is looser: you can have several independent claims in the document, as an embodiment of your invention. It is a different way of writing the patent.

7. Have you written some patents?

I am currently drafting two patents. One is for external clients. Another one is internal for the School of Science and Engineering.  Anyone can do the patent search, but the drafting takes some skill. That is what I can do.  I can help people draft the whole patent document, down to the claims and descriptions–and even the drawings if needed.

8. Do the patent documents get uploaded online?

There is no online submission of patents. You submit the document in correct format to the intellectual property office of the Philippines. Then around six months after submission, they will actually publish the patent application in the gazette which will be available online.  All the patents are available in full form and most of them are now electronically available for US and European patents. The harder ones to figure out are patents written in Chinese, Korean, and other foreign languages. Some of the titles have been translated, but the whole document including the claims can be tougher to translate.

9.  Do you have ideas on how to improve the service provided by ITSO?

We are only given 3 units per semester of load. When a client approaches us, they want the result as quickly as possible. But your classes get in the way. You cannot devote full-time to patent writing. It is a race against time.  Currently, the inventor is defined as he who is the first to file the patent application for the invention.

Patent writing is not easy.  You have to search for relevant relevant documents.  You must show novelty of the invention by showing that somebody has not done it before. Then you have to show an inventive step: it does something new. The problem is that there are millions of patent documents to look up. You also have to look at journals as well. Normally, we search for patents in the patent database system; the journals are little bit more restricted, depending on whether you have a subscription o or not.

10.  Does Ateneo de Manila University share royalties with the inventor?

If Ateneo decides to fund your application for the patent, there is a filing fee.  There will be other fees related to the patenting process. There is also a maintenance fee in the fifth year. These fees can add up to a substantial amount. This is not a problem if the patent is commercially viable.  If Ateneo funds these fees, then naturally, it would claim ownership of the patent. The inventor may be the worker or researcher involved in the original research, but the university will be the assigned owner of the patent.  And then there will be some agreement how to split royalties between the university and the inventor, especially during the commercialization of the patents.  Currently, the system favors the inventor in the sharing of royalties more than the university.

11.  Can outsiders also ask for the service of ITSO?

Outsiders can ask for assistance, but then they have to pay standard rates.  For Ateneo personnel, consultation is free. But when it comes to patent filing and submission, there are fees that have to be paid.  That is the time we talk about money. But consult the office is free.

This is one reason I got into the patent office.  I had questions for myself before regarding patents. I did not get a lot of answers. Now I know what are the answers to my questions. Researchers in the same situation now have a person to ask in the university regarding patentability issues.

12.  Do you have any parting words?

I hope students and researchers consult with the Innovation and Technology Support Office (ITSO) more about the possibilities they have with respect to their creative work, whether if patenting is necessary or if they should actually seek protection for their patents to protect their intellectual property for their work.  The number one enemy of patents is public disclosure whether intentional or unintentional.  Once you disclose your invention in a public setting, you give it up to the public, rendering your work unpatentable or allowing somebody else to file the patent ahead of you.  Hopefully the inventors can create some business out of their inventions and contribute to the economic growth of the country.

Ateneo Physics Department approves Physics Education as a new research field for MS and PhD in Physics students

Dr. Minella Alarcon (far left) and Mr. Ivan Culaba (center) observe Ateneo high school physics teachers making an experiment on linear motion

Last February 1, 2013, the Department of Physics of Ateneo de Manila University unanimously approved the designation of Physics Education as one of the department’s research areas. This means that students enrolled either in M.S. in Physics and Ph.D. in Physics can now take Physics Education research as their thesis or dissertation topic, as done in reputable US universities like University of Maryland, University of Colorado, and University of WashingtonThe main proponent of Physics Education research is Prof. Minella Alarcon who led the ALOP (Active Learning in Optics and Photonics) team during her stay at UNESCO prior to her return to Ateneo de Manila University in 2011. The ALOP team is composed of 8 international physicists who conduct optics education seminars to more than 400 physics teachers in more than 45 countries. Two members of the ALOP team are Ateneo Physics faculty members Joel Maquiling and Ivan Culaba. The ALOP team received the 2011 SPIE Educator Award last February 8, 2011.

At present, Prof. Alarcon leads a team of physics teachers from the Department of Physics in conducting physics training to science teachers in Ateneo de Manila High School as part of a collaborative project between the AdMU President’s Office and the Ateneo High School. Below Prof. Alarcon shared to Ateneo Physics News some of her views on Physics Education and Physics Education Research:

Dr. Minella Alarcon (center) receives the SPIE Educator award

Physics Education Research

by Prof. Minella Alarcon
Department of Physics
Ateneo de Manila University

If you don’t mind, I’d like to start by explaining what I think Physics Education Research (PER) is. PER is mainly done in physics departments by full-fledged physicists, those who have earned a PhD in physics. They are the ones who know physics and are the ones qualified to do PER. In universities in the US, students who do PER are those pursuing a PhD degree in physics. I repeat, no less than a PhD in physics – I have not heard of MS Physics students doing PER. However, if the MS Physics student has proven his / her capacity to do Physics beyond reasonable doubt, perhaps he / she can do PER. It follows then that PER is different from action research done by high school physics teachers to address specific classroom situations, or curriculum development or instructional design research. PER is more than these. For example, a paper doing statistical analysis of results of a survey of a few physics classes is not PER. In PER, a physics education problem is analyzed with the same rigor and depth that physicists would give a physics research problem.

The topics dealt with in PER look into how students learn and how to improve their learning of physics. In particular, PER has shown that teaching physics by lecturing is not effective at all and that students do not learn much from physics lectures. This conclusion was reached after several tests of conceptual evaluation were formulated by physicists and were administered to thousands of American students in introductory physics.

The Ateneo Department of Physics has always been proud of its brand of physics teaching. We have developed and equipped our undergraduate laboratories by designing class demonstrations and activities and fabricating our own teaching materials. We participate in physics education conferences and are active in physics education networks and organizations. We train physics teachers in workshops and special courses and share our expertise in the innovative approaches in physics teaching and instrumentation as well as interest in the field. I led the UNESCO project on Active Learning in Optics and Photonics (ALOP) which was well appreciated by the international physics and optics community and worked with an international ALOP team, including Mr J. Maquiling and Mr I. Culaba, in the project implementation. Together with Dr. Chan, Mr. Maquiling and four junior faculty members, we are developing training materials in conjunction with an ACED physics teacher-training workshop this month of February. Definitely, the department has something to build on, can do more than what it is doing in physics education and can formally contribute to the field of PER.

With physics teaching as our main occupation in the university, we are faced with many problems in making teaching physics effective in both undergraduate and graduate levels. Doing PER can provide opportunities to help us, Filipino physicists, understand how our Filipino students learn, and find effective solutions to make our Filipino students learn better. For example, why are our physics majors so passive in class? How can we help our students understand better the physics behind the harmonic oscillator beyond providing mathematical solutions to the problem? Why do our graduate students fail the graduate comprehensive examinations in physics? How can we help them see that being able to solve for the Lagrangian is not necessarily a measure of understanding the concept of energy and that we need to understand both? As physicists, how can we help make high school and university physics more interesting, challenging and enjoyable, so that more high school students would be inspired to take up physics in the university and become physicists? In general, according to Robert Beichner of the North Carolina State University, in his paper “An Introduction to Physics Education Research,” major research trends in PER include the topics of Conceptual Understanding (what students know and how they learn), Problem Solving (underlying mental processes relevant to solving problems), and Evaluation of Specific Instructional Interventions.

PER was started by physicists in the US who were previously doing research in another area but were concerned if their students were actually learning what they were being taught, notably by Lillian McDermott at the University of Washington in Seattle, Dean Zollman at Kansas State University, David Hestenes at Arizona State University, and Frederich Reif (yes, the author of the book in Statistical Mechanics) from UC-Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon University. Later, Physics Nobel Prize winners, like Leon Lederman, Georges Charpak and Carl Weimann, soon followed suit to do PER-related work. In France, Georges Charpak, together with fellow physicists Pierre Lena and Yves Quere, founded La Main a la Pate, that developed and promoted the inquiry-based approach of science teaching, with the support of the French Academy of Sciences. Since then, PER has now become recognized as a legitimate research subfield of physics. Several physics journals have reserved space for PER papers, notably the American Journal of Physics, the Physical Review Special Topics PER, The Physics Teacher, and others.

Beichner of the North Carolina State University, in his paper “An Introduction to Physics Education Research,” emphasized that “the job market for graduate students earning a degree in PER is quite strong. Because of the interests, training and flexibility of these new physics PhDs, they are able to secure positions at a wide variety of academic institutions.”

Thank you for this opportunity to share my ideas on Physics Education Research.

Ateneo physics faculty Juan Paolo Bermundo and Jennifer Damasco-Ty are now Ph.D. in Materials Science students in NAIST, Japan

by Cindy Cease

Mr. Juan Paolo Bermundo and Ms. Jennifer Damasco Ty went to Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST) in Ikoma City, Japan last October2012, to pursue PhD in Materials Science. Mr. Bermundo would be part of the Information Device Science Laboratory to work on Thin Film Transistors (TFT) research. TFTs are electrical components found in display devices which act as active switches controlling individual pixels. Specifically, he will work on improving the electrical characteristics of TFTs by using novel materials and techniques. On the other hand, Ms. Damasco Ty would work on bulk heterojunction solar cells research.

Prior to their doctoral studies, Mr. Bermundo and Ms. Damasco Ty went to NAIST as interns during their graduate and undergraduate studies, respectively, in Ateneo de Manila University (AdMU). Below is an interview with Juan Paolo and Jennifer by the Ateneo Physics News:

A. INTERVIEW WITH JENNIFER DAMASCO-TY

Jennifer Damasco Ty with her sensei at NAIST

1. When will your studies start?

I will start as a research student on December. If all goes well, I will start as a PhD student on April.

2. Why did you choose NAIST?

Because of the opportunity available to me as an Ateneo alumni and faculty. The partnership between AdMU and NAIST makes me eligible to apply to the Screening of International Students by Special Recommendation. Also, as an undergraduate student, I was fortunate enough to participate in the NAPI internship which invites AdMU teachers and students to NAIST. During that time, I was able to observe the research in two laboratories and get to know the professors.

3. What will be your research area there?

I will be working on bulk heterojunction solar cells.

4. What will be the pros and cons of your studies in this university with your chosen field?

It is very easy to do research in NAIST because of the availability to many research equipment. Furthermore, NAIST also has good relationships with universities and research institutes abroad.

5. What are your future plans?

In the near future, I hope to work in a company pursuing similar research to gain experience. But I am also open to other opportunities that may be available to me after NAIST. Pursuing post-doctoral studies would be ideal.

B. INTERVIEW WITH JUAN PAOLO BERMUNDO

Juan Paolo Bermundo at NAIST

1. When will your studies start?

I started my PhD studies last October 1, 2012 at Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST). The institute is in Takayama Science Town in Ikoma City, Nara Prefecture—in the countryside but relatively near to big cities such as Osaka (45 mins by train), Kyoto (45 mins) and Kobe (2 hours), and the historic city of Nara (30 min).

2. Why did you choose this university?

I went to NAIST last March 2012 as an intern and I found the research environment to be top class. I also liked how people are focused with their research. Ateneo also has a very good partnership with NAIST. In fact, there are a lot of Ateneo graduates here in NAIST especially from the ECCE department.

3. What will be your research area there?

I am now part of the Information Device Science Laboratory in the Graduate school of Materials Science in NAIST. I am currently working on Thin Film Transistors (TFT). TFTs can be found in display devices and they act as an active switch that controls individual pixels. I am specifically working on improving the stability of TFTs (such as IGZO TFTs) and developing doped ZnO using novel materials and techniques to improve its electrical characteristics. The goal is to develop new materials that can be used for next generation flexible displays.

4. How did your employment in Ateneo as faculty member help you to get into the PhD program of your chosen university?

An advantage of being an Ateneo student is that there are a lot of opportunities to go to several partner universities. Ateneo has a lot of International mobility programs such as the JTA and internships to other universities. Because of this, I was able to apply and get accepted as an intern student in NAIST last March 2011.

The scientific training that Ateneo provided in the Physics and Materials Science Engineering programs is also helpful in making it easier for me to keep up, adjust, and adapt to a new research environment. Being a faculty member is also an advantage because I can review the basics. Teaching develops one’s discipline and patience.