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Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for February
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The Capacity of Interference Channels with Partial Transmitter Cooperation
Fri, Feb 02, 2007 @ 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
SPEAKER: Professor Ivana Maric, Stanford UniversityABSTRACT: We present capacity regions for several two-sender, two-receiver channels with partial transmitter cooperation. First, we present the capacity regions for compound multiaccess channels (MACs) with common information and compound MACs with conferencing. Next, we consider two interference channel models; interference channels with common information and interference channels where the message sent by one of the encoders is known to the other encoder. The capacity regions of both of these channels are determined when there is "strong" interference, i.e., the interference is such that both receivers can decode all messages with no rate penalty. The resulting capacity regions thus coincide with the capacity region of the compound MAC with common information. HOST: Giuseppe Caire, caire@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
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. -
Decentralized Processing: An Information Theoretic Perspective
Fri, Feb 02, 2007 @ 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
SPEAKER: Prof. Shlomo Shamai, Technion, Israel Institute of TechnologyAbstract: We discuss the scenario where remote nomadic users (or a single user) communicate to a destination via a set of intermediate agents. The agents are ignorant of the codebook used due to the nomadic regime and are connected to the destination via reliable links of finite capacity. We focus here on independent Gaussian channels to all agents, who are equipped with a single antenna while the transmitter or transmitters may posses multiple antennas.First we review the results associated with a single transmit antenna, invoking decentralized quantization, which yield the ultimate achievable rate, in the nomadic regime.For a multiantenna transmitter, upper and lower bounds on the achievable rate with Gaussian signalling are developed, and it is demonstrated that the full multiplexing gain of the system can potentially be maintained, even when the transmitter is denied the knowledge of the channel state information (corresponding fading coefficients). We also examine the asymptotic setting with the number of agents and transmit antennas (or users) taken to infinity, yet maintaining a fixed ratio. Here we demonstrate the incompetence of the simple compression when compared to a Wyner-Ziv based approach.Finally, we confine attention to the basic single antenna scheme with two agents and consider the impact of a finite capacity feedback link from the final destination to the agents, allowing for a single round of conferencing. Network coding is optimal here in the sense of facilitating the full exploitation of the conferencing phase on the feedback link (from the destination to the agents). The impact of this conferencing protocol on the ultimate performance is quantified, and implications of layered coding in this scenario are also considered.Bio: Shlomo Shamai (Shitz) is the William Fondiller Professor of Telecommunication at the Department of Electrical Engineering, Technion---Israel Institute of Technology, where he has been on the faculty since 1986. His research interests encompasses a wide spectrum of topics in information theory and statistical communications.Prof. Shamai is an IEEE Fellow and 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. He is also the recipient of the 2000 Technion Henry Taub Prize for Excellence in Research. He has served as Associate Editor for 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, caire@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
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. -
Practical network coding by binary superposition of codewords...
Mon, Feb 05, 2007 @ 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
SPEAKER: Professor Joerg Kliewer, University of Notre DameABSTRACT: In this talk we consider two applications of network coding based on the binary superposition of codewords at a network node. In the first application we address the scenario in which two partners (node A and node B) cooperate in transmitting information to a single destination; each partner transmits both locally-generated information and information that originated at the other partner. A key observation is that node B already knows node A's relayed information and can exploit that knowledge when decoding node A's information. This leads to an encoding scheme in which each partner transmits the binary superposition of its local and relayed information. The superimposed codeword is interpreted differently at the two receivers, i.e., at the other partner and the destination node, based on their different a priori knowledge. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme provides substantial coding gain over other cooperative diversity techniques.The second application proposes a novel distributed encoding procedure to realize codes that resemble LT codes (rateless codes for erasure correction) in both structure and performance. For the case of two sources communicating with a single sink via a common relay, this technique separately encodes K/2 symbols of information onto slightly more than K code symbols at each source. These two codewords are combined at the relay by a mixture of routing and network coding. The resulting MLT (modified LT) code can then be decoded by the sink to recover all K information symbols. It is shown that, for the case of four sources communicating to a single sink, using a MLT code leads to a 50% reduction in overhead at the sink, compared to employing four individual LT codes combined by time-sharing at the relay. Similar benefits for MLT codes can also be observed for the frame error rate if a fixed code rate is considered.Bio: Joerg Kliewer received the Diploma Degree (M.S.) in Electrical Engineering from the Hamburg University of Technology, Hamburg, Germany, in 1993 and the Dr.-Ing. degree (Ph.D.) in Electrical Engineering from the University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany, in 1999, respectively. From 1994 to 1998 he was a research assistant at the University of Kiel, Germany. From 1999 to 2004 he was with the Faculty of Engineering, University of Kiel, Germany, as an Assistant Professor. In 2004 he was visiting the University of Southampton, U.K., for one year, and since 2005 he is with the University of Notre Dame, IN, as a Visiting Assistant Professor. He received a Leverhulme fellowship award in 2003 and a German Research Foundation fellowship award in 2004, respectively. His current research interests include joint source and channel coding, error correcting codes, network coding, and network information theory.Host: Keith Chugg, chugg@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
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: The Extraction and Complexity Limits of Graphical Models for Linear Codes
Wed, Feb 07, 2007 @ 09:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
SPEAKER: Mr. Thomas HalfordAbstract: A decade ago, the introduction of turbo codes and iterative message passing algorithms revolutionized the theory and practice of coding. In the ensuing years, the coding theory community has become adept at designing codes from good graphical models - that is, models which imply low-complexity, near-optimal iterative message passing algorithms. Specifically, modern codes are constructed by connecting a large number of simple local codes together via a rich, random-like, cyclic interconnection network. A key observation from this work is that the introduction of cycles to graphical models can enable massive complexity reductions in model, and thus decoding, complexity.Whereas constructive graphical modeling problems (e.g. code design) have been widely addressed by the coding theory community, less is understood about the inverse problem of model extraction. Specifically, can good graphical models be obtained for existing algebraic codes, or more generally, for arbitrary systems? What tradeoffs exist between model complexity and cyclic topology for a given code? If good models can exist, how can they be obtained, or extracted?This dissertation presents a theoretical framework for the study of extractive graphical modeling problems. The limits of extraction are first considered and a number of new results are presented on the space of graphical models for a given (fixed) code. Most significantly, a new characterization of the tradeoff between cyclic topology and complexity in graphical models for linear codes is provided. Inasmuch as the cyclic topology of a graphical model is related to the performance of the decoding algorithms it implies, this tree-inducing cut-set bound provides insight into the fundamental limits of graphical model extraction. Extraction is then treated formally using the language of combinatorial optimization and a number of novel heuristics for both defining and solving this optimization problem.The results of a number of side problems that arose in the aforementioned study of graphical model extraction are also reported. Novel optimal soft-in soft-out (SISO) decoding algorithms are described for Reed-Solomon codes and for first-order Reed-Muller codes. A practically realizable - yet remarkably successful - suboptimal SISO decoding algorithm for arbitrary linear block codes based on massively redundant Tanner graphs is also developed. Finally, an efficient algorithm for counting short cycles in bipartite graphs is described.Bio: Thomas R. Halford received the B. A. Sc. degree in engineering physics from Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada, in 2001. He is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, where his research focuses primarily on graphical models of codes. He spent the summer of 2005 visiting the Natural Language Processing Group at IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY.Advisor: Keith M. Chugg
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
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. -
The Theory behind IDEAL: Cramer-Rao Bounds for Chemical Species Separation in Magnetic Resonance Im
Thu, Feb 08, 2007 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
The Theory behind IDEAL: Cramer-Rao Bounds for Chemical Species Separation in Magnetic Resonance ImagingAngel R. Pineda, PhD
Department of Mathematics
CSU-FullertonAbstract:The separation of water and fat in MRI through the acquisition of images at multiple echo times provides a robust method for fat suppression in areas where the field is inhomogeneous and fat saturation pulses fail. By accurately estimating the fat component, we are also able to explore diagnostic information that may exist in the fat image. In this talk, we will show how to propagate the imperfections of the magnetic field into our estimate of water and fat and use this understanding to optimize the imaging parameters. Introducing the imperfections in the magnetic field in the estimation of the water and fat makes the estimation nonlinear. The optimization of data acquisition based on the Cramer-Rao bound for this nonlinear problem leads to a new optimal solution. Our acquisition and reconstruction is part of the IDEAL method for chemical species separation.Bio:Dr. Pineda received his BS from Lafayette College in 1995, his PhD in Mathematics from the University of Arizona in 2002, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Radiology at Stanford University in 2006. He is the author of 15 refereed journal articles, and has made numerous contributions to CT and MRI reconstruction, including optimization of the IDEAL fat-water separation technique which is emerging as a gold-standard for MRI-based fat-water imaging. He recently joined the faculty in the Department of Mathematics at CSU-Fullerton.Host: Krishna S. Nayak, 0-3494, knayak@usc.edu http://ee.usc.edu/Location: Room: 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. -
Modeling and Optimization of Data Gathering Protocols in Wireless Sensor Networks
Thu, Feb 08, 2007 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
CSI INTERNAL SEMINARSPEAKER: Professor Bhaskar Krishnamachari, CENGABSTRACT: The most dominant approach to the development of querying and data-gathering protocols in wireless sensor networks can be characterized as "design by intuition, validate by simulation". Given the severe resource constraints in these systems, it is essential to complement this perspective with mathematical modeling and optimization. Such modeling has both descriptive and prescriptive uses, which we illustrate through a couple of case studies. In the first study, we derive scaling laws for query-based sensor networks, identifying the application conditions under which it is possible to deploy arbitrarily large sensor networks when the resources per node are kept bounded. In the second, we use an optimization framework to design a fair and efficient rate-control scheme for data gathering.
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
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. -
MVDR modeling of Speech and its application to Speech Recognition
Tue, Feb 13, 2007 @ 02:30 PM - 04:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Dr. Bhaskar D. Rao
University of California, San DiegoAbstract: In this talk, we present all-pole models based upon the minimum variance distortionless response (MVDR) spectrum for spectral modeling of speech. Although linear prediction (LP) is a popular method for obtaining all-pole model parameters, LP spectral envelopes overestimate and overemphasize the medium and high pitch voiced speech spectral powers, thereby featuring unwanted sharp contours, and do not improve in spectral envelope modeling performance as the filter order is increased. In contrast, the MVDR all-pole spectrum, which can be easily obtained from the LP coefficients, is shown to feature improved spectral envelope modeling as the filter order is increased. In particular, the high order MVDR spectrum models voiced speech spectra very well, particularly at the perceptually important harmonics, and features a smooth contoured envelope. Computationally, the MVDR spectrum can be based upon either conventional time domain correlation estimates or upon spectral samples, a task that is common in frequency domain speech coding. A robust feature extraction technique for continuous speech recognition based on MVDR modeling is discussed. We consider incorporating perceptual information in two ways: (1) after the MVDR power spectrum is computed and (2) directly during the MVDR spectrum estimation. Incorporating perceptual information directly into the spectrum estimation improves both robustness and computational efficiency significantly. We evaluate the technique on several recognition tasks and the results compare favorably with existing techniques.About the Speaker: Bhaskar D. Rao received the B.Tech. degree in electronics and electrical communication engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India, in 1979, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, in 1981 and 1983, respectively. Since 1983, he has been with the University of California, San Diego, where he is currently a Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department. He is a Fellow of IEEE. His interests are in the areas of digital signal processing, estimation theory, and optimization theory, with applications to digital communications, speech signal processing, and human-computer interactions.Host: Shri Narayanan (ext 06432)Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211
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. -
Travel time estimation in extended urban networks
Tue, Feb 13, 2007 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Outline:The dynamics of traffic flow variation have a considerable impact on the task of monitoring and controlling the operation of road networks. The real-time prediction of travel time enables network operators to design and deploy Advanced Traveler Information Systems (ATIS) in freeway and urban arterial networks aiming to mitigate some of the effects of the un-predictability of traffic conditions and un-reliability of network travel services. One of the most difficult problems of travel time estimation is the magnitude of the error estimate as this can render any controlling measure unreliable and eventually useless. Subsequently, the determination of threshold values for the predicted travel times can assist network managers to run more efficient control strategies and enhance system performance. Such strategies can involve the timely selection of appropriate traffic control actions, e.g., through Variable Message Sign (VMS) displays, and allow risk-aversing travelers to make different travel choices, according to their own perception of their generalized travel cost. This paper describes both the algorithms and the real-life experiments that were undertaken in Athens in the wake of the Athens Summer Olympics of 2004.Bio:
Professor and Head, Laboratory of Railways and Transport, Dept of Transportation Planning and Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Greece
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. -
Neurogrid: Emulating a Million Neurons in the Cortex
Tue, Feb 13, 2007 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Ming Shieh Department of Electrical EngineeringDISTINGUISHED LECTURER SERIES"Neurogrid: Emulating a Million Neurons in the Cortex"Dr. Kwabena Boahen,Stanford UniversityAbstract: I will present a proposal for Neurogrid, a specialized hardware platform that will perform cortex-scale emulations while offering software-like flexibility. Recent breakthroughs in brain mapping present an unprecedented opportunity to understand how the brain works, with profound implications for society. To interpret these richly grow-ing observations, we have to build models—the only way to test our understanding—since building a real brain out of biological parts is currently infeasible. Neurogrid will emulate (simulate in real-time) one million neurons connected by six billion synapses with Analog VLSI techniques, matching the performance of a one-megawatt, 500-teraflop supercomputer while consuming less than one watt. Neurogrid will provide the programmability required to implement various models, replicate experimental manipulations (and con-trols), and elucidate mechanisms by augmenting Analog VLSI with Digital VLSI, a mixed-mode approach that combines the best of both worlds. Realizing programmability without sacrificing scale or real-time op-eration will make it possible to replicate tasks laboratory animals perform in biologically realistic models for the first time, which my lab plans to pursue in close collaboration with neurophysiologists.Bio: Kwabena A. Boahen is an Associate Professor in the Bioengineering Department at Stanford University. He is a bioengineer who is using silicon integrated circuits to emulate the way neurons compute, linking the seemingly disparate fields of electronics and computer science with neurobiology and medicine. His contributions to the field of neuromorphic engineering include a silicon retina that could be used to give the blind sight and a self-organizing chip that emulates the way the developing brain wires itself up. His scholarship is widely recognized, with over sixty publications to his name, including a cover story in the May 2005 issue of Scientific American. He has received several distinguished honors, including a Fellowship from the Packard Foundation in 1999, a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation in 2001, a Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research in 2002, and the National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award in 2006. Professor Boahen's BS and MSE degrees are in Electrical and Computer Engineering, from the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD (both earned in 1989), where he made Tau Beta Kappa. His PhD degree is in Computation and Neural Systems, from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena CA (1997), where he held a Sloan Fellowship for Theoretical Neurobiology. From 1997 to 2005, he was on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA, where he was the first Skirkanich Term Junior Chair.Host: Prof. Alice Parker(Reception to follow the talk at 5:00p.m.)
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - ontology Auditorium
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Rosine Sarafian
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. -
The Economics of Multimedia
Wed, Feb 14, 2007 @ 11:00 AM - 11:50 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
The Economics of MultimediaDr. Darko Kirovski
Microsoft ResearchAbstract:
Researchers often forget that "Content is King," that the technical world of multimedia is built around popular multimedia content, not the other way around. With an emphasis on economics, I will overview a recently proposed economic ecosystem for building an incentive-based off-line market for digital media. In the system, anyone can buy or sell digital media anywhere, anytime. Transactions are executed via a tamper-resistant media player equipped with a short-distance wireless, e.g. iPod + WiPAN. Most importantly, transaction revenues are split so that one part goes to the rightful copyright holder and the remainder to the seller as an incentive. The proposed viral marketing network has an objective to: 1) improve the profits of copyright owners by reduction in operation costs and improved media availability, and 2) satisfy a sophisticated set of usability and economic requirements end-users may have. The new system creates two important research directions: design of a secure, atomic transaction protocol and modeling of the proposed ecosystem to explore the effect of key pricing, delivery, networking, and marketing strategies. In a prelude to the technical part of his talk, I will first overview several ongoing projects at Microsoft Research related to multimedia.Short Bio of Speaker:
Darko Kirovski received a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2001. Since April 2000, he has been a researcher at Microsoft Research. His research interests span over several systems research areas: multimedia processing and economics, counterfeit deterrents, security, biometrics, reliable computing, and embedded system design. He has received the 1999 Microsoft Graduate Research Fellowship, the 2000 ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference Graduate Scholarship, the 2001 ACM Outstanding Ph.D. Dissertation Award in Electronic Design Automation, the Best Paper Award at ACM Multimedia 2002, and co-authored a Best Student Paper at MMSP 2006 with Shan He. Darko has authored over 90 journal and conference papers and filed over 30 patents.Host C.-C. Jay Kuo, x04658Location: 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. -
Wireless Future - Trends and Challenges
Fri, Feb 16, 2007 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
SPEAKER: Dr. Yrjo Neuvo, Professor, Technology Advisor, Nokia Corporation, Helsinki, FinlandABSTRACT: This year there will be more than 3 Billion cellular phone users and we expect 90% of the world's population of about 6 Billion people to live within mobile phone coverage by 2010. Already for some years the majority of digital camera modules have been integrated in mobile phones. Connection to your emails and the Internet based services around the world is conveniently provided by your cell phone. This talk gives first a brief overview of current trends in cellular phones usage addressing the key characteristics of both emerging and developed markets. With increasing processing capabilities and broadband data rates the cell phone is turning into a multimedia computer with imaging, music, video, graphics, GPS and TV capabilities. Second part of the talk will address some relevant challenges for the research community emerging from the desire to further increase the data rates, performance and versatility of use. Energy management is a very broad multidisciplinary challenge covering practically all technologies from semiconductor technologies to wireless protocols and software architecture. The quest for ever increasing data rates challenge, in addition to wireless telecommunications theory, RF integration and antenna designs. The role of SW is playing an increasingly important role in wireless terminals bringing up issues like open source, security and SW productivity.BIO: Yrjo Neuvo, Ph.D., Professor and Technology Advisor, previously Executive Vice President and CTO of Nokia Corporation, has been responsible for product development and technologies of mobile phones. He was a member of the Nokia Group Executive Board of Nokia during 1993-2005. Before joining Nokia, he gained international academic recognition as a professor of signal processing at Tampere University of Technology. He was a National Research Professor at the Academy of Finland and visiting professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He received his doctorate from Cornell University. During his academic years he has published over 400 scientific articles. Dr. Neuvo has been and is a member of several international research and innovation policy related working groups and committees. He is a Fellow of IEEE, a member of Academia Europeae, the Swedish Academy of Technical Sciences, two Finnish Academies and holds three honorary doctorates. He was general Chairman of 1988 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems, First IEEE Workshop on Nonlinear Digital Signal Processing in 1993, the 2001 IEEE International Conference on Communications and the 2006 IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications.Hosts: Keith Chugg, chugg@usc.edu AND Sanjit Mitra, skmitra@usc.edu
Location: Seeley Wintersmith Mudd Memorial Hall (of Philosophy) (MHP) - 106
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
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. -
Harnessing Vacuum Fluctuations: Exotic Physics and Micromechanics of the Casimir effect
Thu, Feb 22, 2007 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Federico CapassoHarvad UniversityAbstract
The Casimir effect is the attraction between uncharged metals in vacuum due to quantum mechanical fluctuations of the electromagnetic field (zero point energy). A similar force, but weaker, exists between dielectrics. From a physical point of view these forces are interesting because they represent macroscopic manifestations of quantum mechanics and because they can be designed by altering the shape and nature of the interacting materials. Interestingly these forces have enabled new functionalities in suitably scaled MEMS (nanometric position sensors) and will need to be accounted for in future generations of MEMS technology. The talk will also discuss on going experiments aiming at measuring repulsive Casimir forces, which could be used in frictionless bearings based on the phenomenon of "quantum floatation" and the search for the predicted "vacuum torque" between suitable birefringent materials.Bio
Federico Capasso received the doctor of Physics degree, summa cum laude, from the University of Rome, Italy, in 1973 and after doing research in fiber optics at Fondazione Bordoni in Rome, joined Bell Labs in 1976. In 1984 he was made a distinguished Member of Technical Staff and in 1997 a Bell Labs Fellow. In addition to his research activity Capasso has held several management positions at Bell Labs including Head of the Quantum Phenomena and Device Research Department and the Semiconductor Physics Research Department and Vice President of Physical Research. His current research in quantum electronics deals with the design of new light sources based on giant optical nonlinearities in quantum wells such as Raman injection lasers, inversioless injetcion lasers and widely tunable sources of TeraHertz radiation based on difference frequency generation and Raman lasers. He has also carried out research on quantum chaos in deformed microlasers which led he and his collaborators to invent microlasers opearting on bow-tie modes. More recently his research has expanded to high-precision measurements of Casimir forces using MEMS (MicroElectroMechanicalSystems)
and other quantum electrodynamical effects such as the torque between birefringent materials due to vacumm fluctuations. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the Institute of Physics (UK), the Optical Society of America, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, IEEE and SPIE. He holds an honorary doctorate in Electronic Engineering form the University of Bologna, Italy. Capasso has co-authored over 300 papers, edited four volumes, and holds over 50 US patents.Website: ee.usc.edu/munushianLocation: Hedco Neurosciences Building (HNB) - 100
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Ericka Lieberknecht
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. -
Optimal Computation with Noisy Quantum Walks
Thu, Feb 22, 2007 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
SPEAKER: Dr. Viv Kendon, University of LeedsABSTRACT: Quantum versions of random walks on the line and cycle show a quadratic improvement in their spreading rate and mixing times respectively. The addition of decoherence to the quantum walk produces a more uniform distribution on the line, and even faster mixing on the cycle by removing the need for time-averaging to obtain a uniform distribution. By calculating the entanglement between the coin and the position of the quantum walker, the optimal decoherence rates are found to be such that all the entanglement is just removed by the time the final measurement is made. This requires only O(log T) random bits for a quantum walk of T steps.Bio: Viv Kendon works in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leeds, funded by a Royal Society University Research Fellowship, in the new Quantum Information group headed by Vlatko Vedral. Before this she was part of Peter Knight's Quantum Information and Quantum Optics Theory Group at Imperial College, and prior to Imperial (April 2000), was in the Computational Nonlinear & Quantum Optics group at Strathclyde University working on quantum measurement with Steven Barnett. Viv Kendon finished her PhD at Edinburgh in July 1999, in the Soft Condensed Matter group. Before her PhD, she used to work for GreenNet, a non-profit Internet service provider (now TWENTY years old!) and member the Association for Progressive Communications. She has also done work for Oxfam and Amnesty International. Prior to joining GreenNet she lived in Glasgow and was an active campaigner for Scottish Campagin for Nuclear Disarmament. Her first degree is from Oxford University, in Physics, and she has a Masters in Physics from UC Berkeley.Host: Todd Brun, tbrun@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
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. -
Rate Control Protocol (RCP): Congestion Control to Make Flows Complete Quickly
Tue, Feb 27, 2007 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
"Rate Control Protocol (RCP): Congestion Control to
Make Flows Complete Quickly"Nandita DukkipatiStanford UniversityAbstract:Users typically want their flows to complete as quickly as possible. This makes Flow Completion Time (FCT) an important - arguably the most important - performance metric for the user. Yet research on congestion control focuses entirely on maximizing link throughput, utilization and fairness, which matter more to the operator than the user. This talk is about a new congestion control algorithm - Rate Control Protocol (RCP) - designed for fast download times (i.e. aka user response times, or flow-completion times). Whereas other modifications/replacements to TCP (e.g. STCP, Fast TCP, XCP) are designed to work for specialized applications that use long-lived flows (scientific applications and supercomputer centers), RCP is designed for the typical flows of typical users in the Internet today.I will show that with typical Internet flow sizes, existing (TCP Sack) and newly proposed (XCP) congestion control algorithms make flows last much longer than necessary - often by one or two orders of magnitude. In contrast, RCP makes flows finish close to the minimum possible, leading to a perceptible improvement for web users, distributed computing, and distributed file-systems. I will also talk about a few of the many addressed issues under RCP - stability of a RCP network, coping with sudden network changes such as flash-crowds (the main weakness under RCP), RCP's router buffer-size requirements, proportional bandwidth-sharing with RCP and implementation of RCP in routers and end-hosts.Speaker Bio:Nandita Dukkipati received her Bachelor's degree from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India, and her Master's degree from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. She is expecting a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in June 2007. Her research focus is on the design and analysis of various building blocks of network infrastructure, including congestion control, routing, protocol design, router/switch architectures for wired as well as wireless networks. She is particularly interested in building practical networking systems while making use of theoretical tools where applicable.Hosted by: Prof. Bhaskar Krishnamachari, bkrishna@usc.eduLocation: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - -248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Rosine Sarafian
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. -
Network Inference using Network Coding Techniques
Wed, Feb 28, 2007 @ 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
CENG SEMINAR SERIES"Network Inference using Network Coding Techniques"Dr. Athina MarkopoulouUniversity of California, IrvineAbstract:Monitoring is an important component in the operation of any network. We are particularly interested in a family of monitoring techniques, known as network tomography, which aim at inferring internal network characteristics by sending and collecting probe packets from the edge of the network. Prior work on network tomography considered networks that implement multicast and unicast forwarding. Independently, the network coding community advocates that additional functionality should be added to network nodes, to allow for processing of incoming packets before forwarding them. This functionality comes at the cost of additional processing but also brings the potential of significant performance benefits. In this work, we consider networks where internal nodes implement network coding and we re-visit two network tomography problems: (i) link loss inference and (ii) topology inference. We develop new techniques that make use of the network coding capabilities and we show that they improve several aspects of the inference problem (including identifiability of links, accuracy of estimation, and complexity of probe path selection) over traditional techniques. Our rationale is that if network coding is to be deployed in some networks, e.g. to bring throughput benefits, then one can exploit this opportunity to also boost the performance of other operations, such as monitoring. This is joint work with Christina Fragouli and Suhas Diggavi from EPFL, Lausanne.Bio:Athina Markopoulou is an assistant professor with the EECS Dept, UC Irvine. She received the Diploma degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, in 1996. She received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees both in Electrical Engineering from Stanford, in 1998 and 2002 respectively. Prior to joining UCI, she worked at Stanford University, Sprint Advanced Tech. Labs, and Arastra, a startup, as postdoctoral research fellow, member of technical staff, and research scientist, respectively. Her research interests are in the area of networking, including voice and video over IP networks, Internet Denial-of-Service, network measurement and control, and applications of network coding techniques to networking problems.Host: Prof. Konstantinos Psounis, kpsounis@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - -248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Rosine Sarafian
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.
