Select a calendar:
Filter January Events by Event Type:
SUNMONTUEWEDTHUFRISAT
Events for January 21, 2014
-
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 signalââ¬â¢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
-
Pre-Engineering Information Session
Tue, Jan 21, 2014 @ 12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Student Affairs
Workshops & Infosessions
Current USC students interested in changing their major to engineering must attend a Pre-Engineering Information Session as part of the application process. At the session, we will review the application process, the change of major requirements, and important Viterbi programs and services.
Students who attended the Viterbi Academic Expectations and Registration sessions during Orientation do not need to attend a Pre-Engineering workshop.
For questions about the change of major process, please contact either Christine D’Arcy (cdarcy@usc.edu) or Jenny Vazquez-Akim (vazqueza@usc.edu).Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211
Audiences: Undergrad
Contact: Christine D'Arcy
-
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,ââ¬Â¦). 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 ââ¬ÅVariational Analysisââ¬Â 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
-
Resume Tips from Viterbi Employer
Tue, Jan 21, 2014 @ 05:00 PM - 06:00 PM
Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections
Workshops & Infosessions
Get the inside scoop from a company representative on what they look for in a resume. They will share tips that will get your resume noticed at the Career Fair. Don't miss out!
Recommended you bring your resume.Location: Ronald Tutor Hall of Engineering (RTH) - 211
Audiences: All Viterbi Students
Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Services
