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Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for January

  • Seminars in Biomedical Engineering

    Mon, Jan 13, 2014 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM

    Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Charles Liu, M.D., Ph.D., Professor Department of Neurological Surgery USC Keck School of Medicine

    Talk Title: Neurorestoration: Expanding the Possibilities in Clinical Neuroscience through Engineering

    Host: David D'Argenio

    Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta

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  • Nader Engheta Seminar

    Mon, Jan 13, 2014 @ 04:15 PM - 05:15 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Nader Engheta, University of Pennsylvania

    Talk Title: Metaphotonics: Form vs Function

    Abstract: As the fields of metamaterials and nanophotonics reach certain levels of development, new directions and novel vistas appear on the horizon. Modularization, parameterization and functionalization of metamaterials and nanoscale photonics may provide new optical characteristics and functionalities for the platforms of metaphotonics. Indeed, metamaterial “forms” lead to “functions”. These include (a) the extreme-parameter nanophotonics, (b) materials that may function as optical nanocircuits (“optical metatronics” -- a platform for nanoscale information processing), (c) graphene metamaterials as one-atom-thick optical devices, (d) nanomaterials that perform mathematical operations (nanoscale analog computers), (e) nonreciprocal nanostructures for unusual flow of photons, and (f) metamaterial “bits” and “bytes” as building blocks for digital metamaterials, to name a few. In my group we are investigating a variety of features and properties of these concepts and directions in functionalizing metamaterials, and are exploring new classes of phenomena and potential applications. I will discuss some of these topics, present our latest results, and forecast future directions and possibilities.

    Biography: Nader Engheta is the H. Nedwill Ramsey Professor at the University of Pennsylvania with affiliations in the Departments of Electrical and Systems Engineering, Bioengineering, Physics and Astronomy, and Materials Science and Engineering. He received his B.S. degree from the University of Tehran, and his M.S and Ph.D. degrees from Caltech. Selected as one of the Scientific American Magazine 50 Leaders in Science and Technology in 2006 for developing the concept of optical lumped nanocircuits, he is a Guggenheim Fellow, an IEEE Third Millennium Medalist, a Fellow of IEEE, American Physical Society (APS), Optical Society of America (OSA), American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and SPIE-The International Society for Optical Engineering, and the recipient of 2013 Benjamin Franklin Key Award, 2013 Inaugural SINA Award in Engineering, 2012 IEEE Electromagnetics Award, 2008 George H. Heilmeier Award for Excellence in Research, the Fulbright Naples Chair Award, NSF Presidential Young Investigator award, the UPS Foundation Distinguished Educator term Chair, and several teaching awards including the Christian F. and Mary R. Lindback Foundation Award, S. Reid Warren, Jr. Award and W. M. Keck Foundation Award. His current research activities span a broad range of areas including metamaterials, nanophotonics, graphene optics, imaging and sensing inspired by eyes of animal species, optical nanoengineering, microwave and optical antennas, and engineering and physics of fields and waves. He has co-edited the book entitled “Metamaterials: Physics and Engineering Explorations” by Wiley-IEEE Press, 2006. He was the Chair of the Gordon Research Conference on Plasmonics in June 2012.

    Host: EE- Electrophysics and Physics Colloquium

    Location: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - 102

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Marilyn Poplawski

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  • RECHTIN KEYNOTE LECTURE

    Tue, Jan 14, 2014 @ 03:00 PM - 05:30 PM

    Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Karl Kempf, Senior Fellow and Director of Decision Engineering, Intel Corporation

    Talk Title: "Decision Science at Intel Corporation: Looking Back While Moving Ahead"

    Abstract: The myth of perfect rationality in human decision making persisted for years until Herbert Simon (Nobel Laureate 1978) and his colleagues pointed out a number of practical bounds. Only a few years later Daniel Kahneman (Nobel Laureate 2002) and his colleagues showed that humans exhibit a number of biases when making decisions. While the Laureates exposed bounded biased rationality, they left as an exercise for practitioners to clarify how bad humans are in making non-trivial business decisions and what to do about it. In this talk we will review 25+ years of applied decision science as Intel Corporation grew from annual revenues of ~$1.3B to ~$53.3B. The before and after quantitative comparisons gathered for each major decision science application provide at least an estimate of how bad unaided human decision makers are in units of hours expended and dollars missed in the decision room. In addition, we will discuss some promising results on mitigating the bounds and managing the biases.

    3:00-4:00 PM RECEPTION - GER COURTYARD/
    (REFRESHMENTS SERVED)
    4:00-5:30 PM LECTURE - GER AUDITORIUM

    Biography: Karl Kempf is a Senior Fellow and Director of Decision Engineering at Intel Corporation and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of INFORMS, and a Fellow of the IEEE. Karl has served as a research adjunct at Arizona State, Stanford, and North Carolina State universities co-authoring over 150 presentations and papers on topics in applied control and decision theory. His Intel team won the INFORMS Prize and the Wagner Prize and have been finalist for the Edelman Prize. Prior to joining Intel, Karl worked at Pinewood Movie Studios in England on the cinematic special effects for the Superman series of movies and at SEFAC Ferrari in Italy on the Gran Prix racing team. He holds a BA in Physics and a BS in Chemistry, a PhD in Applied Mathematics, and participated in postdoctoral research in Computer Science.

    Host: Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

    More Information: 2014 Eberhardt Rechtin Lecture.pdf

    Location: Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center (GER) - Auditorium

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Georgia Lum

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  • Astani CEE Seminar

    Wed, Jan 15, 2014 @ 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM

    Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Bill Spencer, Nathan M and Anne M. Newark Endowed Chair in Civil Engineering , University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

    Talk Title: Structural Health Monitoring of Civil Infrastructure: from Research to Engineering Practice

    Abstract:
    The ability to continuously monitor the integrity of civil infrastructure in real-time offers the opportunity to reduce maintenance and inspection costs, while providing for increased safety to the public. Furthermore, after natural disasters, it is imperative that emergency facilities and evacuation routes, including bridges and highways, be assessed for safety. Addressing all of these issues is the objective of structural health monitoring (SHM). Smart sensors densely distributed over structures can provide rich information for structural health monitoring using their sensing, computational, and wireless communication capabilities. Though smart sensor technology has seen substantial advances during recent years, implementation of smart sensors on full-scale structures has been limited; interdisciplinary efforts to address issues in sensors, networks, and application specific algorithms have only now begun to germinate. Following an overview of these issues, a new paradigm for structural health monitoring employing a network of smart sensors will be presented. Because of its ability to meet the demands of data intensive applications such as SHM, MEMSIC’s Imote2 is adopted for this research. The system is deployed to monitor the Jindo Bridge, a cable-stayed bridge in South Korea with a 344m main span. This project constitutes the world’s largest deployment of wireless sensors to monitor civil infrastructure and signifies a new paradigm for structural health monitoring that is leading to dramatic improvements over existing capabilities. A preview of recent efforts toward campaign monitoring of railroad bridges will also be presented.


    Biography: Bill Spencer received his Ph.D. in theoretical and applied mechanics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1985. He worked on the faculty at the University of Notre Dame for 17 years before returning to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he currently holds the Nathan M. and Anne M. Newmark Endowed Chair in Civil Engineering and is the Director of the Newmark Structural Engineering Laboratory. His research has been primarily in the areas of smart structures, stochastic fatigue, stochastic computational mechanics, and natural hazard mitigation. He is a Fellow of ASCE, a Foreign Member of the Polish Academy of Sciences, the North American Editor in Chief of Smart Structures and Systems, and the past president of the Asia-Pacific Network of Centers for Research in Smart Structures Technology.



    Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Evangeline Reyes

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  • The W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Colloquim

    Fri, Jan 17, 2014 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM

    USC Viterbi School of Engineering, Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Prof. Paul Ronney, Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering

    Talk Title: Serendipity and Contrarianism in Research: Hit 'Em where They Ain't

    Host: W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Program

    Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Christine Viterbi Admission & Student Affairs

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  • Epstein Institute / ISE 651 Seminar Series

    Fri, Jan 17, 2014 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM

    Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Jim Dai, Professor of Operations Research, Cornell University The Chandler Family Chair of ISyE, Georgia Tech (on leave)

    Talk Title: "Maximum Pressure Policies for Stochastic Processing Networks"

    Series: Epstein Institute Seminar Series

    Abstract: Stochastic processing networks model complex systems including semiconductor wafer fabrication lines, networks of data switches, and large-scale call centers. Key performance measures of such a network include throughput and average cycle time. Elements of an operational policy may include input control, sequencing, and routing; the choice of such a policy can dramatically affect network performance.

    I will first demonstrate that even in simple networks, commonly used operational policies such as first-in-first-out sequencing may perform badly, failing to achieve even "throughput optimality." I will then introduce a family of policies known as maximum pressure policies. Such a policy needs only local or semi-local congestion information to be implemented. Often, its implementation does not require arrival rate information which can be difficult to be estimated reliably.

    Next, I will focus on two appealing properties of maximum pressure policies. (1) These policies are shown to be throughput optimal, regardless of the processing network's topology or parameter values. (2) Such a policy is further shown to asymptotically minimize a certain diffusion-scaled quadratic holding cost when the network satisfies a heavy traffic condition and a complete resource pooling condition. Finally, I will discuss some recent research progress on these policies.

    Jim Dai is currently on leave from Georgia Tech. This talk is based on joint works with Wuqin Lin at Kellogg School of Business of Northwestern University.

    FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2014
    SEELEY G. MUDD HALL (SGM) ROOM 601
    2:00 – 3:30 PM


    Biography: Jim Dai is a professor in the School of Operations Research and Information Engineering (ORIE) of Cornell University. He is currently on leave from his Edenfield Professor of Industrial & Systems Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology, where he has been a faculty member for 22 years. He is a Special Term Professor at Tsinghua University and a Visiting Professor in Decision Sciences at National University of Singapore. For more than twenty years, he has worked on stochastic models arising from communications, manufacturing, and service systems that include data switches, semiconductor wafer fabrication lines, call centers, and healthcare-delivery systems.

    Jim Dai received B.A. and M.S. degrees from Nanjing University and a Ph.D. degree from Stanford University, all in mathematics. He is an elected fellow of Institute of Mathematical Statistics and an elected fellow of Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). His awards for research contributions include the Best Publication Award in 1997 and The Erlang Prize in 1998, both from the Applied Probability Society of INFORMS. He delivered the Markov Lecture at INFORMS national meeting in October 2012. He is the Editor-in-Chief for Mathematics of Operations Research, a past Area Editor for Operations Research, and a past Series Editor for Handbooks in Operations Research and Management Science.

    Research Interests

    Stochastic processing networks, Fluid and Diffusion models of queuing networks, Impulse, singular and drift controls of diffusions, Customer contact center management, Patient flow management in hospitals, Semiconductor wafer manufacturing, Airline Revenue management, Algorithm trading, and Orderbook dynamics.

    Host: Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

    More Information: Seminar-Dai.doc

    Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 601

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Georgia Lum

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  • NL Seminar- Mohsen Taheriyan: "A Graph-based Approach to Learn Semantic Descriptions of Data Sources"

    Fri, Jan 17, 2014 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM

    Information Sciences Institute

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Mohsen Taheriyan, USC/ ISI

    Talk Title: "A Graph-based Approach to Learn Semantic Descriptions of Data Sources"

    Series: Natural Language Seminar

    Abstract: Abstract: Semantic models of data sources and services provide support to automate many tasks such as source discovery, data integration, and service composition, but writing these semantic descriptions by hand is a tedious and time-consuming task. Most of the related work focuses on automatic annotation with classes or properties of source attributes or input and output parameters. However, constructing a source model that includes the relationships between the attributes in addition to their semantic types remains a largely unsolved problem. In this talk, we present a graph-based approach to hypothesize a rich semantic description of a new target source from a set of known sources that have been modeled over the same domain ontology. We exploit the domain ontology and the known source models to build a graph that represents the space of plausible source descriptions. Then, we compute the top k candidates and suggest to the user a ranked list of the semantic models for the new source. The approach takes into account user corrections to learn more accurate semantic descriptions of future data sources. Our evaluation shows that our method produces models that are twice as accurate than the models produced using a state of the art system that does not learn from prior models.



    Biography: Mohsen's webpage: http://www-scf.usc.edu/~taheriya/

    Host: Yang Gao

    More Info: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/

    Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - Marina Del Rey, Conf Rm- #1135

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Peter Zamar

    Event Link: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/

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  • Integrated Systems Seminar Series - Spring 2014

    Fri, Jan 17, 2014 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Donald Lie, Texas Tech University

    Talk Title: Design of Silicon-Based Envelope-Tracking Power Amplifiers (ET-PA) for Highly-Efficient Broadband Wireless Applications; also a Briefing on Medical Electronics Research in My Group

    Abstract: The latest broadband wireless (4G/WLAN) standards utilize inherent spectral-efficient modulation schemes with high peak-to-average power ratios (PAPR) and wide signal bandwidth, which demand high linearity RF power amplifier (PA) design techniques that can offer excellent power-added efficiency (PAE) at both the maximum peak power and the power back-off levels to provide power saving. As suggested by the recent market trends and the literature, the dynamic power-supply modulation techniques (e.g., the envelope-elimination-and-restoration (EER) and the envelope-tracking (ET) schemes) are among the most effective methods for RF PA efficiency enhancement at both peak and back-off output power modes for various DoD and commercial applications. I would, therefore, present some of the latest design techniques, research, and market trends of high efficiency supply-modulated RF PAs, with emphasis on the silicon-based ET-PA design done in my group. I will also provide a brief highlight on some of the medical electronics research in my group.

    Biography: Donald Y.C. Lie (S’86–M’87–SM’00) received his B.S.E.E. degree from the National Taiwan University in 1987, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering (minor in applied physics) from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, in 1990 and 1995, respectively. He has held technical and managerial positions at companies such as Rockwell International, Silicon-Wave (now Qualcomm), IBM, Microtune Inc., SYS Technologies, and Dynamic Research Corporation (DRC). He is currently the Keh-Shew Lu Regents Chair Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, and also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Surgery, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. He has brought in multi-million dollars research funding and also designed real-world commercial communication products sold internationally. He was a Visiting Lecturer to the ECE Department, University of California, San Diego (UCSD) during 2002-2007 where he taught upper-division and graduate-level classes and affiliated with UCSD’s Center of Wireless Communications (CWC) and co-supervised Ph.D. students. Dr. Lie has been serving on the Executive Committee of the IEEE Bipolar/BiCMOS Circuits and Technology Meeting (BCTM), SiRF, MWSCAS, TSWMCS, and also on various Technical Program Committees (TPCs) for IEEE RFIC Symp., VLSI-DAT, ISCAS, PAWR, IEEE-NIH LiSSA, BIOCAS, etc. Dr. Lie has been awarded with the US NAVY SPAWAR SSC San Diego “Center Team Achievement Award”, Spring 2007; won 3 DRC Silver Awards of Excellence, 2005-2007; received IBM "FIRST" chairman patent award, 2001-2002 and Rockwell International’s “FIRST” engineering awards, 1996-1998. He and his students have won several Best Graduate Student Paper Awards and Best Paper Awards in international conferences in 1994, 1995, 2006, 2008 (twice), 2010 (twice), 2011, 2012, and 2013. Dr. Lie has been serving as an Associate Editor of IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Letters (MWCL) since 2010, and as the Associate Editor-in-Chief (EiC) for the Open Journal of Applied Biosensor (OJAB) and on the Editorial Board of i-manager’s Journal on Electrical Engineering. He was a Guest Editor of IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits (JSSC) in 2009, the Special Topic Editor for IEEE MWCL in 2012. He has consulted for several IC design companies and an international research institute, and also for one of the best IP/Patent laws firms in the world. Dr. Lie has co-founded the NoiseFigure Research Inc. with his former student Dr. Lopez, and has coauthored over 150 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters and holds six U.S. patents. Dr. Lie’s group has published three most downloaded TOP 100 papers on the IEEE Xplore™ in Sept, 2012, June 2012, and Sept. 2009, respectively. His research interests are: (1) power-efficient RF/Analog IC and System-on-a-Chip (SoC) design and test; and (2) interdisciplinary and clinical research on medical electronics, biosensors, and biosignal processing.

    Host: Hossien Hashemi, Mike Chen, Mahta Moghaddam, Sushil Subramanian

    More Info: http://mhi.usc.edu/activities/integrated-systems/

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Sushil Subramanian

    Event Link: http://mhi.usc.edu/activities/integrated-systems/

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  • Astani CEE Ph.D. Seminar

    Fri, Jan 17, 2014 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Kelly T. Sanders, Astani CEE Faculty

    Talk Title: Evaluating the efficacy of water conservation strategies through changes in the power sector

    Abstract:

    This presentation explores the effect of increasing the valuation of water through market levers as a mechanism to induce water savings from thermoelectric power plants the Electric Reliability Council of Texas' (ERCOT) electric grid. To do so, a unit commitment and dispatch model was utilized to simulate power generation, wholesale generation costs, water withdrawals, and water consumption across a set of increased cooling water costs ranging from 10 to 1,000 USD per acre-foot. This set of cooling water costs was applied to 1) the water consumed for power generation via evaporation and 2) the entire volume of water withdrawn for cooling. Results suggest that water withdrawals for cooling thermoelectric power plants in ERCOT can be reduced by as much as 75%, while water consumption can be reduced by 23% by imposing a fee for water. However, to achieve these water savings, wholesale electricity generation costs might increase as much as120% based on 2011 fuel costs and generation characteristics.

    Although conventional long-term water supply projects tended to be more cost-effective than water management through shifts in power generation, the electric grid demonstrates short-term flexibility that conventional water supply projects do not. Thus, there might be conditions under which the grid could be effective at “supplying" water, particularly during emergency drought conditions.


    Location: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - 102

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Evangeline Reyes

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  • Seminars in Biomedical Engineering

    Mon, Jan 20, 2014 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM

    Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Talk Title: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (NO SEMINAR)

    Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta

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  • Oral Defense Dissertation

    Tue, Jan 21, 2014 @ 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Nan Li, Ph.D. Candidate, Astani Departmentof Civil and Environmental Engineering, USC

    Talk Title: A Radio Frequency Based Indoor Localization Framework For Supporting Building Emergency Response Operations

    Abstract: Building emergencies especially structure fires are big threats to the safety of building occupants and first responders. When emergencies occur, unfamiliar environments are difficult and dangerous for first responders to search and rescue, sometimes leading to secondary casualties. One way to reduce such hazards is to provide first responders with timely access to accurate location information. Despite its importance, access to the location information at emergency scenes is far from being automated and efficient. This thesis assesses the value of location information through a card game, and identifies a set of important requirements for indoor localization through a survey. The most important five requirements are: accuracy, ease of on-scene deployment, resistance to damages, computational speed, and device size and weight. The thesis proposes a radio frequency based indoor localization framework. When there is usable existing sensing infrastructure in a building, an iterative maximum likelihood estimation localization algorithm is proposed for the framework. The algorithm integrates a maximum likelihood estimation technique for location computation. The algorithm also introduces an iterative process that mitigates impacts of radio signal’s multipath and fading effects on localization accuracy. When no existing sensing infrastructure is accessible and an ad-hoc sensor network needs to be established, an environment aware beacon deployment algorithm is proposed for supporting a sequence based localization schema. The algorithm is designed to achieve dual objectives of improving room-level localization accuracy and reducing the effort required to deploy the ad-hoc sensor network. Moreover, building information models are integrated to both algorithms. Building information plays an important role in mitigating multipath and fading effects in iterative location computation, enabling the metaheuristic based search for building-specific satisfactory beacon deployment plans, and providing a graphical interface for user interaction and result visualization. The framework was validated in both simulations and real-world experiments. The simulations involved two fire emergency scenarios in an office building, and reported room-level accuracies of above 87.0% and coordinate-level accuracies of above 1.78 m. The real-world experiments involved the same test bed and scenarios, and used a smartphone based prototype. The experiments reported room-level accuracies of above 82.8% and coordinate-level accuracies of above 2.29 m. The framework was also proven to be deployable in limited time and robust against partial loss of devices, and could promisingly satisfy other aforementioned important requirements for indoor localization at building emergency scenes.


    Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 209 Conference Room

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Evangeline Reyes

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  • Epstein Institute / ISE 651 Seminar Series

    Tue, Jan 21, 2014 @ 03:30 PM - 04:50 PM

    Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Roger J-B Wets, Distinguished Research Professor of Mathematics, University of California, Davis

    Talk Title: "The Unit Commitment Problem: Dealing with the Uncertainties"

    Series: Epstein Institute Seminar Series

    Abstract: ISO (Independent System Operators) manage the writing of contracts with generating- and consuming-units (on day D-1) and the dispatching of the electricity (on day D). Given the inherent uncertainty of the weather dependent requirements (loads) and even more significantly, the uncertainty of the power to be generated by renewables (wind, solar,…). The optimal choice of contracts (on day D-1) becomes a rather complex (large) mixed integer stochastic programming problem that needs to be solved in a rather short time frame. This gets compounded with the fact that essentially no satisfactorily procedures have been developed to go from information available on day D-1 to potential scenarios on day D. The lecture will provide a brief survey of the solution procedure but will mostly focus on the building of a new technology, relying heavily on optimization, theory and technology, used to build the uncertainty which in turn leads to generating day D scenarios.

    TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2014
    VON KLEINSMID CENTER (VKC) ROOM 100
    3:30 - 4:50 PM


    Biography: Roger Wets is a Distinguished Research Professor of Mathematics at the University of California, Davis. He guided nineteen students to their Ph.D. His main research interests have been stochastic optimization and variational analysis. For this work he has received a number of prizes that include Guggenheim and Erskine Fellowships, the SIAM-MPS Dantzig Prize in Mathematical programming and the INFORMS Lanchester prize for the book “Variational Analysis” that he co-authored with R.T. Rockafellar. During the last decade his research has been focused on equilibrium problems, in particular equilibrium problems in a stochastic environment, and on nonparametric estimation, in particular on the fusion of hard and soft information. Over time, he has been associated with the Boeing Scientific Research Labs, the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (Laxenburg, Austria), the IBM-T.J. Watson Research Center (Yorktown Heights, N.Y.), the Center for Mathematical Modeling of the University of Chile and the World Bank. This resulted in getting involved in projects related to aerospace, telecommunications, finance, soil management and water resources, manufacturing and energy. He has published about 200 technical articles, mostly in pure and applied mathematical journals, but also in journals dealing with probability, statistics, economics and ecology. He held, or holds, editorial positions on a number of leading journals in mathematics and operations research.

    Host: Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

    More Information: Seminar-Wets.doc

    Location: Von Kleinsmid Center For International & Public Affairs (VKC) - 100

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Georgia Lum

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  • Heat Under the Microscope: Uncovering the microscopic processes that govern thermal transport, Austin Minnich

    Wed, Jan 22, 2014 @ 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Austin J. Minnich, California Institute of Technology

    Talk Title: Heat Under the Microscope: Uncovering the microscopic processes that govern thermal transport

    Abstract: Thermal transport is a ubiquitous process that plays an essential role in nearly every technological application, ranging from space power generation to consumer electronics. In many of these applications, heat is carried by phonons, or quanta of lattice vibrations. Compared to other energy carriers such as electrons or photons, the microscopic properties of thermal phonons remain remarkably poorly understood, with much of our understanding still based on semi-empirical studies from over fifty years ago. In this talk, I will describe our efforts to uncover the microscopic processes that govern thermal transport by phonons using both experiment and computation. In particular, I will describe a new experimental technique that has enabled the first direct measurements of phonon mean free paths in a wide range of crystalline solids. I will demonstrate how these insights are advancing applications ranging from thermoelectric waste heat recovery to radio astronomy.

    Host: EE-EP

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Marilyn Poplawski

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  • Distinguished Lectures: Engineering immunity via hitchhiking therapeutics

    Distinguished Lectures: Engineering immunity via hitchhiking therapeutics

    Thu, Jan 23, 2014 @ 12:45 PM - 01:50 PM

    Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Darrell Irvine, Departments of Biological Engineering and Materials Science & Engineering, Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard Howard Hughes Medical Institute

    Talk Title: Engineering immunity via hitchhiking therapeutics

    Series: Distinguished Lectures

    Abstract: Our laboratory develops synthetic materials as tools to dissect cellular immunology and as delivery agents for new immunotherapies and vaccines. In this talk, two examples illustrating work from our laboratory will be described. In the first segment, we focus on the problem of targeting antigens and immunostimulatory agents to lymph nodes, the anatomical site where immune responses are initiated. A clinical procedure where efficient lymph node targeting is achieved is sentinel lymph node mapping in cancer patients, where small-molecule dyes are efficiently delivered to lymph nodes by binding to serum albumin. To mimic this process for vaccine delivery, we synthesized amphiphiles designed to non-covalently bind vaccine antigens and adjuvants to endogenous albumin. These “albumin-hitchhiking” amphiphiles were efficiently delivered to lymph nodes following injection, leading to impressively amplified cellular immune responses and anti-tumor immunity.

    In a second example, we turn to a cellular therapy for cancer. Adoptive cell therapy (ACT) using patient-derived tumor-specific T-cells is a promising approach for cancer treatment, but strategies to enhance the persistence and functionality of ACT T-cells are still sought. Meanwhile, the use of synthetic nanoparticles as carriers to deliver drugs to tumor environments has become of increasing interest, with the goal of targeting drugs to tumor sites. We will describe a strategy combining these two approaches, based on chemical conjugation or targeting of drug-loaded nanoparticles (NPs) to the surfaces of live lymphocytes for ACT. We demonstrate how ACT T-cells carrying cytokine-loaded NPs (to permit pseudo-autocrine self-stimulation following transfer into tumor-bearing hosts) are capable of massive in vivo expansion and robust anti-tumor responses, enabled by minimal doses of cytokines that by comparison have no therapeutic effect when given in a soluble form systemically. Together, these results suggest that the combination of nanotechnology approaches with cell therapy can dramatically enhance the efficacy of cancer immunotherapies.

    Host: Prof. Wang

    More Information: Darrel Irvine poster-2014.pdf

    Location: James H. Zumberge Hall Of Science (ZHS) - 159

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Ryan Choi

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  • The W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Colloquim

    Fri, Jan 24, 2014 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM

    USC Viterbi School of Engineering, Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Dr. Paul Debevec, Associate Director of Graphics Research, USC, Institute for Creative Technologies

    Talk Title: Achieving Photoreal Digital Actors in Film and in Real-Time

    Host: W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Program

    Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Christine Viterbi Admission & Student Affairs

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  • AI Seminar-Chris Mattmann:

    Fri, Jan 24, 2014 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM

    Information Sciences Institute

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Chris Mattmann, Jet Propulsion Laboratory-NASA

    Talk Title: "BIG DATA! 24 hour near real time processing and computation for the JPL Airborne Snow Observatory"

    Series: Artificial Intelligence Seminar

    Abstract: JPL's Airborne Snow Observatory is an integrated imaging spectrometer and scanning LIDAR for measuring mountain snow albedo, snow depth/snow water equivalent, and ice height (once exposed), led by PI Dr. Tom Painter. The team recently wrapped our "Snow On" campaign where over a course of 3 months, we flew the Tuolumne River Basin, Sierra Nevada, California above the O'Shaughnessy Dam of the Hetch Hetchy reservoir; focusing initial on the Tuolumne, and then moving to weekly flights over the Uncompahgre Basin, Colorado.

    To meet the needs of its customers including Water Resource managers who are keenly interested in Snow melt, the ASO team had to develop and end to end 24 hour latency capability for processing spectrometer and LIDAR data from Level 0 to Level 4 ("ish") products. Fondly referring to these processing campaigns as "rodeos" the team rapidly constructed an open source data processing system at minimal cost and risk that not only met our processing demands, but taught the entire team many lessons about remote sensing of snow and dust properties, algorithm integration, the relationship between computer scientists, and snow hydrologist; flight and engineering teams, geographers, and most importantly lessons about camaraderie that will engender highly innovative and rapid data systems development, and quality science products for years to come.

    Chris Mattmann is the Compute Lead for the ASO project and he will humbly tell the story of the Compute processing capability on behalf of the larger team, highlighting contributions of its key members along the way.





    Biography: http://www.amazon.com/Chris-Mattmann/e/B006V44GIG

    Home Page:
    http://sunset.usc.edu/~mattmann/


    Host: Yolanda Gil

    More Info: http://webcasterms1.isi.edu/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=91c9c7ae70c24b789a031a66963e297c1d

    Webcast: TBA

    Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 11th Flr Conf Rm # 1135, Marina Del Rey

    WebCast Link: TBA

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Peter Zamar

    Event Link: http://webcasterms1.isi.edu/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=91c9c7ae70c24b789a031a66963e297c1d

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  • Integrated Systems Seminar Series - Spring 2014

    Fri, Jan 24, 2014 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Xicheng Jiang, Broadcom

    Talk Title: Evolution of Mixed-Signal Analog for System-on-Chip Products

    Abstract: The demand for connectivity products keeps expanding at a faster and faster pace. By 2015 the number of global network connections will exceed two times the world population. Large system chips with advanced mixed signal analog blocks are driving the cost reductions which enable this world-wide technology explosion. This talk provides an overview of how mixed signal analog circuits have evolved in our SoCs over the past 15 years. It discusses the analog integration challenges, and offers solutions that enable SOC evolution with successful integration and cost reduction of all types of mixed-signal analog blocks. Practical design examples are used throughout the presentation.

    Biography: Xicheng Jiang received the B.S. degree from University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, P. R. China, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from University of California, Los Angeles, CA.
    Since 1997, he has been with Analog and RF microelectronics group at Broadcom, where he is currently a Broadcom Distinguished Engineer and the senior manager, IC design engineering. His research interest includes data converters, high-speed serial transceivers, cellular baseband, Hi-Fi audio drivers and microphone interfaces.
    Dr. Jiang is a Fellow of IEEE. He is the Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Circuit and System II, and currently serves on the Technical Program Committee of ISSCC and CICC. He is a named inventor on more than 30 issued and pending U.S. patents and has authored or coauthored over 30 conference and journal papers. He is the co-recipient of the 2009 CICC Best Paper Award.


    Host: Hossien Hashemi, Mike Chen, Mahta Moghaddam, Sushil Subramanian

    More Info: http://mhi.usc.edu/activities/integrated-systems/

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Sushil Subramanian

    Event Link: http://mhi.usc.edu/activities/integrated-systems/

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  • Astani CEE Ph.D. Seminar

    Fri, Jan 24, 2014 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Ruda Zhang and Mohamed Abdelbarr, Astani CEE Ph.D. Students

    Talk Title: TBA

    Abstract: TBA

    Location: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - 102

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Evangeline Reyes

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  • Repeating EventSix Sigma Black Belt

    Mon, Jan 27, 2014 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM

    Executive Education

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: TBA,

    Talk Title: Six Sigma Black Belt

    Abstract: Course Overview

    This course teaches you the advanced problem-solving skills you'll need in order to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. Project assignments between sessions require you to apply what you've learned. This course is presented in the classroom in three five-day sessions over a three-month period.

    Learn the advanced problem-solving skills you need to implement the principles, practices and techniques of Six Sigma to maximize performance and cost reductions in your organization. During this three-week practitioner course, you will learn how to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. You will be required to complete a project demonstrating mastery of appropriate analytical methods and pass an examination to earn IIE's Six Sigma Black Belt Certificate.This practitioner course for Six Sigma implementation provides extensive coverage of the Six Sigma process as well as intensive exposure to the key analytical tools associated with Six Sigma, including project management, team skills, cost analysis, FMEA, basic statistics, inferential statistics, sampling, goodness of fit testing, regression and correlation analysis, reliability, design of experiments, statistical process control, measurement systems analysis and simulation. Computer applications are emphasized.


    NOTE: Participants must bring a laptop computer running Microsoft Office to the seminar.

    Course Topics

    * Business process management
    * Computer applications
    * Design of experiments (DOE)
    * Design for Six Sigma (DFSS)
    * DMAIIC
    * Enterprisewide deployment
    * Lean enterprise
    * Project management
    * Regression and correlation modeling
    * Statistical methods and sampling
    * Statistical process control
    * Team processes

    Benefits

    Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

    * Analyze process data using comprehensive statistical methods
    * Control the process to assure that improvements are used and the benefits verified
    * Define an opportunity for improving customer satisfaction
    * Implement the recommended improvements
    * Improve existing processes by reducing variation
    * Measure process characteristics that are critical to quality

    Who Should Attend

    * VPs, COOs, CEOs
    * Employees new to a managerial position
    * Employees preparing to make the transition to managerial roles
    * Current managers wanting to hone leadership skills
    * Anyone interested in implementing Lean or Six Sigma in their organization

    Program Fees

    On-Campus Participants: $7,245
    Includes continental breakfasts, lunch and all course materials. The fee does not include hotel accommodations or transportation.

    Online Participant with Live Session Interactivity: $7,245

    Includes attendee access codes for live call-in or chat capabilities during class sessions. Also includes all course and lecture materials available for live stream or download.



    Reduced Pricing:

    Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE): Reduced pricing is available for members of IIE. Please contact professional@gapp.usc.edu for further information.

    Trojan Family: USC alumni, current students, faculty, and staff receive 10% reduced pricing on registration.

    Boeing: Boeing employees receive 20% off registration fees (please use Boeing email address when registering).

    Location
    Two course delivery options are available for participants, on-campus and online with interactivity:

    On-Campus Course is held in state-of-the-art facilities on the University of Southern California campus, located in downtown Los Angeles. Participants attending on-campus will have the option to commute to the course or stay at one of the many hotels located in the area. For travel information, please visit our Travel section.

    Overview of on-campus option:

    * The ability to interact with faculty and peers in-person.
    * Access to hard copy course materials.
    * Ability to logon and view archived course information - up to 7 days after the course has been offered. This includes course documents and streaming video of the lectures.
    * If there is a conflict during any on-campus course dates, on-campus participants can elect to be an online/interactive student.
    * Parking, refreshments and lunch are provided for on-campus participants unless otherwise specified.

    Online (Interactivity) Course delivery is completely online and real-time, enabling interaction with the instructor and fellow participants. Participants have the flexibility of completing the course from a distance utilizing USC's Distance Education Network technology. Students are required to be online for the entirety of each day's session.

    Overview of online (interactive):

    * Virtually participate in the course live with the ability to either ask questions or chat questions to the entire class.
    * WebEx technologies provide the option to call into the class and view the entire lecture/materials on a personal computer, or to participate on a computer without having to utilize a phone line.
    * Ability to logon and view archived course information up to 7 days after the course has been offered. This includes course documents and streaming video of the lectures.

    Continuing Education Units
    CEUs: 10.5 (CEUs provided by request only)


    USC Viterbi School of Engineering Certificate of Participation is awarded to all participants upon successful completion of course.

    Upon completion, participants will also receive their Institute of Industrial Engineers certification in Six Sigma Black Belt.

    Host: Corporate and Professional Programs

    More Info: http://gapp.usc.edu/professional-programs/short-courses/industrial%26systems/six-sigma-black-belt

    Audiences: Registered Attendees

    View All Dates

    Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs

    Event Link: http://gapp.usc.edu/professional-programs/short-courses/industrial%26systems/six-sigma-black-belt

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  • Seminars in Biomedical Engineering

    Mon, Jan 27, 2014 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM

    Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Christianne N. Heck, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor Department of Neurology USC Keck School of Medicine

    Talk Title: TBA

    Host: David D'Argenio

    Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta

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  • Engineering, Neuroscience & Health (ENR)

    Mon, Jan 27, 2014 @ 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM

    Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Roger Lemon, University College of London (UCL), London, England

    Talk Title: Mirror neurons, motor commands and movement: new insights into corticospinal function

    Series: Engineering, Neuroscience & Health (ENH Seminars)

    Abstract: Please see attached abstract.

    Refreshments will be served from 3.30 to 4 pm.


    Host: Francisco Valero-Cuevas

    Webcast: http://capture.usc.edu/Mediasite/Catalog/Full/946350f1ca8440e7b867e16adba01e4e21/?state=xJE9EJIqlAdw4AAliKfp

    More Information: Lemon_ENH.pdf

    Location: Hedco Neurosciences Building (HNB) - 100

    WebCast Link: http://capture.usc.edu/Mediasite/Catalog/Full/946350f1ca8440e7b867e16adba01e4e21/?state=xJE9EJIqlAdw4AAliKfp

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta

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  • Repeating EventSix Sigma Black Belt

    Tue, Jan 28, 2014 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM

    Executive Education

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: TBA,

    Talk Title: Six Sigma Black Belt

    Abstract: Course Overview

    This course teaches you the advanced problem-solving skills you'll need in order to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. Project assignments between sessions require you to apply what you've learned. This course is presented in the classroom in three five-day sessions over a three-month period.

    Learn the advanced problem-solving skills you need to implement the principles, practices and techniques of Six Sigma to maximize performance and cost reductions in your organization. During this three-week practitioner course, you will learn how to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. You will be required to complete a project demonstrating mastery of appropriate analytical methods and pass an examination to earn IIE's Six Sigma Black Belt Certificate.This practitioner course for Six Sigma implementation provides extensive coverage of the Six Sigma process as well as intensive exposure to the key analytical tools associated with Six Sigma, including project management, team skills, cost analysis, FMEA, basic statistics, inferential statistics, sampling, goodness of fit testing, regression and correlation analysis, reliability, design of experiments, statistical process control, measurement systems analysis and simulation. Computer applications are emphasized.


    NOTE: Participants must bring a laptop computer running Microsoft Office to the seminar.

    Course Topics

    * Business process management
    * Computer applications
    * Design of experiments (DOE)
    * Design for Six Sigma (DFSS)
    * DMAIIC
    * Enterprisewide deployment
    * Lean enterprise
    * Project management
    * Regression and correlation modeling
    * Statistical methods and sampling
    * Statistical process control
    * Team processes

    Benefits

    Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

    * Analyze process data using comprehensive statistical methods
    * Control the process to assure that improvements are used and the benefits verified
    * Define an opportunity for improving customer satisfaction
    * Implement the recommended improvements
    * Improve existing processes by reducing variation
    * Measure process characteristics that are critical to quality

    Who Should Attend

    * VPs, COOs, CEOs
    * Employees new to a managerial position
    * Employees preparing to make the transition to managerial roles
    * Current managers wanting to hone leadership skills
    * Anyone interested in implementing Lean or Six Sigma in their organization

    Program Fees

    On-Campus Participants: $7,245
    Includes continental breakfasts, lunch and all course materials. The fee does not include hotel accommodations or transportation.

    Online Participant with Live Session Interactivity: $7,245

    Includes attendee access codes for live call-in or chat capabilities during class sessions. Also includes all course and lecture materials available for live stream or download.



    Reduced Pricing:

    Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE): Reduced pricing is available for members of IIE. Please contact professional@gapp.usc.edu for further information.

    Trojan Family: USC alumni, current students, faculty, and staff receive 10% reduced pricing on registration.

    Boeing: Boeing employees receive 20% off registration fees (please use Boeing email address when registering).

    Location
    Two course delivery options are available for participants, on-campus and online with interactivity:

    On-Campus Course is held in state-of-the-art facilities on the University of Southern California campus, located in downtown Los Angeles. Participants attending on-campus will have the option to commute to the course or stay at one of the many hotels located in the area. For travel information, please visit our Travel section.

    Overview of on-campus option:

    * The ability to interact with faculty and peers in-person.
    * Access to hard copy course materials.
    * Ability to logon and view archived course information - up to 7 days after the course has been offered. This includes course documents and streaming video of the lectures.
    * If there is a conflict during any on-campus course dates, on-campus participants can elect to be an online/interactive student.
    * Parking, refreshments and lunch are provided for on-campus participants unless otherwise specified.

    Online (Interactivity) Course delivery is completely online and real-time, enabling interaction with the instructor and fellow participants. Participants have the flexibility of completing the course from a distance utilizing USC's Distance Education Network technology. Students are required to be online for the entirety of each day's session.

    Overview of online (interactive):

    * Virtually participate in the course live with the ability to either ask questions or chat questions to the entire class.
    * WebEx technologies provide the option to call into the class and view the entire lecture/materials on a personal computer, or to participate on a computer without having to utilize a phone line.
    * Ability to logon and view archived course information up to 7 days after the course has been offered. This includes course documents and streaming video of the lectures.

    Continuing Education Units
    CEUs: 10.5 (CEUs provided by request only)


    USC Viterbi School of Engineering Certificate of Participation is awarded to all participants upon successful completion of course.

    Upon completion, participants will also receive their Institute of Industrial Engineers certification in Six Sigma Black Belt.

    Host: Corporate and Professional Programs

    More Info: http://gapp.usc.edu/professional-programs/short-courses/industrial%26systems/six-sigma-black-belt

    Audiences: Registered Attendees

    View All Dates

    Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs

    Event Link: http://gapp.usc.edu/professional-programs/short-courses/industrial%26systems/six-sigma-black-belt

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  • CS Colloquium: Anita Sarma (U Nebraska) - Coordination in Distributed Software Development

    CS Colloquium: Anita Sarma (U Nebraska) - Coordination in Distributed Software Development

    Tue, Jan 28, 2014 @ 04:00 PM - 05:30 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Anita Sarma, U Nebraska

    Talk Title: Coordination in Distributed Software Development

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: Distributed software development poses many challenges. One of the main factors is the complexity of technical dependencies existing in the code base, which leads to complex social-technical dependencies among developers. This social-technical complexity inevitably leads to software conflicts because of coordination problems. Recently, we have been witnessing the development of new kinds of collaborative technology, and variations on existing technologies that support new collaborative development practices. New trends in organization of distributed, collaborative work and the development of new technologies supporting it result in an intriguing interplay of people and technology, which motivates my research in supporting coordination in software development. In this talk, I will discuss coordination tools developed by my group to facilitate distributed software development. In particular I will focus on tools that help in exploring software dependencies and scheduling tasks to minimize conflicts.

    Biography: Anita Sarma is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Previously, she was a post doctoral fellow at the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. She holds a Ph.D. degree in Information and Computer Science from the University of California, Irvine. Her research interests are at the intersection of software engineering and computer-supported cooperative work. She seeks to understand how factors such as interdependencies among work artifacts, design erosion of the work product, and organizational culture affect coordination; and create effective coordination solutions for distributed development by identifying the kinds of information required for coordination, the means of generating and distributing such information, and ways to present it. Anita regular serves on program committees in Software Engineering conferences (ICSE, ASE, ICGSE), has been the co-chair of ICSE 2014 formal demonstration track and serves as a reviewer for TSE, TOSEM, TOCHI.

    Host: Neno Medvidovic

    Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Repeating EventSix Sigma Black Belt

    Wed, Jan 29, 2014 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM

    Executive Education

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: TBA,

    Talk Title: Six Sigma Black Belt

    Abstract: Course Overview

    This course teaches you the advanced problem-solving skills you'll need in order to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. Project assignments between sessions require you to apply what you've learned. This course is presented in the classroom in three five-day sessions over a three-month period.

    Learn the advanced problem-solving skills you need to implement the principles, practices and techniques of Six Sigma to maximize performance and cost reductions in your organization. During this three-week practitioner course, you will learn how to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. You will be required to complete a project demonstrating mastery of appropriate analytical methods and pass an examination to earn IIE's Six Sigma Black Belt Certificate.This practitioner course for Six Sigma implementation provides extensive coverage of the Six Sigma process as well as intensive exposure to the key analytical tools associated with Six Sigma, including project management, team skills, cost analysis, FMEA, basic statistics, inferential statistics, sampling, goodness of fit testing, regression and correlation analysis, reliability, design of experiments, statistical process control, measurement systems analysis and simulation. Computer applications are emphasized.


    NOTE: Participants must bring a laptop computer running Microsoft Office to the seminar.

    Course Topics

    * Business process management
    * Computer applications
    * Design of experiments (DOE)
    * Design for Six Sigma (DFSS)
    * DMAIIC
    * Enterprisewide deployment
    * Lean enterprise
    * Project management
    * Regression and correlation modeling
    * Statistical methods and sampling
    * Statistical process control
    * Team processes

    Benefits

    Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

    * Analyze process data using comprehensive statistical methods
    * Control the process to assure that improvements are used and the benefits verified
    * Define an opportunity for improving customer satisfaction
    * Implement the recommended improvements
    * Improve existing processes by reducing variation
    * Measure process characteristics that are critical to quality

    Who Should Attend

    * VPs, COOs, CEOs
    * Employees new to a managerial position
    * Employees preparing to make the transition to managerial roles
    * Current managers wanting to hone leadership skills
    * Anyone interested in implementing Lean or Six Sigma in their organization

    Program Fees

    On-Campus Participants: $7,245
    Includes continental breakfasts, lunch and all course materials. The fee does not include hotel accommodations or transportation.

    Online Participant with Live Session Interactivity: $7,245

    Includes attendee access codes for live call-in or chat capabilities during class sessions. Also includes all course and lecture materials available for live stream or download.



    Reduced Pricing:

    Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE): Reduced pricing is available for members of IIE. Please contact professional@gapp.usc.edu for further information.

    Trojan Family: USC alumni, current students, faculty, and staff receive 10% reduced pricing on registration.

    Boeing: Boeing employees receive 20% off registration fees (please use Boeing email address when registering).

    Location
    Two course delivery options are available for participants, on-campus and online with interactivity:

    On-Campus Course is held in state-of-the-art facilities on the University of Southern California campus, located in downtown Los Angeles. Participants attending on-campus will have the option to commute to the course or stay at one of the many hotels located in the area. For travel information, please visit our Travel section.

    Overview of on-campus option:

    * The ability to interact with faculty and peers in-person.
    * Access to hard copy course materials.
    * Ability to logon and view archived course information - up to 7 days after the course has been offered. This includes course documents and streaming video of the lectures.
    * If there is a conflict during any on-campus course dates, on-campus participants can elect to be an online/interactive student.
    * Parking, refreshments and lunch are provided for on-campus participants unless otherwise specified.

    Online (Interactivity) Course delivery is completely online and real-time, enabling interaction with the instructor and fellow participants. Participants have the flexibility of completing the course from a distance utilizing USC's Distance Education Network technology. Students are required to be online for the entirety of each day's session.

    Overview of online (interactive):

    * Virtually participate in the course live with the ability to either ask questions or chat questions to the entire class.
    * WebEx technologies provide the option to call into the class and view the entire lecture/materials on a personal computer, or to participate on a computer without having to utilize a phone line.
    * Ability to logon and view archived course information up to 7 days after the course has been offered. This includes course documents and streaming video of the lectures.

    Continuing Education Units
    CEUs: 10.5 (CEUs provided by request only)


    USC Viterbi School of Engineering Certificate of Participation is awarded to all participants upon successful completion of course.

    Upon completion, participants will also receive their Institute of Industrial Engineers certification in Six Sigma Black Belt.

    Host: Corporate and Professional Programs

    More Info: http://gapp.usc.edu/professional-programs/short-courses/industrial%26systems/six-sigma-black-belt

    Audiences: Registered Attendees

    View All Dates

    Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs

    Event Link: http://gapp.usc.edu/professional-programs/short-courses/industrial%26systems/six-sigma-black-belt

    Add to Google CalendarDownload ICS File for OutlookDownload iCal File
  • Repeating EventSix Sigma Black Belt

    Thu, Jan 30, 2014 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM

    Executive Education

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: TBA,

    Talk Title: Six Sigma Black Belt

    Abstract: Course Overview

    This course teaches you the advanced problem-solving skills you'll need in order to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. Project assignments between sessions require you to apply what you've learned. This course is presented in the classroom in three five-day sessions over a three-month period.

    Learn the advanced problem-solving skills you need to implement the principles, practices and techniques of Six Sigma to maximize performance and cost reductions in your organization. During this three-week practitioner course, you will learn how to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. You will be required to complete a project demonstrating mastery of appropriate analytical methods and pass an examination to earn IIE's Six Sigma Black Belt Certificate.This practitioner course for Six Sigma implementation provides extensive coverage of the Six Sigma process as well as intensive exposure to the key analytical tools associated with Six Sigma, including project management, team skills, cost analysis, FMEA, basic statistics, inferential statistics, sampling, goodness of fit testing, regression and correlation analysis, reliability, design of experiments, statistical process control, measurement systems analysis and simulation. Computer applications are emphasized.


    NOTE: Participants must bring a laptop computer running Microsoft Office to the seminar.

    Course Topics

    * Business process management
    * Computer applications
    * Design of experiments (DOE)
    * Design for Six Sigma (DFSS)
    * DMAIIC
    * Enterprisewide deployment
    * Lean enterprise
    * Project management
    * Regression and correlation modeling
    * Statistical methods and sampling
    * Statistical process control
    * Team processes

    Benefits

    Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

    * Analyze process data using comprehensive statistical methods
    * Control the process to assure that improvements are used and the benefits verified
    * Define an opportunity for improving customer satisfaction
    * Implement the recommended improvements
    * Improve existing processes by reducing variation
    * Measure process characteristics that are critical to quality

    Who Should Attend

    * VPs, COOs, CEOs
    * Employees new to a managerial position
    * Employees preparing to make the transition to managerial roles
    * Current managers wanting to hone leadership skills
    * Anyone interested in implementing Lean or Six Sigma in their organization

    Program Fees

    On-Campus Participants: $7,245
    Includes continental breakfasts, lunch and all course materials. The fee does not include hotel accommodations or transportation.

    Online Participant with Live Session Interactivity: $7,245

    Includes attendee access codes for live call-in or chat capabilities during class sessions. Also includes all course and lecture materials available for live stream or download.



    Reduced Pricing:

    Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE): Reduced pricing is available for members of IIE. Please contact professional@gapp.usc.edu for further information.

    Trojan Family: USC alumni, current students, faculty, and staff receive 10% reduced pricing on registration.

    Boeing: Boeing employees receive 20% off registration fees (please use Boeing email address when registering).

    Location
    Two course delivery options are available for participants, on-campus and online with interactivity:

    On-Campus Course is held in state-of-the-art facilities on the University of Southern California campus, located in downtown Los Angeles. Participants attending on-campus will have the option to commute to the course or stay at one of the many hotels located in the area. For travel information, please visit our Travel section.

    Overview of on-campus option:

    * The ability to interact with faculty and peers in-person.
    * Access to hard copy course materials.
    * Ability to logon and view archived course information - up to 7 days after the course has been offered. This includes course documents and streaming video of the lectures.
    * If there is a conflict during any on-campus course dates, on-campus participants can elect to be an online/interactive student.
    * Parking, refreshments and lunch are provided for on-campus participants unless otherwise specified.

    Online (Interactivity) Course delivery is completely online and real-time, enabling interaction with the instructor and fellow participants. Participants have the flexibility of completing the course from a distance utilizing USC's Distance Education Network technology. Students are required to be online for the entirety of each day's session.

    Overview of online (interactive):

    * Virtually participate in the course live with the ability to either ask questions or chat questions to the entire class.
    * WebEx technologies provide the option to call into the class and view the entire lecture/materials on a personal computer, or to participate on a computer without having to utilize a phone line.
    * Ability to logon and view archived course information up to 7 days after the course has been offered. This includes course documents and streaming video of the lectures.

    Continuing Education Units
    CEUs: 10.5 (CEUs provided by request only)


    USC Viterbi School of Engineering Certificate of Participation is awarded to all participants upon successful completion of course.

    Upon completion, participants will also receive their Institute of Industrial Engineers certification in Six Sigma Black Belt.

    Host: Corporate and Professional Programs

    More Info: http://gapp.usc.edu/professional-programs/short-courses/industrial%26systems/six-sigma-black-belt

    Audiences: Registered Attendees

    View All Dates

    Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs

    Event Link: http://gapp.usc.edu/professional-programs/short-courses/industrial%26systems/six-sigma-black-belt

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  • Connecting the Campus: Establishing New Pathways for Interdisciplinary Innovation, Collaboration, and Programming

    Thu, Jan 30, 2014 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Professor Elahe Nezami, Keck School of Medicine of USC

    Talk Title: Connecting the Campus: Establishing New Pathways for Interdisciplinary Innovation, Collaboration, and Programming

    Abstract: The continued globalization of the world and complementary globalization of health-related services and industries demands that education likewise transform to adequately prepare students to become leaders in the fields of public health and medicine. New programs must train students in multiple disciplines to ground their healthcare knowledge in cultural, social, political, and technical expertise. Students desire and demand a broader set of skills from their training, and universities must anticipate the advances in the fields into which their graduates will enter to provide such training. Collaborating and partnering with colleagues across campus allows for the development and creation of cutting-edge education and training programs that are designed to prepare students to become future leaders of industry, even as industries merge and change and expectations of graduates’ expertise broaden. Additionally, the creation of new collaborative programs allows for the expansion of adaptive learning environments and the integration of the newest technologies and pedagogical approaches. By developing partnerships across the schools of the university, innovative new programs will graduate new innovators, and USC will remain at the fore of educational excellence. The creation of interdisciplinary programs at USC at the undergraduate and graduate level has yielded outstanding results thus far, encouraging new partnerships in new fields with high growth potential. The programs, and potential programs will be outlined and highlighted.

    Biography: Dr. Elahe Nezami serves as director of the Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Studies and Global Health programs at the undergraduate level, and the Master of Science in Global Medicine program at the graduate level. She is also the associate dean for Undergraduate, Masters, and Professional programs of the Keck School of Medicine of USC and co-director of the Wireless Health Technology program.
    Dr. Nezami’s research examines determinants of behavioral risk factors for chronic diseases, cancer, and cardiovascular diseases. Other research projects include examination of personality characteristics in relation to cardiovascular disease, and self-medication theories of smoking. Dr. Nezami received her M.A. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Houston and her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Southern California, where she also completed a post-doctoral fellowship.

    Host: Professor Sandeep Gupta

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Mayumi Thrasher

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  • CS Colloquium - Stefan Scherer (ICT): Computational Behavior Analytics for Healthcare Applications

    Thu, Jan 30, 2014 @ 04:00 PM - 05:30 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Stefan Scherer, USC Institute for Creative Technologies [ICT]

    Talk Title: Computational Behavior Analytics for Healthcare Applications

    Series: CS Colloquium

    Abstract: Computational Behavior Analytics aims to automatically identify, characterize, model, and synthesize individuals' multimodal nonverbal behavior within both human-machine as well as machine-mediated human-human interaction. The emerging technology of this field of research is relevant for a wide range of interaction applications, including the areas of healthcare and education. Exemplarily, the characterization and association of nonverbal behavior with underlying clinical conditions, such as depression or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), holds transformative potential and could change treatment and help improve the healthcare systems' efficiency significantly. Within this talk I will present our recent findings of automatically assessed multimodal nonverbal behaviors indicative of depression and PTSD. In particular, we can confirm and enrich present state of the art, predominantly based on qualitative and tedious manual annotations, with automatic quantitative behavior descriptors that can assist doctors in making more informed decisions. Within this context, I will focus my talk on the characterization of a speaker's voice, utilizing both prosodic and voice quality estimates. I will discuss the integration of perceptual salience in both novel multimodal machine learning algorithms, which can leverage uncertainty in the target classes, and alternative feature extraction mechanisms, that reflect human characteristics of production and perception. To conclude the talk I will highlight complementary application areas that illustrate the integration and versatility of the presented speech technology for automatic behavior synthesis and computer assisted learning.

    Biography: Stefan Scherer was born on the 28th of February 1983 in Feldkirch Austria. In July 2011, he finished his doctoral studies to receive the degree of Dr. rer. nat. from the faculty of Engineering and Computer Science at Ulm University. Scherer’s thesis, entitled “Analyzing the User’s State in HCI: From Crisp Emotions to Conversational Dispositions”, received the grade summa cum laude (i.e. with distinction). During his time as a PhD student, Scherer had the opportunity to co-supervise thesis projects of several international students, co-organize lectures and seminars, participate in the graduate school of the SFB/TRR 62 (a German Research Foundation funded project), act as the speaker of the PhD students, and work at the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute (ATR) in Kyoto Japan in collaboration with Prof. Nick Campbell as a visiting researcher supported by the German Exchange Service (DAAD). As a postdoctoral researcher, he had the opportunity to collect experience at the internationally renowned Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. Currently, Scherer is working as Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies under the supervision of Louis-Philippe Morency. His research fields of interest are human machine interaction, social signal processing, and affective computing.

    Host: Aiichiro Nakano

    Location: Henry Salvatori Computer Science Center (SAL) - 101

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • Repeating EventSix Sigma Black Belt

    Fri, Jan 31, 2014 @ 09:00 AM - 05:00 PM

    Executive Education

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: TBA,

    Talk Title: Six Sigma Black Belt

    Abstract: Course Overview

    This course teaches you the advanced problem-solving skills you'll need in order to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. Project assignments between sessions require you to apply what you've learned. This course is presented in the classroom in three five-day sessions over a three-month period.

    Learn the advanced problem-solving skills you need to implement the principles, practices and techniques of Six Sigma to maximize performance and cost reductions in your organization. During this three-week practitioner course, you will learn how to measure a process, analyze the results, develop process improvements and quantify the resulting savings. You will be required to complete a project demonstrating mastery of appropriate analytical methods and pass an examination to earn IIE's Six Sigma Black Belt Certificate.This practitioner course for Six Sigma implementation provides extensive coverage of the Six Sigma process as well as intensive exposure to the key analytical tools associated with Six Sigma, including project management, team skills, cost analysis, FMEA, basic statistics, inferential statistics, sampling, goodness of fit testing, regression and correlation analysis, reliability, design of experiments, statistical process control, measurement systems analysis and simulation. Computer applications are emphasized.


    NOTE: Participants must bring a laptop computer running Microsoft Office to the seminar.

    Course Topics

    * Business process management
    * Computer applications
    * Design of experiments (DOE)
    * Design for Six Sigma (DFSS)
    * DMAIIC
    * Enterprisewide deployment
    * Lean enterprise
    * Project management
    * Regression and correlation modeling
    * Statistical methods and sampling
    * Statistical process control
    * Team processes

    Benefits

    Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

    * Analyze process data using comprehensive statistical methods
    * Control the process to assure that improvements are used and the benefits verified
    * Define an opportunity for improving customer satisfaction
    * Implement the recommended improvements
    * Improve existing processes by reducing variation
    * Measure process characteristics that are critical to quality

    Who Should Attend

    * VPs, COOs, CEOs
    * Employees new to a managerial position
    * Employees preparing to make the transition to managerial roles
    * Current managers wanting to hone leadership skills
    * Anyone interested in implementing Lean or Six Sigma in their organization

    Program Fees

    On-Campus Participants: $7,245
    Includes continental breakfasts, lunch and all course materials. The fee does not include hotel accommodations or transportation.

    Online Participant with Live Session Interactivity: $7,245

    Includes attendee access codes for live call-in or chat capabilities during class sessions. Also includes all course and lecture materials available for live stream or download.



    Reduced Pricing:

    Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE): Reduced pricing is available for members of IIE. Please contact professional@gapp.usc.edu for further information.

    Trojan Family: USC alumni, current students, faculty, and staff receive 10% reduced pricing on registration.

    Boeing: Boeing employees receive 20% off registration fees (please use Boeing email address when registering).

    Location
    Two course delivery options are available for participants, on-campus and online with interactivity:

    On-Campus Course is held in state-of-the-art facilities on the University of Southern California campus, located in downtown Los Angeles. Participants attending on-campus will have the option to commute to the course or stay at one of the many hotels located in the area. For travel information, please visit our Travel section.

    Overview of on-campus option:

    * The ability to interact with faculty and peers in-person.
    * Access to hard copy course materials.
    * Ability to logon and view archived course information - up to 7 days after the course has been offered. This includes course documents and streaming video of the lectures.
    * If there is a conflict during any on-campus course dates, on-campus participants can elect to be an online/interactive student.
    * Parking, refreshments and lunch are provided for on-campus participants unless otherwise specified.

    Online (Interactivity) Course delivery is completely online and real-time, enabling interaction with the instructor and fellow participants. Participants have the flexibility of completing the course from a distance utilizing USC's Distance Education Network technology. Students are required to be online for the entirety of each day's session.

    Overview of online (interactive):

    * Virtually participate in the course live with the ability to either ask questions or chat questions to the entire class.
    * WebEx technologies provide the option to call into the class and view the entire lecture/materials on a personal computer, or to participate on a computer without having to utilize a phone line.
    * Ability to logon and view archived course information up to 7 days after the course has been offered. This includes course documents and streaming video of the lectures.

    Continuing Education Units
    CEUs: 10.5 (CEUs provided by request only)


    USC Viterbi School of Engineering Certificate of Participation is awarded to all participants upon successful completion of course.

    Upon completion, participants will also receive their Institute of Industrial Engineers certification in Six Sigma Black Belt.

    Host: Corporate and Professional Programs

    More Info: http://gapp.usc.edu/professional-programs/short-courses/industrial%26systems/six-sigma-black-belt

    Audiences: Registered Attendees

    View All Dates

    Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs

    Event Link: http://gapp.usc.edu/professional-programs/short-courses/industrial%26systems/six-sigma-black-belt

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  • How Small Can One Shrink A Laser?

    Fri, Jan 31, 2014 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Jacob B. Khurgin, Johns Hopkins University

    Talk Title: How Small Can One Shrink A Laser?

    Abstract: Recently there has been a surge in activity devoted to development of the nano-scale lasers, in particularly the lasers employing surface-plasmon polaritons in metal dielectric structures (“spasers”). In my talk I will review the recent effort and present a theory that would clearly outline the fundamental limits of how small can the nano-laser actually be. First I will show that in order to go beyond diffraction limit one absolutely must use metallic structures with associated loss. Then I will show that the lasing threshold of the single mode metal-semiconductor nano-laser (spaser) is determined only by the photon absorption rate in the metal and exhibits very weak dependence on the composition, shape, size (as long as it is less than half-wavelength) and temperature of the gain medium. This threshold current is on the order of a few tens of micro-amperes for most semiconductor-metal combinations which leads to unattainably high threshold current densities for a substantially subwavelength laser (spaser). I will also discuss the coherence properties of nano-laser, and the modulation speed, which is comparable to that of a standard VCSEL. Therefore, in my view, surface plasmon emitting diodes, (SPED’s), operating far below “spasing” threshold may be a more viable option for the chip scale integrated nanophotonics.

    Biography: Jacob B. Khurgin had graduated with MS in Optics from the Institute of Fine Mechanics and Optics in St Petersburg, Russia (now called something else) in the previous millennium (1979), and shortly thereafter, in 1980 he had emigrated to US, where, to his own greatest surprise, he almost immediately landed what at a time seemed to be a meaningful job with Philips Laboratories of NV Philips in Briarcliff Manor, NY. There for 8 years he worked with various degrees of success on miniature solid-state lasers, II-VI semiconductor lasers, various display and lighting fixtures, X-ray imaging, and, more important, on small appliances such as electric shavers and coffeemakers (for which he holds 3 patents). Simultaneously he was pursuing his graduate studies at Polytechnic Institute of NY (nowadays elevated to NYU School of Engineering) where he had received PhD in Electrical Engineering in Jan. 1987. In Jan. 1988, prompted by a promotion to a Department Manager, Khurgin’s industrial career came to an abrupt end, and he had joined the ECE department of Johns Hopkins University, where, despite his ever present reservations about that place, he had settled down and is currently a Professor. His research topics over the years included an eclectic mixture of optics of semiconductor nanostructures, nonlinear optical devices, lasers, optical communications, THz radiation, microwave photonics, cavity optomechanics, slow light propagation, and rudimentary condensed matter physics. Currently he is working in the areas of mid-infrared lasers and detectors, phonon engineering for high frequency transistors, disorder in condensed matter physics, plasmonics (or lack of such), coherent secure optical communications, and silicon photonics. His publications include 6 book chapters, one book edited, 240 papers in refereed journals and 28 patents. Prof Khurgin had held a position of a Visiting Professor in an array of institutions of variable degrees of repute – Princeton, UCLA, Brown, Ecole Normale Superieure (Paris), Ecole Polytechnique (Paris) , EPFL (Lausanne), and so on. Prof. Khurgin is a Fellow of American Physical Society and Optical Society of America.

    Host: Alan Willner, willner@usc.edu, x04664

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 539

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos

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  • AI Seminar- Kiri Wagstaff: "Automated data prioritization and explanation for scientific discovery of Martian minerals, exoplanets, and more"

    Fri, Jan 31, 2014 @ 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM

    Information Sciences Institute

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Kiri Wagstaff, Jet Propulsion Laboratory-NASA

    Talk Title: "Automated data prioritization and explanation for scientific discovery of Martian minerals, exoplanets, and more"

    Series: Artificial Intelligence Seminar

    Abstract: Inundated by terabytes of data flowing from telescopes, microscopes, DNA sequencers, etc., scientists in various disciplines have a need for automated methods for prioritizing data for review. Which observations are most interesting or unusual, and why?

    I will describe DEMUD (Discovery by Eigenbasis Modeling of Uninteresting Data), which iteratively prioritizes items from large data sets to provide a diverse traversal of interesting items. By modeling what the user already knows and/or has already seen, DEMUD can focus attention on the unexpected, facilitating new discoveries. Uniquely, DEMUD also provides a domain-relevant explanation for each selected item that indicates why it stands out. DEMUD's explanations offer a first step towards automated interpretation of scientific data discoveries.

    We are using DEMUD in collaboration with scientists from the Mars Science Laboratory, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the Kepler exoplanet telescope, Earth orbiters, and more. It provides scalable performance, interpretable output, and new insights into very large data sets from diverse disciplines.

    This is joint work with James Bedell, Nina L. Lanza, Tom G. Dietterich, Martha S. Gilmore, and David R. Thompson.

    Biography: Kiri L. Wagstaff is a senior researcher in artificial intelligence and machine learning and a tactical activity planner for the Mars rover Opportunity at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Her research focuses on developing new machine learning and data analysis methods, particularly those that can be used for in situ analysis onboard spacecraft such as orbiters, landers, rovers, and so on. She holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Cornell University and an M.S. in Geological Sciences from the University of Southern California. She received a 2008 Lew Allen Award for Excellence in Research for work on the sensitivity of machine learning methods to high-radiation space environments and a 2012 NASA Exceptional Technology Achievement award for work on transient detection methods in radio astronomy data. She is passionate about keeping machine learning relevant to real-world problems and is co-editing a special issue of the Machine Learning journal on Machine Learning for Science and Society.

    http://www.wkiri.com/

    Host: Yolanda Gil

    More Info: http://www.wkiri.com/

    Webcast: http://webcasterms1.isi.edu/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=71ff3718d56e4345b89699a0433dc6d81d

    Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 11th Flr Conf Rm # 1135, Marina Del Rey

    WebCast Link: http://webcasterms1.isi.edu/mediasite/Viewer/?peid=71ff3718d56e4345b89699a0433dc6d81d

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Peter Zamar

    Event Link: http://www.wkiri.com/

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  • The W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Colloquim

    Fri, Jan 31, 2014 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM

    USC Viterbi School of Engineering, Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Lt. Gen. Larry James, Deputy Director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory

    Talk Title: Engineering the Future: Innovations and Opportunities: a View from JPL

    Host: W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Program

    Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Christine Viterbi Admission & Student Affairs

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  • Integrated Systems Seminar Series - Spring 2014

    Fri, Jan 31, 2014 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Mark Field, Teledyne

    Talk Title: Low loss millimeter-wave switches based on the Vanadium Dioxide Metal - Insulator - Transition

    Abstract: A new ultra-low-loss and broad band millimeter wave switch technology based on the reversible metal/insulator phase transition of vanadium dioxide has been developed. We report having fabricated series configured, single-pole single-throw (SPST) switches having measured S-parameters from DC to 110 GHz. The on-state insertion loss is 0.2 dB and off-state isolation is 21 dB at 50 GHz. The resulting impedance contrast ratio, ZOFF / ZON, is greater than 500:1 at 50 GHz (i.e. cut-off frequency fc ~ 40 THz). As a demonstration of the technology's utility, we also present the results of a 2-bit real time delay phase shifter incorporating a pair of VO2 SP4T switches. This switch technology's high impedance contrast ratio combined with its compactness, ease of integration, and low voltage operation make it an enabler of previously unachievable high-performance millimeter wave FPGAs.

    Biography: Mark Field was awarded a bachelors degree in physics and theoretical physics from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, in 1986, and a masters degree in microelectronics and computer engineering from the University of Surrey, United Kingdom. In 1988 he returned to Cambridge University to study for a Ph.D., performing research into single electron devices in the semiconductor physics group at the Cavendish laboratory under Professor Michael Pepper. Dr. Field earned the Ph.D. in experimental physics in December 1991 and was awarded a research fellowship at Trinity Hall Cambridge.
    In 1996 he moved to the University of California at Santa Barbara, and worked as a postdoctoral researcher with Professor David Awschalom on magnetic force microscopy of nanoscale magnets. Dr. Field subsequently joined Symyx Technologies, a startup company in Santa Clara California, where he worked on combinatorial materials science, using high throughput synthesis and measurement to discover new magnetic materials. In October 2000 Dr. Field joined Teledyne Scientific (formerly Rockwell) in Thousand Oaks California as a senior scientist. His currently interests include nanoscale electronics and phase change materials.


    Host: Hossien Hashemi, Mike Chen, Mahta Moghaddam, Sushil Subramanian

    More Info: http://mhi.usc.edu/activities/integrated-systems/

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Sushil Subramanian

    Event Link: http://mhi.usc.edu/activities/integrated-systems/

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