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OPINIONS, 4A
THURSDAY December 12, 2013
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THE DAILY ILLINI 5he independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871
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ISS gives $6,000 for UI bike paths BY MEGAN JONES STAFF WRITER
After hearing many students’ concerns over the state of the campus’ current bicycle transportation system, the Illinois Student Senate at its Wednesday meeting allocated $6,000 as subsidy to Facilities and Services to repaint three miles of existing bike paths during the Spring 2014 semester. David Mischiu, senator and senior in the FAA, said Facilities and Services lacks a unit for bicycle-related planning; therefore, the department struggles every time an allocation for funds arises, as they do not know who will pay for the repairs. The resolution passed with a vote of 26-1 with three abstentions. After Amelia Neptune, the department’s previous bicycle coordinator, left her job, Facilities and Services has yet to hire a replacement. In the meantime, the department is working with students who previously worked with her in order to help “transition us until we can find a replacement,� said Stacey DeLorenzo, Transportation Demand Management coordinator. All funds for bike paths are allocated from the Transportation Demand Management budget, which currently does not have enough money to repaint University sidewalks, Mischiu said. He added that Facilities and Services is asking for the senate’s allocation out of necessity. “Their budget right now is
MEET BERT PHOTO COURTESY OF VISHNU NATH KAMALNATH UNIVERSITY ALUMNUS
Bert, a robot the Language Acquisition and Robotic Group uses to research artificial intelligence, readies his Nerf gun. Recent graduate Vishnu Nath Kamalnath programmed Bert to shoot a target and measure the error, each shot more accurate than the next.
UI students teach robot autonomy, solve problems BY AUSTIN KEATING
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
Meet Bert. He’s a robot. He can solve puzzles, shoot Nerf guns and move his arms; but he’s more than just a machine — Bert does all of these things autonomously. Bert can mimic intelligence. Housed in a lab at the Beckman Institute, the iCub robot is the Language Acquisition and Robotics Group’s primary means of researching artificial intelligence, said graduate student Onyeama Osuagwu, who works in the lab. It is made to reflect a three-and-a-half-year-old human child in its physical and neural characteristics. “I hate the word artificial intelligence,� Osuagwu said. “There is no such thing as artificial intelligence — the systems may not be what you see in the natural world, but intelligence is intelligence, so we just study intelligence, or what has been deemed lately ‘cognitive computing.’’’ The group studies this “cognitive computing� in several ways, and recent graduate Vishnu Nath Kamalnath was recently awarded the Hind Rattan Award, one of the highest awards the president of India gives to non-resident Indian
citizens, for “exceptional contributions to science and technology� with his work in the lab. There are two camps in cognitive computing — strong AI and weak AI — and Kamalnath was given this award for his attempts to bridge the two. “Weak AI is the part where you use AI for simple, practical purposes like credit card fraud detection,� Kamalnath said. “Strong AI is a purely academic field right now. The difference is that it encompasses everything that weak AI does, but it also has what we call ‘consciousness.’� He said that right now, nobody has reached anywhere close to strong AI, but in his research for his master’s thesis, he tried to come as close as possible to strong AI with something he called deep learning. He programed a skeletal program into Bert and put a 3D puzzle in its hands. With the program, Bert could realize where the ball was and where the edges of the 3D maze were, but from there, how it solved the puzzle was its own prerogative. “If you give a robot a maze and you program it to roll the ball from A to B, B to C — yes, it’s very easy
for the robot to do that,� Kamalnath said. “But now, let’s say I give the robot the maze and the robot looks at it and then can figure it out ‘OK, there is a path that exists, or there isn’t a path that exists, and if there are multiple paths, I need to figure out the best possible path.’� Kamalnath said this problemsolving ability makes it so Bert understands his impact on his environment, much like when a small child hits a rattle and realizes the impact causes a noise. “The causation effect is being analyzed,� he said. “It can understand that by tipping the board in its hand, the ball starts rolling, and it goes from point A to point B, ‘Interesting, now I can move the ball whatever way I want and finally bring it to the end position.’� Kamalnath added that the maze work he conducted sets itself apart from other work in the field. “Maze solving in general is a very established algorithm, but just programing a robot to solve a maze is like child’s play — anyone can do it,� he said. “The point is that we’re not just looking for traversal of the maze, we’re looking for using learning to solve the maze.�
In addition to this, Kamalnath’s former colleagues at the lab look at other aspects of AI and machine learning. Graduate student Logan Niehaus, for example, worked on movement recognition, and in extension, taught Bert how to wave. “We also do language acquisition with the robot as well; we’re in the vein of a gentlemen of Norbert Wiener, who is the founder of cybernetics, so we’re actually learning language autonomously, language cues and so forth,� Osuagwu said. For his bachelor’s thesis, Kamalnath turned Bert into what he playfully called “a terminator.� Bert would shoot a Nerf gun at a
STAFF WRITER
Come the start of second semester, there will be a difference statewide — but not one that students are likely to notice on campus. In January or February, Illinois will start granting concealed carry permits to residents, though firearms will still be prohibited on campus. Illinois became the last state in the nation to legalize concealed carry when state legislature passed the Concealed Carry Act on July 9, giving the Illinois State Police 180 days to set up a system to review applications for permits. To obtain a concealed carry permit, citizens must meet a list of requirements, complete an application and complete a 16-hour firearms training course, said University Chief of Police Jeff Christensen. Instructors are
already being certified and are holding courses throughout the state. Students on campus are not likely to see a change because in order to obtain a concealed carry permit, citizens must be 21 years old, and the University prohibits weapons on campus. “We don’t (have any safety concerns),� Christensen said. “Our concerns are educating everybody and doing what we need to do in terms of meeting the requirements of the act. Our statute is very much like other states where it’s prohibited on campuses, and it has not been problematic.� The law does not change the unlawful use of weapons. Instead, it allows people with concealed carry permits to carry firearms, though there are certain exceptions, such as schools, Christensen said.
BY STANTON POLANSKI STAFF WRITER
The doors along the two long hallways of Trelease Hall’s top floor are nothing out of the ordinary for a residence hall, each adorned with a peephole and a couple of names. Just beyond the elevators at the end of each hallway is a door framing glass layered over with black paper to prevent outsiders from seeing in. The four names tagged onto the black paper resemble the normal dorm doors down the hallway, but this is actually a lounge that students have been living in temporarily. Freshmen Nick Gamsby, Randy Lam, Ryan Steckler and Oscar Montes are the last lounge dwellers in the building. Every year the University guarantees all students housing. But because they cannot be certain how many students will resign for another year or predict
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“Nothing really changes on campus other than, if you have a concealed carry permit and you’re coming to campus, you
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SEE CONCEALED | 3A
SOURCE: KIRSTEN RUBY, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF HOUSING FOR MARKETING
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University Housing strives to provide housing to all applicants who apply, but they do not always have space for everyone. The overflow is placed into lounges and over the semester, they are moved to permanent housing. Aug. 28: 40 women, 156 men End of October: 0 women, 79 men Today: 0 women, 65 men
need to secure it in your vehicle as prescribed in the act,� he said.
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how large the freshman class will be, the target of 7,000 incoming freshmen set by University Housing is often surpassed, said Kirsten Ruby, associate director of Housing for marketing. This year, their estimation was surpassed by 481. As they wait for standard dorm rooms to become available, converted lounges become home for many students at the start of the school year. On Sept. 4, 184 students were in temporary housing, according to University Housing’s fall contracts report. But this temporary housing, despite what the makeshift door might imply, is well-equipped for those who missed out on the standard rooms. “I don’t mind it at all,� said Lam, who is in LAS. “Having four roommates is not that bad.
Number of students living in temporary housing
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Students forced to live in floor lounges
Concealed carry not likely to affect students on campus BY BRITTNEY NADLER
$130,000, and they need $124,400 just for street painting within the coming year, which would leave them with ($5,600), which is not enough to even pay their employees’ paychecks,� Mischiu said. Facilities and Services has already invested $16,000 into its 2013 Campus Bicycle Network Master Plan project this summer; signs were posted around campus, and 3.1 miles of bike paths were repainted. However, additional funds are now needed. “There’s a bucket of money from (Transportation Demand Management) for all the projects that we need to take place, but that includes all the streets, stripping and the signs,� DeLorenzo said. “So there’s nothing at this time specifically just for the bike program, but we hope to get to that eventually.� In 2010, the University wrote its Illinois Climate Action Plan, iCAP, which works toward creating a carbon-neutral campus by 2050; iCAP identified a severe lack of funding in the area of bicycle-related infrastructure and planning, according to the resolution. “This is a question of students getting along and finding it easier and safer to travel to class without worrying about a biker hitting them or a pedestrian accidentally walking into their path,� Mischiu said. “I myself have noticed the bike lanes on this campus, and a lot of them are
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