Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for November
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AI Seminar
Tue, Nov 03, 2015 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Ryan James, UC Davis
Talk Title: The Unpredictable, the Predetermined, and the Postdetermined Unfold Together
Abstract: Recently, decomposition of the Shannon entropy rate has been proposed which provided a more nuanced understanding of entropy generation in a variety of systems. One component of this decomposition, the ephemeral information, is the part of the entropy rate which is independent of the future behavior of the system. The other component, the bound information, is that which plays a role in the dynamics going forward. Having derived this decomposition, I will then use it to characterize the effects of generating partition choice on chaotic systems, namely the tent map. Though all generating partitions result in a bijection between map orbits and symbolic sequences, the information-theoretic properties of such symbolic sequences can be very different as exemplified by the ephemeral and bound informations.
Biography: I did my doctoral work with Jim Crutchfield at UC Davis physics department. I then did a postdoc with Liz Bradley at CU Boulder, and am now doing my second postdoc back at Davis with Jim Crutchfield.
Host: Aram Galstyan
Webcast: http://webcasterms1.isi.edu/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=58a51e0ee7b1471db839213945ab11b41dLocation: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 11th floor large conference room
WebCast Link: http://webcasterms1.isi.edu/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=58a51e0ee7b1471db839213945ab11b41d
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kary LAU
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
AI Seminar
Wed, Nov 04, 2015 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Yong-Yeol Ahn, Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing
Talk Title: Modularity and Information Spreading in Complex Networks
Abstract: Our life relies on various complex networks,
such as cellular networks, brain networks, and social networks. For instance, a human brain is a network of neurons connected through synapses; our society is a network of people connected through social relationships. Networks exhibit modular structures that
often correspond to functional units of the system and discovering such modular structures and understanding their implications has been a challenging question. I will talk about how communities can fundamentally alter how information flow in real systems
and what can we learn about the systems by examining information spreading.
Biography: Yong-Yeol (YY) Ahn is an assistant professor at Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing and a co-founder
of Janys Analytics. He develops and leverages mathematical and computational methods to study complex systems such as cells, the brain, society, and culture. His recent contribution includes a new framework to identify pervasively overlapping modules in networks, network-based
algorithms to predict viral memes, and a new computational approach to study food culture. He is a recipient of several awards including Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship. He worked as a postdoctoral research associate at theCenter for Complex Network
Research at Northeastern University and as a visiting researcher at the Center for Cancer Systems Biology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute for three years after earning his PhD in Statistical Physics from KAIST in 2008.
Host: Emilio Ferrara
More Info: http://webcasterms1.isi.edu/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=5299e2cc0c6e44cbbbceb2cfbfadc71e1d
Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 11th floor large conference room
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kary LAU
Event Link: http://webcasterms1.isi.edu/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=5299e2cc0c6e44cbbbceb2cfbfadc71e1d
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
NL Seminar- TEXT GENERATION FROM ABDUCTIVE INTERPRETATIONS
Fri, Nov 06, 2015 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Fabrizio Morbini, USC/ICT
Talk Title: Text generation from abductive interpretations
Series: Natural Language Seminar
Abstract: Abduction is an inference method often used to formalize what the process of interpretation is. In this talk i'll describe a system that generates a textual description of an abductive proof and its evaluation when applied to the interpretations generated for a set of 100 movies from the Heider-Simmel Interactive Theater project. The goal of the system is to generate text that explains the system's interpretation fluently without having to read or understand a proof graph and first order logic.
Biography: http://nld.ict.usc.edu/group/people/fabrizio-morbini
Host: Nima Pourdamghani and Kevin Knight
More Info: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/
Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 6th Flr Conf Rm # 689, Marina Del Rey
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Peter Zamar
Event Link: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
AI Seminar
Thu, Nov 12, 2015 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Edwin Kan, Cornell University
Talk Title: Indoor Radio Detection and Ranging: A Phase-Based Continuous Wave Approach
Abstract: Among all of the advances in electronic and information technology, radio frequency technology for indoor precision real time locating system still remains inaccessible for most applications, including 3D human machine interface , biomedical monitoring, prosthetic feedback control and indoor navigation. In addition, Internet of Things will be heavily constrained if the physical location of the thing remains unknown or inaccurately known. Many local area network and body area network breakthroughs can be enabled if an indoor radar like technology can be broadly deployed. The detection and ranging principle of indoor RTLS is similar to outdoor radar, but has many unresolved challenges such as unspecific reflection, path obstruction, and multi path interference.
The continuous wave phase based ranging method for high short range precision is simple and flexible, but vulnerable to phase offsets and interferences. I will present passive broadband harmonic nonlinear transmission line tags to fundamentally rectify previous CW problems. Because phase information is now contained within the second harmonic rather than the fundamental frequency, interferences and phase errors caused by direct reflections of the interrogating signal are greatly reduced. The tag is now the only radiation source in SH within the indoor ambient, which enables many radar techniques like channel coherence, beamforming and synthetic aperture to improve precision, evaluate measurement quality and reduce spectral cost. Multiple but sparse frequencies are employed to resolve the integer ambiguity and to achieve millimeter level precision under phase error tolerance towards total of 180o. Human movement causes distinctive magnitude and phase channel fading, and can be equalized for better tag reading. Furthermore, digital or dumb antenna beamforming can be used for multi path evaluation, while tag movement for synthetic aperture. With the help of known harmonic landmark tags, the tagless objects within the reading range can be further mapped out with redundant angular and frequency diversity, which enables many additional applications. I will show realistic indoor experiments to validate our models and algorithms.
Biography: Edwin C. Kan received the B.S. degree from National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, in 1984, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Illinois, Urbana, in 1988 and 1992, respectively, all in electrical engineering. In January 1992, he joined Dawn Technologies as a Principal CAD Engineer developing advanced electronic and optical device simulators and technology CAD framework. He was then with Stanford University, as a Research Associate from 1994 to 1997. From 1997, he was an Assistant Professor with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, where he is now a Professor. He has spent the summers of 2000 and 2001 at IBM Microelectronics, Yorktown Heights and Fishkill, NY, in the Faculty Partner Program. In 2004 and 2005, he has been a visiting researcher at Intel Research, Santa Clara, CA, and a visiting professor at Stanford University during his sabbatical leave. His main research areas include CMOS technologies, semiconductor device physics, flash memory, CMOS biosensors, ultra low power radio link, and numerical methods for PDE and ODE. Dr. Kan received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineer in October 2000 from the White House. He also received several teaching awards from Cornell Engineering College for his CMOS and MEMS courses.
Host: Weimin Shen
Webcast: http://webcasterms1.isi.edu/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=b4ce1413f2664d01b4e8d26daa2b99e01dLocation: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 11th Floor conference room
WebCast Link: http://webcasterms1.isi.edu/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=b4ce1413f2664d01b4e8d26daa2b99e01d
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kary LAU
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
NL SEMINAR
Fri, Nov 13, 2015 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Satish Kumar Thittamaranahalli , USC/ICT
Talk Title: Notes on the Constraint Composite Graph
Series: NL Seminar
Abstract: In this talk, I will present the idea of the constraint composite graph (CCG) associated with any combinatorial problem modeled as a weighted constraint satisfaction problem (WCSP). The CCG constitutes the first mathematical framework for simultaneously exploiting the numerical structure of the weighted constraints as well as the graphical structure of the variable-interactions in a WCSP. I will discuss a number of important applications of the CCG including its role in: (a) identification of tractable classes of WCSPs; (b) kernelization techniques for combinatorial problems; and (c) understanding the scope of incremental computation for hard combinatorial problems.
Biography: Dr. Satish Kumar Thittamaranahalli (T. K. Satish Kumar) is a Research Scientist at the University of Southern California. He has published extensively on numerous topics in Artificial Intelligence spanning such diverse areas as Constraint Reasoning, Planning and Scheduling, Probabilistic Reasoning, Combinatorial Optimization, Approximation and Randomization, Heuristic Search, Model-Based Reasoning, Knowledge Representation and Spatio-Temporal Reasoning. He has served on the Program Committees of many international conferences in Artificial Intelligence and is a co-winner of the Best Student Paper Award from the 2005 International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling. Dr. Kumar received his PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University in March 2005. In the past, he has also been a Visiting Student at the NASA Ames Research Center, a Postdoctoral Research Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, a Research Scientist at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of West Florida, and a Senior Research and Development Scientist at Mission Critical Technologies.
Host: Nima Pourdamghani
Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 6th fl Large CR (689)
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Alma Nava / Information Sciences Institute
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
AI Seminar
Mon, Nov 16, 2015 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Graham Neubig, Nara Institute of Science and Technology
Talk Title: Simultaneous Speech Translation
Abstract: Speech translation is an application of machine translation that converts utterances from the speakers language into the listeners language. One of the most identifying features of speech translation is the fact that it must be performed in real time while the speaker is speaking, and thus it is necessary to split a constant stream of words into translatable segments before starting the translation process. Simultaneous speech translation is a line of research that investigates how to perform this segmentation and translation with minimal delay, presenting the translation results to the user as soon as possible. However, because this entails potentially starting translation before the speaker has spoken the whole sentence, it is often necessary to translate before receiving a syntactically or semantically complete unit, and methods to maintain translation accuracy in these adversary conditions are necessary.
In this talk, I will present four major threads of work in simultaneous speech translation covering (1) segmentation strategies, which decide when it is appropriate to start translation, (2) prediction methods, which attempt to predict content that the user has not yet spoken, (3) rewording, which changes the standard way of wording output to make it more conducive to low-latency translation, and (4) evaluation, which attempts to make clear just how important speed and accuracy are in the simultaneous speech translation task.
Biography: Graham Neubig received his B.E. from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, U.S.A, in 2005, and his M.E. and Ph.D. in informatics from Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan in 2010 and 2012 respectively. He is currently an assistant professor at the Nara Institute of Science an Technology, Nara, Japan. His research interests include natural language and speech processing, with a focus on machine learning approaches for applications such as machine translation, spoken language analysis, spoken dialog, and syntactic/semantic parsing.
Host: Ashish Vaswani
Webcast: http://webcasterms1.isi.edu/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=663b4d4be2624f8ea47f5e906df9215e1dLocation: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 11th floor large conference room
WebCast Link: http://webcasterms1.isi.edu/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=663b4d4be2624f8ea47f5e906df9215e1d
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kary LAU
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
AI Seminar
Thu, Nov 19, 2015 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Ross King and Larisa Soldatova, University of Manchester and University of London
Talk Title: Automating Chemistry and Biology using Robot Scientists and On the representation of research hypotheses
Abstract: Automating Chemistry and Biology using Robot Scientists
Abstract
A Robot Scientist is a physically implemented robotic system that applies techniques from artificial intelligence to execute cycles of automated scientific experimentation. A Robot Scientist can automatically execute cycles of hypothesis formation, selection of efficient experiments to discriminate between hypotheses, execution of experiments using laboratory automation equipment, and analysis of results. The goal is to better understand science, and to make scientific research more efficient. The Robot Scientist Adam was the first machine to autonomously discover novel scientific knowledge. To describe Adam's research we developed an ontology and logical language. More recently we have developed the Robot Scientist Eve to automate and integrate drug discovery: drug screening, hit conformation, and QSAR development. Our focus has been on neglected tropical disease, and Eve has discovered lead compounds for malaria, Chagas, and African sleeping sickness.
Title: On the representation of research hypotheses
Speaker: Dr Larisa Soldatova
Abstract:
Hypotheses are at the heart of scientific research workflows. Many hypotheses are now being automatically produced on an industrial scale by computers, e.g. the annotation of a genome is essentially a large set of hypotheses generated by sequence similarity programs; Robot Scientists enable the full automation of a scientific investigation, including generation and testing of research hypotheses.
In her talk, Larisa will present a logically defined way for recording automatically generated hypotheses in machine amenable way. The proposed formalism allows the description of complete hypotheses sets as specified input and output for scientific investigations. This formalism can also be applied for the representation of hypotheses formulated by human scientists.
Biography: Ross D. King is Professor of Machine Intelligence at the University of Manchester, UK. His main research interests are in the interface between computer science and biology or chemistry. The research achievement he is most proud of is originating the idea of a Robot Scientist using laboratory robotics to physically implement a closed-loop scientific discovery system. His Robot Scientist Adam was the first machine to hypothesize and experimentally confirm scientific knowledge. His new robot Eve is searching for drugs against neglected tropical diseases. His work on this subject has been published in the top scientific journals, Science and Nature, and has received wide publicity. He is also very interested in NP problems, computational economics, and computational aesthetics.
Bio:
Dr Larisa Soldatova is Senior Lecturer in Computing at Brunel University London. Her main research interests are in the knowledge representation, semantic technologies, and logics. Larisa has been involved in the Robot Scientist project for over 10 years. Now she leads a European project AdaLab that aims to develop a framework enabling robotic and human scientists to work together. The results of her work are published in Science, Nature Biotechnology, J. of the Royal Society Interface.
Host: Gully Burns
Location: 11th floor large conference room
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Kary LAU
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
NL Seminar- Better Bootstraps, Better Translation.
Fri, Nov 20, 2015 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Information Sciences Institute
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Jia Xu , Chinese Academy of Sciences
Talk Title: Better Bootstraps, Better Translation
Series: Natural Language Seminar
Abstract: Bagging Breiman, 96 and its variants is one of the most popular methods in aggregating classifiers and regressors. Its original analysis assumes that the bootstraps are built from an unlimited, independent source of samples. In the real world this analysis fails because there is a limited number of training samples.
We analyze the effect of intersections between bootstraps to train different base predictors, which shows that the real-world bagging behaves very differently than its ideal analog [Breiman, 96]. Most importantly, we provide an alternative subsampling method called design-bagging based on a new construction of combinatorial designs. We prove that this is universally better than bagging. Our analytical results are backed up by experiments on general classification and regression settings, and significantly improved all machine translation systems we used in the NIST-15 C-E competition.
Biography: Jia Xu is an associate professor at ICT/CAS, after being an assistant professor in Tsinghua University and a senior researcher at DFKI lecturing at Saarland University in Germany. She worked at IBM Watson and MSR Redmond during her Ph.D. advised by Hermann Ney at RWTH-Aachen University. Her current research interests are in Machine Learning with a focus towards highly competitive machine translation systems, where she led and participated in teams winning first place in WMT-11, TC-Star -05-07 and NIST-08. In NIST-15 she led one more team that won 4th place, which is the 1st among academic institutions.
Host: Nima Pourdamghani and Kevin Knight
More Info: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/
Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 6th Flr Conf Rm # 689, Marina Del Rey
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Peter Zamar
Event Link: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor.
