Select a calendar:
Filter December Events by Event Type:
SUNMONTUEWEDTHUFRISAT
Events for December 02, 2016
-
CS Colloquium and CAIS Seminar: Andy Plumptre - How much to protect and where? Conservation planning in Africa's biodiversity hotspot
Fri, Dec 02, 2016 @ 11:00 AM - 11:50 AM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Andy Plumptre, Tropical Conservation Scientist
Talk Title: How much to protect and where? Conservation planning in Africa's biodiversity hotspot
Series: Center for AI in Society (CAIS) Seminar Series
Abstract: This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Computer Science Research Colloquium.
The Albertine Rift is the richest region for vertebrate conservation in Africa. Protected areas have been established here in the past but mainly for large mammal species. This presentation will look at where needs to be conserved in the region to maximize the conservation impacts in terms of species protected whilst at the same time avoiding future mining developments in the region and the impacts of future climate change. Using conservation planning science to demonstrate the uniqueness of sites then led to the creation of new protected areas.
Biography: Andy Plumptre, PhD is a tropical conservation scientist who has been working for the past 25 years in the Albertine Rift Region of Africa, one of the most biodiverse parts of the continent. His work has focused on many different issues related to the conservation of this region including developing new methods for surveying primates in forests, improving ranger patrolling in protected areas, conservation planning for the Albertine Rift, building national capacity to undertake monitoring and research, supporting transboundary conservation, and establishing new protected areas.
Host: Center for AI in Society, USC
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
-
CS Colloquium: Ariel Felner (Ben-Gurion University) - Search for Optimal Solutions: the Heart of Heuristic Search is Still Beating
Fri, Dec 02, 2016 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Ariel Felner, Ben-Gurion University
Talk Title: Search for Optimal Solutions: the Heart of Heuristic Search is Still Beating
Series: CS Colloquium
Abstract: The field of heuristic search has spawned large number of subfields such as finding good heuristics, abstracting state-spaces, finding solutions of different qualities or that meet different requirements or constraints. However, a major research direction within the field of heuristic search is that of finding optimal solutions.
While the A* algorithm was proved to be optimally effective there exists a large number of algorithms and research directions that enhance the A* family of algorithms and improve their performance. In this talk I'll cover a number of such recent algorithms. These algorithms assume a fixed heuristic function but exploit various algorithmic directions to improve upon A* in many ways along the following lines: better memory usage, improved generations of nodes, interleaving depth-first searches into A*, enhanced calculations of the heuristic and recent developments of optimal bidirectional search.
Biography: Ariel Felner received his Ph.D in 2002 from Bar-Ilan University, Israel, and is now an associate professor at Ben-Gurion University, Israel. He is the chair of the Israeli Association for Artificial intelligence (IAAI) and a council member of SoCS. He is interested in all aspects of heuristic search and has performed research in various areas within the field of heuristic search. He pays specific attention to pedagogical and historical aspects of teaching concepts in this field.
Host: Sven Koenig
Location: Hedco Neurosciences Building (HNB) - 15
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Assistant to CS chair
