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Events for January 25, 2018

  • CS Colloquium: Jay Pujara (University of Southern California) - Probabilistic Models for Large, Noisy, and Dynamic Data

    Thu, Jan 25, 2018 @ 11:00 AM - 12:20 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Jay Pujara, University of Southern California

    Talk Title: Probabilistic Models for Large, Noisy, and Dynamic Data

    Series: Computer Science Colloquium

    Abstract: We inhabit a vast, uncertain, and dynamic universe. To succeed in such an environment, artificial intelligence approaches must handle massive amounts of noisy, changing evidence. My research addresses the problems of building scalable, probabilistic models amenable to online updates. To illustrate the potential of such models, I present my work on knowledge graph identification, which jointly resolves the entities, attributes, and relationships in a knowledge graph by combining statistical NLP signals and semantic constraints. Using probabilistic soft logic, a statistical relational learning framework I helped develop, I demonstrate how knowledge graph identification can scale to millions of uncertain candidate facts and tens of millions of semantic dependencies in real-world data while achieving state-of-the-art performance. My work further extends this scalability by adopting a distributed computing approach, reducing the inference time of knowledge graph identification from two hours to ten minutes. Updating large, collective models like those used for knowledge graphs with new information poses a significant challenge. I develop a regret bound for probabilistic models and use this bound to motivate practical algorithms that support low-regret updates while improving inference time over 65%. Finally, I highlight several active projects in causal explanation, sustainability, bioinformatics, and mobile analytics that provide a promising foundation for future research.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium. Please note, due to limited capacity in OHE 100D, seats will be first come first serve.


    Biography: Jay Pujara is a research scientist at the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute whose principal areas of research are machine learning, artificial intelligence, and data science. He completed a postdoc at UC Santa Cruz, earned his PhD at the University of Maryland, College Park and received his MS and BS at Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to his PhD, Jay spent six years at Yahoo! working on mail spam detection, user trust, and contextual mail experiences, and he has also worked at Google, LinkedIn and Oracle. Jay is the author of over thirty peer-reviewed publications and has received three best paper awards for his work. He is a recognized authority on knowledge graphs, and has organized the Automatic Knowledge Base Construction (AKBC) and Statistical Relational AI (StaRAI) workshops, has presented tutorials on knowledge graph construction at AAAI and WSDM, and has had his work featured in AI Magazine. For more information, visit https://www.jaypujara.org


    Host: Stefan Scherer

    Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 100D

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Computer Science Department

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  • Optimal Stochastic Control for Generalized Network Flow Problems

    Thu, Jan 25, 2018 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Eytan Modiano, Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

    Talk Title: Optimal Stochastic Control for Generalized Network Flow Problems

    Series: Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and Internet of Things

    Abstract: We will describe a new online dynamic policy, called Universal Max-Weight (UMW), for throughput-optimal routing and scheduling in wireless networks with an arbitrary mix of unicast, broadcast, multicast and anycast traffic. To the best of our knowledge, UMW is the first throughput-optimal algorithm for solving the generalized network-flow problem. Building upon UMW, we also design an admission control, routing and scheduling policy that maximizes network utility, while simultaneously keeping the physical queues in the network stable.

    When specialized to the unicast setting, the UMW policy yields a throughput-optimal, loop-free, routing and link-scheduling policy. This is in contrast to the Back-Pressure (BP) policy which allows for packet cycling, resulting in excessive latency. Extensive simulation results show that the proposed UMW policy incurs substantially smaller delays as compared to backpressure. Conceptually, the UMW policy is derived by relaxing the precedence constraints associated with multi-hop routing and then solving a min-cost routing and max-weight scheduling problem on a virtual network of queues. The proof of optimality combines ideas from stochastic Lyapunov theory with a sample path argument from adversarial queueing theory.


    Biography: Eytan Modiano received his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Connecticut at Storrs in 1986 and his M.S. and PhD degrees, both in Electrical Engineering, from the University of Maryland, College Park, MD, in 1989 and 1992 respectively. He was a Naval Research Laboratory Fellow between 1987 and 1992 and a National Research Council Post Doctoral Fellow during 1992-1993. Between 1993 and 1999 he was with MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Since 1999 he has been on the faculty at MIT, where he is a Professor and Associate Department Head in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and Associate Director of the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS).

    His research is on communication networks and protocols with emphasis on satellite, wireless, and optical networks. He is the co-recipient of the MobiHoc 2016 best paper award, the Wiopt 2013 best paper award, and the Sigmetrics 2006 Best paper award. He is the Editor-in-Chief for IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, and served as Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Information Theory and IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking. He was the Technical Program co-chair for IEEE Wiopt 2006, IEEE Infocom 2007, ACM MobiHoc 2007, and DRCN 2015. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and an Associate Fellow of the AIAA, and served on the IEEE Fellows committee.


    Host: Professor Paul Bogdan

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Talyia White

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  • CS Colloquium: Laurie Williams (NCSU) - If Not Us, Then Who?

    Thu, Jan 25, 2018 @ 04:00 PM - 05:20 PM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Laurie Williams, NCSU

    Talk Title: If Not Us, Then Who?

    Series: Computer Science Colloquium

    Abstract: Stolen personal information, hospitals shutdown until they pay in bitcoin to get their data back, spying through our smart TVs-“ cybersecurity breaches are in the news every day. Cyberspace will not be more secure until engineers build more secure systems. Each of has a role in a more secure cyberspace. Teachers have to teach students how to develop securely; researchers have to understand the attackers' motives and actions and develop techniques that can be easily adopted to stop those attackers in their tracks; practitioners need to adopt secure development practices into their workflow; users need to interact with computers more prudently. This talk will present trend analysis obtained by an extensive and longitudinal interview study of security professionals in six business verticals over a five-year period. The interviews from more than 100 companies worldwide focused on the technical and organizational practices adopted by the companies in their quest to develop more secure software. This talk will present lessons learned that can guide all of us in our role toward a more secure cyberspace.

    This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium.


    Biography: Laurie Williams is the Interim Department Head of Computer Science and a Professor in the Computer Science Department of the College of Engineering at North Carolina State University (NCSU). Laurie is a co-director of the NCSU Science of Security Lablet sponsored by the National Security Agency. Laurie's research focuses on software security; agile software development practices and processes; software reliability, and software testing and analysis. In 2018, Laurie was names an IEEE Fellow for contributions to reliable and secure software engineering.


    Host: Chao Wang

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Computer Science Department

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  • Preparing for the Engineering Career Fair

    Thu, Jan 25, 2018 @ 05:00 PM - 06:00 PM

    Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections

    Workshops & Infosessions


    Create a strategy to optimize your time, learn best practices when approaching employers, and get useful tips to help you prepare for this event.

    Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 132

    Audiences: All Viterbi

    Contact: RTH 218 Viterbi Career Connections

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