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Events for January 27, 2017

  • BME Special Seminar

    Fri, Jan 27, 2017 @ 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM

    Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Shaochen Chen, PhD, Professor, University of California (San Diego); Department of NanoEngineering Institute of Engineering in Medicine

    Talk Title: Rapid 3D Bioprinting for Precision Tissue Engineering

    Series: Seminars in BME (Lab Rotations)

    Biography: Dr. Chen is a Professor in the Nanoengineering Department at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He is also a faculty member of the Institute of Engineering in Medicine and the Clinical Translational Research Institute at UCSD. Before joining UCSD, Dr. Chen had been a Professor and a Pearlie D. Henderson Centennial Endowed Faculty Fellow in Engineering in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Texas at Austin. From 2008 to 2010, Dr. Chen served as the Program Director for the Nanomanufacturing Program in the National Science Foundation (NSF). For more details, please go to: http://schen.ucsd.edu/

    Host: Brent Liu, PhD

    Location: HNB 100

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta

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  • Distinguished Lecture with Professor Moshe Y. Vardi (Rice University) - The Automated-Reasoning Revolution: From Theory to Practice and Back

    Fri, Jan 27, 2017 @ 11:00 AM - 11:50 AM

    Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Moshe Y. Vardi, Rice University

    Talk Title: The Automated-Reasoning Revolution: From Theory to Practice and Back

    Series: CS Keynote Series

    Abstract: This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Computer Science Research Colloquium.


    For the past 40 years computer scientists generally believed that NP-complete problems are intractable. In particular, Boolean satisfiability (SAT), as a paradigmatic automated-reasoning problem, has been considered to be intractable. Over the past 20 years, however, there has been a quiet, but dramatic, revolution, and very large SAT instances are now being solved routinely as part of software and hardware design.

    In this talk I will review this amazing development and show how automated reasoning is now an industrial reality.

    I will then describe how we can leverage SAT solving to accomplish other automated-reasoning tasks. Counting the the number of satisfying truth assignments of a given Boolean formula or sampling such assignments uniformly at random are fundamental computational problems in computer science with applications in software testing, software synthesis, machine learning, personalized learning, and more. While the theory of these problems has been thoroughly investigated since the 1980s, approximation algorithms developed by theoreticians do not scale up to industrial-sized instances. Algorithms used by the industry offer better scalability, but give up certain correctness guarantees to achieve scalability. We describe a novel approach, based on universal hashing and Satisfiability Modulo Theory, that scales to formulas with hundreds of thousands of variables without giving up correctness guarantees.

    The talk is accessible to a general CS audience.

    Biography: Moshe Y. Vardi is the George Distinguished Service Professor in Computational Engineering and Director of the Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology at Rice University. He is the recipient of three IBM Outstanding Innovation Awards, the ACM SIGACT Goedel Prize, the ACM Kanellakis Award, the ACM SIGMOD Codd Award, the Blaise Pascal Medal, the IEEE Computer Society Goode Award, the EATCS Distinguished Achievements Award, and the Southeastern Universities Research Association's Distinguished Scientist Award. He is the author and co-author of over 500 papers, as well as two books: Reasoning about Knowledge and Finite Model Theory and Its Applications. He is a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, the American Association for Artificial Intelligence, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science, the Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. He is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Science, the European Academy of Science, and Academia Europaea. He holds honorary doctorates from the Saarland University in Germany, Orleans University in France, and UFRGS in Brazil. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Communications of the ACM.

    Host: CS Department

    Location: May Ormerod Harris Hall, Quinn Wing & Fisher Gallery (HAR) - 101

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Assistant to CS chair

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  • AI Seminar-Optimal structure and parameter learning of Ising models and calibration of the D-Wave quantum computer

    Fri, Jan 27, 2017 @ 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

    Information Sciences Institute

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Andrey Lokhov , Los Alamos National Lab

    Talk Title: Optimal structure and parameter learning of Ising models and calibration of the D-Wave quantum computer

    Series: Artificial Intelligence Seminar

    Abstract: Reconstruction of structure and parameters of a graphical model from binary samples is a problem of practical importance in a variety of disciplines, ranging from statistical physics and computational biology to image processing and machine learning. The focus of the research community shifted towards developing universal reconstruction algorithms which are both computationally efficient and require the minimal amount of expensive data. In this talk, we introduce a new method, Interaction Screening, which accurately estimates the model parameters using local optimization problems. We provide mathematical guarantees that the algorithm achieves perfect graph structure recovery with a near information-theoretically optimal number of samples and outperforms state of the art techniques, especially in the low-temperature regime which is known to be the hardest for learning. As an application, we show how the method can be used for correction of persistent biases and noise in the D-Wave quantum computer.

    Biography: Currently Postdoctoral Research Assistant at Los Alamos National Laboratory (Theoretical Division and Center for Nonlinear Studies). Working on statistical physics and machine learning.
    Ph.D. (2014) Physics, Laboratoire de Physique Théorique et Modèles Statistiques (LPTMS), Université Paris-Sud (University Paris 11), France
    M.Sc. (2011) Theoretical Physics, Ecole Normale Superieure (ENS), Paris, France
    M.Sc. (2011) Theoretical Physics, Novosibirsk State University, Novosibirsk, Russia
    B.Sc. (2009) Physics, Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, France


    Host: Aram Galstyan

    Webcast: http://webcastermshd.isi.edu/Mediasite/Play/7e04be827bc34fc08ba5f0c2e73254411d

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

    WebCast Link: http://webcastermshd.isi.edu/Mediasite/Play/7e04be827bc34fc08ba5f0c2e73254411d

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Peter Zamar

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  • W.V.T. Rusch Engineering Honors Program Colloquium

    Fri, Jan 27, 2017 @ 01:00 PM - 01:50 PM

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

    University Calendar


    TBD

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Ramon Borunda/Academic Services

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  • Mark Hersam - Munushian Seminar, Friday, January 27th at 2:00pm in EEB 132

    Fri, Jan 27, 2017 @ 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM

    Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Mark Hersam, Northwestern University

    Talk Title: Processing and Applications of Two-Dimensional Nanoelectronic Heterostructures

    Abstract: Two-dimensional (2D) materials have emerged as promising candidates for next-generation nanoelectronics. As is common for new materials, much of the early work has focused on measuring intrinsic properties on small samples under idealized conditions. However, real-world devices inevitably require large-area samples that are integrated with dielectrics, contacts, and other semiconductors in ambient conditions. This talk will thus explore scalable solution-processing of 2D materials with an eye toward realizing large-area thin-films. For example, density gradient ultracentrifugation allows the solution-based isolation of transition metal dichalcogenides and boron nitride with homogeneous thickness down to the single-layer level. Similarly, 2D black phosphorus is isolated in solution with the resulting flakes showing field-effect transistor mobilities and on/off ratios that are comparable to micromechanically exfoliated flakes. In addition to solution processing, this talk will also report on the integration of 2D materials with dielectrics and other semiconductors. In particular, atomic layer deposition of dielectrics and covalent organic adlayers on 2D black phosphorus suppresses ambient degradation, thereby preserving electronic properties in field-effect transistors at atmospheric pressure conditions. Finally, gate-tunable p-n heterojunction diodes with Type I and Type II band alignments are demonstrated by integrating n-type single-layer MoS2 with p-type semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes and pentacene, respectively.

    Biography: Mark C. Hersam is the Walter P. Murphy Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Director of the Materials Research Center at Northwestern University. He also holds faculty appointments in the Departments of Chemistry, Applied Physics, Medicine, and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in 1996, M.Phil. in Physics from the University of Cambridge (UK) in 1997, and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from UIUC in 2000. His research interests include nanofabrication, scanning probe microscopy, semiconductor surfaces, and nanoelectronic materials. Dr. Hersam has received several honors including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, TMS Robert Lansing Hardy Award, AVS Peter Mark Award, MRS Outstanding Young Investigator, U.S. Science Envoy, MacArthur Fellowship, and six Teacher of the Year Awards. Dr. Hersam is the co-founder of NanoIntegris, which is a commercial supplier of nanoelectronic materials. Dr. Hersam is a Fellow of MRS, AVS, APS, AAAS, SPIE, and IEEE, and also serves as an Associate Editor of ACS Nano.

    Host: EE-Electrophysics

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Marilyn Poplawski

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  • Astani Civil and Environmental Engineering Ph.D. Seminar

    Fri, Jan 27, 2017 @ 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM

    Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars


    Speaker: Ali Ghahramani, Ph.D, Astani Civil Engineering Department

    Talk Title: Online and Adaptive Learning and Optimization for Human-Centered HVAC Systems Operations

    More Information: CEE PhD Seminar by Ali Ghahramani.docx

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

    Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

    Contact: Evangeline Reyes

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