Logo: University of Southern California

Events Calendar



Select a calendar:



Filter October Events by Event Type:



University Calendar
Events for October

  • Integrated Systems Seminar Series - Prof. Karim Oweiss from Michigan State University

    Tue, Oct 04, 2011 @ 12:00 PM - 01:30 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    University Calendar


    Title: Conversing with the Brain

    Speaker: Prof. Karim G. Oweiss, Michigan State University

    Abstract: Brain machine interfaces (BMIs) are a direct communication pathway between the brain and a man-made device, with an ultimate goal of improving the lifestyle of neurologically impaired subjects. For these systems to operate optimally, some means of bi-directional translation should occur between the signals that the brain uses for its internal communication and those used by the machine to achieve a desired functional outcome. In this talk, I will discuss some of our recent efforts to establish a readout methodology that translates neural ensemble activity to machine language. I will follow with a brief discussion on how to optimize microstimulation of these ensembles to increase the effectiveness of BMIs. I will conclude with a brief overview of our progress in engineering a wireless, fully implantable system for large-scale neural interfaces to pave the way for deploying BMIs in clinical applications.

    Biography: Karim G. Oweiss received his B.S. (1993) and M.S. (1996) degrees with honors in Electrical Engineering from the University of Alexandria, Egypt, and the Ph.D. degree (2002) in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He completed a post-doctoral training in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2002. In 2003, he joined the departmentof Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Neuroscience Program at Michigan State University, where he is currently an associate professor and director of the Neural Systems Engineering Laboratory. His research interests span the areas of statistical signal processing and information theory, neural integration and coordination in sensorimotor systems, computational neuroscience and brain-machine interfaces. Dr. Oweiss is a senior member of the IEEE and a member of the Society for Neuroscience. He served as a member of the board of directors of the IEEE Signal Processing Society on Brain Machine Interfaces, and continues to serve on the technical committees of the IEEE Biomedical Circuits and Systems, the IEEE Life Sciences, and the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology societies. He was awarded the excellence in Neural Engineering award from the National Science Foundation in 2001. His lab is currently supported through the Neural Interfaces Program (NIP) and the Repair and Plasticity Program (RPP) at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, as well as DARPA’s Reliable Central-Nervous-System Interfaces (RCI) program. He is the editor and co-author of the book: Statistical Signal Processing for Neuroscience and Neurotechnology, published by Academic Press in 2010.


    More Information: 10.4 Seminar_Speaker_Oweiss_2011_10_4_modified.pdf

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Danielle Hamra


    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 - Prof. Maysam Ghovanloo, Georgia Institute of Technology

    Fri, Oct 07, 2011 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    University Calendar


    Title:From Implantable Microelectronic Devices to Modern Assistive Technologies

    Speaker: Prof. Maysam Ghovanloo who is at Georgia Institute of Technology

    Abstract: In this talk, I will give an overview of the recent progress in GT-Bionics Lab. The applications of implantable microelectronic devices (IMD) are on the rise, because advancements in microelectronics, RF communications, and medicine have resulted in adding more functionality in IMDs that occupy smaller space and run on lower power levels to address more complex diseases and disabilities. I will address how we are pushing the limits on developing basic building blocks for such state-of-the-art IMDs, particularly on the analog front end, RF backend, and power management units. One of many applications of IMDs is brain-computer interfacing (BCI), which is meant to enable individuals with severe physical disabilities to control their environments, particularly by accessing computers and driving powered wheelchairs. Implantable BCIs are highly invasive and despite all the investments, it is not clear whether end users would accept them in the presence of much less invasive alternatives. Therefore, in GT-Bionics Lab we pursue BCIs as advanced tools for neuroscience research applications on small animal subject. At the same time, we are exploring novel minimally invasive methods for individuals with severe paralysis to make the best use of their remaining abilities to control their environments. An example of this is a brain-tongue computer interface (BTCI), called the Tongue Drive System, which will be covered.

    Bio:Maysam Ghovanloo received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Tehran, and the M.S. degree in biomedical engineering from the Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran in 1997. He also received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 2003 and 2004.

    Dr. Ghovanloo developed the first modular Patient Care Monitoring System in Iran where he also founded Sabz-Negar Rayaneh Co. to manufacture physiology and pharmacology research laboratory instruments. From 2004 to 2007 he was an assistant professor in the Department of ECE at the North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC. Since 2007 he has been with the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, where he is the ON Semiconductor Junior Faculty Chair, and the founding director of the GT-Bionics Lab. Dr. Ghovanloo is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems, Part II and IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems. He has also been serving on the Imagers, MEMS, Medical and Displays subcommittee of the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) since 2009. He has received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the Tommy Nobis Barrier Breaker Award for Innovation, and Distinguished Young Scholar Award from the Association of Professors and Scholars of Iranian Heritage.

    More Information: 10.7.11 Seminar_Speaker_Ghovanloo.pdf

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Danielle Hamra


    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.

  • Finalist Competition - MHI Ph.D. Scholars

    Mon, Oct 10, 2011 @ 05:00 PM - 09:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    University Calendar


    The Evaluation Committee selected 7 finalists out of MHI Ph.D. Scholar nominees submitted by faculty. These finalists will present a 12-minute talk about their research at the event. It is anticipated that five MHI Scholars will be selected from this pool, based on an evaluation of their talks by a faculty panel.


    •Matthew Black: Behavioral Signal Processing: Case Studies in Education and Psychology Research

    •Harsha Honnappa: Queues and Games: Large Population Analysis

    •Chenxi Lin: Optical absorption enhancement in nano-textured silicon thin film for photovoltaics

    •Osonde Osoba: Noise Benefits in Expectation-Maximization Algorithms

    •Sunil K. Narang: Perfect reconstruction, critically sampled, two-channel wavelet filterbanks on graphs

    •Srinivas Yerramalli: Enabling Underwater Acoustic Communications: From single links to an ocean wide network

    •Bardia Zandian: A Cross-layer Framework for Wearout Monitoring

    All Electrical Engineering students and faculty are invited. Refreshments will be served.

    The Ph.D. Scholar Program is a continued venture of the Ming Hsieh Institute that aims to support senior Ph.D. students interested in pursuing an academic career. These finalists have been selected from nominations submitted by faculty - to learn more about the Scholar Program visit: http://mhi.usc.edu/call-for-scholar-nominees320805.htm

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Danielle Hamra


    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 - Prof. Fadhel Ghannouchi, University of Calgary

    Fri, Oct 14, 2011 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    University Calendar


    Title: RF/DSP Co-Designed Power amplifiers for Software Defined Radio Systems

    Speaker: Prof. Fadhel Ghannouchi, University of Calgary

    Location: EEB 248

    Date: Friday, October 14, 2011

    Time: 3pm – 4pm


    Abstract:
    The next wave in the information revolution will consist of bringing intelligence to the information and communication technology (ICT) sector, allowing seamless and intelligent networking and communication between different users using different services and operators. This will lead to the convergence of communication technologies, aiming at the development and deployment of cooperative and ubiquitous networks that involve existing and future wireless and satellite communications systems.

    A critical element in enabling the convergence of different communication systems is the development of software defined radio (SDR) systems that can be used across different frequency bands and for multi-standard applications. This SDR has to be developed to support different frequency carriers and modulations schemes concurrently, in addition to being power and spectrum-efficient, in order to be able handle high data rates, while being less energy hungry and more environmentally friendly.

    The design of power amplifiers as critical components in any SRD based communication terminal has to be considered closely together with the system architecture, in order to ensure optimal system level performances in terms of linearity and power efficiency. This implies the use of adequate transmitter architectures that convert the analog baseband information to architecture dependent amplifier driving signals, such as sigma-delta, EE&R, Polar and LINC architectures. This talk lays out the principles behind SDR systems and examines the design of software-enabled linear and highly efficient RF/DSP co-designed power amplifiers/transmitters for multi-standard and multi-band applications. Recent advances and practical realizations will also be presented and discussed.

    More Information: 10.14.11 Seminar_Speaker_Ghannouchi.pdf

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Danielle Hamra


    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 - Tony Chan Carusone, University of Toronto

    Fri, Oct 21, 2011 @ 03:00 PM - 04:30 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    University Calendar


    Title: Multi-Gbps Optical Receivers with CMOS Integrated Photodetectors

    Abstract: The integration of high-speed optoelectronics alongside CMOS garners much research attention. Consider how the emergence of CMOS image sensors in the 90's revolutionized and proliferated digital cameras. Likewise, a multi-Gb/s CMOS photodetector enables highly-integrated, compact, and low cost optical receivers opening up new applications for optical links in data centers, consumer electronics, and automobiles.

    As photodiodes, the pn-junctions and depletion regions available in a standard CMOS process have an intrinsic bandwidth of, at most, 10’s of MHz, so considerable innovation has been required to make them useful for multi-Gb/s communication. “CMOS photonics” researchers seek modifications to standard CMOS processing that will permit the integration of high-performance photodetectors and optical waveguides, for example made of germanium. By contrast, this presentation illustrates that the slowly diffusing photocarriers that usually limit the bandwidth of photodetectors made in standard CMOS may be considered simply a form of ISI. Hence, the bandwidth limitations of such CMOS photodetectors can be dealt with using the same signal processing tools being applied with success in other wireline communication applications. A combination of spatially-modulated light detection, analog equalization, and modest decision feedback equalization appears to offer a path towards data rates in excess of 10-Gbps using standard CMOS photodetectors. Nanoscale CMOS is particularly well suited to the implementation of such signal processing functions, and prototype results ranging from 0.18um CMOS to 65nm CMOS will be presented.

    Bio: Tony Chan Carusone completed the B.A.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Toronto in 1997 and 2002 respectively. Since 2001, he has been with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto where he is currently an Associate Professor. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE, has co-authored the best paper at the 2005 Compound Semiconductor Integrated Circuits Symposium, and the best student papers at both the 2007 and 2008 Custom Integrated Circuits Conferences, and the best invited paper award at 2010 Custom Integrated Circuits Conference where he presented his work on CMOS photodetectors. He was the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Express Briefs and currently serves on the editorial board of the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits and on the Technical Program Committees for both the VLSI Circuits Symposium and the International Solid-State Circuits Conference. He is an author, along with David Johns and Ken Martin, of the 2nd edition of the classic textbook "Analog Integrated Circuit Design".

    More Information: 10.21.11Seminar_Speaker_Caruson.pdf

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Danielle Hamra


    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 Family Picnic

    EE Family Picnic

    Sat, Oct 22, 2011 @ 01:00 PM - 04:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    University Calendar


    Event: Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering Family Picnic hosted by the Ming Hsieh Institute
    Date: Saturday, October 22, 2011
    Location: Lacy Park (about 25 minutes away from USC park campus)
    1485 Virginia Road
    San Marino, CA 91108
    Area 6 – Picnic Table Area

    RSVP by 10/17 at the following link: https://uscviterbi.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_0rn7UjnzC2JSHuk

    For questions please contact Danielle Hamra, MHI Business Officer at hamra@usc.edu or 213-740-2694

    Parking
    There is a small parking lot inside the park entrance at Virginia Road and Euston. There is also street parking directly outside the entrance of the park.

    For park rules and additional information please visit: http://www.ci.san-marino.ca.us/lacy.htm

    More Information: EE Family Picnic - 10.22.11 Invite Flyer.pdf

    Location: Lacy Park - 1485 Virginia Road, San Marino

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Danielle Hamra


    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 - Prof. Saeed Mohammadi, Purdue University

    Fri, Oct 28, 2011 @ 03:00 PM - 04:30 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    University Calendar


    Speaker: Prof. Saeed Mohammadi, Purdue University

    Title: Prospects of Semiconductor on Insulator (SOI) Technology in Power Amplifiers and Integrated Nanoelectromechanical Systems

    Abstract: Silicon on Insulator (SOI) technology has been widely used for low power analog and digital circuits for applications in mobile computation and communication. An addition of a buried oxide layer beneath a thin Si device layer in SOI technology brings about a new physics to the CMOS transistor, one that is still not fully understood. The buried oxide layer reduces the parasitic capacitance of interconnect metallization and transistors to the Si substrate which in turn reduces the dynamic power dissipation. Moreover, the buried oxide layer, when combined with trench oxide, helps electrically isolate CMOS transistors from each other and from the Si substrate. Electrically isolated SOI transistors can be stacked on top of each other to form power amplifiers with large voltage swing signals at the output. On the other hand, buried oxide layer facilitates micromachining of thin Silicon Nanowires that can be easily made into suspended double-clamped nanoelectromechanical resonators. In this presentation, SOI applications in both power amplifiers and integrated nanoelectromechanical systems are revisited and our most recent results are presented.

    Biography: Saeed Mohammadi graduated with a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo, ONT, Canada in 1994. He earned his PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 2000. Since 2002, he has been at Purdue University where he currently serves as an Associate Professor. His research interests are in the areas of experimental nanotechnology and RF circuits. Together with his students, Prof Mohammadi has published more than 120 papers in these areas including the first carbon nanotube RF transistor, the first transparent flexible display technology based on carbon nanotube thin film transistors and the first RF CMOS receiver implemented in subthreshold regime.

    More Information: 10.28.11 Seminar_Speaker_Mohammadi.pdf

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Danielle Hamra


    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.