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Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for January
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BME 533: Advanced MR Imaging of the Newborn/Pediatric Brain, by Stefan Bluml, Ph.D.
Mon, Jan 11, 2010 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Stefan Bluml, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Research Radiology, Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles & USC:Seminar Title: Advanced MR Imaging of the Newborn/Pediatric Brain
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132
Audiences: Graduate//Department Only
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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The Sun Shines on Water and Atmospheric Aerosols
Wed, Jan 13, 2010 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Angela-Guiovana Rincon
W. M. Keck Laboratory, California Institute of TechnologyThe "free" energy carried by sunlight photons can drive accretion processes, such as photosynthesis, and degradative ones, such as the breakdown of air and water components. There is a growing interest in the development of new processes for water disinfection since the traditional processes, such as chlorination, generate toxic by-products. Sunlight is a promising alternative for water disinfection and Photocatalytic treatments based on innocuous titanium dioxide (TiO2) as ck&sensitizer vastly improve the disinfection efficiency of conventional solar water treatment. Photoexcited TiO2 induces the formation of highly reactive species, such as hydroxyl radicals, which universally inactivate bacteria and degrade organic pollutants.Key parameters influencing process efficiency involve physicochemical, biological and engineering aspects which are illustrated by laboratory and field scale experiments on solar disinfection. The sensitivity of bacteria to solar disinfection, in the absence or presence of TiO2, depend on microorganism species, strain, growth stage, cultivation medium and initial bacterial load. Disinfection results are affected by plating media used for bacterial cultivation and counting. Physicochemical parameters and reactor design also influence the process. A residual disinfection effect in the dark after solar treatment could only be observed in the presence of TiO2. Compliance with disinfection system standards require establishing the duration of the irradiation period, or effective disinfection time (EDT), that achieves full (> 99%) disinfection under specific conditions. EDT is strongly dependent on light intensity.The Earth's radiative balance is largely controlled by scattering and absorption of incoming sunlight by tropospheric aerosols. Their optical properties in the e>300nm range are essentially determined by their chemically complex "black" and "brown" natural and anthropogenic organic fractions. This phenomenon has moved to the forefront of climate change discussions, particularly after the failure of the Copenhagen summit, because it may ultimately provide an emergency geoengineering tool to control global warming via sulfate aerosol seeding.Atmospheric aerosols are exposed half of the time to intense sunlight. The key role of sunlight in their transformations is presented here using model organic aerosol. Photolysis of aqueous pyruvic acid (a surrogate for aerosol v-dicarbonyls absorbing at e>300nm) generates mixtures of identifiable aliphatic polyfunctional oligomers that develop absorptions in the visible upon standing in the dark. These absorptions can be repeatedly bleached and retrieved without carbon loss or changes in their electrospray ionization mass spectra. These observations, in conjunction with the evidence of supramolecular interactions among components of the mixture, together the non-linearity of Beer's law plots at e>350nm strongly suggest that full speciation is insufficient and possibly unnecessary for understanding the optical properties of the organic aerosol.Further studies in the presence of ammonium bisulphate indicate that the optical absorptivity of tropospheric aerosol particles is not an intrinsic property but a function of time that will respond to changes in insolation, ambient temperature and relative humidity. These phenomena and the time scales are consistent with the daily cycles of aerosol scattering and absorption observed over Mexico City.
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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TBA
Thu, Jan 14, 2010
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Lyman Handy Colloquium SeriesPresentsGary PopeAbstract:TBA
Location: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - 100
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Petra Pearce Sapir
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CS Colloq: Dr. Kenji Sagae
Thu, Jan 14, 2010 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Talk Title: Practical analysis of natural language syntax, semantic roles and discourse structure with shift-reduce algorithmsSpeaker: Dr. Kenji SagaeHost: Prof. Kevin KnightABSTRACTAutomatic analysis of the structure of natural language through syntactic parsing techniques has long been considered of great potential value in the study of language, the development of language-enabled systems and interfaces, and the application of language technologies (such as machine translation, question answering and text mining) to the rapidly growing body of information in the form of machine readable text. However, for many years parsing systems suffered from lack of robustness and efficiency to deal with large-scale tasks. Recent research on linear-time parsers that learn from annotated data has opened new possibilities for how these and other issues in practical parsing technologies can be addressed.In this talk I will first present a simple and effective parsing framework that addresses the main challenges in the deployment of parsing technologies in practical tasks. I will show how the combination of machine learning and a parsing approach inspired by Knuth's deterministic LR algorithm produces parsers that are fast, robust and accurate. I will also present extensions of this framework that allow for linear-time analysis of semantic roles and discourse structure, and discuss the application of the resulting data-driven shift-reduce parsing approach in areas as diverse as child language analysis, biomedical text mining, and virtual human dialogue systems.BIOKenji Sagae is a research scientist in the Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California, where he works on natural language processing for virtual humans and related systems.
Before joining ICT as a research associate in June of 2008, he was a research associate in the Computer Science department of the University of Tokyo, where he worked on the connection of data-driven parsers to theoretically-motivated syntactic models, and the application of natural language processing to information extraction in bioinformatics. He received a PhD in Language Technologies from the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University in 2006. His dissertation research focused on automatic syntactic analysis of transcripts of dialogues between children and adult caregivers. He is currently the Information Officer for SIGPARSE, the international interest group on parsing technologies, and his parsing software is used by several research groups in the areas of child language and information extraction for biomedical text.Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: CS Front Desk
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AIAA Undergraduate Team Aircraft Design Competition
Fri, Jan 15, 2010 @ 03:00 PM - 05:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
If you have questions or would like to join, email aiaa@usc.edu
Location: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - 102
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: -- American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
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BME 533: NO SEMINAR, MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. HOLIDAY
Mon, Jan 18, 2010 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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CS Colloq: Dr. Jelena Mirkovic
Tue, Jan 19, 2010 @ 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Talk Title: Combatting spoofing in a realistic InternetSpeaker: Dr. Jelena MirkovicHost: Prof. John Heidemann ABSTRACT:IP spoofing - forging a sender's IP address - exacerbates many security threats, such as denial of service and intrusions. It is also means for conducting reflector attacks where spoofed service requests lead legitimate servers to swamp the victim with replies.
Although many networks have deployed ingress filtering as means of spoofing prevention, legacy networks can still be used to spoof at will and at large. Six approaches to spoofed packet filtering have been proposed to date. Each shows promise under wide deployment (around 20% of the ISPs) but such deployment is unrealistic. The first part of my talk will tackle the problem of evaluating defense performance under realistic, sparse deployment. I will show that such performance depends strongly on the underlying Internet's topology and routing, and remains fairly constant regardless of the topology/routing sources and evolution trends. This evaluation concludes that three defenses would bring significant spoofing protection to all Internet users, and across multiple dimensions, if deployed systematically at top 18 tier-1 ISPs. Only one defense is effective under isolated deployment, and it only protects against spoofed but not against reflected traffic. The second part of my talk focuses on the three defenses that were effective in our evaluation. Each associates a source with some routing-dependent parameter and uses this information for filtering.
An open research problem is how to learn and update parameter values in presence of asymmetric routing, multipath routing and route changes, all of which are common in today's Internet. I will present our design and evaluation of the Clouseau system, which autonomously harvests the needed information from transit traffic and updates it promptly upon a route change. The information is inferred by filters applying randomized drops to TCP data traffic and observing subsequent retransmissions. No communication is required with packet sources or other filters, which makes Clouseau suitable for partial deployment. NS-2 simulations and experiments with a Clouseau prototype indicate that the operation cost is reasonable, the impact on legitimate traffic is minimal and the inferred information is accurate and robust to attacks by a smart adversary. BIO: Jelena Mirkovic is a Computer Scientist at the USC Information Sciences Institute, which she joined in 2007. Prior to this she was an Assistant Professor at the Computer and Information Sciences Department, University of Delaware, 2003-2007. She received her M.S. and Ph.D. from UCLA, and her B.S. in Computer Science and Engineering from the School of Electrical Engineering, University of Belgrade, Serbia. Her current research is focused on scientific cyber security experimentation, safe sharing of network data, denial-of-service attacks and IP spoofing. Her research is funded by the National Science Foundation, the Department of Homeland Security and the Infosys Corporation.
Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: CS Front Desk
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Bioinspired Flow Optimization
Wed, Jan 20, 2010 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
P. Koumoutsakos Professor and Chair of Computational ScienceETHZurich, SwitzerlandandMillikan Visiting ProfessorCaltechPasadena, CA For centuries engineers have sought inspirations from nature in designing their creations. Along with the imitation of biological forms we may consider biological processes as optimization algorithms for engineering devices. In this talk I will present a framework for developing algorithms based on concepts such as biological evolution and bacteria chemotaxis. I will discuss the advantages and drawbacks of these algorithms in the context of their application to problems such as the multiobjective optimization of turbomachinery test rings and the reverse engineering of simulated anguiliform swimmers.
Location: Seaver Science Library(SSL) Rm 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: April Mundy
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CS DLS: Prof. Mary Vernon
Thu, Jan 21, 2010
Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Location: SSL 150Title: Quantitative System DesignSpeaker: Prof. Mary Vernon (University of Wisconsin)Hosts: Prof. Leana Golubchik and Prof. Ramesh GovindanAbstract:
This talk will provide a 20-year perspective on the use of analytic models to design of a wide range of commercially important architectures and systems with complex behavior. These systems include resources with highly bursty and/or correlated packet arrivals, communication protocols with complex routing and blocking of messages, resources that are configured for a very high probability (e.g., 0.9999) of providing immediate service to each arriving client, and complex large-scale Grid/Internet applications.
The examples illustrate some guiding principles for model development, and show that the models can be relatively easy to develop.
More importantly, the models can be highly accurate -- often more accurate than simulation, and sometimes more accurate than the system implementation!
The examples also illustrate that the models can provide unique insight into system design as well as significant new system functionality.
In other words, analytic models are a key tool for competitive systems engineering. Time permitting, the talk will include some important observations about workload models, and some ways to avoid key pitfalls in simulation.Bio:
Mary K. Vernon received a B.S. degree with Departmental Honors in chemistry and the Ph.D. degree in computer science from the University of California at Los Angeles.
In 1983 she joined the Computer Science Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she is currently Professor of Computer Science and Industrial Engineering and Chair of the Computer Sciences Department.
Her research interests include performance analysis techniques for evaluating high performance computer/communication system design tradeoffs, Internet transport protocols, optimized CMP hardware/software co-design, and storage system design. She has co-authored over 80 technical papers including seven award papers - most recently one of three "Fast Track to ToN" papers at Infocom 2004, and the Best Paper Award at the 2005 USENIX Security Symposium. Prof. Vernon has served on the editorial board of the IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, the 1999 NSF Blue Ribbon Panel for High Performance Computing, the NSF CISE Advisory Board, the CRA Board of Directors, the Board of Directors of the NCSA, and as Chair of the ACM SIGMETRICS. She received the NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1985, the ACM Fellow award in 1996, the UW-Madison Vilas Associate Award in 2000 and the UW-Madison Kellett Mid-career Award in 2006. She is a member of the IFIP WG 7.3 on Information Processing System Modeling, Measurement and Evaluation.Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: CS Front Desk
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Ubiquitous Multi-Scale Structural Health Monitoring and Energy Harvesting System using...
Thu, Jan 21, 2010 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
...Piezoelectric SensorsDr. Seunghee Park, Assistant Professor
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Department of U-City Design Engineering
Sungkyunkwan University - 300 Cheoncheon-dong
Jangan-gu Suwon Gyeonggi 440-746
KOREAA ubiquitous multi-scale structural health monitoring (SHM) and energy harvesting system using piezoelectric sensors is introduced. Firstly, SHM techniques based on the active sensing of piezoelectric materials are presented, which are broadly classified into 1) structural damage detection using impedance measurements, and 2) structural damage detection using guided wave propagations.Secondly, an energy harvesting technique using a piezoelectric patch that can convert mechanical vibrations to the electrical energy is investigated. Finally, by integrating both SHM and energy harvesting techniques with ubiquitous sensor network (USN), a ubiquitous multi- scale structural damage diagnostic system using a self-powered piezoelectric sensor node that consists of a embedded microprocessor, a miniaturized impedance measuring chip, a radio frequency (RF) telemetry module and a energy harvesting module is completed. In the near future, real-time wireless structural damage diagnosis for in-service infrastructures will be realized, implying a self-contained ubiquitous sensing system.
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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KIUEL Weekend for Leaders Retreat
Fri, Jan 22, 2010
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
KIUEL's annual leadership retreat is an opportunity for Viterbi's current and future leaders to participate in teambuilding and leadership development.Undergraduate Viterbi students learn more about their personal leadership style, how to work in teams, and enjoy connecting with other Viterbi students in a fun, relaxed environment.To learn more about KIUEL, visit the website at viterbi.usc.edu/KIUEL.
Audiences: Undergrad
Contact: KIUEL
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W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Colloquium; The Aerodynamics of Everything
Fri, Jan 22, 2010 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Prof. G. R. Spedding, Chair of the USC Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering will present "The Aerodynamics of Everything" as part of the W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Program
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: Undergrad
Contact: Viterbi Admissions & Student Affairs
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Sub-half-mm Resolution Single Photon Emission Tomography of Molecules and Organs in Action
Fri, Jan 22, 2010 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Guest Speaker: Frederik J. Beekman,Ph.D.Abstract: Pivotal questions in pharmacology and biology concern how function of localized cells relates to disease. For example in experimental neuroscience we have dreamt about a magnifying glass that would allow us to see neurotransmitters in action, in cardiovascular research about a system that would provide us simultaneously with myocardial anatomy, mechanical function and cell function, and in cancer research to see detailed dynamic distributions of pharmaceuticals and markers, in small animals serving as models for human disease. Such studies have been limited by the availability of methods to study such molecular dynamics. A Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography system called U-SPECT has been developed in The Netherlands. It can quantify tracer dynamics in U-SPECT uses sophisticated focusing pinhole geometries together with unique 3D focusing technology and list mode data acquisition. Novel reconstruction methods that enable to enhance resolution are applied, accelerated by pixel-based block iterative update schemes.Examples include imaging the density and occupancy of dopamine transporters in sub-compartments of the brain, sub-half-mm resolution dynamic myocardial perfusion imaging or imaging of tumor markers and anti-cancer agents (e.g. antibodies) in micro-metastasis, all during a range of points in time. Applied to different models of disease this will aid our understanding of dynamic processes that underlie tissue functions and human pathology. New sub-half-mm resolution U-SPECT-II and U-SPECT/CT images and movies with sub-minute resolution will be shown.An overview of the U-SPECT-II technology will be given as well as current research at my lab Delft University of Technology, where novel collimation, reconstruction and detector technologies for next generations SPECT are currently under development.Bio: Prof. Frederik J. Beekman received a M.Sc. in Physics from the Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands (1991) and a Ph.D from the University Medical Centre Utrecht, The Netherlands (1995). At Delft University of Technology he is the heads of the group Radiation, Detection & Medical Imaging. He (co-)authored > 90 peer reviewed journal papers, several book chapters and >20 patent applications. He was presented with several international awards for his scientific contributions to SPECT technology and its application in Neurosciences. His research interests include radiation technology applied to biomedical imaging (radiation detectors, SPECT, PET, transmission CT and new (hybrid) modalities), image reconstruction from projections, and biomedical applications of SPECT, PET and X-ray CT. Prof. Beekman acted as an associate editor of several journals and is Board Member of Physics in Medicine and Biology (IOP). He is principle founder and CEO of MILabs (www.milabs.com) that develops and markets SPECT and SPECT/CT systems with an unsurpassed spatial and temporal resolution.Hosted by Professor Richard Leahy
Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Talyia Veal
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Liquid Rocket Engines for Spacecraft Pressure-Fed Propulsion Systems
Sat, Jan 23, 2010
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
This three-day course provides an overview of the fundamental concepts and technologies of modern satellite liquid propellant rocket engines. The course will concentrate on scientific and engineering foundations of pressure- fed, monopropellant, bipropellant, dual mode, and secondary combustion augmented thrusters for satellite orbit-raising and station-keeping operations.
Location: USC campus or online
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs
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KIUEL Weekend for Leaders Retreat
Sat, Jan 23, 2010
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
KIUEL's annual leadership retreat is an opportunity for Viterbi's current and future leaders to participate in teambuilding and leadership development.Undergraduate Viterbi students learn more about their personal leadership style, how to work in teams, and enjoy connecting with other Viterbi students in a fun, relaxed environment.To learn more about KIUEL, visit the website at viterbi.usc.edu/KIUEL.
Audiences: Undergrad
Contact: KIUEL
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KIUEL Weekend for Leaders Retreat
Sun, Jan 24, 2010
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
KIUEL's annual leadership retreat is an opportunity for Viterbi's current and future leaders to participate in teambuilding and leadership development.Undergraduate Viterbi students learn more about their personal leadership style, how to work in teams, and enjoy connecting with other Viterbi students in a fun, relaxed environment.To learn more about KIUEL, visit the website at viterbi.usc.edu/KIUEL.
Audiences: Undergrad
Contact: KIUEL
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BME 533, Short title: Nanoparticles and the lung, by Kwang-Jin Kim, Ph.D.
Mon, Jan 25, 2010 @ 12:30 PM - 01:50 PM
Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Kwang-Jin Kim, Ph.D., Professor of Medicine, Pharmacology & Biomedical Engineering, Div. Of Pulmonary and
Critical Care Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, USCSeminar title: Nanoparticles and the lung: their interactions with pneumocytes and trafficking across the air-blood barrierLocation: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 132
Audiences: Graduate//Department Only
Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta
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Wireless Network Coding Algorithms
Wed, Jan 27, 2010 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Christina Fragouli,
School of Computer and Communication Sciences,
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), SwitzerlandAbstract: The paradigm of network coding allows intermediate nodes in a network to not only forward but also linearly combine their incoming information flows. This modern application of coding to the theory and practice of communication networks raises novel and exciting research problems, and is beginning to have an impact in diverse areas of network engineering that include multicasting, network monitoring, reliable delivery, resource sharing, efficient flow control and security.However, one of the main challenges is to enable network coding functionalities with implementable computational complexity. This aspect becomes particularly important in wireless networks where network coding can have a significant practical impact. We illustrate through two examples how algorithmic and combinatorial tools can be applied to make progress on this challenging question.We introduce the framework of vector network coding, which is applicable not only to graphs but also to deterministic models for wireless communications. We give the first polynomial time algorithms for unicast and multicast communication in such networks. Our unicast algorithm can be interpreted as an extension of the classical Ford-Fulkerson algorithm to deterministic networks. The framework of vector network coding generalizes the traditional scalar network coding, and thus offers a larger space of choices for optimizing cost parameters, such as the communication block length.Wireless sensor networks, require not only low-complexity operation, but also energy-efficient communication. There is a significant class of sensor-network applications, where the identities of the reporting sensors constitute the bulk of the communicated information, whereas the message itself can be as small as a single bit. We term this as identity-aware sensor networking, and re-examine the traditional message-identity separation, for such networks. We demonstrate that there can be a significant advantage (in terms of energy efficiency) to jointly encoding the messages and identity, instead of keeping them separate. We develop subspace coding methods that exploit this idea and give provable performance guarantees. We also translate our designs to networking protocols, and deploy them on a Tiny-OS sensor network testbed.Biography: Christina Fragouli is an Assistant Professor in the School of Computer and Communication Sciences, EPFL, Switzerland. She received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece, in 1996, and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1998 and 2000, respectively. She has worked at the Information Sciences Center, AT&T Labs, Florham Park New Jersey, and the National University of Athens. She also visited Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ, and DIMACS, Rutgers University. From 2006 to 2007, she was an FNS Assistant Professor in the School of Computer and Communication Sciences, EPFL, Switzerland.Her research interests are in network information flow theory and algorithms, network coding, wireless sensor networks, and connections between communications, networking and computer science. She received the Fulbright Fellowship for her graduate studies, the Outstanding Ph.D. Student Award 2000-2001, UCLA, Electrical Engineering Department, the Zonta award 2008 in Switzerland, and the Young Investigator ERC grant award in 2009. She served as an editor for IEEE Communications Letters, and is currently serving as an editor for IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, IEEE Transactions on Communications and Elsevier Computer Communications. Host: Giuseppe Caire, caire@usc.edu, EEB 528, x04683
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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Samoan Tsunami: Observations on Coastal Resilience
Wed, Jan 27, 2010 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Lesley Ewing
Sr. Civil Engineer, California Coastal CommissionAs a leader in the civil engineering community on disaster and response, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has sent engineering teams into the field following major events, such as the attack on the World Trade Center, Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Ike, and the Indian Ocean tsunami. In response to the 29 September 2009 Samoan Region Tsunami ASCE sent a small volunteer team of engineers to American Samoa and Samoa with the purpose of investigating the performance of coastal engineering structures, natural coastal systems, infrastructure and buildings. The ASCE team collaborated with a team of researchers from the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute and several Samoan engineers. A report of the field investigation and a technical note on structural performance are in preparation. Lesley Ewing, ASCE Team Leader, will present some of the initial observations from the Field Investigation concerning tsunami response, coastal change, structural response, lessons learned, what worked and what did not work.Lesley Ewing has worked as the California Coastal Commission's Civil Engineer for over 20 years during which time she has focused primarily on coastal issues, investigating shoreline change, and wave and storm damage along California's 1,067 miles of coast. Her work responsibilities include technical review of shoreline armoring projects, beach protection and restoration and new development along the coast. Her first Commission project was to report on the possible consequences from rising sea level to the California Coast and this has remained an important aspect throughout her current career. Prior to the CA Coastal Commission, she worked for the Rural Electrification Administration, Energy and Environmental Analysis, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and R.W. Beck and Associates.She is on the Senior Advisory Group for both California Ocean Observing Systems, technical advisor for USC's Sea Grant Program, technical reviewer for ASCE's International Conference on Coastal Engineering, past president and current director of California Shore & Beach Preservation Association, Director of the Coasts, Oceans, Ports and Rivers Institute of the ASCE, and has been on the organizing committee of several international coastal conferences, most recently ASCE's Solutions to Coastal Disasters. She is the recipient of the ASBPA Morrough P. O'Brien Award and the Coastal Zone Foundation's Coastal Zone Management Award.Ms. Ewing received a Sc.B. in civil engineering from Brown University, a M.R.P. in Regional Planning from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and M. Eng. in Coastal Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. She is a licensed engineer in California and Virginia.
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Special Lecture with JPLs Dr. Marc Rayman
Wed, Jan 27, 2010 @ 05:00 PM - 06:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Organizations
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Now Flying Through a Solar System Near You: NASA's Dawn Mission to the Asteroid BeltThe ambitious and exciting Dawn mission, launched in September 2007, is NASA's latest venture into the solar system. The spacecraft will orbit both Ceres and Vesta, which are among the last unexplored worlds in the inner solar system. They are the two largest residents of the asteroid belt, that vast collection of bodies between Mars and Jupiter. Ceres is so large that it is included in the category of dwarf planets, along with Pluto. The alien landscapes Dawn will reveal should provide humankind with a new perspective on the solar system. Remnants from the time that planets were formed, Ceres and Vesta hold clues that will help scientists investigate the dawn of the solar system.Dawn will be the first spacecraft ever to orbit an object in the asteroid belt and the first ever to orbit two targets. Such a mission would be impossible without the use of ion propulsion, a technology that has mostly been in the domain of science fiction, but which was tested extensively on the Deep Space 1 mission, paving the way for Dawn. Dr. Marc Rayman will describe the Dawn mission and its use of ion propulsion as well as its two exotic destinations. He also will share the excitement of controlling a spacecraft in deep space.
Location: John Stauffer Science Lecture Hall (SLH) - 102
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: -- American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
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Programming cell-fate decisions with RNA control devices
Thu, Jan 28, 2010 @ 12:45 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Distinguished Lecture SeriesPresentsProgramming cell-fate decisions with RNA control devices"Professor Christina D. Smolke
Stanford University
Stanford, Ca
mailto:muthu@polysci.umass.edu AbstractCellular behavior is encoded and controlled by complex genetic networks. Synthetic genetic devices that interface with native pathways can be used to change natural networks to implement new forms of control and behavior. Significant recent work on the engineering of synthetic gene networks has been limited by an inability to interface with native networks and components. To overcome these limitations, we have developed RNA control devices that process and transmit molecular signals that are received by integrated sensor domains to targeted protein level outputs, linking computation and logic to gene expression and thus cellular behavior in mammalian cells. The modularity inherent in our device design supports the rational assembly of these RNA controllers from independent components exhibiting basic functions and the extension to more sophisticated information processing schemes, highlighting the potential of synthetic biology strategies to support the rapid engineering of cellular behavior. Coupled with technologies that enable the de novo generation of new RNA sensor components, RNA devices allow researchers to construct various user-programmed information processing operations in living systems. The application of these molecular devices to developing new disease treatment strategies such as targeted molecular and cellular therapeutics will be discussed.
Location: James H. Zumberge Hall Of Science (ZHS) - 159
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Petra Pearce Sapir
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Entropy, Networks and Information Flow
Thu, Jan 28, 2010 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Babak Hassibi,
California Institute of TechnologyAbstract: We study the information flow in networks through the notion of entropic vectors. Given n random variables, the 2^n-1 dimensional vector obtained from all possible joint entropies is called an entropic vector. It turns out that the space of entropic vectors is a convex cone and that a large class of network information theory problems can be cast as linear optimization over this convex cone. While this formulation circumvents the "non-convex" and "infinite-letter" characterizations of earlier formulations, it still does not lead to a solution since a characterization of the convex cone of entropic vectors is not known for n>4 random variables. In this talk, we develop some inner and outer bounds to this space, as well as describe the connections to finite group theory, quasi-uniform distributions, non-Shannon inequalities, matroids, and Cayley's hyperdeterminant. We review the insuficiency of linear network codes and describe Ingleton-bound-violating finite groups. As a concrete example, we show how determining optimal linear codes over GF(2), for arbitrary networks, reduces to linear programming. We also develop Monte Carlo Markov chain methods for designing optimal nonlinear network codes.Biography: Babak Hassibi is professor and executive officer of electrical engineering at the California Institute of Technology, where he has been since 2001. From 1998 to 2001 he was a member of the technical staff at the Mathematical Sciences Research Center at Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ, and prior to that he obtained his PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford University. His research interests span different aspects of communications, signal processing and control. Among other awards, he is a recipient of the David and Lucille Packard Foundation Fellowship, and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).Host: Alex Dimakis, dimakis@usc.edu
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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Rhythm in Speech & Music
Thu, Jan 28, 2010 @ 03:30 PM - 04:45 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Guest Speaker: Aniruddh D. Patel, Esther J. Burnham Senior Fellow, The Neurosciences Institute, San Diego, California Abstract: Rhythm is fundamental to speech and music. What do these two domains share in terms of rhythmic organization? There is a long history of interest in this topic, but remarkably few empirical explorations have been conducted. This is particularly striking since there are large bodies of empirical research on rhythm within each domain. In this presentation I suggest that progress in empirical comparative research depends on a clear distinction between periodic and nonperiodic rhythms in human auditory cognition. I will argue that speech and music have fundamental differences in terms of periodic rhythms, and important connections in terms of nonperiodic rhythms. Evidence for this argument draws on diverse strands of evidence, including quantitative comparisons of rhythmic patterns in speech and music, rese arch on rhythm perception, and data from cognitive neuroscience. Bio: Aniruddh D. Patel is the Esther J. Burnham Senior Fellow at The Neurosciences
Institute in San Diego, California, and a pioneer in the use of new concepts and technology to investigate the neural correlates of music. His research focuses on how the brain processes music and language. He has pursued this topic with a variety of techniques, including neuroimaging, neuropsychology, behavioral studies, theoretical analyses, phonetic/acoustic research, cross- cultural research,and comparative studies of nonhuman animals. Patel earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Virginia as a Jefferson Scholar. After a year at the National Taiwan University as a Luce Scholar, he went on to Harvard University as an NSF Fellow, where he studied with Edward O. Wilson. He did a joint postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard and at Tufts University before joining The Neurosciences Institute. Patel's research has appeared in numerous scientific journals, including Nature, Nature Neuroscience, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Cognition, Brain and Language, and Music Perception. His 2008 book Music, Language, and the Brain (Oxford Univ. Press) has been hailed "an intellectual tour de force" by Nature and has received positive reviews in 10 scholarly journals, spanning the sciences and humanities. Pronounced "a major synthesis" by Oliver Sacks, the book won a 2008 ASCAP Deems-Taylor Award. Patel is President of the Society for Music Perception and Cognition (2009- 2011), and is interested in promoting research and education in the field of music cognition. He recently won the "Music has Power Award" from the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function in New York City, for his studies of music and language. Hosted by Prof. Elaine Chew. Relevant readings:[First three available at http://www.nsi.edu/users/patel/publications.html]Patel, A.D., Iversen, J.R., & Rosenberg, J.C. (2006). Comparing the rhythm and melody of speech and music: The case of British English and French. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 119:3034-3047.Iversen, J.R., Patel, A.D., & Ohgushi, K. (2008). Perception of rhythmic grouping depends on auditory experience. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 124: 2263-2271.Patel, A.D. (2006). Musical rhythm, linguistic rhythm, and human evolution. Music Perception, 24:99-104.Ch. 3 (Rhythm) of Patel, A.D. (2008). Music, Language, and the Brain. NY: Oxford Univ. PressLocation: Estelle Doheny Eye Foundation (DOH) - eny Library, Rm: 240
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Talyia Veal
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Graduate Seminar Unconventional Reservoir Simulation
Fri, Jan 29, 2010 @ 12:45 PM
Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
"Unconventional Reservoir Simulation"Professor Yu-Shu WuDepartment of Petroleum Engineering
Colorado School of Mines
Golden CO 80401 USAAbstract:
Unconventional hydrocarbon resources from low-permeability formation, i.e., tight sands and shales, are currently received great attention because of their potential to supply the entire world with sufficient energy for the decades to come. In the past few years, as a result of industry-wide R&D effort, progresses are being made towards commercial development of gas and oil from such unconventional resources. However, studies, understandings, and effective technologies needed for development of unconventional reservoirs are far behind the industry needs. Unconventional reservoir dynamics is characterized by highly nonlinear behavior of
multiphase flow in extremely low-permeability rock, coupled by many co-existing, processes, e.g., non-Darcy flow and rock-fluid interaction within tiny pores or microfractures. Quantitative characterization of unconventional reservoirs has been a significant scientific challenge currently. Because of complicated flow behavior, strong interaction between fluid and rock as well as multi-scaled heterogeneity, the traditional Darcy-law-and-REV-based model may not be applicable for describing flow phenomena in unconventional reservoirs. In this presentation, we will discuss a general mathematical model proposed for unconventional reservoir simulation. We will present a unified framework model to incorporate various nonlinear flow and transport processes using a multi-domain, multi-continuum concept to handle multi-scaled heterogeneity of unconventional formation. Specifically, we will use extended or modified Darcy law to include the following processes: (2) non-Newtonian behavior (i.e., threshold pressure gradient for flow to occur); (3) non-Darcy flow with inertial effects; (3) adsorption and other reaction effect; and (4) rock deformation. The proposed modeling methodology has been implemented into a general reservoir simulator and will be demonstrated for its application in analyzing well tests in fractured vuggy reservoirs, non-Darcy flow, and non-Newtonian flow in porous and fractured reservoirs.
Location: Hedco Pertroleum and Chemical Engineering Building (HED) - 116
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Petra Pearce Sapir
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W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Colloquium; Engineers in the Legal Profession
Fri, Jan 29, 2010 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Robert A. Green, Partner at Christie, Parker & Hale, LLP, will present "Engineers in the Legal Profession" as part of the W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Program.
Location: Seeley G. Mudd Building (SGM) - 101
Audiences: Undergrad
Contact: Viterbi Admissions & Student Affairs
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Advanced Nanoelectromechanical Devices and Systems
Fri, Jan 29, 2010 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Abstract:
Nanoscale devices with mechanical degrees of freedom offer compelling characteristics that make them not only interesting tools for fundamental studies, but also intriguing candidates for technological applications. In particular, nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) vibrating in their resonant modes provide promising opportunities and advantages for developing novel sensors and transducers, in the previously inaccessible regimes. This seminar will describe my research interests, efforts, and thoughts in advanced NEMS engineering, with a central theme of how to innovate and advance today's primitive nanostructures into functional devices and integrated systems with high performance. I will first briefly overview the fundamentals of NEMS devices enabled by the state-of-the-art nanofabrication techniques (both top-down and bottom-up). I will then focus on two specific technological thrusts. One is to demonstrate that engineering of NEMS resonators and signal transduction, in very-high and ultra-high frequency (VHF/UHF) ranges, has enabled single-biomolecule sensing in real time, and the prototyping of NEMS-based mass spectrometry for future proteomics. Second is to show novel, high-performance silicon nanowire NEMS based on a hybrid top-down/bottom-up technique. This new device technology has opened up the opportunities for monolithic integration at large scale; and has led to self-sensing nanowire NEMS gas analyzers that are now being manufactured using industrial SOI technology. Next, I shall briefly introduce and highlight some latest milestones such as the nascent radio-frequency (RF) NEMS for frequency control and timing, NEMS based logic devices, and their very-large-scale integration (VLSI). Finally, I will discuss the tremendous opportunities created by such explorations that transcend boundaries of traditional disciplines. I will show my perspective on future fundamental and technological research, and possibilities for novel devices in emerging applications. Biography:
Philip Feng is a staff scientist at California Institute of Technology (Caltech), affiliated with the Kavli Nanoscience Institute, where he has also been serving as a co-principal investigator since 2008. He obtained his Ph.D. from Caltech in 2007 for developing ultra-high-frequency nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) with low-noise technologies. He has since been leading a small team of engineers and applied physicists to advance NEMS and other device-related technologies for sensing, signal processing and computing. He has been privileged to deliver invited lectures at several peer-reviewed international conferences. He has served on IEEE frequency control technical committee and also served as a frequent reviewer for more than fifteen high-impact multidisciplinary and IEEE journals.Location: Seaver Science Library (SSL) - 150
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Hazel Xavier
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Crosscorrelation of $m$-sequences and related topics
Fri, Jan 29, 2010 @ 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Tor Helleseth,
University of BergenAbstract: Sequences with good correlation properties are important in many communication systems, for example in Code-Division Multiple-Access systems(CDMA). Many sequence families in practical use involve maximal-length (or $m$)-sequences as part of their construction. Therefore the crosscorrelation of $m$-sequences has been a classical and ongoing research problem for more than 40 years.In this talk an updated overview of the crosscorrelation of $m$-sequences will be given. The status of what is presently known including recent results involving exponential sums and Dickson polynomials will be presented. Open problems and several conjectures will also be pointed out. Several of the problems have also been considered and significantly inspired by researchers from USC during several decades.Biography: Tor Helleseth received the Cand. Real. and Dr. Philos. degrees in mathematics from the University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway, in 1971 and 1979, respectively. From 1973 to 1980 he was a Research Assistant at the Department of Mathematics, University of Bergen. From 1981 to 1984 he was at the Chief Headquarters of Defense in Norway. Since 1984 he has been a Professor at the Department of Informatics at the University
of Bergen.During the academic years 1977-1978 and 1992-1993 he was on sabbatical leave at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and during 1979-1980 he was a Research fellow at the Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands. His research interests include coding theory, cryptology and discrete mathematics. He has published more than 100 journal papers including more than 70 in the IEEE Transactions in Information Theory.From 1991 to 1993 he served as an Associate Editor for Coding Theory for IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. He is on the editorial board of Designs, Codes and Cryptography and Cryptography and Communications: Discrete Structures, Boolean Functions and Sequences. He was Program Chairman for Eurocrypt'93 and for the IEEE Information Theory Workshop in 1997 in Longyearbyen, Norway. He was a Program Co-Chairman for SETA04 in Seoul and SETA06 in Beijing. He was also a Program Co-Chairman for the IEEE Information Theory Workshop in Solstrand, Norway in 2007. He was serving on the Board of Governors for the IEEE Information Theory Society 2007-2009. In 1997 he was elected an IEEE Fellow for his contributions to coding theory and cryptography. In 2004 he was elected member of Norsk Videnskaps-Akademi.Host: Gerhard Kramer, gkramer@usc.edu, EEB 536, x07229
Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Gerrielyn Ramos
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Liquid Rocket Engines for Spacecraft Pressure-Fed Propulsion Systems
Sat, Jan 30, 2010
Executive Education
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
This three-day course provides an overview of the fundamental concepts and technologies of modern satellite liquid propellant rocket engines. The course will concentrate on scientific and engineering foundations of pressure- fed, monopropellant, bipropellant, dual mode, and secondary combustion augmented thrusters for satellite orbit-raising and station-keeping operations.
Location: USC campus or Online
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Viterbi Professional Programs
