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Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for October
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EE Distinguished Lecturer Series
Mon, Oct 03, 2011 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Brian Anderso, Australian National University
Talk Title: Control and Information Architectures for Formations
Abstract: Formations of robots, underwater vehicles and autonomous airborne vehicles are progressively being deployed to tackle problems of surveillance, bush fire control, and the like. Much formation behaviour mimics the behaviour of formations of living organisms, such as birds and fish.
Several prototypical problems will be considered, starting with rendezvous and consensus. The presentation will consider the types of control, communications and sensing architecture that allow scalability for formations with many individual agents, and allow preservation of the formation shape, as well as its motion as a cohesive whole. The scalability requirement imposes a need for significant decentralization of information and control structures, and, just as in a formation of birds or fish, no one bird or fish can be expected to sense all other birds or fish and compute its own trajectory using even partial knowledge of the trajectories of all other individual birds or fish, so the amount of sensing, communication and control computation by any one agent has to be limited.
Biography: Brian Anderson was born in Sydney, Australia, and received his undergraduate education at the University of Sydney, with majors in pure mathematics and electrical engineering. He subsequently obtained a Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University. Following completion of his education, he worked in industry in Silicon Valley and served as a faculty member in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Stanford. He was Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Newcastle, Australia from 1967 until 1981 and is now a Distinguished Professor at the Australian National University and Distinguished Researcher in National ICT Australia Ltd. His interests are in control and signal processing. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, Royal Society London, Australian Academy of Science, Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, Honorary Fellow of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, and Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Engineering. He holds doctorates (honoris causa) from the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich, Universities of Sydney, Melbourne, New South Wales and Newcastle. He served a term as President of the International Federation of Automatic Control from 1990 to 1993 and as President of the Australian Academy of Science between 1998 and 2002. His awards include the IEEE Control Systems Award of 1997, the IFAC Quazza Medal in 1999, the 2001 IEEE James H Mulligan, Jr Education Medal, and the Guillemin-Cauer Award, IEEE Circuits and Systems Society in 1992 and 2001, the Bode Prize of the IEEE Control System Society in 1992 and the Senior Prize of the IEEE Transactions on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing in 1986.
Host: Urbashi Mitra
More Info: http://ee.usc.edu/news/dls/More Information: 20111003 Anderson Print.pdf
Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) -
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Estela Lopez
Event Link: http://ee.usc.edu/news/dls/
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
New Directions in MRI: High Field Imaging, Cell-Tracking, & Multinuclear Studies
Fri, Oct 07, 2011 @ 10:45 AM - 11:45 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Priti Balchandani, Ph.D., Radiological Sciences Laboratory, Stanford University
Talk Title: New Directions in MRI: High Field Imaging, Cell-Tracking, & Multinuclear Studies
Abstract: This talk will focus on the design of innovative radio frequency (RF) pulses and pulse sequences that harness the power of high-field magnets anexploit new contrast mechanisms in order to enable novel applications of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). I will present engineering solutions for MR imaging and spectroscopy at high magnetic fields such as 7 Tesla (7T). Beyond higher resolution images that elucidate finer anatomical features, high-field MR offers greater spectral resolution for spectroscopic imaging, new and enhanced contrast mechanisms and improved detection of nuclei other than protons that are essential to cell processes. Unfortunately, conventional MR imaging sequences, which work well at 1.5T and 3T, are not designed to handle some of the physical and hardware issues that emerge at 7T. I will present techniques that exploit the benefits offered by 7T magnets for neuroimaging applications by overcoming the limitations associated with their operation. Clinical value of these high-field techniques will be discussed, with a particular focus on their application to imaging epilepsy. Finally, I will focus on some creative pulse and pulse sequence designs for nontraditional MR applications such as multinuclear imaging and stem cell tracking.
Biography: Priti Balchandani, PhD, is a Research Associate in the Radiological Sciences Laboratory (RSL) at Stanford University. Her research is focused on novel RF pulse and pulse sequence design for human MR imaging and spectroscopy. She has been particularly interested in exploiting the power of high-field MR magnets to visualize the brain in unprecedented detail. Her work on overcoming some of the main limitations of operating at high magnetic fields has resulted in several first authored publications and patents as well as selection as a finalist for the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM) 2008 Young Investigator Award. Dr. Balchandani is the recipient of a K99/R00 NIH Pathway to Independence Award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke for her grant entitled "High Resolution Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Spectroscopy of Epilepsy at 7T." She was also named a Junior Fellow of the ISMRM, an honor awarded to young researchers of outstanding quality and promise, with a significant potential for helping the Society achieve its mission. Dr. Balchandani received her BS in computer engineering at the University of Waterloo and her PhD in electrical engineering at Stanford University.
Host: Prof. Krishna Nayak
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Talyia Veal
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Biological Waveguides
Fri, Oct 07, 2011 @ 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Vasudevan (Vengu) Lakshminarayanan, Professor of Vision Science, Physics, and Electrical and Computer Engineering; University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Talk Title: Biological Waveguides
Abstract: It is well known that the photoreceptors of the eye act as classical fiber optic elements. These were first determined psychophysically by Stiles and Crawford about 75 years ago. There is considerable evidence of waveguide modal patterns in isolated photoreceptor elements. Many theoretical models have been developed to describe waveguiding in photoreceptors. This talk will review some aspects of waveguiding in photoreceptors and will introduce a possible fiber sensor based on biological waveguiding.
Biography: After finishing high school in Los Angeles, Vengu moved to India, where he received his BS and MS degrees in physics and mathematics. He then obtained a Ph.D. from University of California at Berkeley. He stayed on at Berkeley as a researcher/manager of a large NIH funded lab before moving to the medical optics industry (Allergan Medical Optics in Irvine). He is a professor of Vision Science, Physics and ECE at the University of Waterloo, prior to which he was affiliated with the University of Missouri. He has also been a Kavli Scholar at the Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics at UCSB, an adjunct professor at UC Irvine and is a current associate of the Michigan Institute for Theoretical Physics at Ann Arbor as well as a member of the Center for Bioengineering and Biotechnology at UW. He has published widely in areas ranging from classical optics, quantum physics, applied math and vision science. He is on the editorial board of a number of journals including Journal of Modern Optics and Optics Letters. He has published about 10 books, including the recently published Quantum Information (McGraw Hill), and the upcoming Dihedral Fourier Analysis (Springer). He was an editor of the 5 volume Handbook of Optics (McGraw Hill). Honors include being a co-recipient of the 2011 SPIE educator award. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, OSA, SPIE, AAAS and the Institute of Physics (UK).
Host: Prof. Alexander Sawchuk
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - B18
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. -
CommNetS Seminar
Wed, Oct 12, 2011 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Prof. Vivek Goyal, MIT
Talk Title: Space-from-Time Imaging: Acquiring Reflectance and Structure Without Lenses
Series: Communications, Networks & Systems (CommNetS) Seminar
Abstract: Traditional cameras use lenses to form an optical image of the scene and thus obtain spatial correspondences between the scene and the film or sensor array. These cameras do not sample the incident light fast enough to record any transient variations in the light field. This talk introduces space-from-time imaging â a signal processing framework for imaging using only omnidirectional illumination and sensing. We show that it is possible to construct images by computationally processing samples of the response to a time-varying illumination. We also show a range sensing system that uses neither scene scanning by laser (as in LIDAR) nor multiple sensors (as in a time-of-flight camera). These technologies depend on novel parametric signal modeling and sampling theory.
Biography: Vivek Goyal completed his Ph.D. degree at the University of California, Berkeley. After working at Bell Laboratories and Digital Fountain, he joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he is currently Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering. Prof. Goyal was awarded UC-Berkeley's Eliahu Jury Award, the IEEE Signal Processing Society Magazine Award, and an NSF CAREER Award. He is a faculty co-author on student best paper award-winning papers and co-author of the forthcoming textbook Fourier and Wavelet Signal Processing (available at FourierAndWavelets.org). Along with serving on several TPCs, he is a TPC Co-Chair of IEEE ICIP 2016 and a Conference Co-Chair of the SPIE Wavelets and Sparsity conference series. He will present a tutorial on teaching signal processing at IEEE ICASSP 2012.
Host: Profs. Ubli Mitra and Antonio Ortega
More Info: http://csi.usc.edu/~dimakis/CommNetSLocation: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Rahul Jain
Event Link: http://csi.usc.edu/~dimakis/CommNetS
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
Thu, Oct 13, 2011 @ 12:30 PM - 01:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Roger Dougal, University of South Carolina, Department of Electrical Engineering
Talk Title: From Hot Water to Hot Weapons: Managing energy flows with power electronics
Abstract: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles; Ships, Tanks, and Everyday Homes. Everything is becoming more electric. Soon your water heater will share an important characteristic with a laser weapon; its power demand will be precisely scheduled. From warships to warehouses, power electronics and high-speed data networks will provide the means for managing the flow of power. And so it turns out that the Electric Ship R&D Consortium and the Center for Grid-connected Advanced Power Electronic Systems share many technical interests. Prof. Dougal finds himself leading the activities of these two groups at the University of South Carolina (that other USC), and thereby doubling down on smart grid, distributed energy, and design tools for the next generation of electric power systems.
Biography: Roger A. Dougal received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Texas Tech. University, Lubbock, in 1983. He is currently the Thomas Gregory Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of South Carolina, where he leads the Power and Energy Systems group. He is a Director of the Electric Ship R&D Consortium, which is developing electric power technologies for the next generation of electric ships, he is co-director of the NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for Grid-connected Advanced Power Electronic Systems, and he leads development of the Virtual Test Bed --- a computational environment for simulation-based-design and virtual prototyping of dynamic, multidisciplinary systems. His research interests include power electronics, power systems, hybrid power sources, and simulation methods.
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. -
Dynamics and Control of Large Utility-Scale Wind Turbines for Fun and Profit
Wed, Oct 19, 2011 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Mark Balas, University of Wyoming
Talk Title: Dynamics and Control of Large Utility-Scale Wind Turbines for Fun and Profit
Abstract: The next generation of utility-scale wind turbines will be larger and more flexible than earlier designs to
promote greater energy capture and reduce the cost of energy. It is here that the implementation of active
feedback control is crucial to meet design objectives. Not only must there be power regulation or optimization
but also load mitigation to extend the life of the turbine. Wind turbine dynamics modeling for active control is
composed of four principal parts:
1. Aerodynamics and Inflow Behavior,
2. Structural Dynamics,
3. Feedback Control Algorithms,
4. Power Electronics
Active control is a relatively new technology for wind turbines. Basic control theory used in this talk is linear
time-invariant and periodic control using disturbance accommodation, but with a strong connection to the
aerodynamics and structural dynamics of wind turbines. New work in adaptive control of wind turbines will
also be presented.
Biography: Mark Balas is the Guthrie Nicholson Professor of Electrical Engineering and Head of the Electrical and
Computer Engineering Department at the University of Wyoming. He has the following technical degrees: PhD
in Mathematics, MS Electrical Engineering, MA Mathematics, and BS Electrical Engineering. He has held
various positions in industry, academia, and government. Among his careers, he has been a university professor
for over 30 years with RPI, MIT, University of Colorado-Boulder, and University of Wyoming, and has
mentored 39 doctoral students. He has over 300 publications in archive journals, refereed conference
proceedings and technical book chapters. He has been visiting faculty with the US Air Force Research
Laboratory-Kirtland AFB, the NASA-Jet Propulsion Laboratory, The NASA Ames Research Center, and is the
Associate Director of the University of Wyoming Wind Energy Research Center and adjunct faculty with the
School of Energy Resources. He is a fellow of the AIAA and a life fellow of the IEEE.
Host: Edmond Jonckheere
More Information: Balas.pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Shane Goodoff
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
The Quest for a Quantum Simultaneous Decoder
Wed, Oct 19, 2011 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Mark M. Wilde, McGill University
Talk Title: The Quest for a Quantum Simultaneous Decoder
Abstract: Almost every channel coding theorem in classical information theory exploits a decoding technique known as "jointly typical decoding." The decoder asks the simple question: "Is the received sequence jointly typical with a sequence in the codebook?" and if so, it decides that the received sequence corresponds to the sequence with which it is jointly typical. If the choice of the code is random, then it is possible to bound the expected transmission error probability by exploiting a union bound and the properties of typicality, as long as the number of messages is not too large. The analogous decoding technique in the quantum world is not so easy. Despite Holevo, Schumacher, and Westmoreland's (HSW) early success in constructing a decoding POVM that resembles a jointly typical decoder, it is not immediately clear how the technique extends to multiparty quantum information theory. Furthermore, it is imperative to show that such a decoding POVM works if we would like to "quantize" the best known achievable rate region for the quantum interference channel. In this talk, I'll update the progress of the McGill quantum information group on solving the quantum simultaneous decoder conjecture. We have now solved it for the case of two senders, but it is not immediately clear how to extend the proof to the case of three senders.
This work is based on a collaboration with Omar Fawzi, Patrick Hayden, Ivan Savov, and Pranab Sen in arXiv:1102.2624 .
Biography: Mark M. Wilde received the B.S. degree in computer engineering from Texas A&M University in 2002, the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from Tulane University in 2004, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California in 2008. Currently, he is a Postdoctoral Fellow with the School of Computer Science, McGill University. He has published over 45 articles and preprints in the area of quantum information processing. His current research interests are in quantum error correction and quantum Shannon theory, and he is the author of the recent text "From Classical to Quantum Shannon Theory."
Host: Todd Brun, x0-3503
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. -
CommNetS Seminar: Net Neutrality & Wireless Net Neutrality: Why Network Researchers Should Care
Wed, Oct 19, 2011 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Prof. Scott Jordan, University of California, Irvine
Talk Title: Net Neutrality & Wireless Net Neutrality: Why Network Researchers Should Care
Series: Communications, Networks & Systems (CommNetS) Seminar
Abstract: Abstract: Net neutrality has become one of the hottest debates about communications public policy. Itâs resolution, or lack thereof, will largely determine whether and how Quality-of-Service mechanisms are deployed in the Internet. I will propose a unified net neutrality policy that applies both to wireline and wireless Internet. The policy is grounded in both communications law and Internet architecture. I will discuss how technical differences between wired and wireless networks should determine reasonable traffic management, and how net neutrality should address Quality of Service requirements of specialized and other services. I will argue that communication service providers should be able to charge both residential and business users for bandwidth and Quality of Service, but not to restrict applications.
Biography: Bio: Scott Jordanâs research interests include communications policy, pricing and differentiated services in the Internet, and resource allocation in wireless multimedia networks. In the communications policy area, he is working on network neutrality and traffic management. He is developing moderate network neutrality policies founded on network architecture that encourage development of network management for multimedia applications while prohibiting anti-competitive behavior. In the networks technology area, he is working on the integration of voice, data, and video on the Internet and on wireless networks. Professor Jordan received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley. He has served as an IEEE Congressional Fellow, working in the United States Senate on Internet and telecommunications policy issues, and on the FCC Open Internet Technical Advisory Committee.
Host: Prof. Rahul Jain
More Info: http://csi.usc.edu/~dimakis/CommNetS/doku.php?id=startLocation: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Rahul Jain
Event Link: http://csi.usc.edu/~dimakis/CommNetS/doku.php?id=start
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. -
Quantitative Body Dynamic Contrast Enhanced MRI
Wed, Oct 19, 2011 @ 03:45 PM - 04:45 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Kyunghyun (Kyung) Sung, PhD, Department of Radiology, Stanford University
Talk Title: Quantitative Body Dynamic Contrast Enhanced MRI
Abstract: Dynamic contrast enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI) detects spatial and temporal variations in signal enhancements and can offer a measure of microvascular structure and pathology. Pharmacodynamic biomarkers, provided by quantitative DCE-MRI, have a promising future to be used to monitor tumor response to treatment, but there still exist several challenges to ensure consistent and reliable quantitative DCE-MRI results across different clinical trials in oncology.
In this talk, we describe our recent technical developments to overcome these challenges by 1) improving spatial- and temporal-resolution of MRI using two novel compressed sensing methods, 2) increasing accuracy of T1 measurements with B1 inhomogeneity correction in 3T breast MRI, and 3) easily facilitating data analysis of quantitative DCE-MRI with our software developments (OsiriX plug-ins). Such developments can potentially offer more robust and reproducible measures of microvascular parameters associated with human cancers.
Biography: Kyung Hyun Sung is a Research Associate in the Department of Radiology at Stanford University. He joined the Body Magnetic Resonance (BMR) Group (directed by Brian Hargreaves), which is part of the Radiological Sciences Lab, after completing the PhD program (advised by Prof.Krishna Nayak) in the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Southern California.
His research interests include Dynamic Contrast Enhanced (DCE) MRI, Compressed Sensing (CS), and Fat/Water separation.
Host: Prof. Krishna Nayak
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Talyia Veal
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Quantitative Body Dynamic Contrast Enhanced MRI
Wed, Oct 19, 2011 @ 03:45 PM - 04:45 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Kyunghyun (Kyung) Sung, PhD, Department of Radiology, Stanford University
Talk Title: Quantitative Body Dynamic Contrast Enhanced MRI
Abstract: Dynamic contrast enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI) detects spatial and temporal variations in signal enhancements and can offer a measure of microvascular structure and pathology. Pharmacodynamic biomarkers, provided by quantitative DCE-MRI, have a promising future to be used to monitor tumor response to treatment, but there still exist several challenges to ensure consistent and reliable quantitative DCE-MRI results across different clinical trials in oncology.
In this talk, we describe our recent technical developments to overcome these challenges by 1) improving spatial- and temporal-resolution of MRI using two novel compressed sensing methods, 2) increasing accuracy of T1 measurements with B1 inhomogeneity correction in 3T breast MRI, and 3) easily facilitating data analysis of quantitative DCE-MRI with our software developments (OsiriX plug-ins). Such developments can potentially offer more robust and reproducible measures of microvascular parameters associated with human cancers.
Biography: Kyung Hyun Sung is a Research Associate in the Department of Radiology at Stanford University. He joined the Body Magnetic Resonance (BMR) Group (directed by Brian Hargreaves), part of the Radiological Sciences Lab, after completing the PhD program (advised by Prof.Krishna Nayak) in the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Southern California.
His research interests include Dynamic Contrast Enhanced (DCE) MRI, Compressed Sensing (CS), and Fat/Water separation.
Host: Prof. Krishna Nayak
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Talyia Veal
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Loss Minimization for Voice Onset Time (VOT) Measurement, Phoneme Alignment, and Phoneme Recognition
Tue, Oct 25, 2011 @ 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Joseph Keshet, Ph.D., Research Assistant Professor, TTI-Chicago
Talk Title: Loss Minimization for Voice Onset Time (VOT) Measurement, Phoneme Alignment, and Phoneme Recognition
Abstract: In discriminative learning one is interested in training a system to optimize a certain desired measure of performance, or task loss. In binary classification one typically tries to minimize the error rate. But in prediction for more complex tasks, such as phoneme recognition or voice onset time (VOT) measurement, each task has its own loss. Phoneme recognition performance is measured in terms of phoneme error rate (edit distance) and VOT measurement is quantitatively assessed by the mean deviation from the manually labeled VOT. In the talk I will present two algorithms applied to VOT measurement, phoneme alignment, and phoneme recognition, where the goal is to minimize the specific loss for each task.
In the first part of the talk I will present the problem of automatic VOT measurement and define its loss. I will describe an algorithm which is based on structural support vector machines (SVMs) to minimize this loss. Applied to initial voiceless stops from four corpora (read and conversational speech), the agreement between automatic and manual measurements was found to be near human inter-judge agreement. The experimental results also show that this algorithm provides an accurate and efficient technique for large-scale phonetic analysis.
While algorithms based on structural SVMs are aimed at minimizing the task loss, they actually minimize a surrogate to the task loss, and there is no guarantee about the actual task loss. In the second part of the talk, I will describe a new theorem stating that a general learning update rule directly corresponds to the gradient of the task loss. Based on this update rule I will present a new algorithm for minimizing the unique task loss of phoneme alignment. I will present empirical results on phoneme alignment of a standard test set from the TIMIT corpus, which surpass all previously reported results on this problem. I will show how this update rule can be applied to continuous-density HMMs and will present empirical results on phoneme recognition of TIMIT, showing our approach outperforms previous results on large-margin training of HMMs.
This is joint work with Chih-Chieh Cheng, Tamir Hazan, David McAllester, Morgan Sonderegger, and Mark Stoehr.
Biography: Joseph Keshet received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Tel Aviv University in 1994 and 2002. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the School of Computer Science and Engineering at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2007. From 1995 to 2002 he was a researcher at IDF, and won the prestigious ``Israel Defense Prize'' award for outstanding research and development achievements. From 2007 to 2009 he was a post-doctoral researcher at IDIAP Research Institute in Switzerland. Since 2009 he has been a Research Assistant Professor at TTI-Chicago. He was the founder of and currently chairs the Machine Learning for Speech and Language Processing chapter of the International Speech Communication Association (ISCA), and was one of the organizers of the first Symposium on Machine Learning for Speech and Language Processing. His research interests are in speech and language processing, with a particular interest in speech recognition. His current research focuses on the design, analysis and implementation of machine learning algorithms for the domain of speech and language processing.
Host: Professor Shrikanth Narayanan
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mary Francis
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Path to Mobile Broadband and Cloud Computing in Taiwan
Tue, Oct 25, 2011 @ 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Professor Yi-Bing Lin , National Chiao Tung University
Talk Title: Path to Mobile Broadband and Cloud Computing in Taiwan
Abstract: : This talk will consist of two recent high-tech developments in Taiwan; namely, mobile broadband and cloud computing. First, we will introduce mobile broadband reinforcement cycle and, based on this reinforcement cycle concept, we describe how fast developments in mobile broadband technologies have occurred in Taiwan. In particular, we will elaborate on the evolution path toward 4G, including the All-IP architecture (SAE). We describe the TD-LTE research in National Chiao Tung University (NCTU). With the support of Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), NCTU has deployed a TD-LTE network. In 2010, we collaborated with Chunghwa Telecom, China Mobile Ltd. and ITRI to conduct the world's first cross-strait TD-LTE trial that connected high-definition conference calls between Taiwan and Shanghai through Hong Kong, which was a great success and has pushed Taiwanâs mobile broadband communications into a new era. In the future, we will deploy a TD-LTE testing environment in Taiwan in the next stage. In the second part of the talk, we will describe the R&D efforts in cloud computing in Taiwan.
Biography: Professor Yi-Bing Lin is Vice President and Chair professor of National Chiao Tung University (NCTU). He is a senior technical editor of IEEE Network. He serves on the editorial boards of IEEE Trans. on Vehicular Technology. He is General or Program Chair for prestigious conferences including ACM MobiCom 2002. He is Guest Editor for several journals including IEEE Transactions on Computers. Lin is the author of the books Wireless and Mobile Network Architecture (Wiley, 2001), Wireless and Mobile All-IP Networks (John Wiley,2005), and Charging for Mobile All-IP Telecommunications (Wiley, 2008). Lin received numerous research awards including 2005 NSC Distinguished Researcher, 2006 Academic Award of Ministry of Education and 2008 Award for Outstanding contributions in Science and Technology, Executive Yuen. He is in the advisory boards or the review boards of various government organizations in Taiwan including Ministry of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Transportation and Communications, and National Science Council. He is a member of board of directors, Chunghwa Telecom. Lin is AAAS Fellow, ACM Fellow, IEEE Fellow, and IET Fellow.
Host: Prof. C.-C. Jay Kuo
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Talyia Veal
This event is open to all eligible individuals. USC Viterbi operates all of its activities consistent with the University's Notice of Non-Discrimination. Eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor. -
Privacy in the Smart Grid: Two New Challenges
Wed, Oct 26, 2011 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Lalitha Sankar , Princeton University
Talk Title: Privacy in the Smart Grid: Two New Challenges
Abstract: Two new privacy challenges in the smart grid are presented. First, at the transmission level of the network, a novel problem of competitive privacy is introduced which captures the conflicting interests of collaboration and competition amongst regional energy operators (RTOs) that are interested in estimating the state in a distributed fashion. Second, at the end-user level, the deployment of smart meters leads to the problem of managing the tradeoff between guaranteed privacy to the consumer and utility (benefit) to both consumers and electricity providers. Using the theory of rate distortion, a utility-privacy framework is presented for both problems to quantify precisely the tradeoff between the utility of either cooperating for distributed state estimation or using smart meters and the resulting privacy leakage. The talk is based on joint work with Soummya Kar, Soheil Mohajer, S. Raj Rajagopalan, Ravi Tandon and H. Vincent Poor.
Biography: Lalitha Sankar received the B.Tech degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, the M.S. degree from the University of Maryland, and the Ph.D degree from Rutgers University in 2007. Prior to her doctoral studies, she was a Senior Member of Technical Staff at AT&T Shannon Laboratories. Following her doctorate, Dr. Sankar was a recipient of a three year Science and Technology Teaching Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Council on Science and Technology at Princeton University. She is currently a Research Scholar at Princeton University. Her research interests include wireless communications, information privacy and secrecy, and network information theory. For her doctoral work, she received the 2007-2008 Electrical Engineering Academic Achievement Award from Rutgers University.
Host: Prof. Urbashi Mitra, ubli@usc.edu, x04667
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. -
Game Theory and Human Behavior Seminar
Thu, Oct 27, 2011 @ 12:00 PM - 01:30 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: Aldo Rustichini, Professor of Economics, University of Minnesota
Talk Title: Why Blame?
Abstract: We provide evidence that subjects in an experimental setup blame others for outcomes for which the others cannot be considered responsible. We then provide an explanation of this apparently irrational behavior on the basis of a principal agent model. In the experiment a subject acting as agent chooses between a lottery and a safe asset, paying a fixed amount. The payment of the chosen asset goes to a player, who observes the choice of the agent and the outcome, and can then decide how much of a fixed amount to allocate between the agent and an involved third party, who is one of the subjects in the experiment participating as an agent in another pairing. Since no fraction of the amount could be retained by the principal, he has no other monetary incentive to favor one or the other; hence a shift in the allocation of rewards is a reliable measure of the valence of the affective response of the principal to the agentâs choice and the outcome. Since the agent is clearly not responsible for the outcome of the lottery, an allocation norm that obeys a merit principle (``rewards and penalties depend on responsibilityââ) prescribes that payments depend on the choice of the safe or risky asset, but not on the outcome.
Biography: Aldo Rustichini is Professor of Economics at the University of Minnesota. He has an undergraduate degree in Philosophy (University of Florence, Italy) a Master in Economics (University of Manchester, UK) and a Ph.D in Mathematics (University of Minnesota). He is Fellow of the Econometric Society, and member of the Game Theory Council. He is associate Editor in several international Journals (Journal of Mathematical Economics, Games and Economic Behavior, PLOS One). He is coordinating and directing research groups in the USA, in UK (University of Cambridge) and Italy (Bocconi University). His research interests are in Game Theory, Decision Theory, Experimental Economics and Neuroeconomics.
Host: Milind Tambe
More Information: Why blame.pdf
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
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. -
Integrated Systems Seminar Series
Fri, Oct 28, 2011 @ 03:00 PM - 04:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Prof. Saeed Mohammadi, Purdue University
Talk Title: Prospects of Semiconductor on Insulator (SOI) Technology in Power Amplifiers and Integrated Nanoelectromechanical Systems
Host: Prof. Hossein Hashemi
More Information: Seminar_Speaker_Mohammadi_2011_10_28.pdf
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.
