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SUNMONTUEWEDTHUFRISAT
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for March
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Munushian Seminar
Wed, Mar 02, 2011 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Werner Goetz, Senior Director, Philips Lumileds Lighting Company
Talk Title: High-power LED Technology and Solid State Lighting
Abstract: The rapid adoption of LEDs in general illumination is fueled by high-power phosphor-conversion and direct color blue and red LED technology. Over the last several years technology development has boosted the efficacy of white high-power LEDs to greater than 100 lm/W even for devices with warm-white correlated color temperature and high color rendering index at operating conditions. In combination with advances in production cost reduction, LED-based luminaires are winning the battle against their conventional counterparts in applications where their energy efficiency, long life, and ruggedness lead to a cost of ownership advantage.
This presentation will provide an overview of high-power LED technology, applications, and discuss challenges for future efficacy improvement and cost reduction.
Host: EE-Electrophysics
More Info: http://ee.usc.edu/news/munushianLocation: Hedco Neurosciences Building (HNB) -
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. -
A Clean-Slate Design of Wireless Ad Hoc Networks Using On-Off-Division Duplex
Wed, Mar 02, 2011 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dongning Guo , Northwestern University
Talk Title: A Clean-Slate Design of Wireless Ad Hoc Networks Using On-Off-Division Duplex
Abstract: We introduce a novel paradigm, called rapid on-off-division duplex
(RODD), for designing the physical and medium access control (MAC)
layers of a wireless ad hoc network formed by half-duplex radios. A
node equipped with a half-duplex radio cannot simultaneously transmit and
receive useful signals at the same frequency. Unlike in conventional
designs, where a node's transmission frames are scheduled away from
its reception, RODD lets each node transmit its signal through a
unique on-off duplex mask (or signature) over every frame interval,
and receive a signal through each off-slot. Over the period of a
single frame, every node can transmit a message to its peers, and
simultaneously receive a message from each peer. Thus RODD achieves
virtual full-duplex communication using half-duplex radios without
complicated scheduling at the frame level. The throughput of RODD is
determined under some simple settings, which is significantly larger
than that of certain random access schemes. RODD is especially
efficient in case the dominant traffic is simultaneous broadcast from
nodes to their one-hop peers. Design issues such as peer discovery,
synchronization and coding schemes will also be addressed.
Biography: Dongning Guo joined the faculty of Northwestern University, Evanston,
IL, in 2004, where he is currently an Associate Professor in the
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He received
the B.Eng. degree from the University of Science & Technology of
China, the M.Eng. degree from the National University of Singapore,
and the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Princeton University, Princeton,
NJ. He was an R&D Engineer in the Center for Wireless Communications
(now the Institute for Infocom Research), Singapore, from 1998 to
1999. He has held visiting positions at Norwegian University of
Science and Technology in summer 2006 and Chinese University of Hong
Kong in 2010-2011. He is an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on
Information Theory in the area of Shannon Theory.
Dongning Guo received the Huber and Suhner Best Student Paper Award in
the International Zurich Seminar on Broadband Communications in 2000
and is a co-recipient of the IEEE Marconi Prize Paper Award in
Wireless Communications in 2010. He is also a recipient of the
National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER)
Award in 2007. His research interests are in information theory,
communications, and networking.
Host: Alex Dimakis
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. -
Multimodal Signal Processing: Signals from, to, and for humans
Thu, Mar 03, 2011 @ 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Panayiotis (Panos) Georgiou, University of Southern California
Talk Title: Multimodal Signal Processing: Signals from, to, and for humans
Abstract: The 90's saw an explosion of ideas in merging traditional signal processing techniques with personal communication and entertainment supported by www technologies. We are presently experiencing yet another paradigm change in human interaction and communication such as through social media and in online information sharing. Notably, there has been significant movement in employing information and communications technologies towards transforming access and participation of people in their health and well-being.
My research lies in the exciting convergence of signal processing, multimedia, and speech applications centered on novel processing of signals from, to, and for humans. This effort entails a range of challenges in the sensing, recognition, interpretation, and context exploitation of complex human behavior, both at the explicit and implicit levels. Importantly, the effort includes the creation of algorithms and models that are inspired by, and emulate, how humans make use of the behavioral signal information in specific, societally-meaningful application settings.
In this talk, using specific examples, I will focus on two aspects of my work that aim at capturing an exploiting human interaction and their environment in a context aware way: (1) The convergence of multimodal signal processing and evidence based assessment in observational practice in mental health. Specifically I will discuss our recent efforts in instrumenting, collecting, and analyzing multimodal data for assessing behavioral cues relevant to the field of family psychology. The approach relies on array signal processing and machine learning techniques based on training data labeled by domain experts. We exploit both existing data and pursue new multimodal data acquisition approaches.
(2) The inherently rich nature of the human communication channel raises interesting challenges when one or more aspects are compromised due to human or environmental factors. We have been developing speech-to-speech translation technologies especially targeting cross-lingual/cross-cultural urban healthcare settings. Many open questions remain including what information is relevant and how it needs to be captured and transferred from source to target (e.g. lexical and paralinguistic) and how conceptual information encoded in the speech signal can be modeled in a communication-channel framework. I will highlight some of the advances and open questions in these two domains.
Biography: Panayiotis G. Georgiou received his B.A. and M.Eng degrees with Honors from Cambridge University (Pembroke College), U.K. in 1996. He received his MSc and PhD degrees from the University of Southern California in 1998 and 2002 respectively. During the period 1992-96 he was awarded a Commonwealth scholarship from Cambridge-Commonwealth Trust.
Since 2003 he has been a member of the Speech Analysis and Interpretation Lab, first as a Research Associate and currently as a Research Assistant Professor. His interests span the fields of Human Social and Cognitive Signal Processing. He has worked on and published over 70 papers in the fields of statistical signal processing, alpha stable distributions, speech and multimodal signal processing and interfaces, speech translation, language modeling, immersive sound processing, sound source localization, and speaker identification. He has been an Investigator, and co-PI on several federally funded projects notably including the DARPA Transtac âSpeechLinksâ and the NSF (Large) âAn Integrated Approach to Creating Enriched Speech Translation Systemsâ. He is currently serving as guest editor of the Computer Speech and Language journal. He has received best paper awards for his pioneering work in analyzing the multimodal behaviors of users in speech- to-speech translation and for automatic classification of married couplesâ behavior using audio features.
His current focus is on multimodal environments, behavioral signal processing, and speech-to-speech translation.
Host: Professor Richard Leahy
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) -
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. -
Andrew J. Viterbi Distinguished Lecture in Communication
Thu, Mar 03, 2011 @ 04:30 PM - 05:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Elwyn Berlekamp, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley
Talk Title: "Adventures in Coding Theory"
Series: Distinguished Lecturer Series
Abstract: The inventors of error-correcting codes were initially motivated by problems in communications engineering. But coding theory has since also influenced several other fields, including memory technology, theoretical computer science, game theory, portfolio theory, and symbolic manipulation. This talk will recall some forays into these subjects.
Biography: Elwyn Berlekamp has been Professor of Mathematics and of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at UC Berkeley since 1971, half-time since 1983, and Emeritus since 2002. He also has been active in several small companies in the sectors of computers-communications and finance. He is now chairman of Berkeley Quantitative LP, a small money-management company. He was chairman of the Board of Trustees of MSRI from 1994-1998, and of the International Computer Science Institute from 2001-2003. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Berlekamp has 12 patented inventions, some of which were co-authored with USC Professor Emeritus Lloyd Welch. Some of Berlekampâs algorithms for decoding Reed-Solomon codes are widely used on compact discs; others are NASA standards for deep space communications. He has more than 100 publications, including two books on algebraic coding theory and seven books on the mathematical theory of combinatorial games, including the popular Dots-and-Boxes Game: Sophisticated Childâs Play.
Host: Dr. Alexander A. Sawchuk
More Info: http://ee.usc.edu/news/viterbi_lecture.htmLocation: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) -
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mayumi Thrasher
Event Link: http://ee.usc.edu/news/viterbi_lecture.htm
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, Mar 04, 2011 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Nidhi, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at UCSB
Talk Title: Self-Aligned N-Polar GaN HEMTs: Towards Next-Generation Nitride Electronics
Abstract: III-Nitrides have emerged as a versatile new material family with unique material properties such as large piezoelectric polarization, high saturation velocity, high breakdown electric field and bandgap ranging from near IR (0.7 eV for InN) to deep UV (6.4 eV for AlN). This wide range of band-gap allows them to be extensively used in opto-electronics in a large range of wavelength, optical storage and high efficiency photovoltaics using InGaN alloys. Recently, AlGaN/GaN high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) have also been widely used as power amplifiers for wireless communication applications and as power switches for rectification.
In this talk, I will emphasize on the N-polar orientation of GaN and its application towards high frequency electronics. N-polar GaN-based HEMTs offer several advantages over the more established Ga-polar technology such as the potential of ultra low ohmic contact resistance (20 Ω-µm demonstrated) and a natural back-barrier for charge confinement. The development of N-polar GaN electronics started late due to materials and processing challenges, but has been eventful with several significant achievements in the recent past. I will talk about the self-aligned MIS-HEMT technology we developed at UCSB and its development towards becoming a competitor to the established Ga-polar technology. Finally, I will discuss future directions for III-Nitride electronics and other exciting possibilities employing the novel materials.
Biography: Nidhi is a Ph.D candidate under Prof. Umesh Mishra in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at UCSB (University of California Santa Barbara). Her graduate work involved design and fabrication of N-polar GaN-based self-aligned MIS-HEMTs for very high frequency applications, like mm-wave power and possibly digital applications due to gate-first self-aligned design. She received the M. S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from UCSB in 2008. She graduated second in her class of Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India with a Bachelor of Technology degree in 2006. Her research interests include deep submicron devices for high frequency applications, nanoscale semiconductor devices, power electronic devices and novel device structures on new materials for faster and energy-efficient electronics with expanded functionality.
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. -
Network Interference Management via Interference Alignment for Wireless Communications and Distributed Storage Systems
Mon, Mar 07, 2011 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Viveck R. Cadambe, University of California, Irvine
Talk Title: Network Interference Management via Interference Alignment for Wireless Communications and Distributed Storage Systems
Abstract: Our current times are witnessing a veritable explosion in the number of mobile devices with network connectivity. This explosion in the number of mobile devices which will guzzle data is resulting in bandwidth is becoming an increasingly scarce resource. The surge in the demand for data calls for new techniques to understand and improve the capacity (data rates) of wireless networks. In this talk, I will describe and explore a new technique to manage interference, which is the primary bottleneck of rates of communication in wireless communication networks.
A widely held belief in wireless network design, and also a formal conjecture, is that for a wireless network with K interfering users competing for the same spectrum (also known as the wireless interference network), it is optimal from a network capacity (degrees of freedom) perspective to divide the spectrum among the users like cutting a cake. This cake cutting view of spectrum access also known as orthogonalization enables each user in the interference network to get a fraction of 1/K of the spectrum free of interference. The cake cutting view of spectrum access lies at the heart of the design of most current wireless communication systems. In this talk, we will show that this cake cutting view of spectrum access is flawed and show that each of the K users of an interference network can essentially get 'half the cake', i.e., each user can simultaneously get half the spectrum free of interference. To show this, the strategy of "interference alignment", which is a far more effective interference management strategy as compared to orthogonalization, will be presented and described in detail. The talk will explore the impact of interference alignment on fundamental design issues of wireless communication systems and briefly describe challenges for the design of future generation wireless systems.
The talk will also explore a second application of interference alignment - erasure coding for distributed storage systems. With the advent of cloud computing and storage, the amount of data stored in distributed data storage systems (such as data centers) is scaling at an unprecedented rate. This scaling of stored data has motivated the use of erasure coding as a technique to build redundancy in distributed storage systems, to replace the conventional redundancy design strategy of replication. While erasure coding is attractive because it provides higher redundancy for a given amount (cost) of storage as compared to the conventional strategy of replication, practical implementation of coding for large distributed storage systems faces one principal bottleneck - the efficiency of repair when a storage device (node) fails in the distributed storage system. In the second part of this talk, by connecting the repair problem to interference alignment, I will (briefly) describe codes which improved repair efficiency and thus potentially relieve an important obstacle in the use of erasure coding for distributed storage systems.
Biography: Viveck R. Cadambe received his B.Tech and M.Tech. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India in 2006. He is currently working toward my Ph.D. degree at the University of California, Irvine. His research interests include multiuser information theory and wireless networks. In the summer of 2010, he was an intern in the Communication and Collaboration Systems Group at Microsoft Research, Redmond. Mr. Cadambe is a recipient of the 2009 IEEE Information Theory Society Paper Award and the UCI Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department Best Paper Award for 2008-09. He also received the University of California, Irvine CPCC graduate fellowship for the year 2007-08.
Host: Giuseppe Caire, caire@usc.edu
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. -
EE-Electrophysics Seminar
Mon, Mar 07, 2011 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Daniel Feezell, Materials Department, University of California, Santa Barbara
Talk Title: Status and Future of Nonpolar/Semipolar III-Nitride Materials and Devices
Abstract: III-Nitride materials enable a wide variety of high-impact technologies, including solid-state lighting, high-density optical data storage, energy efficient displays, and next-generation power electronics. Commercially available III-Nitride devices are grown on the polar c-plane of the wurtzite crystal, and their performance is adversely affected by the presence of polarization-related electric fields. As an alternative to conventional c-plane technologies, growth of III-Nitride structures on nonpolar/semipolar planes presents a viable approach to reducing or eliminating the issues associated with polarization-related electric fields. Optical devices fabricated on these alternative planes emerge with several inherent advantages, including improved radiative efficiency, increased design flexibility, and the potential for superior performance in the elusive green spectral region. In this talk, I will review the unique characteristics of nonpolar/semipolar III-Nitrides and discuss the application of this materials platform to the development of high-performance laser diodes and light-emitting diodes. I will conclude by proposing several future research directions that utilize nonpolar/semipolar III-Nitride technology.
Biography: Daniel Feezell completed his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) in 2005 for work on InP-based vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers. He is currently a Project Scientist in the Solid-State Lighting and Energy Center at UCSB, where his research interests include growth, fabrication, and characterization of nonpolar/semipolar III-Nitrides for energy efficiency applications. Prior to joining UCSB he was a Senior Device Scientist and the first employee at Soraa, Inc., where he developed high-performance III-Nitride laser diodes and light-emitting diodes. For his role in the achievement of the first nonpolar III-Nitride laser diodes he received the 30th Annual Japanese Journal of Applied Physics Paper Award. He also invented an AlGaN-cladding-free nonpolar laser diode structure that is currently being utilized in cutting-edge industry products. For this work he received a commendation for excellence in technical communication from Laser Focus World magazine. He is the author or co-author of more than 30 peer-reviewed conference and journal publications, and has received several patents.
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. -
Lightwave Modulators: Early Research at Bell Labs
Mon, Mar 07, 2011 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Ivan P. Kaminow, EECS, UC Berkeley
Talk Title: Lightwave Modulators: Early Research at Bell Labs
Abstract: Ted Maimanâs announcement of the ruby laser in May 1960 created great excitement worldwide, and particularly at Bell Labs. I was in the Microwave Systems Research Lab, soon to become the Lightwave Systems Research Lab, in Holmdel, NJ. Many of my colleagues decided to pursue laser research. Based on my experience with microwave systems, I decided to explore broadband light modulators that would be key for any telecom system. In my talk, I plan to touch on some of the highlights of a 15-year period of research on electrooptic modulators in the Bell Labs ambience. I include a 9 GHz travelling wave modulator, studies of electrooptic materials and photonic integrated circuits.
Biography: Ivan Kaminow retired from Bell Labs in 1996 after a 42-year career (1954-1996), mostly in lightwave research. At Bell Labs, he did seminal studies on electrooptic modulators and materials, Raman scattering in ferroelectrics, integrated optics (including titanium-diffused lithium niobate modulators), semiconductor lasers (including the DBR laser, ridge waveguide InGaAsP laser and multi-frequency laser), birefringent optical fibers, and WDM lightwave networks. Later, as Head of the Photonic Networks and Components Research Department, he led research on WDM components (including the erbium-doped fiber amplifier, waveguide grating router and the fiber Fabry-Perot resonator), and on WDM local and wide area networks. Earlier (1952-1954), he did research on microwave antenna arrays at Hughes Aircraft Company.
After retiring from Bell Labs, he served as IEEE Congressional Fellow on the staffs of the House Science Committee and the Congressional Research Service (Science Policy Research Division) in the Library of Congress. From 1997 to 1999, he returned to Lucent Bell Labs as a part-time Consultant. He also established Kaminow Lightwave Technology to provide consulting services to various technology companies, and to patent and litigation law firms. In 1999 he served as Senior Science Advisor to the Optical Society of America in Washington. He also served on a number of professional committees. He received degrees from Union College (BSEE), UCLA (MSE) and Harvard (AM, Ph.D.). He was a Hughes Fellow at UCLA and a Bell Labs Fellow at Harvard.
He has been Visiting Professor at Princeton, Berkeley, Columbia, the University of Tokyo, and Kwangju University (Korea). Currently, he is Adjunct Professor in EECS at University of California, Berkeley, where he has been teaching since 2004 (ee290F. Advanced Topics in Photonics [spring 2004]; ee233. Lightwave Systems [spring 2006]; seminar on Plasmonics [spring, fall 2007] and seminar on Photonics and Plasmonics [spring, fall 2008; spring, fall 2009; spring, fall 2010]; spring 2011).
He has published over 240 papers, received 47 patents, and has written or co-edited 5 books, the most recent being "Optical Fiber Telecommunications V A&B," co-edited with Tingye Li and Alan Willner, Academic Press/Elsevier (2008). Kaminow is a Life Fellow of IEEE, and Fellow of APS and OSA. He is the recipient of the Bell Labs Distinguished Member of Technical Staff Award, IEEE Quantum Electronics Award, OSA Charles Townes Award, IEEE/LEOS/OSA John Tyndall Award, IEEE Third Millennium Medal, Union College Alumni Gold Medal and IEEE Photonics Award. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Diplomate of the American Board of Laser Surgery, and a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine.
Host: 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. -
EE-Systems Controls Faculty Candidate
Tue, Mar 08, 2011 @ 09:30 AM - 10:30 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Elisa Franco, Cal-Tech
Talk Title: Design and Synthesis of Molecular Networks
Abstract: How do living organisms process information and implement their responses to external stimuli? Even in the simplest cells, sensing, computation and actuation are structurally embedded in the biochemistry of complex molecular networks, which we often fail to systematically explain. Quoting Richard Feynman, what we cannot create, we do not understand: by building simple molecular networks from the bottom-up, in a controlled environment, we have an opportunity to gain insight into the design principles of their more complicated, naturally occurring counterparts.
In this talk I will describe the design, modeling and synthesis of in vitro molecular circuits using simple building blocks: DNA, RNA and proteins. In particular, I will present my research on two specific challenges: flow regulation and scalability of biochemical networks. Cellular pathways rely heavily on a regulated flow of nucleic acids, enzymes and other metabolites. I will demonstrate how negative feedback can be used to coordinate and match the activity of two synthetic genes, minimizing waste of chemical reagents. The proposed architecture is robust with respect to initial conditions and specific uncertain parameters. Scaling up our perspective to the coordination of a large number of molecular circuits, biochemical oscillators promise to have a role analogous to digital clocks, which can drive millions of transistors. As a starting point, we have used a tunable biosynthetic oscillator to drive conformational changes of a DNA nano-mechanical device called "DNA tweezers". However, due to the imperfect modularity of the system, the operating point of the oscillator is remarkably deteriorated by high concentrations of its "load". This retroactivity effect is well known in engineered systems, and classical examples are given by voltage drops in power grids or pressure losses in pipe networks. This undesired back-action was reduced by engineering an "insulator circuit", the molecular equivalent of an operational amplifier, which improved the modularity and scalability of the system.
Biography: Elisa Franco received a Ph.D. in Electrical and Control Engineering in 2007 from the University of Trieste, Italy. She is currently completing a second Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in Control and Dynamical Systems, working on design and programming of robust molecular networks. Her research interests are in the field of synthetic and systems biology.
Host: Edmond Jonckheere
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
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. -
Yarta: A Middleware For Managing Mobile Social Ecosystems
Tue, Mar 08, 2011 @ 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Animesh Pathak, Ph.D., INRIA, Paris-Rocquencourt
Talk Title: Yarta: A Middleware For Managing Mobile Social Ecosystems
Abstract: With the increased prevalence of advanced mobile devices (the so-called "smart" phones), interest has grown in mobile social ecosystems, where users not only access traditional Web-based social networks using their mobile devices, but are also able to use the context information provided by these devices to further enrich their interactions. In complex mobile social ecosystems of the future the heterogeneity of software platforms on constituent nodes, combined with their intrinsic distributed nature and heterogeneity of representation of data and context raises the need for middleware support for the development of mobile social applications. Owing to the large variety of platforms available for smart phones, as well as the different ways that data and context information is represented, it is natural to think of middleware solutions that the developers of these systems can use while creating their applications.
In this talk, we will present the details of Yarta, a novel middleware designed for mobile social ecosystems (MSE), which takes into account the heterogeneity of both deployment nodes and available data, the intrinsic decentralized nature of mobile social applications, as well as users' privacy concerns. The Yarta core data model is based on RDF, and can be extended for specific social applications. We also discuss the results of performance evaluation of the core Yarta operations on smart phones and laptops, as well as the steps needed for developing new applications using it.
Biography: Animesh Pathak is currently a researcher ("Chargé de Recherche") with the ARLES project-team at INRIA Paris-Rocquencourt. He received his PhD in Computer Engineering from the University of Southern California, USA in 2008; and prior to that, the B.Tech degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University, India where he graduated at the head of his class. His current research interests include high-level programming abstractions for sensor networks and emerging trends in mobile social networking.
Host: Professor Viktor K. Prasanna
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Janice Thompson
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. -
Decoherence of Polarization Entanglement in Optical Fibers With Polarization Mode Dispersion
Wed, Mar 09, 2011 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Misha Brodsky, AT&T Labs
Talk Title: Decoherence of Polarization Entanglement in Optical Fibers With Polarization Mode Dispersion
Abstract: Quantum mechanics permits the existence of unique correlations, or entanglement, between individual particles. For a pair of entangled photons, this means that performing a measurement on one photon appears to affect the state of the other. The ability of entangled particles to act in concert is preserved even when they are separated by large distances and serves as a resource for numerous applications. For example, distributing entangled photon pairs over fiber-optic cables enables secure communication between two remote parties or could offer the possibility of interconnecting quantum computers. The vast transparency band of the installed global fiber-optic network, consisting of over a Gigameter of optical fiber cables, presents a particularly attractive opportunity for this task. The bond between entangled photons is, however, very fragile and could be lost.
Several physical phenomena set limitations on transmission of classical light pulses through optical fibers. An intriguing and crucial question is how some of these well-studied phenomena, for instance Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD), affect a polarization entangled photon pair. How far could one send entangled photons while still maintaining the connection between them?
We investigate, theoretically and experimentally, how inherent defects and miniscule imperfections in fiber-optic cables degrade entanglement between two photons transmitted over fibers. We show that the loss of entanglement could be either gradual or surprisingly abrupt. In addition, we suggest a novel way to compensate for adverse effects that occur during propagation in fibers. Finally, we define the range of fiber parameters over which entanglement remains sufficient for secure communication. The richness of the observed phenomena suggests that fiber-based entanglement distribution systems could serve as natural laboratories for studying entanglement decoherence.
A brief introduction to the topic of the talk is available on the front page of AT&T Labs website: www.research.att.com
Biography: Dr. Misha Brodsky joined AT&T Labs in 2000. His contributions to fiber optic communications focused on optical transmission systems and physics of fiber propagation, most notably through his work on polarization effects in fiber-optic networks. More recently Misha has been working on quantum communications; single photon detection; where his prime research interest is in photon entanglement and entanglement decoherence mechanisms in optical fibers.
Dr. Brodsky has authored or co-authored over 70 journal and conference papers, a book chapter and about two dozen patent applications. He is a topical editor for Optics Letters and has been active on numerous program committees for IEEE Photonics Society and OSA conferences. Dr. Brodsky holds a PhD in Physics from MIT.
Host: Daniel Lidar
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. -
Technology Developments and R&D Challenges for Smart Grid Applications in Homes, Buildings, and Industry
Wed, Mar 09, 2011 @ 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Tariq Samad, Honeywell Automation and Control Solutions
Talk Title: Technology Developments and R&D Challenges for Smart Grid Applications in Homes, Buildings, and Industry
Series: CEI Distinguished Lecture Series in Energy Informatics
Abstract: The smart grid does not stop at the meter. Over 90% of the electricity generated in developed economies is consumed in homes, buildings and industrial plants. Greater attention must be paid to end-use sectors if the promised benefits of smart grids â such as reduction of electricity consumption, load shifting, better use of renewable generation and storage, reduced use of fossil fuels, and improved grid reliability â are to be achieved.
Dr. Samad will discuss current solutions that are already realizing such benefits, R&D activities under way, and outstanding challenges. The talk will cover automated demand response, remote energy diagnostics, home energy management systems, thermal storage, demand-management ancillary services, and micro-grid optimization. Current and proposed system architectures for such solutions will be presented, with examples from residential, commercial, and industrial sectors. Challenges for research as well as standards development will be discussed.
Biography: Tariq Samad is a Corporate Fellow with Honeywell Automation and Control Solutions, based in Minneapolis. His career with Honeywell has spanned 25 years, during which time he contributed to automation and control technology R&D with applications to electric power systems, the process industries, building management, automotive engines, unmanned aircraft, and clean energy. His research interests relate to automation, intelligence, and autonomy for complex engineering systems.
Dr. Samad is a Fellow of the IEEE, and served as the President of IEEE Control Systems Society in 2009 and the Editor-in-chief of IEEE Control Systems Magazine. He is General Chair for the 2012 American Control Conference and is on the editorial board of IEEE Press. He holds 17 patents and has (co)authored over 100 publications. He represents Honeywell on the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute, and is a member of the Governing Board of the U.S. Smart Grid Interoperability Panel. He holds a B.S. in Engineering and Applied Science from Yale University and M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.
Host: Prof. S. Joe Qin and Prof. Viktor Prasanna
More Info: http://cei.usc.edu/news/lecturesLocation: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Yogesh Simmhan
Event Link: http://cei.usc.edu/news/lectures
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, Mar 09, 2011 @ 02:30 PM - 03:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Faxian Xiu, Electrical Engineering Department at UCLA
Talk Title: Magnetic Nanomaterials and Nanodevices - Emerging Strategies for Beating Mooreâs Law
Abstract: Magnetic nanomaterials have potentials for developing new-generation electric devices to resolve power consumptions and variability issues in todayâs microelectronics industry. In this talk, I will present my recent research on the development of high-Curie-temperature Mn0.05Ge0.95 quantum dots with a ferromagnetic order above room temperature. I will describe an approach to probe the electric-field control of ferromagnetism in this material and demonstrate the operation temperature up to 300 K. I will also briefly discuss some of recent advance in voltage-controlled surface states in topological insulator Bi2Te3 nanoribbons. The surface states of the topological nanoribbon can be significantly enhanced up to 51 % by applying an external gate voltage. These novel magnetic and electronic materials could be potentially used for the long-sought power dissipationless applications.
Biography: Dr. Faxian Xiu is currently a staff research associate with the Electrical Engineering department at UCLA. He is associated with two research centers in California: the Functional Engineered Nano Architectonics Center and the Western Institute of Nanoelectronics. He received his Masters degree in Materials Science and Engineering from the same university in 2002, and his Ph. D. degree from the Electrical Engineering at UC Riverside in 2007. After his Ph.D., he worked for ZN technology Incorporation for two years before he joined UCLA as a staff research associate.
Dr. Xiu has interdisciplinary background involving both materials science and electrical engineering. He has over 40 peer-reviewed publications and received numerous media attention on his work of dilute magnetic semiconductors. His current research interest includes spintronic and nanoelectronic devices based on the Mn-doped Ge quantum dots and topological insulator nanoribbons.
Host: EE-Electrophysics
More Info: http://ee.usc.edu/news/seminars/eepLocation: Hedco Neurosciences Building (HNB) - 100
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. -
Programmable Logic for High Performance Networking
Thu, Mar 10, 2011 @ 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Gordon Brebner, Xilinx Labs, USA
Talk Title: Programmable Logic for High Performance Networking
Abstract: The telecommunications equipment industry is now moving to data rates of 100 Gb/s and above, with 1 Tb/s on the horizon. In this talk, I will overview research in Xilinx Labs that has been directed to demonstrating that Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology can play a mainstream role in implementing the required functions at such data rates. In particular, I will focus on packet classification. The first part concerns a novel programmable packet parsing engine capable of extracting relevant keys at line rate. The second part concerns high-throughput lookup of such keys to make classification decisions.
This involves both on-FPGA memory lookup for small tables, and off-FPGA memory lookup for larger tables. In the former case, aside from the necessary lookup rates, a key figure of merit has been the average number of physical memory bits required per table data bit. Another concern has been efficient live table update. Good results have been obtained based on the work of Prasanna et al, for heavily pipelined implementations of tree and tries, and these will be overviewed. After the feasibility of practical implementations at a 100 Gb/s data rate had been verified, a prototype high-level programming environment that hides the FPGA completely was developed, and I will give a short demonstration of this.
Biography: Gordon Brebner is a Distinguished Engineer at Xilinx, Inc., the worldwide leader in programmable logic solutions. He works in Xilinx Labs in San José, California, USA, leading an international group researching issues surrounding networked processing systems of the future. His main personal research interests concern dynamically reconfigurable architectures, domain-specific languages with highly concurrent implementations, and high performance networking and telecommunications, with also a historical interest in computational complexity. He has authored numerous papers and the book "Computers in Communication", and holds many patents. Prior to joining Xilinx in 2002, Gordon was the Professor of Computer Systems at the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom, directing the Institute for Computing Systems Architecture. He continues to be an Honorary Professor at the University of Edinburgh, is a Ph.D. advisor at Santa Clara University, and is a visiting lecturer at Stanford University.
Host: Professor Viktor K. Prasanna
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 324
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Janice Thompson
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, Mar 11, 2011 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Liangbing Hu, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University
Talk Title: Nanostructured Energy Devices: Manipulating Electrons, Photons and Ions
Abstract: Lowering the cost and improving the performance of devices are essential for making renewable energy feasible for everyday applications. In this talk, I will focus on discussing how abundant materials such as paper, silicon and copper can be engineered to create one dimensional nanomaterial networks (Nano-Nets) which allow us to manipulate fundamental particles in these energy devices to ultimately obtain remarkable performance. Conductive Nano-Nets using carbon nanotubes, silver nanowires and copper nanofibers for transparent electrodes in solar cells, silicon Nano-Nets for high performance Li-ion battery anodes, and conductive paper and textiles for ultracapacitors and microbial fuel cells will be discussed in detail.
Biography: Liangbing Hu received his B.S. in applied physics from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 2002. He did his Ph.D. in experimental physics under Prof. George Gruner at UCLA, focusing on carbon nanotube based nanoelectronics. He studied extensively the charge transport in carbon nanotube thin films with randomly distributed energy barriers and its dependence on geometry (nanotube length, density et al.) and energy (frequency, temperature and field). He also explored the device applications of such random networks in field effect transistors, sensors and optoelectronic devices. In 2006, he joined Unidym as a co-founding scientist. At Unidym, Liangbingâs role was the development of roll-to-roll printed carbon nanotube transparent electrodes and device integrations into touch screens, LCDs, flexible OLEDs and solar cells. Currently, Liangbing is a postdoctoral research fellow at Stanford University in Prof. Yi Cuiâs lab where he is working on various energy devices based on nanomaterials and nanostructures including Li-ion batteries, ultracapacitors and microbial fuel cells. He has ~ 50 journal publications in nanomaterials, nanoelectronics, printed electronics and energy devices.
Host: EE-Electrophysics
More Info: http://ee.usc.edu/news/seminars/eepLocation: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
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. -
AI seminar
Fri, Mar 11, 2011 @ 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science, Information Sciences Institute, Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Chris Welty, Research staff member, IBM Watson Research Center
Talk Title: Inside the mind of Watson
Abstract: Watson is a computer system capable of answering rich natural language questions and estimating its confidence in those answers at a level of the best humans at the task. On Feb 14-16, in an historic event, Watson triumphed over the best Jeopardy! players of all time. In this talk Chris Welty will discuss how Watson works and dive into some of its answers (right and wrong).
Biography: Biography: Chris Welty is a Research Scientist at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in New York. Previously, he taught Computer Science at Vassar College, taught at and received his Ph.D. from Rensselaer Polytechnice Institute, and accumulated over 14 years of teaching experience before moving to industrial research. Chris' principal area of research is Knowledge Representation, specifically ontologies and the semantic web, and he spends most of his time applying this technology to Natural Language Question Answering as a member of the DeepQA/Watson team and, in the past, Software Engineering. Dr. Welty is a co-chair of the W3C Rules Interchange Format Working Group (RIF), serves on the steering committee of the Formal Ontology in Information Systems Conferences, is president of KR.ORG, on the editorial boards of AI Magazine, The Journal of Applied Ontology, and The Journal of Web Semantics, and was an editor in the W3C Web Ontology Working Group. While on sabbatical in 2000, he co-developed the OntoClean methodology with Nicola Guarino. Chris Welty's work on ontologies and ontology methodology has appeared in CACM, and numerous other publications. see:
http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/research_people.nsf/pages/welty.index.html
Host: Gully Burns, 1SI
Location: ISI 11th floor conference room
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Eric Mankin
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. -
Toward High-Resolution MR Neuroimaging: Beyond the Fourier Transform
Fri, Mar 18, 2011 @ 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Justin Haldar, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Talk Title: Toward High-Resolution MR Neuroimaging: Beyond the Fourier Transform
Abstract: Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging technologies have enabled new opportunities to reveal the mysteries of the central nervous system -- how it functions and how it is organized, and what goes wrong when it is injured or diseased. MR experiments are quite flexible, and the MR signal can be manipulated to noninvasively probe anatomy, physiology, and metabolism. However, while MR imaging is decades old and has already revolutionized medical imaging, current methods are still far from utilizing the full potential of the MR signal. In particular, traditional MR methods are based on the Fourier transform, and suffer from fundamental trade-offs between signal-to-noise ratio, spatial resolution, and data acquisition speed.
Classical approaches to addressing these trade-offs have relied on improved imaging hardware and more efficient pulse sequences. In contrast, our work addresses the limitations of MR using relatively less-explored signal processing approaches, which have recently become practical because of increasing computational capabilities. This talk will focus on a new model-based framework for MR imaging. Use of an appropriate imaging model guides the design of both data acquisition and image reconstruction, and can free us from some of the constraints of traditional Fourier imaging. The benefits of this approach are illustrated in the context of several applications, including high-dimensional MR studies of metabolism, microstructure, and connectivity in the brain and spinal cord.
Biography: Justin Haldar received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering in 2004 and 2005, respectively, and will receive the Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering in May 2011, all from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research interests include image reconstruction, signal modeling, parameter estimation, and experiment design for biomedical imaging applications, with a particular focus on magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy.
Mr. Haldar is the recipient of several fellowships, including an ECE distinguished fellowship, a University of Illinois Fellowship, an NSF graduate research fellowship, and a Beckman Institute graduate fellowship. His work on constrained imaging has been recognized with a best student paper award at the 2010 IEEE International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging and the first-place award in the student paper competition at the 2010 international conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.
Host: Professor Richard Leahy
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) -
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. -
Quantum Computers: Algorithms and Implementations
Mon, Mar 21, 2011 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Ben Reichardt, University of Waterloo
Talk Title: Quantum Computers: Algorithms and Implementations
Abstract: Quantum computers have the potential to deliver exponential speedups. To realize this potential, we need new quantum algorithms and new ways of implementing scalable quantum devices.
A difficulty in designing quantum algorithms is that quantum mechanics is often counterintuitive. We show that quantum computers are equivalent to a simpler model, known as span programs, that does not use quantum mechanics. Based on this equivalence, we find new algorithms, and also determine general structural properties of quantum algorithms. For example, we find a better way of composing quantum algorithms than standard classical recursion.
The main problem for implementing quantum computers is noise. We study several proposed fault-tolerant quantum computer architectures in order to maximize the tolerable noise rate and minimize the overhead, while satisfying chip locality constraints. For example, by studying the propagation of errors, we modify an error-correction method to reduce its overhead by at least a factor of four. We also introduce a family of quantum error-correcting codes with useful locality and universality properties.
Biography: Ben Reichardt is an assistant professor at the Institute for Quantum Computing in the University of Waterloo. He received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 2006, advised by Umesh Vazirani, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology until 2008.
Host: Todd Brun
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. -
CENG Seminar
Thu, Mar 24, 2011 @ 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Mingoo Seok, Texas Instruments
Talk Title: Extremely Energy Efficient Integrated Circuit and System Design for Millimeter Scale Implantable Medical Devices
Abstract: Millimeter scale implantable medical devices with years of lifetime can bring revolutionary advancements in health care. They could be safely introduced into human body without invasive operations and constantly monitor physiological signs without having to be replaced. However, it is very challenging to create such devices. Why? Conventional circuit and system design techniques fail to deliver the required energy efficiency to satisfy such long lifetime requirement with the constraint of almost invisible system volume. In order to improve energy efficiency, it has been suggested to scale supply voltage down to near or below transistor threshold voltages. However, such ultra low voltage operation is by itself insufficient to achieve the sub-nW power budget of millimeter scale medical devices. Also, it creates several other challenges such as performance degradation, heightened variability, and circuit robustness.
In this talk, I will discuss ultra low voltage systems and present a range of new circuit, and architectural design approaches to overcome the above challenges, and thus lead to millimeter scale medical systems. This talk will focus on three relevant projects from my dissertation: a 35pW sensing platform (Phoenix Processor), a 2-transistor voltage reference, and a Fast Fourier Transform core. In these projects, we successfully improved energy efficiency, performance, and variability, bringing the abstract concept of millimeter scale medical devices towards practical applications. Our proposed approaches provided record-setting energy efficiency in major building blocks such as microcontrollers, embedded memories, power conversion circuits, and DSP accelerators. The improvements were extensively verified through numerous silicon demonstrations.
Biography: Mingoo Seok is currently pursiung PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan. Seokâs thesis is entitled âExtreme Power-Constrained Integrated Circuit Designâ. His research contributions and interest are in the area of sub- or near-threshold logic circuits and ultra low power architectures and sensors. During his PhD, he published more than 25 journal and conference papers. His work contributed to the improvement of energy efficiency, performance, and variability in energy-constrained systems, allowing the abstract concept of millimeter-scale implantable medical devices to be translated into practical applications.
Mingoo Seok received a 1998 Excellency Fellowship from Seoul National University, a 1999 Distinguished Undergraduate Scholarship from the Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies, a 2005 Doctoral Fellowship from the same organization, and a 2008 Rackham Pre-Doctoral Fellowship from the University of Michigan. He also won the 2009 AMD/CICC Student Scholarship Award for picowatt voltage reference design and 2009 DAC/ISSCC Student Design Contest for the 35pW sensor platform design, also known as Phoenix Processor. He holds one pending US patent and two invention disclosures. He is currently a member of technical staff at the R&D center of Texas Instruments, focusing on ultra low power communication systems and security-enhancing circuit techniques.
Host: Prof. Viktor Prasanna
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
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. -
EE-Electrophysics Seminar
Fri, Mar 25, 2011 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Wei Wu, Senior Scientist, HP Labs, Hewlett-Packard Co.
Talk Title: Nano-Crossbar Circuits, Optical Meta-Materials and SERS Sensors
Abstract: Semiconductor industry has enjoyed great successes by following the âMooreâs lawâ for more than four decades. With the end of the roadmap looming in the horizon, great efforts have been made to look for the alternatives for âpost-Siâ electronics. I will present our work on crossbar circuits, especially crossbar memory circuits based on transition metal oxide (i.e. memristor). Memristor is a type of resistive RAM device. It stores the information by ion movements inside the switching material, instead of charge trapping as in other conventional memory devices. We have demonstrated several generations of crossbar memory circuits with record-high densities, and have also integrated memristor and Si CMOS circuits successfully. The technologies developed for nano-electronics were applied to several other areas. One example I would like to share is optical negative meta-materials (NIMs) at near-IR range. That includes NIMs with negative reflective index (both negative permittivity and permeability) at 1.55 m range, fast modulation of NIMs and non-linear effects of NIMs. Another example is highly sensitive surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) sensors fabricated using the 3-D nano-patterning technology we developed. The end of roadmap may be getting closer, but it is just the start of a new era, where we can leverage on what we have been developed in the past and make great impacts on the whole society.
Biography: Wei Wu graduated from Peking University with a BS in Physics in 1996, and received a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University in 2003. He joined HP labs in 2003, and he is a senior scientist at nano-electronics research group (formerly known as quantum science research). His work on nanoimprint lithography has enabled nano-electronic and nano-photonic applications at HP labs for the last seven years. His work includes crossbar memory (i.e. memristor) and logic circuits with the record high densities, the first nanoimprint-fabricated optical negative index meta-material at 1.55 m range, the first optical modulation using negative index meta-material at near-IR, the first third harmonic generation using meta-material, highly sensitive surface enhanced Raman sensors fabricated using 3-D nanoimprint, the first room-temperature working single electron memory and the first large area bit-patterned magnetic media fabricated using nanoimprint. The nanoimprint machine he invented has been commercialized via IP licensing. He coauthored 65 peer reviewed journal papers and more than 60 conference presentations, including 10 keynote and invited presentaions. He has 49 granted US patents and 77 pending applications. He is serving as HPâs representative at SEMATECH lithography program advisory group. He is a senior member of IEEE and serving in the executive committee of IEEE SFBA nanotechnology council.
Host: EE-Electrophysics
More Info: http://ee.usc.edu/news/seminars/eepLocation: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
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. -
Integrated Systems Seminar Series
Fri, Mar 25, 2011 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Afshin Momtaz, Broadcom
Talk Title: Broadcom and ADC based multiGHz wireline transceivers
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. -
CENG Seminar
Mon, Mar 28, 2011 @ 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Peng Li, Texas A&M University
Talk Title: From Integrated Circuit Design to Brain Modeling: Coping with System Complexity by Leveraging Application-Specific Parallel Computing
Abstract: We are confronted with system complexity while dealing with large natural and engineered systems such as a multi-billion transistor microprocessor, or the 100 billion neuron human brain. In the meantime, the recent change in the computing landscape has rendered the use of parallel compute power critical for dealing with the complexity in a broader spectrum of engineering and healthcare applications.
The drive for higher performance has resulted in an explosion of IC design complexity. To push the envelope of design algorithms and tools, âgoing parallelâ is both a natural choice and a necessity. Nevertheless, one must rethink how compute-intensive algorithms shall be designed on disparate hardware platforms to make the best use of parallel compute power. I will present our work on highly parallel circuit simulation, where a rich set of application-specific intra- and inter-algorithm parallelisms are explored to help remove the simulation bottleneck from the IC design flow. I will describe how âsmartâ numerical algorithms can be designed to expose the âhiddenâ data parallelism to allow for efficient hybrid GPU-CPU based analysis of large power delivery networks, thereby facilitating the design of high-performance & low-power chips.
Computing also plays an increasingly vital in understanding mammalian brains. With a vast amount of data made available by neuron recording and imaging, one holy grail is to map out the circuitry of the human brain and unravel the mysteries of brain functions by computer simulation. If successful, this would have profound implications: it will enable the test of hypotheses of neurological disorders and the development of treatments; it will stimulate new bio-inspired computing and biomimetics. To examine some of the grand challenges and opportunities, I will describe a large-scale thalamocortical model that includes multicompartmental Hodgkin-Huxley neuron models capturing dynamics of ion channels and dendrites, detailed cortical microcircuitry, local/global connectivity, all modeled on a biophysical basis. While exploring the dynamic properties of the network, advanced numerical and parallel computing techniques have been developed to alleviate the significant simulation challenge. The biological realism of the model allows us to attribute network-level spike-and-wave oscillations, a characteristic of generalized absence epilepsy, to cell-level biophysical interactions and shed light on the therapeutic treatments of this brain disorder.
Biography: Peng Li received the Ph.D. degree in ECE from CMU in 2003. He is an associate professor of ECE at Texas A&M University, where he is also a member of the Faculty of Neuroscience. His research interests include integrated circuits and systems, CAD, parallel computing, biophysical modeling of nervous systems, computer-aided diagnosis and therapy of brain disorders. He has edited two books, published over 100 papers, and six book chapters. He is a recipient of two IEEE/ACM DAC Best Paper Awards and one DAC Best Paper Award nomination, four nominations for the IEEE/ACM William J. McCalla ICCAD Best Paper Award, an NSF CAREER Award, four Inventor Recognition Awards from SRC and MARCO, and an ECE Outstanding Professor Award from Texas A&M. He is an Associate Editor of IEEE Trans. on CAD and IEEE Trans. on Circuits and Systems II. He has served on the committees of DAC, ICCAD, ISQED, ISCAS, TAU and VLSI-DAT, the selection committees of ICCAD Best Paper Award and ACM Outstanding Ph.D. Dissertation Award in EDA. He served as the program chair and general chair of the ACM TAU Workshop.
Host: Alice Parker
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
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. -
Data Transmission: Non-Asymptotic Fundamental Limits
Tue, Mar 29, 2011 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Yury Polyanskiy, Princeton University
Talk Title: Data Transmission: Non-Asymptotic Fundamental Limits
Abstract: Noise is an inalienable property of all communication systems appearing in nature. Such noise acts against the very purpose of communication, namely the delivery of data to its destination with minimal possible distortion. This creates a problem that has been addressed by various disciplines over the past century. In particular, information theory studies the question of the maximum possible rate achievable by an ideal system under certain assumptions regarding the noise generation and structural design constraints. The study of such questions, initiated by Claude Shannon in 1948, has typically been carried out in the asymptotic limit of an infinite number of signaling degrees of freedom (blocklength).
At the same time, the increasing focus on latency and delay (such as in audio and video streaming), as well as the advent of modern sparse graph codes require characterizing the fundamental limits non-asymptotically, i.e. for blocklengths of the order of 1000. A systematic study of these practically motivated questions necessitates the development of new theoretical tools and techniques, which is the subject of this work. In particular, by obtaining precise non-asymptotic results, it is demonstrated that in many engineering problems a significant back-off from the (Shannon) capacity is incurred at finite blocklengths.
Knowledge of the behavior of the fundamental limits in the non-asymptotic regime enables the analysis of many related questions, such as the assessment of the suboptimality of modern codes, energy efficiency, benefits of feedback, effects of dynamically varying channel state, fading, etc. As a result it is shown that in several instances classical (asymptotics-based) conclusions do not hold under this more refined approach.
Biography: Yury Polyanskiy received the M.S. degree (with honors) in applied mathematics and physics from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Moscow, Russia in 2005 and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University, Princeton, NJ in 2010.
In 2000-2005, he was with the Department of Surface Oilfield Equipment, Borets Company LLC, where he rose to the position of Chief Software Designer. His research interests include information theory, coding theory and the theory of random processes.
Dr. Polyanskiy won a silver medal at the 30th International Physics Olympiad (IPhO), held in Padova, Italy. He was a recipient of the Best Student Paper Awards at the 2008 and 2010 IEEE International Symposia on Information Theory (ISIT). His final year of graduate studies was supported by a Princeton University Honorific Dodds Fellowship (2009-2010).
Host: Giuseppe Caire, caire@usc.edu, EEB 540, 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. -
CENG Seminar
Wed, Mar 30, 2011 @ 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Janet Roveda , University of Arizona, Tucson
Talk Title: Conquering Variability for Robust VLSI Circuit Design
Abstract: Growing variability has been observed in nanometer CMOS due to limits in design and manufacture technology. The resulting diminished accuracy has caused a significant reduction in the parametric yield. In the presence of significant variations, the worst-case-based analysis is too pessimistic and the simulation based sampling schemes require excessive computation time due to the large parametric space. A new, efficient approach that models variability in the polynomial chaos domain through a set of orthogonal polynomials is proposed. The new method provides a functional presentation of circuit response in terms of process variations. The approach significantly reduces turnaround time for the pre-silicon stage, and provides accurate full chip verification down to 40nm technology. The presentation addresses a range of techniques that have been developed by Dr. Rovedaâs group: second order cone for robust optimization, fast probability collocation method, Principal Hessian Direction, and Chebyshev probability bound estimation. Looking forward, we focus our efforts on the creation of a unified framework that maps quality of applications to quality of circuit design. Additional comments on present efforts in Interface Models for smart grid, Nano-Sim for CNT based circuit design, and self-tuning techniques for robust and low power multi-core systems will conclude the discussion.
Biography: Janet Roveda received a B.S. degree in Computer Science from The East China Institute in 1991, M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley in 1998 and 2000, respectively. She was a recipient of the NSF career award and the PEACASE award in 2005 and 2006, respectively. She received the best paper award in ISQED 2010 as well as best paper nominations in ASPDAC 2010, ICCAD 2007, and ISQED 2005. She is the recipient of the 2008 R. Newton Graduate Research Project Award from DAC, and the 2007 USS University of Arizona Outstanding Achievement Award. Her primary research interests focus on robust circuit design, VLSI circuit modeling and analysis, and low power multi-core system design.
Host: Massoud Pedram
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
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.
