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SUNMONTUEWEDTHUFRISAT
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for May
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Focused on parallel and distributed computingThu, May 02, 2013 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: TBA, TBA
Talk Title: TBA
Series: EE598 Seminar Course
Abstract: Weekly seminars given by researchers in academia and industry including senior doctoral students in EE, CS and ISI covering current research related to parallel and distributed computation including parallel algorithms, high performance computing, scientific computation, application specific architectures, multi-core and many-core architectures and algorithms, application acceleration, reconfigurable computing systems, data intensive systems, Big Data and cloud computing.
Biography: Prerequisite: Students are expected to be familiar with basic concepts at the level of graduate level courses in Computer Engineering and Computer Science in some of these topic areas above. Ph.D. students in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering and Computer Science can automatically enroll. M.S. students can enroll only with permission of the instructor. To request permission send a brief mail to the instructor in text format with the subject field ââ¬ÅEE 598ââ¬Â. The body of the mail (in text format) should include name, degree objective, courses taken at USC and grades obtained, prior educational background, and relevant research background, if any.
Requirements for CR:
1. Attending at least 10 seminars during the semester
There will be a sign-in sheet and a sign-out sheet at every seminar. All students must sign-in (before 2:00pm) and sign-out (after 3:00pm). The sign-in sheet will not be available after 2:00pm, and the sign-out sheet will not be available before 3:00pm.
2. Submitting a written report for at least 5 seminars
The written report for each seminar must be 1-page single line spaced format with font size of 12 (Times) or 11 (Arial) without any figures, tables, or graphs. The report must be submitted no later than 1 week after the corresponding seminar, and must be handed only to the instructor either on the seminar times or during office hours. Late reports will not be considered.
The report must summarize studentââ¬â¢s own understanding of the seminar, and should contain the following:
- Your name and submission date [1 line]
- Title of the seminar, name of the speaker, and seminar date [1 line]
- Background of the work (e.g., applications, prior research, etc.) [1 paragraph]
- Highlights of the approaches presented in the seminar [1-2 paragraphs]
- Main results presented in the seminar [1-2 paragraphs]
- Conclusion (your own conclusion and not what was given by the speaker) [1 paragraph]
Reviewing papers related to the topic of the seminar, and incorporating relevant findings in the
reports (e.g., in the conclusion section) is encouraged. In such cases, make sure to clearly indicate
the reference(s) used to derive these conclusions.
Host: Professor Viktor K. Prasanna
More Information: Course Announcement_EE598_Focused on parallel and distributed computing_(Spring 2013).pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) -
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 598: ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING RESEARCH SEMINAR COURSE #14
Thu, May 02, 2013 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Charalampos Chelmis, PhD Candidate, Computer Science, USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Talk Title: Computational Models of Technology Adoption at the Workplace
Series: EE598 Seminar Course
Abstract: Despite numerous studies in Online Social Networks, little is known about network dynamics and information diffusion processes at the workplace, where professional relationships are formed not because of similarity but instead due to a formal, imposed structure. In an enterprise, understanding how information flows within and between organizational levels and business units is of great importance. In this talk, we emphasize the impact of organizational hierarchy on adoption of new technologies in the enterprise. We present two intuitive, realistic agent-based computational models that capture the dynamics of adoption at both microscopic and macroscopic levels in a real-world dataset we collected from a multinational Fortune 500 company.
Biography: Charalampos Chelmis is a PhD candidate in Computer Science working with Prof. Viktor K. Prasanna in the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. His research focuses on modeling complex networks, their properties, hidden structures and dimensional interdependencies, mining large-scale, real-world social networks, and designing efficient, scalable algorithms by combining Graph Theory and Semantic Web Technologies, Big Data Analytics and Machine Learning, sociometric features and measures. His research has been published at top venues, including SocialCom, ASONAM, TOIS and SNAM. He received his Master of Science in Computer Science from the University of Southern California in 2010 and his Bachelor in Computer Engineering & Informatics from the University of Patras, Greece in 2007.
Host: Professor Viktor K. Prasanna
More Information: Course Announcement_EE598_Focused on parallel and distributed computing_(Spring 2013) 2.pdf
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. -
The Conditional Entropy Power Inequality for Gaussian Quantum States
Fri, May 03, 2013 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Robert Koenig, University of Waterloo
Talk Title: The Conditional Entropy Power Inequality for Gaussian Quantum States
Abstract: The classical entropy power inequality, originally proposed by Shannon, is a powerful tool in multi-user information theory. We have recently found a quantum generalization which lower bounds the output entropy as two independent signals combine at a beamsplitter. This yields upper bounds on the capacity of additive bosonic noise channels.
In this talk, I summarize these results and propose a generalization of the quantum entropy power inequality involving conditional entropies. I discuss some implications for entanglement-assisted classical communication over additive bosonic noise channels. For the special case of Gaussian states, a proof can be given based on perturbation theory for symplectic spectra.
This is based on joint work with Graeme Smith.
Sponsored by the Ming Hsieh Institute
Biography: Robert Koenig received his diploma in theoretical physics from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich in 2003. He subsequently worked as a research and teaching assistant at the department of theoretical computer science at ETH before moving to Cambridge, UK. After completing his PhD in 2007, he was a postdoctoral scholar at the Institute for Quantum Information, Caltech until 2011. Last fall, he joined the Institute for Quantum Computing and the Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of Waterloo after spending a year at IBM Watson research. He is interested in all mathematical, physical and computer-science related aspects of quantum information.
Host: Ben Reichardt, x07229, ben.reichardt@usc.edu
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
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. -
Cognitive Motivations for Non-negative Matrix Factorizations
Mon, May 06, 2013 @ 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Professor Hugo Van hamme, Dept. of Electrical Engineering (ESAT), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
Talk Title: Cognitive Motivations for Non-negative Matrix Factorizations
Abstract: Non-negative Matrix Factorization (NMF) and related latent variable methods such as Latent Dirichlet Allocation have been applied in many fields of engineering such as speech, text, and image processing to discover relations with great success. Its core capability is to decompose wholes (scenes) into parts represented in the matrix factors. In their 1999 Nature paper, Lee and Seung point out some resemblances between non-negative matrix factorization and the brain. For one, like neural firing rates, NMF assumes non-negative quantities, which lead to sparse representations. In this talk, additional similarities will be discussed:
- NMF can be viewed as a neural network with an intrinsic lateral inhibition mechanism,
- the matrix factors can be obtained using operations that can be implemented in neurons,
- NMF can learn with, without, or with weak cross-modal supervision,
- learning can be made incremental,
- NMF can explain time perception with integrate-and-fire neurons.
Latent variable methods should hence not be seen purely as statistical inference problems, but can be motivated from a cognitive perspective.
Biography: Prof. Hugo Van hamme received the masters degree in electomechanical engineering from Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium in 1987, the masters degree in controls systems from Imperial College, U.K. in 1988 and the Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 1992. In 1993, he joined Lernout & Hauspie n.v. and held positions of senior researcher, team leader, director, and senior director of research. In 2001, he joined ScanSoft as senior director of research and engineering for automotive and embedded products. In 2002, he was appointed professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering of KU Leuven where he teaches courses in speech processing and algebra. His current research interests are robust automatic speech recognition, vocabulary learning, technology for speech therapy, and audio analysis. He is the author of over 150 publications.
Host: Dr. Maarten Van Segbroeck and Professor Shrikanth Narayanan
Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 320
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mary Francis
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Smart Monitoring for Power Grid Reliability and Security
Thu, May 09, 2013 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Yue Zhao , Princeton University
Talk Title: Smart Monitoring for Power Grid Reliability and Security
Abstract: Great challenges for operating power systems reliably are posed by the increasing energy demand, renewable penetration, and extreme weather due to climate change. As information technology and networks play major roles in transforming how power grid is operated, security issues from cyber-physical intrusion also become critical. In this talk, we focus on the role of monitoring systems in ensuring reliability and security of power grids. Firstly, we discuss outage detection in large-scale power distribution networks. A system that combines optimally deployed real-time power flow sensors and non-real-time load forecasts is proposed. Next, we study the joint problem of outage detection and state estimation. We provide a simple closed form expression for the joint posterior, which enables fast computation for optimal joint detectors and estimators. Finally, we discuss the fundamental limits of monitoring systems in detecting cyber-physical attacks. An open problem of finding sparsest unobservable attacks is solved.
Biography: Yue Zhao is a postdoctoral scholar with the Department of Electrical Engineering at Princeton University and that at Stanford University. He obtained his PhD from the Department of Electrical Engineering at University of California, Los Angeles. His research is in enhancing situational awareness and cyber-physical security of power systems, as well as designing incentives for energy saving behavior.
Host: Urbashi Mitra, x04667, ubli@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. -
Focused on parallel and distributed computing
Thu, May 09, 2013 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: TBA, TBA
Talk Title: TBA
Series: EE598 Seminar Course
Abstract: Weekly seminars given by researchers in academia and industry including senior doctoral students in EE, CS and ISI covering current research related to parallel and distributed computation including parallel algorithms, high performance computing, scientific computation, application specific architectures, multi-core and many-core architectures and algorithms, application acceleration, reconfigurable computing systems, data intensive systems, Big Data and cloud computing.
Biography: Prerequisite: Students are expected to be familiar with basic concepts at the level of graduate level courses in Computer Engineering and Computer Science in some of these topic areas above. Ph.D. students in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering and Computer Science can automatically enroll. M.S. students can enroll only with permission of the instructor. To request permission send a brief mail to the instructor in text format with the subject field ââ¬ÅEE 598ââ¬Â. The body of the mail (in text format) should include name, degree objective, courses taken at USC and grades obtained, prior educational background, and relevant research background, if any.
Requirements for CR:
1. Attending at least 10 seminars during the semester
There will be a sign-in sheet and a sign-out sheet at every seminar. All students must sign-in (before 2:00pm) and sign-out (after 3:00pm). The sign-in sheet will not be available after 2:00pm, and the sign-out sheet will not be available before 3:00pm.
2. Submitting a written report for at least 5 seminars
The written report for each seminar must be 1-page single line spaced format with font size of 12 (Times) or 11 (Arial) without any figures, tables, or graphs. The report must be submitted no later than 1 week after the corresponding seminar, and must be handed only to the instructor either on the seminar times or during office hours. Late reports will not be considered.
The report must summarize studentââ¬â¢s own understanding of the seminar, and should contain the following:
- Your name and submission date [1 line]
- Title of the seminar, name of the speaker, and seminar date [1 line]
- Background of the work (e.g., applications, prior research, etc.) [1 paragraph]
- Highlights of the approaches presented in the seminar [1-2 paragraphs]
- Main results presented in the seminar [1-2 paragraphs]
- Conclusion (your own conclusion and not what was given by the speaker) [1 paragraph]
Reviewing papers related to the topic of the seminar, and incorporating relevant findings in the
reports (e.g., in the conclusion section) is encouraged. In such cases, make sure to clearly indicate
the reference(s) used to derive these conclusions.
Host: Professor Viktor K. Prasanna
More Information: Course Announcement_EE598_Focused on parallel and distributed computing_(Spring 2013).pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) -
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. -
Competitive Energy Generation Scheduling in Microgrids
Thu, May 30, 2013 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Minghua Chen, Chinese University of Hong Kong
Talk Title: Competitive Energy Generation Scheduling in Microgrids
Abstract: Microgrids represent an emerging paradigm of future electric power systems that integrate both distributed and centralized generation. Two recent trends in microgrids are the integration of local renewable energy sources (such as wind farms) and the use of co-generation (i.e., to supply both electricity and heat). However, these trends also bring unprecedented challenges to the design of energy generation strategies that are critical for microgrid operation. Traditional generation scheduling paradigms assuming perfect prediction of renewable output and demand are no longer applicable to microgrids with intermittent renewable output and co-generation (that depends on both electricity and heat demand).
In this talk, we will first give a brief overview on microgrids and its potentials in addressing major challenges faced by power grids today. We then present a competitive-optimization paradigm for microgrid energy generation scheduling. Our objective is to maximize the microgrid economic benefit (in terms of cost saving) in an online fashion, i.e., without relying on predicting future demand and renewable output. Based on insights from the offline optimal solution that is computed with perfect future knowledge, we propose a class of competitive online algorithms, called CHASE (Competitive Heuristic Algorithm for Scheduling Energy-generation), that track the offline optimal in an online fashion. Under typical settings, we show that CHASE achieves the best competitive ratio of all deterministic online algorithms and the ratio is no larger than 3, i.e., the cost of CHASE is at most 3 times of the offline optimal under arbitrary demand and renewable output. We also extend CHASE to intelligently leverage on limited prediction of the future, such as near-term demand or wind forecast, to further improve its performance. By extensive empirical evaluation using real-world traces, we show that our proposed algorithms can achieve near-offline-optimal performance. In a representative scenario, CHASE leads to around 20% cost savings with no future look-ahead at all, and the cost-savings further increase with limited future look-ahead.
Biography: Minghua Chen received his B.Eng. and M.S. degrees from the Department of Electronic Engineering at Tsinghua University in 1999 and 2001, respectively. He received his Ph.D. degree from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at University of California at Berkeley in 2006. He spent one year visiting Microsoft Research Redmond as a Postdoc Researcher. He joined the Department of Information Engineering, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, in 2007, where he currently is an Assistant Professor. He is also an Adjunct Associate Professor in Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School in 2011-2014. He received the Eli Jury award from UC Berkeley in 2007 (presented to a graduate student or recent alumnus for outstanding achievement in the area of Systems, Communications, Control, or Signal Processing), the IEEE ICME Best Paper Award in 2009, the IEEE Transactions on Multimedia Prize Paper Award in 2009, and the ACM Multimedia Best Paper Award in 2012. His recent research interests include smart (micro) grids, data centers, distributed network optimization, multimedia networking, p2p networking, wireless networking, network coding, and distributed storage systems.
Host: Michael Neely, x.03505, mjneely@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. -
A Return to the Optimal Detection of Quantum Information
Fri, May 31, 2013 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Min-Hsiu Hsieh, University of Technology, Sydney
Talk Title: A Return to the Optimal Detection of Quantum Information
Abstract: In 1991, Asher Peres and William Wootters wrote a seminal paper on the nonlocal processing of quantum information [Phys. Rev. Lett. 66 1119 (1991)]. We return to their classic problem and solve it in various contexts. Specifically, for discriminating the “double trine” ensemble with minimum error, we prove that global operations are more powerful than local operations with classical communication (LOCC). Even stronger, there exists a finite gap between the optimalLOCC probability and that obtainable by separable operations (SEP). Additionally we prove that a two-way, adaptive LOCC strategy can always beat a one-way protocol. Our results provide the first known instance of “nonlocality without entanglement” in two qubit pure states. (Joint work with Eric Chitambar.)
Biography: Min-Hsiu Hsieh received the Ph.D. degree from University of Southern California, Los Angeles, in 2008. From 2008-2010, he was a Researcher at the ERATO-SORST Quantum Computation and Information Project, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Tokyo, Japan. From 2010-2012, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Statistical Laboratory in the Centre for Mathematical Sciences, the University of Cambridge, UK. He is now a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow / Lecturer in Centre for Quantum Computation & Intelligent Systems (QCIS), Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology (FEIT), University of Technology, Sydney (UTS).
Host: Todd Brun, x03503, tbrun@usc.edu
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
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.
