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Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for February
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EE-Systems Seminar
Wed, Feb 02, 2011 @ 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Valentino Crespi,
Talk Title: Trackability and Machine Learning of Processes
Abstract: The effective monitoring of complex environments is related to the ability of machine learning and tracking its constituent processes.
Examples of environments in this domain include networked computer systems, autonomic computing systems and distributed and dynamic information systems. In our approach an environment consists, in its most abstract form, of multiple processes or behaviors that we typically model as Finite State Machines such as Probabilistic and nonprobabilistic Finite State Automata (DFAs/PFAs), Probabilistic Deterministic Finite State Automata (PDFAs), Probabilistic Suffix Automata (PSAs), Hidden Markov Models (HMMs), etc.
In this talk we first introduce an original and rigorous concept of "trackability" of processes in a distributed sensing system. The purpose of this notion is to determine the "complexity" of estimating state trajectories of a target process based on a discrete-time sequence of noisy "observations". We then present our new algorithms to machine learn Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) from typical realizations of the associated stochastic process. The methods are based on the non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) of higher order Markovian statistics and are structurally different from the classical Baum-Welch and associated approaches.
Host: Bhaskar Krishnamachari
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Shane Goodoff
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. -
Asymptotic Design for Cascade Robustness in Large Coupled Systems
Wed, Feb 02, 2011 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Franz Hover, MIT Mechanical Engineering
Talk Title: Asymptotic Design for Cascade Robustness in Large Coupled Systems
Abstract: Power networks and collaborating mobile robots are examples of large-scale interdependent systems that are subject to cascading failures. A recent asymptotic model of failure across two signal domains offers a random graph framework for studying such systems, and I use it to pose and solve a new robust design problem. A low-order nonlinear analysis uncovers the mechanisms by which optimized graphs can form star-like clusters, as encoded into a simple but specialized degree distribution; several other design rules can be found as well. Through examples on coupled systems of finite size, I show that degree independence in the asymptotic model can be somewhat relaxed, which is significant for the practical case of geometric connectivity. A heuristic rule that matches degrees across the domain boundary can offer further benefits in many cases.
Biography: Franz Hover received the BSME from Ohio Northern University and the MS and ScD degrees from the WHOI/MIT Joint Program in Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering. He was a consultant to industry and then a member of the research staff at MIT, where he worked in fluid mechanics, biomimetics, and ocean engineering. He is currently Finmeccanica Assistant Professor at the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering; his research focuses on design methods and robustness for marine systems.
Host: Urbashi Mitra, ubli@usc.edu and Gaurav Sukhatme, gaurav@usc.edu
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 406
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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. -
Microwave Transmissions Systems: Progress, Challenges and Future Direction
Wed, Feb 02, 2011 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Edward Au, Corporate Research, Huawei Technologies
Talk Title: Microwave Transmissions Systems: Progress, Challenges and Future Direction
Abstract: Users want seamlessly connected advanced services delivered on-demand wherever they may be, on any platform, over any available network. But as the user experience becomes richer, the underlying technologies and networks become more complex. Further, the rapid development of mobile broadband services has brought explosive growth of bandwidth requirements, which forces operators to continuously expand their networks.
As one of the key physical media for mobile backhaul networks, point-to-point microwave is rapidly evolving to support the increasing demand on bandwidth while allowing operators to reduce network operational costs. In this seminar, we overview some recent developments, challenges, and future direction in the microwave industry.
Biography: As a Principal Engineer of Huawei Technologies, Edward has worked on research and product development on 100 Gb/s-and-beyond optical long-haul communications. He is now leading a project on fixed wireless transmission system that has enabled a number of cutting-edge products. Edward has actively participated in standardization organizations and industry forums. He is the primary technical representative of Huawei for Wi-Fi Alliance and an active contributor of Optical Interconnecting Forum (OIF), where he is a co-editor of the channel coding project for 100Gb/s DWDM optical transmission systems, and a member of Speakers Bureau in representing OIF at industry and academic events. He was also a working group secretary of IEEE 802.22 â the first international standards on cognitive radio networks.
Edward is also staying active in research community. He is currently an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology and a leading guest editor for the IEEE Communications Magazine Feature Topic on Advances in IEEE Standards and Testbeds for Cognitive Radio Networks. He is a founding member of Shenzhen Chapter, IEEE Communications Society.
Edward holds a Ph.D. degree in Electronic and Computer Engineering in Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST).
Host: Andreas Molisch, 04670, EEB 530, molisch@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 539
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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. -
Recent Results on Discrete Memoryless Broadcast Channels
Wed, Feb 02, 2011 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Chandra Nair, Chinese University of Hong Kong
Talk Title: Recent Results on Discrete Memoryless Broadcast Channels
Abstract: Broadcast channel refers to a commonly occurring communication scenario where a single sender wishes to send (possibly different) messages to multiple receivers. This is one of the fundamental problems in network information theory, a generalization of Shannon's point-to-point information theory.
In this talk, I will talk about a collection of recent results that have been obtained over the last couple of years that made significant progress, both from an intuitive perspective as well as a theoretical perspective, on long standing open problems in this area. The talk will be self-contained, and the emphasis will be on the bigger picture of the results than the specific details of establishing them.
Biography: Chandra Nair is an assistant professor with the information engineering department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests include "random" problems in combinatorial optimization, networks, and information theory. Over the last couple of years his research has primarily focused on multiuser information theory, and in particular the broadcast channel.
Chandra Nair was a Stanford graduate fellow (00-04) and Microsoft graduate fellow (04-05) during his graduate studies at Stanford University. Subsequently, he became a post-doc (05-07) with the theory group at Microsoft research, Redmond. He joined the faculty of the information engineering department in the Chinese University of Hong Kong during Fall 2007.
Website: http://chandra.ie.cuhk.edu.hk
Host: Giuseppe Caire, caire@usc.edu, EEB 528, x04683
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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. -
Integrated Systems Seminar Series
Fri, Feb 04, 2011 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Arjang Hassibi, University of Texas at Austin
Talk Title: CMOS ICs in Biotechnology
Abstract: The recent advances in biotechnology are largely due to the progress in bio-molecular detection and analysis platforms, especially in microarray, DNA sequencing, and qPCR technologies. However, the detection performance of these platforms (SNR, dynamic range, response time, throughput, and etc.) as well as their instrumentation complexity are far from the ideal. It is fair to say that there is no technology today that can satisfy the stringent requirements of applications such as personal medicine, point-of-care (PoC) molecular diagnostics, and real-time environmental monitoring.
Recently, a new technology trend has emerged in bio-electronics which promises not only detection sensitivity, but also integration and manufacturability. The general idea is to leverage the capabilities of conventional silicon VLSI fabrication technologies, i.e. CMOS processes, to build ICs that can act as the backbone for bio-molecular analysis platforms. Some examples are CMOS integrated microarrays and high-throughput DNA sequence-by-synthesis systems. The focus of this talk is to introduce this technology trend and discuss its advantages and limitations.
Biography: Arjang Hassibi is an Assistant Professor at the ECE Department and the Institute for Cellular Biology of the University of Texas at Austin. Arjang received the B.Sc. degree with the highest honors from the University of Tehran, Iran (1997), and the M.S. (2001) and Ph.D. degrees (2005) from Stanford University, all in electrical engineering. Prior to becoming a faculty he was a Postdoctoral Scholar at California Institute of Technology and also the co-founder and director of engineering of Xagros Genomics, where he co-invented the technology behind Ion Torrent electronic DNA sequencing platform. He has also held research positions at the Functional Genomics group of IBM T.J. Watson Research Center and Stanford Genome Technology Center. His main research interests are in the intersection of IC design and biotechnology.
Host: Prof. Hossein Hashemi and Firooz Aflatouni
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Hossein Hashemi
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. -
EE-Electrophysics Seminar
Mon, Feb 07, 2011 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Duygu Kuzum, Standford University
Talk Title: Nanoelectronics for Brain Inspired Computing and Implantable Neurodevices
Abstract: The efficiency of todayâs information processors has been dominated by complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) transistor scaling based on Mooreâs law. However, in the nano era CMOS scaling started to face significant barriers in achieving historical performance gains. In the first part of the talk, advances in high performance Ge CMOS technology, addressing end-of-the-roadmap CMOS scaling, will be presented. I will discuss our work on Ge interface engineering and a novel dopant activation technique to improve Ge CMOS performance.
Besides the scaling limits, the conventional computing paradigm based on binary logic and Von Neumann architecture becomes increasingly inefficient as the complexity of computation increases. Brain-inspired architectures and reconfigurable-adaptive systems are emerging research fields aiming to go beyond capabilities of digital logic and eventually to reach brain-level efficiency. In order to achieve the compactness, energy efficiency, massive parallelism and robustness of biological brain in our computational systems, the most important building block will be a compact nanoelectronic device emulating the functions and plasticity of biological synapses. In the second part of the talk, Iâll introduce a new nanoscale electronic synapse based on technologically mature phase change materials employed in optical data storage and nonvolatile memory applications. Continuous resistance transition in phase change materials is utilized to mimic the analog nature of biological synapses, enabling the implementation of synaptic learning rule. Different forms of synaptic plasticity using same nanoscale synapse with picojoule level energy consumption are demonstrated.
In the future, electronics will be increasingly employed for life science and healthcare applications. In the third part of my talk Iâll explain recent advances in implantable neurodevices. Iâll discuss our efforts on improving durability of implantable brain electrodes and nanoelectronic synapse platform for interaction with biological neurons.
Biography: Duygu Kuzum received her B. S. in Electrical Engineering from Bilkent University, Turkiye, in 2004 and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 2009. Her Ph.D. research focused on design, fabrication and characterization of Ge MOSFETs for future technology nodes. She is currently working on novel memory and storage devices and nanoscale electronic devices for brain-inspired computing as a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University. She is the author or coauthor of over 30 journal and conference papers. She worked as a research intern at Translucent Inc. (2006) and Intel Component Research (2008). She was a recipient of a number of awards, including Texas Instruments Fellowship and Intel Foundation Fellowship.
Host: EE-Electrophysics
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Marilyn Poplawski
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. -
Photonics Seminar Series
Thu, Feb 10, 2011 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Prof. Eric P. Y. Chiou, UCLA
Talk Title: Photothermal Excitation for Ultrafast Micro and Nanofluid Systems and Biomedical Applications
Abstract: Short pulse lasers have broad applications across broad fields including optical communication, imaging, laser machining, laser surgery, and recently in actuating microfluid and nanofluid devices. It has been shown that a tightly focused laser beam is capable of inducing localized hot plasma for rapid heating and creating cavitation bubbles that expand at high speed in the micro and nanometer scale. Through proper engineering design, such ultrafast actuation mechanism can be spatially patterned and synchronized in time domain to achieve novel microfluidic functions such as ultrafast microfluidic cell sorting, droplet generation, and single cell encapsulation. By coupling this photothermal effect with metallic nanostructures, the threshold energy for exciting cavitation bubbles can be greatly reduced and the bubble explosion pattern can be controlled in the nanometer scale. This enables a novel photothermal nanoblade that permits patterned cutting of 3D fragile mammalian cell membranes for large cargo delivery into mammalian cells with high efficiency and high cell viability.
Biography: Prof. Eric P. Y. Chiou received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Department from the University of California at Berkeley in 2005. He received his M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering Department in the University of California at Los Angeles and B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering Department from National Taiwan University in Taiwan in 1998. He joined the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of California at Los Angeles in 2006. His research interest is Optical MEMS, BioMEMS, laser manufacturing, and biophotonics. He has received the NSF CAREER award in 2008.
Host: Prof. Michelle Povinelli
More Info: http://ee.usc.edu/news/seminars/photonics/Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Jing Ma
Event Link: http://ee.usc.edu/news/seminars/photonics/
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. -
An Information Theoretic View of Robust Cooperation/Relaying in Wireless Networks
Fri, Feb 11, 2011 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Shlomo Shamai , Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
Talk Title: An Information Theoretic View of Robust Cooperation/Relaying in Wireless Networks
Abstract: In many wireless networks, cooperation, in the form of relaying, takes place over out-of-band spectral resources. Examples are ad hoc networks in which multiple radio interfaces are available for communications or cellular systems with (wireless or wired) backhaul links. In this information-theoretic overview, we put emphasis on robust processing and cooperation via out-of-band links for both ad hoc and cellular networks. Specifically, in focus are, robust approaches and practical aspects such as imperfect information regarding the channel state, and the codebooks (modulation, coding) shared by transmitters and receivers.
First we address cooperation scenarios with perfect channel state information and investigate the impact of lack of information regarding the codebooks (oblivious processing) on basic relay channels and cellular systems with cooperation among base stations. Then, similar models are examined in the absence of perfect channel state information. Robust coding strategies are designed based on 'variable-to-fixed' channel coding concepts (the broadcast coding approach, or unequal error protection codes). The effectiveness of such strategies are discussed for multirelay channels and cellular systems overlaid with femtocell hotspots.
Biography: Shlomo Shamai (Shitz) (S'80âM'82âSM'89âF'94) received the B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the TechnionâIsrael Institute of Technology, in 1975, 1981 and 1986 respectively. During 1975-1985 he was with the Communications Research Labs in the capacity of a Senior Research Engineer. Since 1986 he is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, TechnionâIsrael Institute of Technology, where he is now the William Fondiller Professor of Telecommunications. His research interests encompass a wide spectrum of topics in information theory and statistical communications. He is especially interested in theoretical limits in communication with practical constraints, multi-user information theory and spread spectrum systems, multiple-input-multiple-output communications systems, information theoretic models for wireless networks and systems, information theoretic aspects of magnetic recording, channel coding, combined modulation and coding, turbo codes and LDPC, in channel, source, and combined source-channel applications, iterative detection and decoding algorithms, coherent and noncoherent detection and information theoretic aspects of digital communication in optical channels. Dr. Shamai (Shitz) is a member of the Union Radio Scientifique Internationale (URSI). He is the recipient of the 1999 van der Pol Gold Medal of URSI, and a co-recipient of the 2000 IEEE Donald G. Fink Prize Paper Award, the 2003, and the 2004 Joint IT/COM Societies Paper Award, and the 2007 Information Theory Society Paper Award. He is also the recipient of the 1985 Alon Grant for distinguished young scientists and the 2000 Technion Henry Taub Prize for Excellence in Research. He has served as Associate Editor for the Shannon Theory of the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, and also serves on the Board of Governors of the Information Theory Society.
Host: Giuseppe Caire
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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. -
Center for Energy Nanoscience and Technology - Distinguisted Speaker Series
Fri, Feb 11, 2011 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Richard M. Swanson, President Emeritus SunPower Corporation
Talk Title: High Efficiency Silicon Solar Cells - Concepts and Commercialization
Biography: Richard Swanson received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1974. In 1976, he joined the faculty at Stanford University where he and his group conceived and developed the point-contact solar cell. Laboratory versions of these cells achieved a record 28 percent conversion efficiency in concentrator cells and 23 percent large-area one-sun cells. In 1991, Swanson resigned from his faculty position to devote full time to SunPower Corporation, a company he founded to develop and commercialize cost-effective photovoltaic power systems. Swanson currently serves as its president emeritus. Along with his students and co-workers, Swanson has published more than 200 articles in journals and conference proceedings, as well as several book chapters. In 2002, Swanson received the William R. Cherry award by the IEEE for outstanding contributions to the photovoltaic field, and in 2006 he was awarded the Becquerel Prize in Photovoltaics from the European Communities. Most recently, Swanson received the Economistâs Innovation Award for Energy and Environment.
Host: P. Daniel Dapkus, Director, Center for Energy Nanoscience
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Eliza Aceves
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. -
Integrated Systems Seminar Series
Fri, Feb 11, 2011 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Alireza Shirvani, Ralink Technology
Talk Title: Embedded RF Interfaces in Deep Submicron CMOS: Challenges and Opportunities
Abstract: For the past few years, most state-of-the-art wireless transceivers have evolved into single chip SoCâs in deep submicron CMOS technologies. Such high level of integration is mainly driven by cost and form factors demanded by the market. For RF and analog designers, however, such high level of integration is a mixed blessing. Keeping up with digital scaling imposes technical and strategic challenges for RF transceiver development. Furthermore, small die sizes with increased on-die digital activity necessitate substrate noise mitigation and isolation techniques. The added integration, however, provides numerous benefits. A higher level of system self test and calibration can be achieved on the die, alleviating the need for external test equipment and added time and cost. In addition, digitally assisted techniques can be more readily employed to overcome circuit and system impairments, saving precious die size and power.
Biography: Alireza Shirvani received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 1997, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University, Stanford, CA, in 1999 and 2003 respectively. He was with Tavanza from 2000 to 2002 working on RF power amplifiers for cellular communications. From 2002 to 2009, he was with Marvell Semiconductor, most recently as Senior Director of RF and Analog Design, where he led development of several generations of Marvell WLAN products. He is currently with Ralink Technology, as Director of RFIC Engineering, engaged in design and development of integrated RF transceivers for wireless communications. Dr. Shirvani was a member of the Iranian team in the 24th International Physics Olympiad. He is a technical program committee member and chair of the Panels Subcommittee at the IEEE Custom Integrated Circuit Conference (CICC). He is also the author of Design and Control of RF Power Amplifiers (Springer, 2003) and the recipient of the 2002 IEEE Journal of Solid State Circuits Best Paper Award.
Host: Prof. Hossein Hashemi and Firooz Aflatouni
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Hossein Hashemi
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. -
Extremes of Random Coding Error Exponents
Fri, Feb 11, 2011 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Albert Guillén i Fà bregas, University of Cambridge
Talk Title: Extremes of Random Coding Error Exponents
Abstract: In this talk, we will briefly review Gallager's random coding achievability proof. We will show that Gallager's random coding error exponent of an arbitrary binary-input memoryless symmetric channel is upper-bounded by that of the binary erasure channel and lower-bounded by that of the binary-symmetric channel of the same capacity. We will illustrate how the result can be applied to find the extremes of the channel dispersion for the aforementioned class of channels.
Biography: Albert Guillén i Fà bregas received the Telecommunication Engineering Degree and the Electronics Engineering Degree from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya , Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain, and the Politecnico di Torino , Torino, Italy, respectively, both in 1999, and the Ph.D. in Communication Systems from Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland, in 2004.
From August 1998 to March 1999, he conducted his Final Research Project at the New Jersey Institute of Technology , Newark, NJ. He was with Telecom Italia Labs, Italy, from November 1999 to June 2000. From September 2000 to May 2001, he was with the European Space Agency (ESA), The Netherlands. During his doctoral studies, from 2001 to 2004, he was a Research and Teaching assistant at Institut Eurécom , France. From June 2003 to July 2004 he was a visiting scholar at EPFL. Since September 2004 until December 2006 he was a Research Fellow at the Institute for Telecommunications Research , University of South Australia , Australia. From January 2007 he has been a Lecturer at the Department of Engineering , University of Cambridge , United Kingdom. He is also a Fellow of Trinity Hall . He held visiting appointments at Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications , Paris, France (June-July 2005 and June 2006),Universitat Pompeu Fabra , Barcelona, Spain (September 2008), at the Institute for Telecommunications Research , University of South Australia , Mawson Lakes, Australia (December 2008, June-July 2010) and Texas A&M Univeristy at Qatar (May 2010). His specific research interests are in the area of communication theory, information theory, coding theory, digital modulation and signal processing techniques, particularly with wireless terrestrial and satellite applications.
Dr. Guillén i Fà bregas received the Starting Grant from the European Research Council , the Young Authors Award of the 2004 European Signal Processing Conference EUSIPCO 2004, Vienna, Austria, the 2004 Nokia Best Doctoral Thesis Award in Mobile Internet and 3rd Generation Mobile Solutions from the Spanish Institution of Telecommunications Engineers , and a pre-doctoral Research Fellowship of the Spanish Ministry of Education to join ESA. He is also a Senior Member of IEEE (Information Theory and Communications Societies ), of theARC Communications Research Network (ACoRN), and a Junior member of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences . Since November 2007, he has been an Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications
Host: Giuseppe Caire, caire@usc.edu, EEB 528, x04683
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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. -
Polar Codes and Power Blackouts
Mon, Feb 14, 2011 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Edmund Yeh, Yale University
Talk Title: Polar Codes and Power Blackouts
Abstract: Achieving the fundamental capacity limits of noisy communication channels with low complexity coding schemes has been a major challenge for over 60 years. Recently, a new coding construction, called polar coding, has been shown to provably achieve the capacity of discrete memoryless single-user channels. Whereas a number of practical coding constructions (e.g. Turbo and Low Density Parity Check codes) can empirically approach the capacity of single-user communication channels, there is still a shortage of good practical coding schemes for multi-user communication channels. In the first part of the talk, we extend the polar coding method to two-user multiple-access communication channels. We show that if the two users use the channel combining and splitting construction, the resulting multiple-access channels will polarize to one of five possible extremals, on each of which uncoded transmission is optimal. Our coding technique can achieve some of the optimal transmission rate pairs obtained with uniformly distributed inputs. The encoding and decoding complexity of the code is O(n log n) with n being the block length, and the block error probability is roughly O(2^{-\sqrt{n}}). Our coding construction is one of the first low-complexity coding schemes which have been proved to achieve capacity in multi-user communication networks.
In electrical power networks, cascading failure associated with power blackouts often result from a small number of initial line failures triggering a global failure event affecting the whole network, inflicting enormous socioeconomic cost. In spite of the increasing frequency of blackout events, there is still a shortage of understanding regarding the structures and properties which lend the network susceptible to cascading failure. In the second part of the talk, we show how the theory of percolation can be used to analyze the problem of cascading failure from a network perspective. For large-scale networks modeled by random geometric graphs, we use a simple but descriptive model to show that the cascading failure problem is equivalent to a dependent percolation process. Within this context, we obtain analytical conditions for the occurrence and non-occurrence of cascading failure, respectively.
Joint work with Eren Sasoglu, Emre Telatar, Zhenning Kong, and Hongda Xiao.
Biography: Edmund Yeh received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering with Distinction from Stanford University in 1994, his M.Phil in Engineering from the University of Cambridge in 1995, and his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in 2001. He is currently an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, and Statistics at Yale University.
Professor Yeh is the recipient of a Humboldt Research Fellowship, an Army Research Office Young Investigator Award, the Winston Churchill Scholarship, the National Science Foundation and Office of Naval Research Graduate Fellowships, the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, the Frederick Emmons Terman Engineering Scholastic Award, and the Presidentâs Award for Academic Excellence (Stanford University). He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Tau Beta Pi.
Host: Giuseppe Caire, caire@usc.edu, EEB 528, x04683
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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. -
Distinguished Lecturer Series
Mon, Feb 14, 2011 @ 04:30 PM - 05:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. R. Srikant, University of Illinois
Talk Title: Network Optimization
Abstract: Resource allocation problems in many different types of networks can often be posed as convex optimization problems, and duality theory can then be used to derive optimal algorithms. The talk will illustrate the applications of this rich theory at the intersection of optimization, stochastic networks, combinatorial optimization and stochastic approximation. Specifically, we will present applications of this paradigm to problems ranging from wireless networks to online advertising with budget constraints.
Biography: R. Srikant received his B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in 1985, his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1988 and 1991, respectively, all in Electrical Engineering. He was a Member of Technical Staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories from 1991 to 1995. He is currently at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he is the Fredric G. and Elizabeth H. Nearing Endowed Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a Research Professor in the Coordinated Science Lab. His research interests include communication networks, stochastic processes, and game theory.
Host: Bhaskar Krishnamachari
More Info: http://ee.usc.edu/news/dls/Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Estela Lopez
Event Link: http://ee.usc.edu/news/dls/
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. -
2010 - 2011 Munushian Visiting Seminar Series
Thu, Feb 17, 2011 @ 12:30 PM - 01:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Carver Mead, Professor, California Institute of Technology
Talk Title: The Next Revolution in Physical Law
Abstract: For the past 50 years, Carver Mead has dedicated his research, teaching, and public presentation to the physics and technology of electron devices. This effort has been divided among basic physics, practical devices, and seeing the solid state as a medium for the realization of novel and enormously concurrent computing structures. He has made a number of contributions, with his most recent listed below:
Biography: With M. A. Mahowald, described the first analog silicon retina (61). The approach to silicon models of certain neural computations expressed in this chip, and its successors, foreshadowed a totally new class of physically based computations inspired by the neural paradigm. More recent results demonstrated that a wide range of visual and auditory computations of enormous complexity can be carried out in minimal area and with minute energy dissipation compared with digital implementations (1984). The book Analog VLSI and Neural Systems was published (52). This book condensed the insights gained during the previous eight years of work into a single volume, accessible to students with a wide range of backgrounds. Several recent reviews have spelled out in some detail the compelling advantages of realizing adaptive systems directly in analog VLSI. Reduction of system power dissipation by a factor of 10,000, and of silicon area by a factor of 100 are being demonstrated (1984). Experience gained in using photo-response of semiconductor structures for barrier-energy and band-gap studies led to system-level structures that sensed and processed images in various ways. With numerous collaborators, a large variety of imaging structures were developed. One branch of this effort resulted in CMOS imagers, now the most prevalent of all image sensors. A particular subset of these, the X3 sensors, have produced some of the finest images ever captured by any photographic technology (1985 â 1998). Throughout the entire period, worked to bring about a general awareness of Computation as a physical process, rather than purely a mathematical one. Strongly advocated the importance of unifying technology and architecture into a single discipline, and emphasized the importance of this unity for the future of the field at large (1972 â 2000). The book Collective Electrodynamics: Quantum Foundations of Electromagnetism, published by MIT Press, unifies electromagnetic phenomena with the quantum nature of matter (1) (2000). Recent work on Collective Electrodynamics is evolving an entire introductory level physics course based on macroscopic quantum systems. This approach allows students to develop a deep intuition for fundamental physical processes by way of simple laboratory experiments (2007 â Present).
Host: EE-Electrophysics
More Info: http://ee.usc.edu/news/munushianLocation: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Marilyn Poplawski
Event Link: http://ee.usc.edu/news/munushian
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. -
Controls Group - EE-Systems Seminar
Fri, Feb 18, 2011 @ 09:00 AM - 10:00 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Matthew J. Barth, Univ. of California - Riverside
Talk Title: ECO-Routing Navigation System based on Multi-Source Historical and Real-Time Traffic Information
Abstract: Due to increased public awareness on global climate change as well as other energy and environmental problems, a variety of strategies are being developed and used to reduce the energy consumption and environmental impact of roadway travel. In the area of Advanced Traveler Information Systems, recent efforts have been made in developing a new navigation concept called âeco-routingâ that finds a route requiring the least amount of fuel and/or producing the least amount of emissions. This paper presents an eco-routing navigation system that determines the most eco-friendly route between a trip origin and a destination. It consists of several components, including: (a) a Dynamic Roadway Network database, which is a digital map of roadway network that integrates historical and real-time traffic information from multiple data sources through an embedded data fusion algorithm; (b) an Energy/Emissions Operational Parameter Set, which is a compilation of energy/emission factors for a variety of vehicle types under various roadway characteristics and traffic conditions; (c) a routing engine, which contains shortest-path algorithms used for optimal route calculation; and
(d) user interfaces that receive origin-destination inputs from users and display route maps to the users. Each of the system components and the system architecture are described. Example results are also presented to prove the validity of the eco-routing concept and to demonstrate the operability of the developed eco-routing navigation system.
Biography: Matthew Barth is a Professor of Electrical Engineering at UC Riverside, holds the Yeager Family Chair, and is also the Director of the College of Engineering Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CE¬CERT). Dr. Barthâs research focuses is in Transportation Systems, in particular how it relates to energy and air quality issues. Current research interests include Intelligent Transportation System Technology, Transportation/Emissions Modeling, Vehicle Activity Analysis, and Vehicle Navigation.
Host: Petros Ioannou
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Shane Goodoff
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. -
EE-Electrophysics Seminar
Fri, Feb 18, 2011 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Igor Bargatin, Stanford University
Talk Title: Hard-boiled Electrons: Using Thermionic Emission for Solar Energy Generation
Abstract: An interdisciplinary team of Stanford researchers is currently building MEMS-based prototypes of a new types of heat-to-electricity and solar-to-electricity energy converters. The first type of the device converts very high-temperature heat (>1000 C) to electricity the evaporation of electrons from solid surfaces (thermionic effect).
The second type of the device simultaneously transforms light and heat energy provided by the sun into electricity and is based on the recently demonstrated effect of photon-enhanced thermionic emission (PETE). Both types of converters may be used to dramatically improve the efficiency of future solar thermal power plants. I will describe the principle of operation, the initial experiments, and the maximum theoretical efficiency of both types of these high-temperature MEMS devices.
Biography: Dr. Igor Bargatin is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the group of Prof. Roger T. Howe in the Stanford EE department. A native of western Siberia, he received an undergraduate degree in theoretical physics from Moscow State University in 2000. Subsequently, Igor did his Ph.D. Studies with Prof. Michael L. Roukes at Caltech, where he became an experimentalist and studied sensor applications of high-frequency nanomechanical resonators, graduating with a Ph.D. in Physics and a minor in EE. In the summer of 2008, he was a visiting scientist at CEA/LETI in Grenoble, France, where he enjoyed the ambiance and developed new types of gas sensors.
Host: EE-Electrophysics
More Info: ee.usc.edu/news/seminars/eepLocation: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Marilyn Poplawski
Event Link: ee.usc.edu/news/seminars/eep
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. -
Controls Group - EE-Systems Faculty Candidate Seminar
Fri, Feb 18, 2011 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dennice Gayme, California Institute of Technology - CalTech
Talk Title: Energy Efficiency: From Fundamental Physics to Power Systems
Abstract: Global warming and security concerns are driving the need to find more efficient and renewable energy sources and systems. In this talk we look at two such energy problems; fuel efficiency in aerodynamic applications and grid integration of renewable energy sources. Turbulence is undesirable in many applications because it increases drag, which leads to decreased fuel efficiency. We use a âbottom upâ (physics based) approach to understanding energy efficiency through a control theoretic analysis of shear flow turbulence. A 2D/3C model in a robust control framework is used to rigorously connect experimental observations of streamwise coherence to the shape of the mean velocity profile. We demonstrate how this model allows us to isolate mechanisms responsible for profile blunting, which is directly connected to increased drag and decreased fuel efficiency. In power systems we approach energy efficiency from the opposite direction, using a âtop downâ (system level) approach to examine issues associated with integrating renewable sources into a smart electric grid. A couple of case studies are described. The first demonstrates the benefits of grid integrated storage in the current power generation network paradigm. The second looks at how a combination of storage and ancillary services can be used to mitigate the intermittency of renewable sources. In the long term, a combination of physics based and systems level approaches are needed to analyze the technical and market issues that will arise as renewable penetration is increased.
Biography: Dennice Gayme is a postdoctoral scholar in the Computing and Mathematical Sciences Department at the California Institute of Technology. She received her doctorate in Control and Dynamical Systems in 2010 under the supervision of John C. Doyle and Beverley J. McKeon, also at the California Institute of Technology where she was a recipient of the P.E.O. scholar award in 2007 and the James Irvine Foundation Graduate Fellowship in 2003. She received a Masters of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley in 1998. Prior to her doctoral work she was a Senior Research Scientist in the Systems and Control Technology and Vehicle Health Monitoring Groups at Honeywell Laboratories from 1999-2003. Denniceâs research interests are in the study of large-scale interconnected systems in the broad area of energy with applications focused in the areas of control theoretic analysis of shear flow turbulence and the integration of renewable power sources into a âsmartâ electric power system.
Host: Edmond Jonckheere
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Shane Goodoff
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. -
Optical Switching for Next Generation Data Centers
Fri, Feb 18, 2011 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Madeleine Glick, Principal Engineer at Intel Labs and Adjunct Professor at Carnegie Mellon University
Talk Title: Optical Switching for Next Generation Data Centers
Abstract: Data intensive applications are driving up bandwidth requirements and creating new challenges that state-of-the-art data center networks cannot satisfy. Optical solutions are seen as a means to alleviate these bandwidth bottlenecks. Optical point-to-point links are making increasing commercial headway in data centers and supercomputers as high bandwidth links. In addition, optically switched networks could reduce latency and power consumption, however, technical challenges must be overcome and end-to-end solutions demonstrated to achieve acceptance of optical switching as commercially viable for data center applications. We have been exploring dynamic reconfiguration of low cost, high bandwidth optical networks that can adapt to application communication patterns. A hybrid packet-switched/circuit-switched network has potential to provide the functions of current networks, while providing high bandwidth for a large class of applications at lower cost and power. I will present the background motivation and current results of this research.
Biography: Madeleine Glick is a Principal Engineer at Intel Labs and an adjunct professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University. Her research interests focus on optical interconnection networks including signal processing and coding for data centers and high performance computers. She is an associate editor of the IEEE Photonics Technology Letters and the Journal of Optical Communications and Networking. Madeleine is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and on the Board of Governors of the IEEE Photonics Society. She received the Ph.D. degree in physics from Columbia University, New York.
Host: Prof. Alan Willner, willner@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 539
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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. -
On Representing Acoustics of Speech for Speech Processing
Tue, Feb 22, 2011 @ 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Bishnu S. Atal, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA
Talk Title: On Representing Acoustics of Speech for Speech Processing
Abstract: Most methods for analyzing speech start by transforming the acoustic time-domain signal into spectral form. The short-time Fourier transform provides a representation of the time-varying characteristics of the signal and has a long history. There are many issues, such as the size and shape of the window, that remain unresolved. The use of a relatively short window is widespread. In early development of the sound spectrograph, use of both narrow and wideband analysis was quite common, but the narrow-band analysis faded away. In digital speech coding applications (multipulse and code-excited linear prediction), high-quality speech is produced at low bit rates only when prediction using both short and long intervals is used. What are the issues that arise in using a short or a long window? What are the relative advantages or disadvantages? In this talk, we will discuss these topics and present results that suggest that a short-time Fourier transform using long windows has advantages. In most speech representations, the Fourier components are not used directly but converted to their magnitude spectrum; the so-called phase is considered to be irrelevant. There are open questions regarding the use of phase information and we will discuss this important issue in the talk.
Biography: Bishnu S. Atal is an Affiliate Professor in the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA. He retired in March 2002 after working for more than 40 years at Lucent Bell Labs, and AT&T Labs. He was a Technical Director at the AT&T Shannon Laboratory, Florham Park, New Jersey, from 1997 where he was engaged in research in speech coding and in automatic speech recognition. He joined the technical staff of AT&T Bell Laboratories in 1961, became head of Acoustics Research Department in 1985, and head of Speech Research Department in 1990.
He is internationally recognized for his many contributions to speech analysis, synthesis, and coding. His pioneering work in linear predictive coding of speech established linear prediction as one of the most important speech analysis technique leading to many applications in coding, recognition and synthesis of speech. His research work is documented in over 90 technical papers and he holds 17 U.S. and numerous international patents in speech processing.
He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1987 and to the National Academy of Sciences in 1993. He is a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America and the IEEE. He received the IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Field Award in 1986, the Thomas Edison Patent Award from the R&D Council of New Jersey in 1994, New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame Inventor of the Year Award in 2000 and the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Electrical Engineering in 2003.
Bishnu lives in Mukilteo, Washington.
Host: Sanjit Mitra and Shrikanth Narayanan
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mary Francis
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. -
Robust Modeling and Analysis of High-Dimensional Data
Tue, Feb 22, 2011 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: John Wright, Ph.D.
Talk Title: Robust Modeling and Analysis of High-Dimensional Data
Abstract: In this talk, I introduce several recent theoretical and algorithmic advances in robust recovery of low-dimensional structure from high-dimensional data. I show how to correctly and efficiently recover two important, closely-related types of low-dimensional structure: sparse vectors and low-rank matrices. For sparse vectors, we prove that as long as the signal of interest has a sufficiently sparse representation in a coherent dictionary, convex programming corrects large fractions of errors. In the same spirit, we prove that convex programming recovers low-rank matrices from large fractions of errors and missing observations. I motivate these general problems from the perspective of automatic face recognition in computer vision, and demonstrate how theoretical advances have inspired progress on this challenging problem. I discuss several additional applications of these tools including robust batch image alignment and registration, 3D shape recovery from multiple images, video stabilization and enhancement, web data analysis, indexing and search.
Biography: John Wright received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in October 2009. He is currently a researcher in the Visual Computing group at Microsoft Research Asia. His research focuses on developing provably correct and efficient tools for recovering low-dimensional structure in high-dimensional datasets, even when data are missing or grossly corrupted. These techniques address critical estimation problems in imaging and vision applications such as automatic face recognition, video stabilization and tracking, image and data segmentation, and more. They also find application outside of vision, for example in web data analysis and bioinformatics. His work has received a number of awards and honors, including the 2009 Lemelson-Illinois Prize for Innovation for his work on robust face recognition, the 2009 UIUC Martin Award for Excellence in Graduate Research, a 2008-2010 Microsoft Research Fellowship, a Carver fellowship, and a UIUC Bronze Tablet award.
Host: Prof. Antonio Ortega
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Talyia Veal
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. -
EE-Electrophysics Seminar
Wed, Feb 23, 2011 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Gianluca Piazza, University of Pennsylvania, Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering
Talk Title: AlN Piezoelectric NanoElectroMechanical Resonators and Switches for RF Signal Processing, Sensing and Computing
Abstract: NanoElectroMechanical Systems (NEMS) resonators and switches have been identified as some of the most interesting technologies that will enable the More Moore and More than Moore evolution of the semiconductor industry. These NEMS devices will yield transformational improvements over state-of-the-art semiconductor-based products by decreasing power consumption, increasing frequencies of operation and increasing sensing resolution â which will revolutionize computing, chemical/biological sensing, and radio frequency (RF) and microwave communication.
A major challenge for developing NEMS based technology is the ability to efficiently transduce the mechanical device at the chip scale. This talk presents remarkable opportunities associated with the scaling of piezoelectric AlN films to the nano realm and their application to the making of efficient NEMS resonators and switches that can be directly interfaced with conventional electronics.
Experimental data showing NEMS AlN resonators (250 nm thick with lateral features as small as 300 nm) vibrating at record-high frequencies approaching 10 GHz with Qs in excess of 500 will be presented. The extremely compact form factor of these devices permits to envision large scale integration (LSI) of NEMS to develop low power and highly reconfigurable microwave radio transceivers. Similarly, experimental results will show how these NEMS resonators can yield unprecedented sensitivities and be employed to form miniaturized gas sensor arrays and tag gas analyte concentrations that reach the part per trillion levels.
Finally, nano-piezoelectric films (50-100 nm thick) for switching applications and experimental data confirming that bimorph AlN nano-piezo-actuators achieve the same piezoelectric properties of microscale counterparts will be presented. These NEMS devices set a realistic pathway towards the development of low energy nanomechanical computing.
Biography: Gianluca Piazza is a Wilf Family Term Assistant Professor in the department of Electrical and Systems Engineering (ESE) at the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests focus on piezoelectric micro and nano electromechanicalsystems (MEMS/NEMS) for RF wireless communications, chemical/biological detection, and all mechanical computing. He also has a general interest in the areas of micro/nano fabrication techniques and integration of micro/nano devices with state-of-the-art electronics. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 2005. He has more than 10 years of experience working with piezoelectric materials. He holds several patents in the field of micromechanical resonators some of which have been succesfully acquired by industry (IDT and Qualcomm). He received the IBM Young Faculty Award in 2006 and has won, with his students, the Best Paper Award in Group 1 and 2 at the IEEE Frequency Control Symposium in 2008 and 2009, respectively.
Host: EE-Electrophysics
More Info: http://ee.usc.edu/news/seminars/eepLocation: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Marilyn Poplawski
Event Link: http://ee.usc.edu/news/seminars/eep
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. -
PhD Defense - Optimal Resource Allocation and Cross-Layer Control in Cognitive and Cooperative Wireless Networks
Wed, Feb 23, 2011 @ 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Rahul Urgaonkar, USC PhD Candidate
Talk Title: PhD Defense - Optimal Resource Allocation and Cross-Layer Control in Cognitive and Cooperative Wireless Networks
Abstract: Next generation wireless networks will be required to provide significantly higher data rates, reliability, and energy efficiency than the existing systems. Cognitive radio and cooperative communication are expected to be two essential technologies towards achieving this goal. In this thesis, we study several resource allocation problems in the area of cognitive and cooperative wireless networks. Our goal is to design optimal control algorithms that maximize time-average network utilities (such as throughput) subject to time-average constraints (such as power, reliability, etc.). This talk will present our work on two such problems.
The first problem considers opportunistic cooperation in cognitive radio networks. Specifically, we assume that a secondary user can use its resources to improve the transmission rates of the primary user. In return, the secondary user can get more opportunities for transmitting its own data when the primary user is idle. In this scenario, it is important for the secondary user to balance the desire to cooperate more (to create more transmission opportunities) with the need for maintaining sufficient energy levels for its own transmissions. Such a model is applicable in the emerging area of cognitive femtocell networks. We formulate the problem of maximizing the secondary user throughput subject to a time average power constraint under these settings as a constrained Markov Decision Problem. Conventional solution techniques to this problem are based on dynamic programming and require either extensive knowledge of the system dynamics or learning based approaches that suffer from large convergence times. However, using the technique of Lyapunov optimization, we design a novel greedy and online control algorithm that does not require any knowledge of network dynamics or explicit learning, yet is optimal.
The second problem investigates optimal routing and scheduling strategies for multi-hop wireless networks with rateless codes. Rateless codes allow each node of the network to accumulate mutual information with every packet transmission. This enables a significant performance gain over conventional shortest path routing. Further, it also outperforms cooperative communication techniques that are based on energy accumulation. However, it requires complex and combinatorial networking decisions concerning which nodes participate in transmission, and which decode ordering to use. We formulate the general problem as a combinatorial optimization problem and then make use of several structural properties to simplify the solution and derive optimal greedy algorithms. A key feature of these algorithms is that unlike prior works on these problems, they do not require solving any linear programs to compute the optimal solution.
Biography: Rahul Urgaonkar obtained the B.Tech. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay in 2002 and the M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles in 2005. He is currently a PhD candidate in Electrical Engineering at USC working with Prof. Michael Neely. His research interest is in the area of stochastic network optimization with applications to resource allocation and scheduling problems in next generation wireless networks and data centers.
Host: Prof. Michael J. Neely
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 539
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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. -
Photonics Seminar Series
Thu, Feb 24, 2011 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Prof. Ofer Levi, University of Toronto
Talk Title: Integrated optical sensors for portable biomedical sensing and imaging
Abstract: Optical techniques are widely used in clinical settings and in biomedical research labs to interrogate bio-molecular interactions and evaluate tissue dynamics. Miniature integrated optical systems for sensing and imaging enjoy several advantages over bulk optical systems. These include portable long-term studies in living tissues, lower cost, higher speed, while keeping high sensitivity.
In this presentation I will review our miniature semiconductor-based sensors and nano-structures for optical bio-sensing and bio-medical imaging. I will discuss our progress in design, fabrication and optimization of miniature fluorescence and index-of-refraction optical bio-sensors. In optofluidics studies for Lab on a Chip diagnosis applications, we have recently demonstrated sensitive fluorescence sensors (~ 1 nMolar) equal to or better than state-of-the-art miniature optical sensors and studied large area label-free photonic crystal slab (PCS) index-of-refraction sensors (Δn ≤ 10^-5). I will also describe our progress towards portable implantable optical sensors in freely-moving rodents in (i) applying Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VCSELs) as coherent/incoherent light sources for portable optical brain imaging and (ii) implanting VCSEL/PIN diode miniature fluorescence sensors in mice for portable long-term cancer monitoring.
Biography: Ofer Levi is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering and the Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the University of Toronto since 2007. In 2000-2007 Dr. Levi worked as a Post Doctoral Fellow and a Research Associate at the Departments of Applied Physics and Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, CA. He is a member of OSA, IEEE-Photonics, and SPIE. His recent research areas include biomedical imaging systems and optical bio-sensors based on semiconductor devices and nano-structures, and their application to bio-medical diagnostics, in vivo imaging, and study of bio-molecular interactions. More details can be found at http://biophotonics.utoronto.ca/
Host: Prof. Michelle Povinelli
More Info: http://ee.usc.edu/news/seminars/photonics/Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Jing Ma
Event Link: http://ee.usc.edu/news/seminars/photonics/
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. -
Distinguished Lecture Series in Energy Informatics
Fri, Feb 25, 2011 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Prof. K. Mani Chandy, California Institute of Technology
Talk Title: Uncertain, Intermittent Power: Hurdles in Reaching Pres. Obama's Goal of 80% Renewable Energy by 2035
Series: Distinguished Lecture Series in Energy Informatics
Abstract: Wind and solar power are intermittent whereas gas, coal, and nuclear generation are not.Moreover, we cannot accurately predict the amount of wind and solar power that will be available
minute-by-minute, over the next hour, or even the next day; thus, our predictions are uncertain.
Intermittent power and uncertainty in predictions are fundamental problems in reaching an energy economy based primarily on wind and solar power. This talk describes research at Caltech in collaboration with Cal State Chico on ways of dealing with the intermittent and uncertain nature of wind and solar power. The research deals with methods of mitigating these problems by aggregating power over time by storing power, aggregating power over large geographical regions by investing in transmission, by customer response to supply (demand-response), and by pricing uncertainty. The talk covers several topics briefly and goes into a couple of topics in depth. This work is led at Caltech by Steven Low and at Cal State Chico by Christina Archer.
Biography: K. Mani Chandy is the Simon Ramo Professor and Deputy Chair of
Engineering and Applied Sciences at the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena, California. His Bachelors is from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Electrical Engineering. He was a professor at the University of Texas at Austin from 1970 to 1987, and has been at Caltech since then. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and has received several awards. He does research on distributed systems and systems that sense and respond. He works on applications dealing with earthquakes, radiation detection, healthcare for the disadvantaged, and the smart grid.
Host: Prof. Viktor Prasanna
Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Annie Yu
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. -
Signal Recovery from Randomized Measurements Using Structured Sparsity Models
Mon, Feb 28, 2011 @ 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Marco F. Duarte, IPAM Postdoctoral Fellow, Dept. of Computer Science, Duke University
Talk Title: Signal Recovery from Randomized Measurements Using Structured Sparsity Models
Abstract: We are in the midst of a digital revolution spawned by the proliferation of sensing devices with ever increasing fidelity and resolution. The resulting data deluge has motivated compression schemes that rely on transform coding, where a suitable transformation of the data provides a sparse representation that compacts the signal energy into a few transform coefficients. This standard approach, however, still requires signal acquisition at the full Nyquist rate, which cannot be achieved in many emerging applications using current sensing technology. The emerging acquisition paradigm of compressive sensing (CS) leverages signal sparsity for recovery from a small set of randomized measurements. The standard CS theory dictates that robust recovery of a K-sparse, N-length signal is possible from M=O(K log(N/K)) measurements. New sensing devices that implement this measurement process have been developed for applications including optical and seismic imaging, communications, and biosensing.
In this talk, we show that it is possible to substantially decrease the number of measurements M without sacrificing robustness by leveraging more concise signal models that go beyond simple sparsity and compressibility. We present a modified CS theory for structured sparse signals that exploits the dependencies between values and locations of the significant signal coefficients; we provide concrete guidelines on how to create new recovery algorithms for structured sparse signals with provable performance guarantees that require as few as M=O(K) measurements. We also review example applications of structured sparsity for natural images, signal ensembles, and multiuser detection.
Biography: Marco F. Duarte received the B.Sc. degree in computer engineering (with distinction) and the M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2002 and 2004, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Rice University, Houston, TX, in 2009. During 2009-2010, he was a Visiting Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Program of Applied and Computational Mathematics at Princeton University. He is currently the NSF/IPAM Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Computer Science at Duke University, where he works on applications of deterministic matrix constructions in compressive sensing devices.
Dr. Duarte received the Rice University Presidential Fellowship and the Texas Instruments Distinguished Fellowship in 2004, and the Hershel M. Rich Invention Award in 2007 for his work on the single pixel camera. He was a coauthor on a paper with Chinmay Hegde and Volkan Cevher that won the Best Student Paper Award at the 2009 International Workshop on Signal Processing with Adaptive Sparse Structured Representations (SPARS). His research interests include compressive sensing, low-dimensional signal models, dimensionality reduction, and distributed signal processing.
Host: Prof. Shrikanth Narayanan
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mary Francis
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. -
Computer Engineering Seminar
Mon, Feb 28, 2011 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Weikang Qian, University of Minnesota
Talk Title: Digital yet Deliberately Random: Synthesizing Logical Computation on Stochastic Bit Streams
Abstract: Most digital circuits process information deterministically as zeros and ones. For example, the arithmetic unit of a modern computer performs calculations on deterministic integer or floating-point values represented in binary radix. However, digital computation need not be deterministic. In my research, I consider an alternative paradigm: digital circuits that compute on stochastic sequences of zeros and ones. Such circuits can implement complex arithmetic operations with very simple hardware. Also they are highly tolerant of soft errors (i.e., bit flips). In the first part of my talk, I will present a general method for synthesizing combinational circuits that compute on stochastic bit streams. The method can be used to synthesize arbitrary polynomial functions. Through polynomial approximations, it can also be used to synthesize non-polynomial functions.
Schemes for probabilistic computation can exploit physical sources to generate random bit streams. Generally, each source has a fixed bias and so provides bits that have a specific probability of being one versus zero. If many different probability values are required, it can be difficult or expensive to generate all of these directly from physical sources. In the second half of my talk, I will describe techniques for synthesizing circuits that transform source probabilities into target probabilities, entirely through combinational logic. I will conclude my talk by discussing potential applications of the design methodology for emerging nanoscale technologies, such as nanowire crossbar arrays and carbon nanotubes.
Biography: Weikang Qian is a final-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Minnesota. He received his Bachelor of Engineering degree in Automation from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 2006. He has research interests in diverse fields such as computer-aided design of integrated circuits, circuit design for emerging technologies, and fault-tolerant computing. In recognition of his doctoral research, he received the Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship at the University of Minnesota. One of his papers was nominated for the William J. McCalla Best Paper Award at the 2009 International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD), a top conference in the field of electronic design automation.
Host: Sandeep Gupta
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) -
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Estela Lopez
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.
